{"document": "Photo \n \n Two months before the Iowa caucuses, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton are showing no signs of losing steam. \n \n A new national poll from Quinnipiac University finds the leading candidates solidifying their positions in the races for the Republican and Democratic nominations, fending off challenges from rivals such as Ben Carson and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. \n \n On the Republican side, Mr. Trump has benefited from recent stumbles by Mr. Carson, the retired neurosurgeon whose rise has been stymied by questions about his biography and his knowledge of foreign policy. \n \n A month ago, the two were deadlocked, but the survey results released Wednesday show Mr. Trump clearly in first place with 27 percent of Republican voters. Mr. Carson has dropped to third place with 16 percent, having been overtaken by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida at 17 percent. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is tied with Mr. Carson at 16 percent, having risen from 13 percent in a previous poll. \n \n Hoping to strengthen his foreign policy credentials and to educate himself about foreign affairs, Mr. Carson made an impromptu trip to Jordan over the weekend to see the Syrian refugee crisis firsthand. On Wednesday, he heads to South Carolina, and later this week he will go to Iowa, where he will seek to solidify his support among evangelical Christian voters. \n \n Mr. Trump\u2019s endurance comes as he continues to face questions about his honesty and as he stirs controversy with his ideas about aggressive surveillance of Muslims, his proposal to reinstitute waterboarding and his mockery of a New York Times reporter with a physical disability. \n \n Many Republican leaders are actively fretting about Mr. Trump\u2019s continued strength, but they remain wary of attacking him directly out of fear that they will have to endure his vicious counterattacks. This week, Mr. Trump called Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio a \u201clunatic\u201d and ridiculed Gov. Chris Christie\u2019s record in New Jersey after the two rivals for the nomination were openly critical of him. \n \n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem to matter what he says or who he offends, whether the facts are contested or the \u2018political correctness\u2019 is challenged, Donald Trump seems to be wearing Kevlar,\u201d Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said in a statement on Tuesday. \u201cThe G.O.P., 11 months from the election, has to be thinking, \u2018This could be the guy.\u2019 \u201d \n \n For Democrats, this appears to be good news. Quinnipiac\u2019s poll shows both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders beating Mr. Trump handily in head-to-head matchups. At the moment, Mrs. Clinton appears to be the clear favorite, having widened her advantage against Mr. Sanders: The poll shows her ahead by a margin of 60 percent to 30 percent among Democratic voters. \n \n Mr. Sanders lost some momentum after the Democratic debates, where Mrs. Clinton performed well. While voters still have doubts about her honesty, questions about Mrs. Clinton\u2019s use of a private email server as secretary of state have subsided for the time being. \n \n Mrs. Clinton\u2019s momentum has improved her standing in face-offs against all the leading Republican contenders, the poll shows. However, Mr. Rubio, who has been rising steadily, fares the best against her, trailing by just one percentage point. \n \n The Quinnipiac poll had a margin of error of four percentage points for Republicans and Democratic voters, and three percentage points over all. ||||| December 2, 2015 - Bump For Trump As Carson Fades In Republican Race, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Clinton, Sanders Surge In Matchups With GOP Leaders \n \n PDF format \n \n \n \n Additional Trend Information \n \n \n \n Eleven months before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump is the undisputed leader in the Republican field, as Dr. Ben Carson, in a virtual tie with Trump four weeks ago, drops to third place, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. \n \n \n \n \n \n On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton widens her lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to 60 - 30 percent, compared to 53 - 35 percent in a November 4 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has 2 percent, with 6 percent undecided. \n \n \n \n \n \n Trump gets 27 percent of Republican voters today, with 17 percent for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, 16 percent each for Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and 5 percent for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. No other candidate tops 3 percent, with 8 percent undecided. \n \n \n \n \n \n Last month, Trump had 24 percent, with 23 percent for Carson. \n \n \n \n \n \n Among Republicans, 26 percent of voters say they \"would definitely not support\" Trump, with 21 percent who would not back Bush. \n \n \n \n \n \n \"It doesn't seem to matter what he says or who he offends, whether the facts are contested or the 'political correctness' is challenged, Donald Trump seems to be wearing Kevlar,\" said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. \n \n \n \n \n \n \"Dr. Ben Carson, moving to center stage just one month ago, now needs some CPR. The Doctor sinks. The Donald soars. The GOP, 11 months from the election, has to be thinking, 'This could be the guy.' \n \n \n \n \n \n \"Secretary Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders have to be hoping Trump is the GOP's guy.\" \n \n \n \n \n \n American voters shift to Clinton as the Democrat gains ground against Republicans: \n \n 47 - 41 percent over Trump, compared to 46 - 43 percent November 4; \n \n Clinton at 45 percent to Rubio's 44 percent, compared to a 46 - 41 percent Rubio lead last month; \n \n Clinton tops Cruz 47 - 42 percent, compared to Cruz at 46 percent to Clinton's 43 percent last month; \n \n Clinton at 46 percent to Carson's 43 percent compared to Carson's 50 - 40 percent lead last month. \n \n Sanders does just as well, or even better, against top Republicans: \n \n Topping Trump 49 - 41 percent; \n \n Getting 44 percent to Rubio's 43 percent; \n \n Beating Cruz 49 - 39 percent; \n \n Leading Carson 47 - 41 percent. \n \n Clinton has a negative 44 - 51 percent favorability rating. Other favorability ratings are: \n \n Negative 35 - 57 percent for Trump; \n \n 40 - 33 percent for Carson; \n \n 44 - 31 percent for Sanders; \n \n 37 - 28 percent for Rubio; \n \n 33 - 33 percent for Cruz. \n \n American voters say 60 - 36 percent that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy. Trump is not honest and trustworthy, voters say 59 - 35 percent. Sanders gets the best honesty grades among top candidates, 59 - 28 percent, with Carson at 53 - 34 percent, Rubio at 49 - 33 percent and Cruz at 43 - 39 percent. \n \n \n \n \n \n All American voters say 63 - 32 percent, including 69 - 27 percent among independent voters, that Clinton would have a good chance of beating the Republican nominee in a head-to- head matchup. \n \n \n \n \n \n Voters are divided 46 - 49 percent on whether Trump would have a good chance of beating the Democratic nominee, with independent voters divided 47 - 48 percent. \n \n \n \n \n \n From November 23 - 30, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,453 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones. The survey includes 672 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points and 573 Democrats with a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points. \n \n \n \n \n \n The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado and the nation as a public service and for research. \n \n \n \n \n \n For more information, visit http://www.quinnipiac.edu/polling, call (203) 582-5201, or follow us on Twitter @QuinnipiacPoll. \n \n \n \n \n \n 1. (If Republican or Republican Leaner) If the Republican primary for President were being held today, and the candidates were Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, and Donald Trump, for whom would you vote? \n \n REPUBLICANS/REPUBLICAN LEANERS...................... Wht POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Tea BrnAgn CONSERVATIVE Mod/ Tot Party Evang Very Smwht Lib Men Wom Bush 5% 1% 4% 6% 2% 7% 5% 5% Carson 16 17 19 15 15 16 14 18 Christie 2 1 - - 2 4 2 2 Cruz 16 29 24 29 14 3 16 17 Fiorina 3 3 2 2 3 5 2 4 Gilmore - - - - - - - - Graham - - - - - 1 - - Huckabee 1 1 2 2 - - 1 - Kasich 2 - - - 2 3 2 1 Pataki - - - - - 1 1 - Paul 2 1 2 1 1 3 1 2 Rubio 17 12 13 11 26 15 17 16 Santorum - - - 1 - - - 1 Trump 27 29 24 25 25 31 30 24 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - - - - - - - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 1 1 1 - 1 2 2 - DK/NA 8 5 8 8 8 8 7 10 MOST IMPORTANT FOR REP PRES NOMINEE Q70 Shares Strong Honest/ Values Leader Trustworthy Bush 2% 2% 3% Carson 23 10 17 Christie 1 4 1 Cruz 15 20 18 Fiorina 1 3 4 Gilmore - - - Graham - - - Huckabee 1 2 - Kasich 2 2 1 Pataki - - 1 Paul 3 - - Rubio 16 15 19 Santorum 1 1 - Trump 27 30 21 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) - 2 2 DK/NA 8 9 12 REPUBLICANS/REPUBLICAN LEANERS...................... MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE Q72........... Economy/ Foreign Jobs Terrorism Policy Bush 8% 5% 3% Carson 12 19 17 Christie 3 1 5 Cruz 13 16 19 Fiorina 2 5 4 Gilmore - - - Graham - - - Huckabee 1 1 1 Kasich 3 1 1 Pataki 1 - - Paul 2 - - Rubio 17 18 22 Santorum - - 1 Trump 23 29 19 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 1 - 2 DK/NA 13 7 4 \n \n 1A. (If candidate chosen q1) Is your mind made up, or do you think you might change your mind before the primary? \n \n REPUBLICANS/REPUBLICAN LEANERS............................... CANDIDATE CHOSEN Q1.......................................... CANDIDATE OF CHOICE Q1......................... Tot Carson Cruz Rubio Trump Made up 32% 26% 33% 23% 46% Might change 65 71 65 75 53 DK/NA 2 3 2 2 1 \n \n 2. (If Republican or Republican Leaner) Are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president: Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Fiorina, Gilmore, Graham, Huckabee, Kasich, Pataki, Paul, Rubio, Santorum, or Trump? (Totals may add up to more than 100% because multiple responses were allowed) \n \n REPUBLICANS/REPUBLICAN LEANERS...................... Wht POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Tea BrnAgn CONSERVATIVE Mod/ Tot Party Evang Very Smwht Lib Men Wom Bush 21% 25% 17% 27% 20% 15% 23% 18% Carson 10 2 3 11 7 13 10 9 Christie 13 13 9 14 14 11 15 10 Cruz 6 1 1 4 5 9 7 4 Fiorina 11 8 9 9 12 13 10 12 Gilmore 9 9 4 13 8 8 9 10 Graham 11 16 7 16 9 6 12 10 Huckabee 9 5 2 11 8 9 10 9 Kasich 13 16 9 21 11 7 14 13 Pataki 11 13 5 16 9 7 11 11 Paul 13 11 9 16 13 9 11 15 Rubio 5 5 3 7 4 5 6 4 Santorum 9 5 1 10 8 8 9 9 Trump 26 16 24 25 20 34 24 30 No/No one 30 32 32 28 34 27 31 28 DK/NA 6 5 5 4 5 10 6 6 \n \n 3. (If Democrat or Democratic Leaner) If the Democratic primary for President were being held today, and the candidates were Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, and Bernie Sanders, for whom would you vote? \n \n DEMOCRATS/DEMOCRATIC LEANERS.......... POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY LIBERAL..... Mod/ Tot Very Smwht Cons Men Wom Clinton 60% 48% 60% 62% 53% 65% O'Malley 2 - 3 2 3 1 Sanders 30 47 33 24 39 23 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 - - 2 - 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 1 - - 2 1 2 DK/NA 6 5 4 8 4 8 MOST IMPORTANT FOR DEM PRES NOMINEE Q69........................... Shares Strong Honest/ Right Values Leader Trustworthy Cares Experience Clinton 58% 70% 44% 53% 81% O'Malley 1 3 3 1 3 Sanders 31 24 39 39 6 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - - 5 - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 3 2 1 1 - DK/NA 7 2 8 6 9 MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE Q71 Economy/ Foreign Jobs Policy Clinton 59% 64% O'Malley 3 1 Sanders 31 23 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 2 - DK/NA 5 12 \n \n 3A. (If candidate chosen q3) Is your mind made up, or do you think you might change your mind before the primary? \n \n DEMOCRATS/DEMOCRATIC LEANERS........ CANDIDATE CHOSEN Q3................. CANDIDATE OF CHOICE Q3 Tot Clinton Sanders Mind made up 57% 62% 50% Might change 41 37 49 DK/NA 1 2 1 \n \n 4. (If Democrat or Democratic Leaner) Are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Democratic nomination for president: Clinton, O'Malley, or Sanders? (Totals may add up to more than 100% because multiple responses were allowed) \n \n DEMOCRATS/DEMOCRATIC LEANERS.......... POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY LIBERAL..... Mod/ Tot Very Smwht Cons Men Wom Clinton 8% 2% 7% 11% 12% 6% O'Malley 15 13 11 17 13 16 Sanders 7 - 5 11 5 9 No/No one 60 78 67 51 63 57 DK/NA 13 7 12 14 9 16 \n \n 5. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Hillary Clinton the Democrat and Ben Carson the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Clinton 46% 8% 89% 41% 39% 53% 54% 42% Carson 43 84 7 42 49 37 39 45 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1 - 1 1 1 1 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 6 4 1 10 7 5 4 7 DK/NA 4 2 2 6 4 4 1 5 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Clinton 49% 51% 48% 38% 32% 43% 38% 82% 74% Carson 37 42 42 50 57 46 52 12 15 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 8 4 5 5 5 6 6 4 8 DK/NA 5 2 2 7 3 4 4 1 3 \n \n 6. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Hillary Clinton the Democrat and Donald Trump the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Clinton 47% 7% 91% 45% 39% 56% 55% 44% Trump 41 82 7 37 49 33 34 45 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 2 1 1 4 2 2 2 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 6 6 1 9 6 5 6 5 DK/NA 4 4 1 5 3 4 3 4 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Clinton 52% 50% 49% 39% 31% 45% 38% 87% 76% Trump 32 42 44 46 57 43 50 7 13 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 3 2 1 1 2 2 2 - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 9 4 4 6 6 6 6 4 5 DK/NA 3 2 3 7 4 3 4 2 5 \n \n 7. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Hillary Clinton the Democrat and Marco Rubio the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Clinton 45% 7% 87% 40% 36% 53% 51% 41% Rubio 44 89 8 41 51 37 43 45 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 2 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 5 2 1 10 6 4 3 6 DK/NA 5 1 2 8 5 4 2 6 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Clinton 45% 49% 47% 40% 30% 42% 36% 83% 69% Rubio 38 44 43 52 59 49 54 10 18 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 - 3 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 8 3 5 3 6 4 5 2 5 DK/NA 8 3 3 4 3 5 4 5 5 \n \n 8. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Hillary Clinton the Democrat and Ted Cruz the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Clinton 47% 8% 90% 43% 39% 55% 55% 43% Cruz 42 87 5 39 50 34 38 44 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 2 - 2 2 2 1 2 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 5 1 2 9 5 5 4 5 DK/NA 5 3 1 7 4 5 2 6 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Clinton 51% 50% 49% 39% 32% 45% 39% 84% 72% Cruz 33 42 43 52 58 45 51 9 17 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 3 1 1 2 1 2 - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 8 2 5 3 4 5 4 3 4 DK/NA 7 3 3 5 4 4 4 3 8 \n \n 9. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Bernie Sanders the Democrat and Ben Carson the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Sanders 47% 11% 84% 47% 41% 53% 52% 45% Carson 41 81 6 40 48 35 41 42 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 6 5 5 6 4 7 4 7 DK/NA 5 3 4 6 5 5 2 6 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Sanders 60% 49% 46% 35% 35% 46% 40% 77% 72% Carson 33 41 43 49 57 43 50 16 13 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 - 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 1 9 5 6 4 6 5 3 6 DK/NA 5 1 4 7 3 4 4 3 7 \n \n 10. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Bernie Sanders the Democrat and Donald Trump the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Sanders 49% 11% 86% 52% 43% 55% 56% 46% Trump 41 80 8 36 47 35 36 43 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 - 3 2 - 1 1 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 5 5 3 4 4 6 4 5 DK/NA 4 3 2 5 4 4 3 5 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Sanders 62% 49% 48% 40% 36% 47% 42% 82% 78% Trump 29 43 45 45 54 43 48 13 11 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1 2 2 - 1 1 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 3 6 3 7 4 6 5 3 3 DK/NA 5 1 3 7 4 4 4 2 6 \n \n 11. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Bernie Sanders the Democrat and Marco Rubio the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Sanders 44% 7% 81% 45% 39% 49% 48% 43% Rubio 43 85 8 39 50 35 44 42 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 5 3 5 5 3 7 3 6 DK/NA 6 4 5 9 6 7 5 7 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Sanders 59% 46% 43% 33% 33% 40% 37% 80% 68% Rubio 33 41 44 53 58 45 51 12 18 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 - - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) - 8 5 5 3 5 4 3 6 DK/NA 7 3 6 8 4 8 6 4 8 \n \n 12. If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Bernie Sanders the Democrat and Ted Cruz the Republican, for whom would you vote? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Sanders 49% 9% 87% 51% 43% 54% 54% 46% Cruz 39 83 4 34 48 31 38 40 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 5 3 4 5 3 7 3 6 DK/NA 6 4 4 8 4 7 4 6 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Sanders 62% 50% 49% 34% 37% 45% 41% 86% 71% Cruz 28 36 41 52 55 39 48 8 15 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 2 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 1 9 5 5 3 6 4 3 7 DK/NA 7 3 4 8 3 8 5 3 6 Q13-24. Summary Table - Is your opinion of [Candidate] favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him/her? Table ranked by net favorability (Favorable - Unfavorable). REGISTERED VOTERS................. Hvn't Fav Unfav hrdEn REF NetFav Sanders 44 31 24 1 13 Rubio 37 28 34 1 9 Carson 40 33 25 1 7 Cruz 33 33 32 1 0 Fiorina 28 29 42 - -1 Kasich 19 23 57 1 -4 Clinton 44 51 3 2 -7 Huckabee 29 41 30 1 -12 Paul 23 40 36 1 -17 Christie 28 48 24 1 -20 Bush 32 54 12 2 -22 Trump 35 57 5 3 -22 REPUBLICANS....................... Hvn't Fav Unfav hrdEn REF NetFav Rubio 66 8 25 1 58 Cruz 65 9 26 - 56 Carson 67 13 19 1 54 Huckabee 56 18 27 - 38 Trump 64 27 6 3 37 Fiorina 49 17 33 - 32 Bush 53 34 11 2 19 Christie 43 31 25 1 12 Kasich 27 20 52 1 7 Paul 32 36 31 1 -4 DEMOCRATS......................... Hvn't Fav Unfav hrdEn REF NetFav Clinton 85 11 3 1 74 Sanders 68 7 24 1 61 \n \n 13. Is your opinion of Hillary Clinton favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about her? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 44% 9% 85% 38% 36% 52% 50% 41% Unfavorable 51 89 11 56 59 43 46 54 Hvn't hrd enough 3 2 3 5 4 3 2 4 REFUSED 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Favorable 44% 45% 48% 39% 30% 41% 35% 84% 64% Unfavorable 48 50 48 57 66 54 60 14 27 Hvn't hrd enough 5 3 3 2 3 3 3 2 9 REFUSED 3 2 - 2 1 2 1 - - \n \n 14. Is your opinion of Ben Carson favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 40% 67% 13% 44% 45% 36% 40% 41% Unfavorable 33 13 54 32 31 36 47 27 Hvn't hrd enough 25 19 33 22 24 26 13 31 REFUSED 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Favorable 31% 37% 42% 49% 49% 41% 45% 22% 20% Unfavorable 32 39 36 26 30 38 34 45 25 Hvn't hrd enough 35 24 21 22 20 19 20 33 55 REFUSED 1 - 1 3 1 2 1 - - \n \n 15. Is your opinion of Donald Trump favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 35% 64% 10% 31% 41% 29% 27% 39% Unfavorable 57 27 86 60 52 63 67 53 Hvn't hrd enough 5 6 3 5 5 6 3 6 REFUSED 3 3 - 3 2 3 2 3 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Favorable 23% 36% 39% 39% 47% 36% 42% 9% 9% Unfavorable 69 57 56 49 45 54 50 87 84 Hvn't hrd enough 5 5 4 8 5 6 6 3 7 REFUSED 3 2 1 4 2 3 3 1 - \n \n 16. Is your opinion of Bernie Sanders favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 44% 15% 68% 47% 41% 46% 49% 41% Unfavorable 31 58 7 29 36 26 31 31 Hvn't hrd enough 24 27 24 24 22 26 18 27 REFUSED 1 - 1 - - 1 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Favorable 59% 43% 43% 32% 39% 43% 41% 57% 60% Unfavorable 22 30 32 40 41 32 36 11 16 Hvn't hrd enough 19 27 24 26 20 24 22 32 23 REFUSED - - 1 1 1 1 1 - - \n \n 17. Is your opinion of Marco Rubio favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 37% 66% 15% 36% 42% 32% 43% 34% Unfavorable 28 8 51 23 28 28 33 25 Hvn't hrd enough 34 25 33 41 29 39 22 40 REFUSED 1 1 1 - 1 2 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Favorable 27% 34% 38% 48% 46% 38% 42% 21% 22% Unfavorable 22 33 32 23 27 26 26 33 42 Hvn't hrd enough 50 33 28 27 27 34 30 46 36 REFUSED 1 - 2 2 1 2 2 - - \n \n 18. Is your opinion of Ted Cruz favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 33% 65% 8% 30% 38% 28% 31% 34% Unfavorable 33 9 60 30 32 35 47 27 Hvn't hrd enough 32 26 31 40 30 35 22 38 REFUSED 1 - 1 - 1 1 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Favorable 25% 31% 33% 43% 42% 33% 38% 15% 25% Unfavorable 24 38 40 28 31 34 33 38 33 Hvn't hrd enough 51 30 25 26 26 31 28 47 41 REFUSED - - 1 2 - 2 1 - 1 \n \n 19. (Split Sample) Is your opinion of Jeb Bush favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 32% 53% 19% 27% 33% 31% 38% 29% Unfavorable 54 34 67 60 56 53 51 56 Hvn't hrd enough 12 11 13 12 10 14 9 13 REFUSED 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 AGE IN YRS.............. 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Favorable 24% 32% 32% 35% Unfavorable 55 54 59 51 Hvn't hrd enough 21 11 8 10 REFUSED - 3 1 3 \n \n 20. (Split Sample) Is your opinion of Chris Christie favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 28% 43% 15% 28% 30% 26% 36% 24% Unfavorable 48 31 58 50 47 48 48 47 Hvn't hrd enough 24 25 25 21 23 25 15 28 REFUSED 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Favorable 23% 21% 30% 36% Unfavorable 42 53 53 40 Hvn't hrd enough 35 26 15 22 REFUSED - - 2 2 \n \n 21. (Split Sample) Is your opinion of Carly Fiorina favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about her? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 28% 49% 11% 25% 31% 25% 31% 27% Unfavorable 29 17 48 24 27 32 37 26 Hvn't hrd enough 42 33 41 50 42 43 31 48 REFUSED - - - 1 - 1 1 - AGE IN YRS.............. 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Favorable 21% 20% 33% 37% Unfavorable 18 34 35 28 Hvn't hrd enough 60 46 32 34 REFUSED 1 - - 1 \n \n 22. (Split Sample) Is your opinion of Mike Huckabee favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 29% 56% 5% 29% 36% 23% 28% 29% Unfavorable 41 18 60 46 37 44 52 36 Hvn't hrd enough 30 27 34 26 26 33 20 34 REFUSED 1 - 1 - 1 1 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Favorable 19% 32% 25% 40% Unfavorable 26 47 51 37 Hvn't hrd enough 55 22 24 22 REFUSED - - 1 1 \n \n 23. (Split Sample) Is your opinion of John Kasich favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 19% 27% 16% 17% 23% 14% 21% 18% Unfavorable 23 20 26 20 25 21 26 21 Hvn't hrd enough 57 52 57 62 52 63 52 61 REFUSED 1 1 1 - - 1 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Favorable 5% 18% 24% 27% Unfavorable 19 18 23 30 Hvn't hrd enough 76 63 52 42 REFUSED - - 1 2 \n \n 24. (Split Sample) Is your opinion of Rand Paul favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 23% 32% 10% 26% 29% 17% 27% 20% Unfavorable 40 36 50 36 42 39 49 36 Hvn't hrd enough 36 31 39 37 28 43 23 42 REFUSED 1 1 1 - 1 1 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Favorable 24% 25% 23% 19% Unfavorable 25 37 47 51 Hvn't hrd enough 50 38 29 29 REFUSED - - 1 1 \n \n 33. Would you say that - Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 36% 7% 73% 26% 30% 41% 37% 35% No 60 91 23 68 67 54 60 61 DK/NA 4 1 3 6 3 5 3 4 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 38% 29% 40% 37% 24% 32% 28% 65% 60% No 57 66 58 60 74 63 69 31 35 DK/NA 6 5 2 3 2 6 4 4 5 \n \n 34. Would you say that - Donald Trump is honest and trustworthy or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 35% 58% 12% 36% 40% 30% 29% 38% No 59 36 84 57 54 63 67 55 DK/NA 6 6 4 7 5 6 4 7 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 28% 33% 37% 41% 44% 38% 41% 10% 22% No 67 62 58 51 51 55 53 84 73 DK/NA 5 6 5 8 5 7 6 6 5 \n \n 35. Would you say that - Bernie Sanders is honest and trustworthy or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 59% 39% 78% 64% 62% 57% 68% 55% No 28 45 11 25 27 28 22 31 DK/NA 13 17 11 11 11 15 11 14 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 70% 58% 60% 48% 60% 54% 57% 69% 67% No 18 28 29 34 29 29 29 18 20 DK/NA 12 14 10 18 11 16 14 13 13 \n \n 36. Would you say that - Ben Carson is honest and trustworthy or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 53% 79% 31% 54% 59% 48% 52% 54% No 34 13 55 33 32 36 41 31 DK/NA 12 8 14 13 9 16 7 15 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 45% 49% 56% 63% 64% 52% 58% 39% 43% No 37 40 35 24 29 33 31 49 37 DK/NA 17 11 9 13 7 15 11 13 19 \n \n 37. Would you say that - Marco Rubio is honest and trustworthy or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 49% 74% 32% 46% 54% 44% 54% 47% No 33 12 47 37 35 31 32 34 DK/NA 18 14 20 17 11 24 14 19 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 42% 43% 51% 59% 59% 50% 55% 31% 38% No 33 37 36 26 31 25 28 48 45 DK/NA 25 20 13 15 10 25 17 21 17 \n \n 38. Would you say that - Ted Cruz is honest and trustworthy or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 43% 74% 18% 42% 51% 36% 42% 44% No 39 13 63 40 37 42 46 37 DK/NA 17 13 18 18 12 22 13 19 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 35% 42% 43% 52% 56% 41% 49% 26% 28% No 40 44 45 30 34 35 35 57 54 DK/NA 26 14 12 18 10 23 17 16 18 \n \n 39. Would you say that - Hillary Clinton has strong leadership qualities or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 60% 26% 91% 62% 53% 67% 65% 57% No 38 73 8 35 45 32 34 41 DK/NA 2 1 1 3 2 2 2 2 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 68% 59% 62% 52% 47% 58% 52% 87% 77% No 27 40 37 47 52 39 46 12 22 DK/NA 5 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 \n \n 40. Would you say that - Donald Trump has strong leadership qualities or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 58% 80% 35% 61% 63% 54% 56% 60% No 39 18 63 36 34 44 43 37 DK/NA 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 3 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 60% 62% 58% 52% 67% 60% 64% 38% 38% No 38 36 40 43 31 37 34 60 60 DK/NA 1 2 2 5 2 3 2 3 2 \n \n 41. Would you say that - Bernie Sanders has strong leadership qualities or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 46% 22% 68% 47% 44% 48% 49% 44% No 41 60 21 40 46 36 40 41 DK/NA 13 17 11 13 10 17 11 15 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 61% 43% 43% 35% 39% 44% 41% 59% 62% No 25 41 47 48 50 39 45 26 26 DK/NA 14 16 9 16 10 17 14 15 13 \n \n 42. Would you say that - Ben Carson has strong leadership qualities or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 40% 60% 20% 40% 43% 36% 33% 43% No 49 29 68 48 50 48 58 45 DK/NA 12 11 11 11 7 16 9 13 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 37% 38% 40% 44% 46% 38% 42% 34% 26% No 48 51 52 44 49 46 48 57 52 DK/NA 15 11 8 12 6 16 11 9 22 \n \n 43. Would you say that - Marco Rubio has strong leadership qualities or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 47% 70% 32% 43% 48% 45% 54% 43% No 36 17 49 40 40 33 34 38 DK/NA 17 13 20 17 12 23 13 19 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 40% 44% 46% 54% 52% 49% 51% 28% 43% No 36 37 41 32 39 27 33 54 38 DK/NA 24 19 13 14 9 24 16 18 19 \n \n 44. Would you say that - Ted Cruz has strong leadership qualities or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 43% 69% 20% 42% 47% 38% 44% 42% No 43 17 66 43 43 43 45 42 DK/NA 15 14 15 15 11 19 11 17 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 40% 40% 41% 50% 51% 43% 47% 25% 31% No 37 47 48 38 40 39 39 58 53 DK/NA 23 14 11 12 9 18 14 17 17 \n \n 45. Would you say that - Hillary Clinton cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 46% 14% 84% 40% 37% 55% 50% 44% No 51 84 15 56 60 42 47 53 DK/NA 3 2 1 4 2 3 2 3 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 50% 42% 52% 42% 31% 46% 38% 80% 65% No 47 54 47 54 67 51 59 17 31 DK/NA 3 3 1 4 2 3 2 3 4 \n \n 46. Would you say that - Donald Trump cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 36% 66% 11% 33% 43% 30% 30% 39% No 59 30 88 60 54 65 66 56 DK/NA 4 4 1 7 3 5 4 4 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 25% 33% 40% 43% 46% 38% 42% 9% 14% No 71 63 57 52 51 56 53 88 83 DK/NA 4 4 3 5 3 6 5 2 3 \n \n 47. Would you say that - Bernie Sanders cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 53% 26% 75% 59% 55% 51% 61% 49% No 35 59 15 30 37 32 31 37 DK/NA 12 15 10 11 7 16 8 14 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 68% 49% 57% 37% 52% 48% 50% 66% 61% No 21 37 35 46 41 34 38 21 26 DK/NA 11 14 8 17 6 17 12 13 13 \n \n 48. Would you say that - Ben Carson cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 50% 75% 25% 53% 56% 44% 47% 51% No 38 15 64 34 36 39 45 34 DK/NA 13 10 11 13 8 17 9 14 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 45% 46% 52% 56% 61% 48% 55% 33% 35% No 34 43 40 32 33 35 34 55 49 DK/NA 20 11 8 12 6 17 11 12 16 \n \n 49. Would you say that - Marco Rubio cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 46% 76% 25% 43% 52% 41% 51% 44% No 39 14 59 42 39 38 36 40 DK/NA 15 10 15 15 8 21 12 16 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 41% 42% 47% 54% 56% 48% 52% 26% 28% No 36 41 43 35 36 32 34 57 57 DK/NA 23 17 10 12 8 20 14 16 15 \n \n 50. Would you say that - Ted Cruz cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 42% 75% 17% 39% 49% 36% 39% 44% No 43 15 70 43 43 44 50 40 DK/NA 15 10 13 17 9 20 11 16 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 38% 41% 42% 48% 54% 42% 48% 21% 24% No 39 47 48 40 39 38 39 63 58 DK/NA 23 13 10 13 7 20 13 15 18 \n \n 51. Would you say that - Hillary Clinton has the right kind of experience to be President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 67% 34% 96% 70% 62% 71% 73% 64% No 32 64 4 30 38 27 27 35 DK/NA 1 2 - 1 1 2 1 1 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 77% 71% 67% 52% 55% 65% 60% 93% 86% No 21 28 32 46 44 33 39 7 14 DK/NA 2 1 1 2 - 2 1 - 1 \n \n 52. Would you say that - Donald Trump has the right kind of experience to be President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 34% 60% 9% 32% 42% 26% 28% 37% No 63 37 90 64 56 70 71 60 DK/NA 3 3 1 4 2 4 2 3 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 27% 33% 36% 37% 47% 32% 40% 6% 17% No 70 65 61 58 52 64 58 91 81 DK/NA 3 2 2 5 1 4 3 3 2 \n \n 53. Would you say that - Bernie Sanders has the right kind of experience to be President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 47% 24% 68% 50% 47% 48% 50% 46% No 42 64 21 41 46 37 41 42 DK/NA 11 12 11 9 7 15 9 12 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 68% 46% 46% 30% 44% 44% 44% 62% 59% No 20 40 46 58 49 42 46 22 29 DK/NA 12 13 8 12 7 13 10 16 11 \n \n 54. Would you say that - Ben Carson has the right kind of experience to be President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 28% 42% 14% 30% 32% 24% 21% 31% No 62 46 76 63 62 62 72 57 DK/NA 10 12 10 7 6 14 6 12 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 31% 23% 26% 34% 34% 25% 30% 23% 21% No 56 67 66 56 60 61 61 72 62 DK/NA 12 10 8 10 5 14 9 6 17 \n \n 55. Would you say that - Marco Rubio has the right kind of experience to be President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 43% 67% 22% 46% 48% 39% 48% 41% No 41 20 60 39 43 39 40 41 DK/NA 16 12 18 16 9 22 11 18 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 40% 43% 40% 49% 52% 44% 48% 29% 27% No 35 38 51 40 40 37 38 45 54 DK/NA 25 19 9 11 9 19 14 26 19 \n \n 56. Would you say that - Ted Cruz has the right kind of experience to be President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 44% 70% 21% 44% 51% 38% 44% 45% No 41 19 63 40 40 42 47 38 DK/NA 15 11 15 16 9 20 9 17 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 47% 44% 41% 47% 55% 44% 50% 30% 24% No 32 40 51 40 37 39 38 53 49 DK/NA 21 16 9 13 8 17 13 18 27 \n \n 57. Would you say that - Hillary Clinton shares your values or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 42% 8% 84% 33% 34% 51% 47% 40% No 55 91 15 60 65 45 50 57 DK/NA 3 1 1 6 2 4 3 3 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 45% 40% 46% 38% 27% 41% 34% 79% 65% No 53 56 50 60 71 55 63 18 35 DK/NA 3 4 3 2 2 4 3 3 - \n \n 58. Would you say that - Donald Trump shares your values or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 35% 65% 8% 32% 42% 28% 27% 39% No 61 30 90 62 54 67 70 56 DK/NA 4 4 3 5 3 5 3 5 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 25% 34% 39% 40% 46% 35% 41% 13% 15% No 70 64 56 55 50 59 55 82 83 DK/NA 5 2 5 5 3 6 5 5 2 \n \n 59. Would you say that - Bernie Sanders shares your values or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 44% 13% 73% 47% 42% 46% 50% 41% No 44 71 17 45 50 38 40 46 DK/NA 12 15 11 9 8 16 10 13 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 59% 43% 45% 30% 39% 44% 42% 56% 59% No 32 45 43 54 54 39 47 29 32 DK/NA 9 12 12 16 7 17 12 15 9 \n \n 60. Would you say that - Ben Carson shares your values or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 46% 75% 17% 50% 53% 40% 41% 49% No 43 14 71 41 41 45 51 39 DK/NA 11 11 12 9 6 15 7 13 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 44% 39% 49% 53% 57% 44% 51% 32% 32% No 38 53 42 36 37 42 39 55 51 DK/NA 18 8 9 11 6 14 10 12 17 \n \n 61. Would you say that - Marco Rubio shares your values or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 40% 71% 15% 39% 46% 35% 44% 39% No 43 15 70 43 43 44 43 43 DK/NA 17 14 15 18 12 21 13 18 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 32% 35% 41% 51% 50% 42% 46% 18% 25% No 42 48 45 39 39 37 38 65 61 DK/NA 26 17 14 11 11 21 16 17 14 \n \n 62. Would you say that - Ted Cruz shares your values or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 35% 68% 8% 34% 44% 27% 33% 37% No 48 15 77 50 45 51 56 44 DK/NA 16 17 15 15 11 22 11 19 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 27% 32% 36% 46% 49% 33% 41% 15% 21% No 51 53 49 40 41 44 43 72 64 DK/NA 22 15 14 14 10 23 16 13 15 \n \n 63. Would you say that - Hillary Clinton would have a good chance of defeating the Republican nominee in the general election for President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 63% 34% 87% 69% 62% 64% 69% 60% No 32 61 10 27 35 30 26 36 DK/NA 5 5 3 5 4 6 6 4 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 68% 66% 66% 52% 56% 56% 56% 95% 73% No 30 31 29 39 40 37 38 4 22 DK/NA 2 3 5 9 4 7 5 1 5 \n \n 64. Would you say that - Donald Trump would have a good chance of defeating the Democratic nominee in the general election for President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 46% 73% 20% 47% 50% 43% 36% 51% No 49 22 77 48 47 50 59 44 DK/NA 5 5 3 5 3 7 5 5 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 45% 45% 46% 47% 55% 50% 53% 21% 18% No 52 50 48 46 41 42 42 77 74 DK/NA 2 5 5 7 3 8 6 1 8 \n \n 65. Would you say that - Bernie Sanders would have a good chance of defeating the Republican nominee in the general election for President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 34% 17% 49% 39% 34% 34% 31% 35% No 55 75 39 51 59 52 59 54 DK/NA 10 8 12 10 7 14 10 11 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 54% 33% 29% 23% 30% 30% 30% 48% 53% No 39 57 61 64 64 56 60 41 32 DK/NA 7 10 10 13 6 15 10 11 15 \n \n 66. Would you say that - Ben Carson would have a good chance of defeating the Democratic nominee in the general election for President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 31% 55% 11% 30% 35% 28% 31% 32% No 58 34 79 60 57 59 61 57 DK/NA 11 11 9 10 8 13 9 12 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 28% 27% 35% 35% 39% 31% 35% 16% 20% No 59 63 58 53 55 56 55 80 55 DK/NA 13 10 8 12 6 13 10 4 25 \n \n 67. Would you say that - Marco Rubio would have a good chance of defeating the Democratic nominee in the general election for President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 39% 63% 23% 37% 43% 35% 44% 37% No 47 25 65 47 47 47 43 49 DK/NA 14 12 11 16 10 18 13 14 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 30% 40% 39% 48% 48% 42% 45% 19% 20% No 50 46 49 43 43 40 42 72 55 DK/NA 20 14 12 9 9 17 13 9 25 \n \n 68. Would you say that - Ted Cruz would have a good chance of defeating the Democratic nominee in the general election for President or not? \n \n COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes 31% 59% 10% 28% 34% 29% 27% 33% No 55 28 78 55 56 54 61 51 DK/NA 14 12 11 16 11 18 11 15 AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 21% 33% 31% 41% 38% 34% 36% 11% 19% No 57 54 60 47 53 49 51 80 56 DK/NA 22 13 9 12 9 17 13 9 25 \n \n 69. (If Democrat or Democratic Leaner) Thinking about the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, which of the following is most important to you: Someone who shares your values, cares about the needs and problems of people like you, has strong leadership qualities, is honest and trustworthy, has the right kind of experience, or has the best chance of winning? \n \n DEMOCRATS/DEMOCRATIC LEANERS.......... POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY LIBERAL..... Mod/ Tot Very Smwht Cons Men Wom Shares values 15% 16% 13% 15% 15% 15% Cares needs/problems 27 33 36 22 27 27 Strong leadership 19 10 11 25 13 23 Honest/trustworthy 17 14 19 17 22 14 Right experience 13 14 12 14 14 12 Best chance/winning 6 13 7 4 7 5 DK/NA 3 - 1 2 2 3 \n \n 70. (If Republican or Republican Leaner) Thinking about the Republican nominee for president in 2016, which of the following is most important to you: Someone who shares your values, cares about the needs and problems of people like you, has strong leadership qualities, is honest and trustworthy, has the right kind of experience, or has the best chance of winning? \n \n REPUBLICANS/REPUBLICAN LEANERS...................... Wht POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Tea BrnAgn CONSERVATIVE Mod/ Tot Party Evang Very Smwht Lib Men Wom Shares values 22% 28% 28% 28% 22% 15% 27% 15% Cares needs/problems 11 6 9 7 9 17 9 13 Strong leadership 26 28 23 24 31 24 23 31 Honest/trustworthy 23 24 27 23 23 23 24 22 Right experience 6 1 3 2 5 10 4 8 Best chance/winning 8 5 7 10 8 6 7 9 DK/NA 4 8 2 6 2 6 5 3 \n \n 71. (If Democrat or Democratic Leaner) Which of these is the most important issue to you in deciding who to support for the Democratic nomination for President: the economy and jobs, terrorism, immigration, the federal deficit, health care, foreign policy, climate change, race relations, abortion, gun policy or taxes? \n \n DEMOCRATS/DEMOCRATIC LEANERS.......... POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY LIBERAL..... Mod/ Tot Very Smwht Cons Men Wom Economy and jobs 43% 40% 44% 45% 48% 40% Terrorism 8 3 5 11 5 10 Immigration 4 4 3 4 3 4 Federal deficit 3 - - 4 3 2 Health care 11 8 7 13 10 12 Foreign policy 12 14 11 11 13 10 Climate change 8 20 12 3 9 7 Race relations 2 3 2 2 2 2 Abortion 2 2 4 - - 3 Gun policy 3 3 4 2 1 3 Taxes 2 2 1 3 1 3 DK/NA 3 - 7 2 4 3 \n \n 72. (If Republican or Republican Leaner) Which of these is the most important issue to you in deciding who to support for the Republican nomination for President: the economy and jobs, terrorism, immigration, the federal deficit, health care, foreign policy, climate change, race relations, abortion, gun policy or taxes? ||||| Ben Carson on TODAY Show: Welcoming Syrian refugees 'exposes us to danger' \n \n share share tweet pin email \n \n GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson tells TODAY's Matt Lauer that allowing the United States to welcome tens of thousands of Syrian refugees would not help resolve the crisis but only put the nation in jeopardy. \n \n \"Bringing them into this country does not solve the problem, and it exposes us to danger,\" Carson said during an interview Tuesday. \n \n Carson last week visited Jordan to tour Syrian refugee camps in an effort to bolster his foreign affairs credentials, something he has been criticized for lacking. \n \n Carson called the camps \"really quite nice\" and suggested they should serve as a long-term solution. On TODAY, he called the Jordanians \"very generous people\" who have set up camps and hospitals \"that work very well\" but just lack to the resources to support the efforts. \n \n \"Why don't we take advantage of things that are already in place, before we start trying to come up with other things,\" he said. \n \n When reminded that refugee camps aren't places where settlers can build their future, Carson said that most of the refugees he met with want to return back home to Syria. But they also suggested ways that foreign nations can help outside of opening their borders. \n \n \"What can nations like the United States do? They can support the efforts of places like Jordan and other places that might offer them a safe place to inhabit until such time as they can return home,\" he said. \n \n Carson also addressed his recent slide down polls in Iowa, which will hold the nation's first presidential caucus on Feb. 1. \n \n RELATED: Watch Donald Trump put a price on his participation in an upcoming debate \n \n \"Poll numbers will go up and down. It's a marathon, not a sprint,\" he told Lauer. \n \n Carson said voters are still evaluating where each candidate stands on issues and how views fit \"their impression of what they need.\" \n \n \"I think there is plenty of time to make the appropriate arguments,\" he said. \n \n Carson has been courting the Christian conservative vote for months in Iowa, where he once led the polls. His standings have taken a hit recently, and the retired neurosurgeon finds himself in third place in numerous polls, behind Donald Trump and either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. \n \n Some conservative pundits have noted that Carson's slip has coincided with an increase in world events, including the growth of the Syrian refugee crisis and the deadly attacks in Paris. \n \n Follow TODAY.com writer Eun Kyung Kim on Twitter. ||||| Ben Carson took a tumble in the latest national poll, falling 7 points from last month in the Quinnipiac University survey, after weathering heavy criticism for his lack of foreign policy expertise and scrutiny about his personal tale of redemption. \n \n After pulling a virtual tie with Donald Trump in the previous poll, the retired neurosurgeon dropped to third place with 16 percent support among Republican respondents. Trump moved up 3 percentage points to dominate the field at 27 percent. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Also enjoying a bump \u2014 Sen. Marco Rubio, who moved up 3 percentage points and into second place with 17 percent support, and Sen. Ted Cruz, who also gained 3 percentage points and tied with Carson at 16 percent. The 3-point hikes for Trump, Rubio and Cruz are all within the poll's margin of error. \n \n Behind Trump and the triumvirate vying for position behind the Manhattan businessman, no other candidate finished in the double digits. \n \n Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush earned 5 percent, followed by former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina at 3 percent. No other candidate received more than 2 percent support, and 8 percent of respondents were undecided. \n \n Carson's dip follows a series of unforced errors, including a flap over his assertion that China is involved in the Syrian conflict and his struggle to answer what nations he would call first to form a coalition against the Islamic State. He also has come under increased scrutiny for the stories he has often retold about his violent childhood and his religious redemption that helped him to become a highly successful pediatric neurosurgeon. \n \n After surging in the early fall, nipping at the heels of Trump and even surpassing him in some polls, Carson appears to be settling back down in some surveys. \n \n \u201cPoll numbers will go up and down. It\u2019s a marathon, not a sprint,\" Carson told NBC's \"Today\" on Tuesday in addressing his slide among Iowa Republicans specifically. \n \n This most recent poll delivered some good news for Rubio and Cruz, who have both recently upped their profiles on the campaign trail and engaged in some nasty back-and-forths about their respective political records, especially regarding immigration. \n \n On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton continues to enjoy a sizable advantage over her rival Bernie Sanders, outpolling the Vermont senator 2-to-1 \u2014 60 percent to 30 percent \u2014 among registered Democratic voters surveyed nationwide. The only other candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, took just 2 percent, with 6 percent of Democratic respondents undecided. \n \n Matched against potential Republican challengers next November, Clinton performed better than in Quinnipiac's previous survey. Facing Carson, Clinton earned 46 percent to 43 percent, a 6-point jump from the last survey, when Carson held a 50 percent to 40 percent advantage against the former secretary of state. Against Trump this time, Clinton earned 47 percent to 41 percent, an improvement from 46 to 43 percent in the late October/early November survey. Matched against Rubio, Clinton led 45 percent to 44 percent, while Rubio held a 46 percent to 41 percent advantage in the last poll. \n \n More than six in 10 American voters surveyed \u2014 63 percent \u2014 said Clinton would have a good chance of beating any potential Republican opponent in the general election, while 32 percent said she would not. About 69 percent of independents gave Clinton a better chance of winning than a GOP challenger, while 27 percent did not. Conversely, just 46 percent of all respondents said that Trump would beat the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, while 49 percent said he would not. Among independents, the split is similar, at 47 percent to 48 percent. \n \n But Sanders fared just as well in some head-to-heads, even better than the current Democratic front-runner, holding wider advantages in matchups over Carson, Trump and Cruz than did Clinton. \n \n As has been the case in recent national polling, Trump and Clinton led the field among voters in their respective parties but failed to register positive image or trustworthiness ratings from the larger sample of all registered voters. \n \n Trump holds a net negative favorability rating of 35 percent favorable to 57 percent unfavorable (-22 points), while Clinton earned a more respectable, if still negative rating of 44 percent to 51 percent. Sanders, on the other hand, earned the highest net favorability rating among all respondents of any candidate in either party (at +13 points), with 44 percent favorable, 31 percent unfavorable and 24 percent who said they still have not heard enough to decide. \n \n Among just Democrats, however, Clinton earned the highest net favorability (85 percent to 11 percent), while Rubio led Republican hopefuls with a net-positive rating of +58 points (66 percent to 8 percent), narrowly edging out Cruz (65 percent to 9 percent) and Carson (67 percent to 13 percent). \n \n Only 35 percent of all respondents said Trump is honest and trustworthy, similar to the 36 percent who said the same of Clinton, while 59 percent and 60 percent, respectively, said they were not. \n \n The poll was conducted Nov. 23-30, surveying 1,453 registered voters nationwide via landlines and cellphones, with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. The sample included 672 Republicans with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points, and 573 Democrats with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. \n \n \n \n CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Carson dropped six points from last month. He dropped seven points. ||||| If Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton or any other presidential candidate said the things Donald Trump says, did the things Donald Trump does, or had led the controversial life Donald Trump has, his or her campaign would already have died in a pile of negative headlines and video clips. \n \n But Donald Trump is alive. It is evident that the regular rules do not apply to him. Two months into his rowdy campaign, it is instead the political media that has been leveled by Trump \u2014 floored, mystified and stupefied by a candidate who prospers where others would perish. What\u2019s more, the press corps is beginning to realize that nothing it might do \u2014 no report it can publish, no question it can ask \u2013 has the power to push this candidate an inch off the course that is preordained for him, one which is far more likely to burn out on its own terms than flame out under some great bonfire set by the media. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n That is the consensus, anyway, of the nearly two dozen journalists, pundits, campaign strategists and political advisers who spoke with POLITICO this week about what many described as the \u201cexceptionalism\u201d of Trump\u2019s campaign. Trump\u2019s bombast and bluntness are resonating with voters, they said, and there\u2019s not a damn thing the press, pundits or rival campaigns can do about it. \n \n The list of offenses that would likely cripple other candidates is long: Trump called Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. He said that Sen. John McCain, who spent five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison, is not a war hero. He has referred to women as \u201cfat pigs,\u201d \u201cdogs,\u201d \u201cslobs\u201d and worse, and had those remarks read to him before 24 million Americans by one of the most popular female news anchors in the country \u2014 because, Trump later suggested, she was menstruating. Far from dismantling Trump\u2019s campaign, these controversies have only benefited him. \n \n \u201cThe only thing that takes him out is either Father Trump or Father Time,\u201d said Matthew Dowd, the former chief strategist for President George W. Bush. \u201cSo far, he is immune.\u201d \n \n More recently, Trump sat down for an interview with NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d Asked who he talks to for military advice, Trump replied: \u201cWell, I watch the shows. I mean, I really see a lot of great \u2014 you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows and you have the generals and \u2014 and you have certain people that you like.\u201d \n \n If Trump\u2019s remark called to mind Sarah Palin\u2019s inability, in a 2008 interview, to name a single newspaper or magazine that she had read before being tapped as McCain\u2019s vice presidential nominee, it has not had the same effect. For Palin, it was an embarrassment that continues to dog her reputation. For Trump, the \u2018shows\u2019 remark barely registered. \n \n \u201cIn any other campaign cycle, another campaign would have been making Trump pay for that remark before he even walked out of the studio,\u201d Kevin Madden, the senior adviser and spokesman for Mitt Romney\u2019s 2012 campaign, said. \u201cIt\u2019s an entirely disqualifying statement, yet we didn\u2019t see other campaigns move with much speed or purpose to expose it.\u201d \n \n Trump\u2019s ability to shrug off controversy and criticism, to out-shame his detractors in the media and on the campaign trail, is almost certainly a reflection of widespread public frustration with career politicians and the mainstream press, and with its way of covering elections. \n \n In fact, Trump is playing according to a different bit of wisdom, one that belongs to show business and is thought to have come from circus-master P.T. Barnum: all publicity is good publicity. \n \n He has done this before. Among the small conclave of family and corporate dynasties that have long dominated New York City\u2019s real estate industry, discretion has forever been a watchword \u2014 the preferred method of influence is boardrooms and living rooms and wood-paneled offices not made up for a reality television show like \u201cThe Apprentice.\u201d \n \n Trump did not succeed (or at least survive) in the cutthroat world of New York real estate by playing by its rules, but by flouting them. It only worked because it made him an outlier: None of the rules have changed for his equals in the industry. \n \n That Trump can bring those rules with him on the road to the 2016 presidential election makes him a completely different candidate from the rest of the pack. The rules of show business are just as fickle as those of presidential politics. But they are completely different. And they are serving him in politics as they once served him in business. \n \n \u201cThe conventional wisdom doesn\u2019t apply to Donald Trump \u2014 at least not so far,\u201d Roger Stone, the former top adviser with Trump\u2019s campaign, said. \n \n Part of it is the peculiar environment in which Republican primary contenders are now selling their wares. \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s not a career politician, so voters aren\u2019t holding him to the same standards. He\u2019s a larger-than-life figure that comes from outside politics,\u201d said Stone. \u201cWhen you combine that with voters dislike of politics, political institutions, and the media, it\u2019s very effective.\u201d \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s not a candidate,\u201d said Brad Todd, the Republican advertising strategist. \u201cHe is a protest vehicle.\u201d \n \n There was a moment where the journalism-theory crowd was gnashing its teeth about Trump. His candidacy, they said, was enabled by the media, which was only looking for cheap page views and Nielsen ratings. \n \n Whether they created the monster that is the perpetually successful Trump candidacy or not, they are certainly not the people who can dismantle it. They don\u2019t even understand it. \n \n In a recent Facebook video, The Atlantic\u2019s Molly Ball acknowledged as much, listing Trump\u2019s offenses and his resulting rise in the polls, and then admitting: \u201cPundits like me are terribly clueless when it comes to predicting how Donald Trump is going to do. What\u2019s going to happen next to Trump? I don\u2019t know. Nobody knows. We\u2019re all totally clueless.\u201d \n \n \u201cMaybe this is why so many people like Donald Trump,\u201d Ball concluded. \u201cAmerican voters really don\u2019t like pundits. They think we\u2019re all stupid. \u2026 So maybe, when Donald Trump can come along, and make us all look like fools, people think that he must be doing something right.\u201d \n \n There is perhaps no clearer illustration of the media\u2019s inability to faze Trump than his exchange with Fox News host Megyn Kelly at the inaugural Republican primary debate in Cleveland. Her first question to him \u2014 in which she listed a litany of misogynistic remarks he\u2019d made about women \u2014 was the sort of unforeseen torpedo that could have decimated any politician. Trump\u2019s response was a brazen quip, off the cuff: \u201cOnly Rosie O\u2019Donnell.\u201d \n \n In any other cycle, the win would likely have gone to Kelly, a rising television star with the vast admiration of the Fox News audience. By the time the dust cleared, however, the win had gone to Trump. His poll numbers went up, his quip was the talk of the Twitterverse, and, after threatening to boycott Fox News, he received a call from the network\u2019s chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, assuring him that he would receive fair and balanced coverage. \n \n \u201cIt represents the genuine Trump,\u201d Stone said of the candidate\u2019s off-the-cuff remarks. \u201cHe\u2019s not practicing his lines in the mirror like Marco Rubio. He\u2019s not checking everything with his pollster. That\u2019s why he\u2019s doing so well. Voters like that.\u201d \n \n To be sure, there are many who think the media colluded in this whole thing. From the beginning, Trump\u2019s campaign has been covered more like theater than politics \u2014 in a bit of grandstanding, The Huffington Post has filed all Trump copy under its entertainment section \u2014 and as a result, many news organizations have only recently started to hold Trump to account on his personal history and policy positions. \n \n \u201cEveryone is stuck in process stories and not reporting about real Trump,\u201d said Rick Wilson, the Florida-based GOP strategist. \u201cHe\u2019s a celebrity, and the media is only reporting on him as such. It\u2019s all process.\u201d \n \n Wilson said the media should instead be reporting \u201con all the hinky bullshit in his business life and personal life.\u201d \n \n Trump\u2019s history isn\u2019t rosy: It includes multiple marriages, suspect business deals and confirmed ties to organized crime in Atlantic City. \n \n Wayne Barrett, the author of \u201cTrump: The Deals and the Downfall,\u201d an unauthorized biography, told POLITICO that Trump\u2019s personal past and business dealings would almost surely ruin a conventional candidate. \u201cHe is the embodiment of crony capitalism,\u201d Barrett said, noting that, as \u201ca very formidable donor in New York politics,\u201d Trump \u201calways hired the right insider to put the fix in for him.\u201d \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s the antithesis of conservative wealth, or at least the wealth that conservatives pretend to revere,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not market wealth, it\u2019s state wealth. It\u2019s crony wealth. Every deal he did was laced with crony connections.\u201d \n \n Barrett also said that Trump \u201cwould have been personally bankrupt\u201d if he hadn\u2019t been bailed out by bankers who decided that he was too big to fail. \u201cI would think that if reporters were out there doing some serious digging, they ought to be talking to the bankers who used to deal with him,\u201d he said. \n \n Michael Cohen, Trump\u2019s legal counsel and top spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comment. \n \n Trump\u2019s marital history might also have proven problematic for a more conventional conservative candidate. Trump is in his third marriage, and some of his remarks about his past partners have been callous. In 1990, he told Vanity Fair: \u201cWhen a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left for a piece of ass\u2014a good one!\u2014there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left.\u201d \n \n And the mob ties: Barrett has alleged that Trump organized a land purchase from \u201ca top leader of the murderous Scarfo crime family in Atlantic City so that his name would not appear in the transaction,\u201d and that Roy Cohn, Trump\u2019s former lawyer and close friend, also represented Fat Tony Salerno, the head of the Genovese crime family. \n \n Importantly, Barrett told POLITICO that while a handful of reporters have contacted him about these connections, nothing has materialized. And even if the connections did make headlines today, Barrett\u2019s not convinced it would do much to sway voter sentiment. \n \n \u201cFor most of the Americans that are enchanted by Donald, the mob is not a real thing. It\u2019s a Hollywood thing, but it\u2019s not real. If you lived in New York, the power of the mob was enormous,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cBut who can figure out what would affect the people who are for him?\u201d Barrett asked. \u201cIt\u2019s almost a mystical connection he has with these people. What would demystify him is very hard to figure. I don\u2019t know if the media can do it, because his supporters are not a fact-based constituency.\u201d \n \n Some pundits have argued that the best way to dismantle Trump\u2019s campaign is to take him seriously and expose his lack of feasible, detailed policy positions. But Trump\u2019s recent 40-minute sitdown with \u201cMeet The Press,\u201d and subsequent interviews with personalities like Bill O\u2019Reilly, have focused almost exclusively on policy and done little to curb support \u2014 even if Trump says he watches \u201cthe shows\u201d for military advice, or defers to lawyers when asked how he would change the 14th Amendment to implement his immigration policy. \n \n As Trip Gabriel, The New York Times political reporter, has argued, Trump \u201cmay be the first post-policy candidate.\u201d His campaign is \u201cbuilt on his unfettered style, rather than on his positions, which have proved highly fungible.\u201d \n \n So if Trump can\u2019t be beat on his past or his policies, and if he can\u2019t be matched for style, what could possibly stop him from securing the nomination? \n \n For most observers, it is, as Dowd said, up to Father Trump or Father Time. \n \n One theory posits that Trump will say something so radically inappropriate that it jettisons his support with conservatives: \u201cWhere he says or does something too outrageous, and people have time to reflect more on what the choice means,\u201d Dowd said. \n \n Another theory posits that Trump will bow out before the Iowa caucuses because he doesn\u2019t want to run the risk of losing. \n \n \u201cIt would be completely out of character for him to subject himself to voters to be judged,\u201d Stuart Stevens, the top strategist on Mitt Romney\u2019s 2012 campaign, said. \u201cWhat\u2019s his greatest put-down? \u2018Loser.\u2019 Will Trump be the next president? No. Does Donald Trump want to go through the rest of his life known as a loser? No.\u201d \n \n \u201cWhen he inevitably drops to second or third in polls \u2026 I wonder how he handles adversity,\u201d one prominent political journalist said. \u201cI think he could take his ball and go home.\u201d \n \n The final theory is that Trump\u2019s support \u2014 about 25 percent, according to the latest national polls \u2014 simply won\u2019t translate into votes. \n \n \u201cWhat does it matter to someone now if they say they are for Trump? It means nothing. And 75 percent of the Republican voters aren\u2019t for him even though he has the highest name ID and has been in the public eye far more than any other candidate,\u201d Stevens said. \n \n He also noted that Trump had 26 percent support in 2011: \u201cFour years ago, he had about the same vote when he wasn\u2019t even running,\u201d he said. \u201cSo despite saying he\u2019s a candidate and debates and campaigning, he has the same vote share he had before. That\u2019s a success?\u201d \n \n Brad Todd, the GOP strategist, said Trump\u2019s campaign would end with \u201csomeone passing out actual ballots at elementary schools at a thousand Iowa caucus locations, making this less like \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d and more like a decision with consequences.\u201d \n \n \u201cSummer beach flings rarely morph into lasting love,\u201d Todd said. \n \n Until then, or perhaps beyond then, the political media looks on, \u201ctotally clueless.\u201d \n \n \u201cIn politics, particularly presidential races, my oft repeated mantra is the UFO rule. At some point, the unforeseen will occur,\u201d Tom Brokaw, the veteran NBC News anchor who has covered presidential elections dating back to Johnson vs. Goldwater, told POLITICO. \n \n \u201cGary Hart and Monkey Business, Dukakis failing to defend Kitty, Bush 41 and the Perot factor. What the UFO will be this time, I don\u2019t know yet, but there will be one \u2014 and not just for Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cAll the candidates in both parties are vulnerable.\u201d \n \n Authors:", "summary": "\u2013 While nothing seems to be able to topple Donald \"Teflon Don\" Trump, Ben Carson isn't enjoying the same kind of luck. The former neurosurgeon plummeted 7 percentage points in a newly released Quinnipiac University poll, falling to third place with 16%, Politico reports. Meanwhile, Trump absorbed 3 points, boosting him to a healthy lead of 27%. Ascending to second-place position in the poll: Marco Rubio, who gained 3 percentage points for a total of 17%. Ted Cruz also drew in 3 additional points to tie Carson at 16%, while Jeb Bush languishes in a distant fifth place with 5%. The rest of the GOP comes in at 3% or less. The poll surveyed 1,453 registered voters between Nov. 23-30, with a 2.6-point margin of error. What seemed to precipitate Carson's sudden dip\u2014he was \"deadlocked\" with Trump just a month ago, the New York Times points out\u2014were flaps over both his origin story and his apparent lack of foreign policy knowledge. Carson isn't letting on, though, that he's fazed by the latest setback. \"Poll numbers will go up and down,\" he told Matt Lauer Tuesday on the Today show. \"It's a marathon, not a sprint.\" The assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll adds his own take. \"Dr. Ben Carson, moving to center stage just one month ago, now needs some CPR,\" Tim Malloy says. \"The Doctor sinks. The Donald soars. The GOP, 11 months from the election, has to be thinking, 'This could be the guy.'\" Meanwhile, on the Dems' side, Hillary Clinton maintains a large lead over Bernie Sanders (60% to 30%), with Martin O'Malley barely making a blip at 2%. (Carson's unusual theory about the pyramids probably didn't do him any favors.)"}
{"document": "Contains archived websites, blogs, editorials and other materials posted online by, or on behalf of, 17 Russian political and cultural figures who have expressed some opposition to foreign and domestic policy in Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia. The archive also captures eight websites that chronicle a range of contemporary political and human rights positions and events that reflect the prevailing climate. The political and cultural figures whose websites and/or blogs have been captured include: Rustem Adagamov, widely-read Russian blogger; Sergei Aleksashenko, economist, businessman; Konstantin Borovoi, entrepreneur and opposition politician; Leonid Gozman, opposition politician; Il\u2019ia Iashin, opposition politician, co-founder of Russian \u201cSolidarity\u201d party; Oleg Kashin, political journalist and author; Oleg Kozyrev, author, screenwriter, blogger and journalist, leader of youth movement \u201cDemocratic Alternative\u201d; Andrei Makarevich, founder of classic rock group Mashina Vremeni [Time Machine]), who Russian state media condemned as a \u201ctraitor\u201d for performing a charity concert for Ukrainian children displaced by the war; Andrei Mal\u2019gin, journalist, literary scholar and critic, publisher, and political activist well known for his blogging; Aleksei Naval\u2019nyi, Russian political and social activist, lawyer, and popular blogger; Boris Nemtsov, prominent Russian opposition leader gunned down in Moscow on February 27, 2015; Valeriia Novodvorskaia (d. July 2014), a political activist, dissident, human rights advocate, independent journalist, and founder of liberal political parties; Dmitrii Oreshkin, political scientist and activist; Sergei Parkhomenko, publisher, journalist, political observer; Irina Prokhorova, literary scholar, editor, television personality, opposition political figure; Artemii Troitskii, rock journalist, music critic who emigrated to Estonia in 2014 because of the worsening political climate; Nikolai Uskov, historian, journalist and publishing executive. This archive also includes captures of the following sites: Civil Platform, founded in 2012, with the aims of establishing civil society in Russia, upholding of the rights of the individual, and economic reform. Human Rights in Russia, a website dedicated to raising awareness of threats to human rights in Russia, funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth organization. Politkom.Ru, web platform of the Center for Political Technology, which purports to be an independent source of news and analysis and an open forum for exchange of opinions between politicians, analysts and journalists. Putin. Itogi publishes \u201cindependent, expert\u201d reports on Putin\u2019s leadership, among them reports written by Boris Nemtsov. Solidarnost\u2019 is a \u201cunited democratic movement\u201d founded in 2008 as a coalition of opposition organizations against authoritarianism. Bolotnaya Square Case is a website devoted to documenting the consequences for dozens of protesters after their participation in an opposition rally in Moscow in May of 2012. Traitor.net is a website that singles out political and cultural figures for their expression of disagreement with Russian incursions into Ukraine. ||||| Rossia 1 Kiselyov speaking on his news program on state television on Sunday. \n \n An anchor on state-run television threatened that Russia could \"turn the U.S. into radioactive ashes\" and showed a simulation of a Russian nuclear strike during his program on the U.S. response to Russia's interference in Ukraine. \n \n Dmitry Kiselyov, who hosts a current affairs talk show on the Rossiya television network and heads a new Kremlin-backed news agency, accused U.S. President Barack Obama of supposedly dithering in talks with President Vladimir Putin, and suggested on his Sunday program that the U.S. leader was intimidated by his Kremlin opponent, who is \"not an easy one.\" \n \n \"And Russia is the only country that could really turn the U.S. into radioactive ashes,\" Kiselyov said, against the backdrop of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear blast appearing on a huge screen behind him. \n \n Kiselyov also suggested that threats of a nuclear strike were coming from the Kremlin. \n \n \"I do not know if this is a coincidence or what, but here was Obama calling Putin on Jan. 21 \u2014 probably, again trying to pressure somehow \u2014 and the very next day, on Jan. 22, the official media outlet of the Russian government ran an article that spelled out in simple terms how our system of nuclear response works,\" he said. \n \n While Kiselyov's comment suggested that Obama's Jan. 21 call had to do with the Ukrainian crisis, an earlier statement from the White House said the U.S. leader spoke to Putin on that day to wish him a \"safe and secure\" Olympics in Sochi. \n \n The Kremlin has unleashed a large-scale propaganda war over Moscow's takeover of Crimea and the peninsula's referendum on Sunday, in which more than 90 percent of voters cast supported seceding from Ukraine to Russia, according to preliminary results released by Crimea's pro-Russian administration. \n \n The promotion by state-run television of the Kremlin's views has also helped Putin's approval ratings in the country to soar to 72 percent this month, a recent survey by the Levada pollster showed. \n \n The number of respondents who said they would like to see Putin as Russia's president for a fourth term increased this month to 32 percent, from 26 percent in in April, 2013, while the number of people who said they would like the job to go to a \"person who proposes a different solution to Russia's problems\" declined from 41 percent to 31 percent over the same period. \n \n The poll, conducted on March 7-10 among 1,603 people around Russia, gave a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| As the United States condemned a referendum on the future of the Crimean peninsula staged by pro-Russian separatists on Sunday, one of Russia\u2019s most influential television hosts appeared on the evening news in Moscow, before a huge mushroom cloud graphic, to remind viewers that Russia is still \u201cthe only country in the world capable of turning the U.S.A. into radioactive dust.\u201d \n \n On Russian state TV: lovely closing ceremony of Sochi Paralympics v. warning that Russia can turn the US into radioactive dust. Good night. \u2014 Steven Lee Myers (@slmmoscow) 16 Mar 14 \n \n Although the saber-rattling comments came from Dmitry Kiselev, a news anchor well known for his \u201cmad as hell\u201d delivery of diatribes on the supposed threats to Russia posed by foreign plotters and native homosexuals, the report still stunned viewers of the state broadcaster\u2019s main channel. \n \n \u041a\u0438\u0441\u0435\u043b\u0435\u0432 \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0434\u043e\u043b\u0436\u0430\u0435\u0442! \u041f\u0440\u044f\u043c\u043e \u0441\u0435\u0439\u0447\u0430\u0441: \u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f \u2013 \u0435\u0434\u0438\u043d\u0441\u0442\u0432\u0435\u043d\u043d\u0430\u044f \u0441\u0442\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0430, \u043a\u043e\u0442\u043e\u0440\u0430\u044f \u043c\u043e\u0436\u0435\u0442 \u043f\u0440\u0435\u0432\u0440\u0430\u0442\u0438\u0442\u044c \u0421\u0428\u0410 \u0432 \u0440\u0430\u0434\u0438\u043e\u0430\u043a\u0442\u0438\u0432\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u043f\u0435\u043f\u0435\u043b //t.co/zNTh7imMKz \u2014 \u041a\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0431\u043a\u043e\u0432-\u0417\u0435\u043c\u043b\u044f\u043d\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 (@korobkov) 16 Mar 14 \n \n One reason is that, as the Russian journalist Leonid Ragozin observed, Mr. Kiselev was the man recently chosen by President Vladimir V. Putin to lead an official news agency charged with explaining Kremlin policy to the world, a media organization to be called Rossiya Sevodnya, or Russia Today. \n \n Kiselev is not your average moron. He is Russia\u2019s most senior government media executive, essentially minister of propaganda. \u2014 Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) 16 Mar 14 \n \n Mr. Ragozin noted that the anchor also claimed that President Obama was deeply worried by Russia\u2019s nuclear arsenal. \n \n Kiselev then talks abt Russia\u2019s \u2018dead hand\u2019 system that will destroy America automatically after all Russians are dead. \u2014 Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) 16 Mar 14 \n \n Kiselev claims a publication about \u201cPerimeter\u201d \u2013 the Russian nuclear extermination system \u2013 prompted Obama\u2019s frantic calls to Kremlin in Jan \u2014 Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) 16 Mar 14 \n \n A Moscow correspondent for The Associated Press, Laura Mills, reported that the broadcaster had then moved on to attack a \u201cfifth column\u201d of supposedly traitorous Russian dissidents who signed an open letter against the Kremlin\u2019s \u201cde facto annexation of Crimea.\u201d \n \n Russian state TV anchor lists intellectuals who oppose Crimean annexation, says: \u201cIf this isn\u2019t the fifth column, what IS the fifth column?\u201d \u2014 Laura Mills (@lauraphylmills) 16 Mar 14 \n \n Mr. Kiselev\u2019s appointment, and the shuttering of a more independent state news agency, was described by Russia\u2019s respected business daily Vedomosti as a sign that Mr. Putin had abandoned any hope of persuading educated Russians to embrace his policies, my colleague Serge Schmemann explained. \u201cThe Kremlin acknowledged that it has lost the educated community,\u201d the editors of Vedomosti wrote in December, \u201cand has neither the means nor the will to hold a dialogue about values, and therefore instead of culture began to impose ideology, and instead of information, propaganda.\u201d \n \n The instant online reaction to Mr. Kiselev\u2019s Sunday night riff from Russian bloggers seemed to indicate that they are indeed not the target demographic for his editorial commentaries. \n \n A screenshot of the segment, with a caption suggesting that the host might have a substance abuse problem, was posted on the Twitter feed of Aleksei Navalny, an opposition leader currently under house arrest whose blog was blocked by Russian Internet authorities last week. \n \n Mr. Navalny\u2019s feed, which is ostensibly under the control of his wife until the end of his ban on using the Internet, also drew attention to another opposition activist\u2019s suggestion of how the segment should have ended, with the host being dragged away by men in white coats. \n \n \u041f\u043e \u043b\u043e\u0433\u0438\u043a\u0435 \u0432\u0435\u0449\u0435\u0439, \u044d\u0442\u0430 \u043a\u043b\u043e\u0443\u043d\u0430\u0434\u0430 \u0434\u043e\u043b\u0436\u043d\u0430 \u0437\u0430\u043a\u043e\u043d\u0447\u0438\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f \u0442\u0430\u043a //t.co/z9abXeb0dW \u2014 \u0412\u043b\u0430\u0434\u0438\u0441\u043b\u0430\u0432 \u041d\u0430\u0433\u0430\u043d\u043e\u0432 (@naganoff_ru) 16 Mar 14 \n \n Other bloggers heaped scorn on Mr. Kiselev\u2019s false claim that Mr. Obama\u2019s hair had turned gray from worry over Russia\u2019s nuclear might. \n \n \u041a\u0438\u0441\u0435\u043b\u0435\u0432 \u0433\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0440\u0438\u0442, \u0447\u0442\u043e \u041e\u0431\u0430\u043c\u0430 \u0440\u0435\u0437\u043a\u043e \u043f\u043e\u0441\u0435\u0434\u0435\u043b \u0438\u0437-\u0437\u0430 \u0442\u043e\u0433\u043e, \u0447\u0442\u043e \u0431\u043e\u0438\u0442\u0441\u044f \u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044e. \n \n \u042d\u0442\u043e, \u043a\u043e\u043d\u0435\u0447\u043d\u043e, \u043a\u0430\u043a\u043e\u0439-\u0442\u043e \u041a\u0412\u041d,\u0430 \u043d\u0435 \u0436\u0443\u0440\u043d\u0430\u043b\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0438\u043a\u0430. //t.co/ZMzXq9rENs \u2014 \u0410\u043b\u0435\u043a\u0441 \u0417\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0432\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 (@sazam) 16 Mar 14 \n \n As my colleague Ellen Barry reported on Saturday, some influential members of the Russian president\u2019s inner circle \u201cview isolation from the West as a good thing for Russia,\u201d and seem to welcome the revival of Cold War tensions. On Sunday, she noted, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Dmitri Trenin, told RT, a Kremlin-funded news network that broadcasts in English, that the new standoff between Moscow and the West \u201ccloses the books on what I would call inter Cold War period\u201d that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall. \n \n Russian bloggers also turned their attention to reworking an Associated Press photograph of a confrontation on Saturday between the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and her Russian counterpart, Vitaly I. Churkin. \n \n Photo", "summary": "\u2013 The man Vladimir Putin hand-picked to run a new state-run news agency turned a number of heads yesterday when he stood before an image of a mushroom cloud and declared that \"Russia is the only country that could really turn the US into radioactive ash.\" Dmitry Kiselyov then showed a simulation of a Russian nuclear strike, and suggested that the Kremlin had threatened Washington by running an article on such a strike on Jan. 22, a day after an Obama-Putin phone call, the Moscow Times reports. Kiselyov is known as a pro-Putin anti-gay firebrand, but he's \"not your average moron,\" one Russia expert tweeted. \"He is Russia's most senior government media executive, essentially minister of propaganda.\" Russian bloggers responded with shock and mockery, the New York Times reports; one opposition leader's Twitter feed suggested that Kiselyov was intoxicated, then pointed out a Photoshopped image of the host being dragged away by men in white coats."}
{"document": "(CNN) Investigators have identified a suspect in the death of a western Pennsylvania police officer who was gunned down during a traffic stop. \n \n Rahmael Sal Holt, 29, shot and killed officer Brian Shaw on Friday, police said. \n \n \"Consider Holt armed and dangerous,\" the Pennsylvania State Police tweeted. \n \n Update New Kensington Police Officer Shooting: Rahmael Sal HOLT (DOB 05/31/88) has been identified as the person who shot and killed Officer Shaw. A warrant has been issued for Holt's arrest. Consider Holt armed and dangerous! Call 911 with info on his location. Pictured below pic.twitter.com/6L6vqQ0WVs \n \n Brian Shaw had been a patrolman with New Kensington's police department for less than a year when he was killed Friday night, according to police Chief James Klein. \n \n The traffic stop resulted in a foot chase before Shaw, 25, was shot, Klein said. \n \n New Kensington is about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. \n \n Our thoughts and prayers are with the New Kensington police and all who mourn the loss of Officer Brian Shaw. #EOW pic.twitter.com/xnVj2xM25E \u2014 Pittsburgh Police (@PghPolice) November 18, 2017 \n \n Authorities have put up a $40,000 reward for information leading to the suspect's arrest, according to a Pennsylvania State Police spokesman, with money pooled from multiple agencies, including the US Marshals Service, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. \n \n Officers from Westmoreland County and neighboring Allegheny County, as well as Pittsburgh police, combed the area overnight and processed the scene, CNN affiliate KDKA reported \n \n Trooper Stephen J. Limani, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Police, emphasized the importance of any information people can provide. \n \n We are again deeply saddened by the loss of another officer. Our thoughts and prayers are with the officer's family and friends and the New Kensington Police Department. Lest We Forget. #EOW #LODD \u2014 FBI Pittsburgh (@FBIPittsburgh) November 18, 2017 \n \n \"If you look back in the history of many horrific incidents, a very small, minute tip could be the tipping point to lead us in a direction of who the person was that committed this crime,\" Limani said. \n \n Shaw graduated from the Allegheny County Police Training Academy in 2014, according to a post on the Allegheny County Police Department's Facebook page. \n \n \"Officer Brian Shaw, you were taken from us too soon,\" the department wrote. \"You are in our thoughts and prayers. \n \n Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin tweeted his condolences to Shaw's family and New Kensington police. \n \n My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Officer Brian Shaw and the entire New Kensington Police Department. So sad. RIP. \u2014 Mike Tomlin (@CoachTomlin) November 18, 2017 \n \n Shaw played for Slippery Rock University's football team, according to the school athletic department's Twitter page \n \n \"Words can't describe how I feel,\" head football coach Shawn Lutz told KDKA . \"He was part of our 2011 and 2013 championship teams.\" \n \n Shaw was the team's kicker, Lutz said. The university is about an hour's drive north of Pittsburgh. \n \n \"He said he wanted to be a police officer, he was a hard working guy, such a positive young man,\" Lutz said of his former player. \"Every time I think about Brian, I think of such a positive guy who would be successful at anything he did.\" ||||| ... \n \n wanted person investigation. On September 15, 2018, the Allegheny County Police Department (ACPD) assisted the Pitcairn Police Department in attempting to apprehend Jerome Solomon on outstanding arrest warrants at a residence in Pitcairn. Solomon was wanted on charges from two different incidents. As officers were approaching the residence, Solomon fled on foot. Officers gave chase and located Solomon behind a garage at 625 Second Avenue. Solomon had gone over a wall and fallen approximately 15 feet. He was suffering a compound fracture of his left ankle and was transported to a local hospital where he underwent surgery. The hospital contacted ACPD to advise that Solomon was out of surgery. Before officers could get to the hospital, Solomon had fled the hospital with an IV and a heart monitor still attached to him. Police reviewed surveillance video from the hospital and discovered that Jerome Solomon, a 39-year-old black male, had absconded from the hospital with the help of two other black males and two black females. Solomon is wanted on robbery, theft, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, and other charges on the two outstanding arrest warrants. Anyone with information concerning the whereabouts of Jerome Solomon is asked to call Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers at 412-255-TIPS (412-255-8477). A reward of up to $1,000 is offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals wanted for featured crimes. Callers may remain anonymous. \n \n Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers is seeking the public\u2019s assistance with a ||||| The man who authorities say shot and killed a Pennsylvania police officer was caught Tuesday morning following a manhunt that lasted nearly 3 1/2 days. \n \n Pennsylvania State Police announced early Tuesday that authorities had apprehended Rahmael Sal Holt, who is accused of fatally shooting New Kensington Police Officer Brian Shaw following a Friday night traffic stop about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. \n \n Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck said at a news conference Tuesday that Holt, 29, was arrested at a home in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that several associates and relatives, including the suspect\u2019s mother, Sherry Holt, and another woman, Aysa Benson, were also arrested and accused of helping Rahmael Holt. Court records show the two have been charged with hindering apprehension, a third-degree felony. \n \n Rahmael Holt has been charged with first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer; murder of the first degree; possession of a firearm; and carrying a firearm without a license, according to an online court docket. \n \n The shooting happened just after 8 p.m. Friday, when Shaw tried to pull over an SUV. \n \n Holt, who was the passenger, jumped out of the moving vehicle and Shaw ran after him, according to an affidavit. Surveillance footage shows Holt running to a nearby parking lot, where authorities said he shot Shaw. \n \n [Suspected cop killer arrested following days-long manhunt, Pennsylvania State Police say] \n \n Peck said Holt fired six shots, striking Shaw multiple times. The officer, who was wearing a vest, was able to radio to the 911 center that he had been shot. He tried to stand up before he fell down and was not able to return fire, Peck told reporters. \n \n The surveillance footage shows Holt running toward the back of a building and into an alley after he shot Shaw, the affidavit said. \n \n The 25-year-old officer, who had been with the New Kensington Police Department for less than a year, died at a hospital less than an hour later. The affidavit said he had multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. \n \n Police later found the SUV not far from where the shooting occurred. The suspected driver, 27-year-old Tavon Jamere Harper, was arrested over the weekend and is facing fleeing and drug-related charges, court records show. Harper told investigators that he was accompanying Holt when Shaw tried to pull them over. After Holt leaped out, Harper said he kept driving, \u201cclipping\u201d Holt as he fled, the affidavit said. \n \n Peck said investigators received information from \u201cvarious informants\u201d that led to Holt\u2019s capture. He did not elaborate further. \n \n He said the investigation is still ongoing. The suspect\u2019s weapon has not been found, but Peck said .40-caliber casings were found at the crime scene. Investigators also are still looking for people who had contact with Holt before and after the shooting. \n \n It also remains unclear why Shaw tried to pull over the SUV. \n \n Videos and photos taken by local media Tuesday show Holt wearing a black hooded jacket as he was being led by officers to a small courthouse, where he was arraigned. Jail records show Holt is being held without bail. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that he would hire a private attorney. \n \n Westmoreland Detective Ray Dupilka and New Ken police Chief Jim Klein spoke briefly before they led suspect Rahmael Holt to his arraignment on homicide charges. pic.twitter.com/6UVwSDdKAU \u2014 Renatta Signorini (@ByRenatta) November 21, 2017 \n \n Multiple law enforcement agencies and several residents had offered a total of $55,000 to anyone who could provide information leading to Holt\u2019s capture. Authorities have not said if that money has been awarded to anyone. \n \n Speaking briefly at the news conference Tuesday, New Kensington Police Chief James Klein said Holt\u2019s capture would allow him and his police officers to finally start grieving. \n \n \u201cOur officers are dedicated to providing the best possible service to protect you and keep you safe. There\u2019s no better example than Officer Brian Shaw who gave his life serving this community,\u201d Klein said, taking deep breaths and pausing several times mid-sentence. \u201cI promise you that officers will continue to serve with the same honor that Brian did.\u201d \n \n Klein, as he did in previous news conferences, spoke only for a few minutes and did not take any questions from reporters. \n \n \u201cAt this time, it is important for me to spend time with the Shaw family,\u201d he said. \n \n He also asked reporters to refrain from contacting the officer\u2019s family, thanked them and left the news conference before it was over. \n \n [Slain border agent may have been beaten to death by rocks in \u2018grisly scene,\u2019 union leader says] \n \n Holt has a lengthy criminal history that stretches back to at least 2007. Court records show he had pleaded guilty to gun and drug charges, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. He does not have a license to carry a firearm, the affidavit said. \n \n Shaw left behind his parents, a brother, a grandmother and his girlfriend, according to his obituary. \n \n He loved working out, hunting and playing with his dogs, Satie May and Gus. He was also a fan of sports and enjoyed playing soccer and football. \n \n Shaw graduated from the Allegheny County Police Academy. He worked as a part-time officer for three other towns before he joined the New Kensington Police Department, the Associated Press reported. \n \n \n \n Shaw\u2019s parents, Stephan and Lisa Shaw, watch while their son\u2019s casket is moved into the Rusiewicz Funeral Home in Lower Burrell, Pa., on Nov. 18. (Pam Panchak/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via AP) \n \n He attended Burrell High School and Slippery Rock University, where he received a bachelor\u2019s degree in criminal justice and played football for four years. \n \n \u201cOur hearts are broken this morning as we mourn the loss of former Rock football player Brian Shaw, who was killed last night while serving as a police officer in New Kensington,\u201d the university\u2019s athletics department said Saturday on Twitter. \u201cOur thoughts and prayers are with the Shaw family and The Rock football brotherhood.\u201d \n \n A procession to move Shaw\u2019s body to the Rusiewicz Funeral Home in Lower Burrell, Pa., where the officer lived, took place Saturday morning. Residents, many of whom carried American flags, and firefighters, all wearing their gear, waited on the streets to pay their respects. \n \n \n \n People line the street during the procession of slain New Kensington police officer Brian Shaw in Lower Burrell, Pa., on Nov. 18. (Nate Smallwood/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, via AP) \n \n Read more: \n \n Man accused of fatally shooting a Missouri police officer during a traffic stop has been arrested \n \n Parolee\u2019s anger at police may have led to shooting \n \n \u2018I\u2019m not playing, Mister Officer\u2019: Gunman appears to complain about police mistreatment in video months before shooting NYPD officer ||||| Brian David Shaw December 30, 1991 - November 17, 2017 \n \n \n \n Share this obituary \n \n Brian David Shaw \n \n Age 25, of Lower Burrell died Friday November 17, in 2017 in his line of duty as a New Kensington Police Officer. He was born in Pittsburgh on December 30, 1991 to Stephan A. Sr. and Lisa J. Kristofik Shaw and has been a life long resident of Lower Burrell. \n \n Brian was a 2010 graduate of Burrell High School and attended Slippery Rock University where he was the place kicker for four years. He graduated with a bachelor\u2019s degree in criminal justice then graduated from Allegheny County Police Academy. He worked as a police officer for the New Kensington Police Department and had previously worked East Deer, Frazier, and Cheswick Police Departments. He was a member of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, New Kensington and the F.O.P. Lodge 39. He enjoyed working out, soccer, football, hunting, playing with his dogs Satie Mae and Gus and was a fan of all sports. He will always be remembered for his charismatic, outgoing personality and addictive smile. \n \n In addition to his parents he is survived by his brother Steffan Shaw of Plum Boro., maternal grandmother Bernadine Kristofik of New Kensington, girlfriend Haylee Oliver of Lower Burrell and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. \n \n \n \n He was preceded in death by his grandparents Lillie and Donald Berkoben and Frank Kristofik. \n \n \n \n Friends will be received Monday and Tuesday from 1-4 and 6-8 PM at THE RUSIEWICZ OF LOWER BURRELL FUNERAL HOME, 3124 Leechburg Road at Alder Street where Prayers of Transfer will be said Wednesday 9:15 AM followed by Christian Funeral Mass at 10 AM in Mount St. Peter Church, New Kensington. The F.O.P. will conduct services at 8 PM Tuesday in the funeral home. \n \n Donations may be made to the First National Bank, c/o Officer Brian Shaw Memorial Fund,110 Burrell Plaza, Lower Burrell, PA 15068 \n \n www.RusiewiczFH.com", "summary": "\u2013 Police have identified a suspect in the tragic shooting of a rookie officer in western Pennsylvania. Per CNN, authorities named Rahmael Sal Holt, 29, as the alleged gunman who killed officer Brian Shaw Friday during a traffic stop turned foot chase. Details about the incident are still unfolding, including why Holt was pulled over and how many gunshots were fired, the Washington Post reports. A warrant for Holt\u2019s arrest has been issued. \u201cConsider Holt armed and dangerous!\u201d Pennsylvania State Police warned in a tweet calling for tips. A $40,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the suspect\u2019s arrest as a manhunt is under way (the money was reportedly pooled from multiple agencies, including the FBI.) \"If you look back in the history of many horrific incidents, a very small, minute tip could be the tipping point to lead us in a direction of who the person was that committed this crime,\u201d said a Pennsylvania State Police spokesman. The Allegheny County Police Department offered condolences to Shaw\u2019s family and colleagues in a Facebook post, writing, \u201cYour life mattered and you will be missed.\u201d Shaw, 25, had been on the force for under a year. According to his obituary, he is survived by his parents, brother, grandmother, and girlfriend. \u201cHe will always be remembered for his charismatic, outgoing personality and addictive smile,\u201d it said."}
{"document": "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers says an article in The New York Times on Benghazi doesn\u2019t square with intelligence assessments about last year\u2019s attacks on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city. \n \n \n \n Appearing on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d the Michigan Republican declined to answer when asked by host Chris Wallace whether The Times story was designed to exonerate Hillary Clinton, who was the secretary of state at the time of the attacks. \n \n \n \n \u201cI find the timing odd,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to speculate on why they might do it.\u201d \n \n \n \n In a story published online Saturday, The Times said it had \u201cturned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault\u201d and that the attacks were, in fact, \u201cfueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.\u201d \n \n \n \n Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, said intelligence assessments indicate that Al Qaeda was involved in the attacks. But, he said, The Times story \u201cadds some valuable insights.\u201d \n \n \n \n \u201cIt is a complex picture,\u201d he said. \n \n Read more about: Hillary Clinton, Mike Rogers, Benghazi ||||| poster=\"https://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201312/81/1155968404_2990356625001_video-still-for-video-2989614297001.jpg?pubId=1155968404\" true Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Sunday during an interview with NBC's 'Meet the Press' defended his past statements on Benghazi in response to a New York Times story. Issa on defense over Benghazi statements \n \n Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Sunday defended his past statements on Benghazi in response to a New York Times story that said it had \u201cturned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.\u201d \n \n \u201cThere is a group that was involved that claims an affiliation with Al Qaeda,\u201d the California Republican said on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d insisting that he was accurate in his past assertion that Al Qaeda was involved in the attacks. \n \n Issa\u2019s committee has been investigating last year\u2019s assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the congressman has repeatedly slammed the Obama administration for its handling of the issue. \n \n (Also on POLITICO: Rogers knocks NYT over Benghazi) \n \n On Sunday, \u201cMeet the Press\u201d host David Gregory asked Issa to respond to The Times story, which was published online Saturday. The story also said the Benghazi attacks were \u201cfueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.\u201d \n \n \u201cWe have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi,\u201d Issa said Sunday. \u201cPeople from this administration \u2026 have said under oath there was no evidence of any reaction to a video. \n \n \u201cWhat we know, David, is the initial reports did not name this video as the prime cause,\u201d he added. \n \n Issa also commended The Times for doing \u201csome very good work\u201d in its reporting on the issue. ||||| Lieberman stands by Obamacare vote \n \n Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday that, knowing what he knows today, he still would have voted for Obamacare. \n \n \u201cThe rollout of Obamacare has been bad,\u201d Lieberman acknowledged on \u201cFox News Sunday.\u201d But, he said, the status quo before Obamacare was also bad. \n \n \u201cThe best thing that could happen now is for both parties to sit down and figure out how to fix the current system,\u201d he said. \n \n Lieberman, a former Democratic vice presidential candidate, retired from the Senate as an independent. \n \n Austin Wright is a defense reporter for Politico. ||||| Dean predicts more Obamacare problems \n \n Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean acknowledged on Sunday that Obamacare would suffer additional setbacks as it continues rolling out next year \u2014 but, he said, ultimately the health care overhaul \u201cwill work.\u201d \n \n \u201cThere are going to be problems,\u201d Dean said on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d explaining that the Obama administration was having trouble getting young, healthy people to sign up for health care plans \u2014 an issue that could drive up costs. \n \n \u201cThe data does show that less healthy people are signing up,\u201d he said. \u201cYounger people are signing up less frequently than hoped.\u201d \n \n Dean, a physician who formerly chaired the Democratic National Committee, also defended Obamacare and knocked its critics, accusing them of \u201chyperbole\u201d and saying they \u201clook incredibly partisan.\u201d \n \n \u201cI think the first year is going to be more successful than most people think,\u201d he said. \n \n Dean sparred on Sunday with Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who said the health care plans offered under Obamacare are \u201cvery, very narrow\u201d and \u201cexclude a lot of specialists.\u201d ||||| Navarro: Senate GOP won't get 'Lugared' again \n \n Senate Republicans have learned their lesson since their colleague, Dick Lugar, was felled by a tea party challenger in Indiana in 2012, GOP commentator Ana Navarro said Sunday on CNN's \"State of the Union.\" \n \n Several Republican incumbents - including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike Enzi of Wyoming - are facing challenges from the right in next year's midterm elections. \n \n \"I think you're going to see them win their primaries because they're taking it seriously, they're campaigning hard, they're raising the money and they're doing what they have to do,\" Navarro said. \"They're not about to get Richard Lugared.\" \n \n \"They see it coming now,\" said host Candy Crowley. \n \n Cited as one indicator of congressional Republicans' changing frame of mind: House Speaker John Boehner's \"Are you kidding me?\" moment, when he was discussing outside groups' support \u2014 and low expectations \u2014 for the government shutdown earlier this year. \n \n Republicans need to net six seats to take back control of the Senate in 2014. ||||| Sen. Ted Cruz is unapologetic for what he acknowledges was a \u201cwhirlwind\u201d first year as a senator. \n \n \u201cThis is a city where it\u2019s all politics all the time. And I\u2019m trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems,\u201d the Texas Republican said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d \n \n \u201cReally,\u201d interjected ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl, who did the interview. \n \n \u201cI know it\u2019s hard to believe,\u201d Cruz went on, \u201cbecause no one in this town does that. This is a time for people to step up and do the right thing. And that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do.\u201d \n \n Read more about: Ted Cruz, Jonathan Karl", "summary": "\u2013 Congressmembers took turns today swinging at yesterday's New York Times report that al-Qaeda wasn't involved in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, with Darrell Issa defending his past statements implicating the terror group. \"There is a group that was involved that claims an affiliation with al-Qaeda,\" he said, per Politico. Of the Times' conclusion that the attack was \"fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam,\" Issa countered, saying, \"We have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi. People from this administration \u2026 have said under oath there was no evidence of any reaction to a video.\" Democrat Adam Schiff of California stood by Qaeda's involvement, but said the Times report \"adds some valuable insights,\" reports Politico. \"It is a complex picture.\" Said Michigan Republican Mike Rogers, \"I find the timing odd. I don\u2019t want to speculate on why (the NYT) might do it.\" Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: Ted Cruz on his 'whirlwind' first year: \"This is a city where it\u2019s all politics all the time. And I\u2019m trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems. I know it\u2019s hard to believe, because no one in this town does that. This is a time for people to step up and do the right thing. And that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do.\" Howard Dean on ObamaCare: \"There are going to be problems. The data does show that less healthy people are signing up. Younger people are signing up less frequently than hoped.\" Critics, however, are guilty of \"hyperbole\" and \"look incredibly partisan,\" and \"the first year is going to be more successful than most people think.\" GOP commentator Ana Navarro on GOP incumbents vs. the Tea Party: \"I think you're going to see them win their primaries because they're taking it seriously, they're campaigning hard, they're raising the money and they're doing what they have to do. They're not about to get Richard Lugared.\" Joe Lieberman says he would still vote for ObamaCare: \"The rollout of ObamaCare has been bad,\" as was the status quo. \"The best thing that could happen now is for both parties to sit down and figure out how to fix the current system.\""}
{"document": "Some people frequently check and re-check their mobile phones. Once this impulse is triggered, it may be more a question of not being able to leave the device alone than actually hoping to gain some reward from it. These insights are drawn from a study1 by psychologists Henry Wilmer and Jason Chein of Temple University in the US and are published in Springer's journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Their findings shed light on the reasons why some people are so attached to their smartphones and mobile technology, while others are less so. \n \n A better understanding of the impact of smartphone and mobile technology usage is needed to assess the potential problems associated with heavy use. Although these electronic devices are playing an increasingly pervasive role in our daily activities, little research has been done about a possible link between usage behaviour and specific mental processes and traits. Therefore, Wilmer and Chein set out to determine if people who report heavier mobile technology use might also have different tendencies towards delaying gratification than others, or might exhibit individual differences in impulse control and in responding to rewards. \n \n Ninety-one undergraduate students completed a battery of questionnaires and cognitive tests. They indicated how much time they spent using their phones for social media purposes, to post public status updates, and to simply check their devices. Each student's tendency to delay gratification in favour of larger, later rewards (their so-called intertemporal preference) was also assessed. They were given hypothetical choices between a smaller sum of money offered immediately or a larger sum to be received at a later time. Participants also completed tasks that assessed their ability to control their impulses. Finally, participants' tendencies to pursue rewarding stimuli were also assessed. \n \n The results provide evidence that people who constantly check and use their mobile devices throughout the day are less apt to delay gratification. \n \n \"Mobile technology habits, such as frequent checking, seem to be driven most strongly by uncontrolled impulses and not by the desire to pursue rewards,\" says Wilmer, who adds that the findings provide correlational evidence that increased use of portable electronic devices is associated with poor impulse control and a tendency to devalue delayed rewards. \n \n \"The findings provide important insights regarding the individual difference factors that relate to technology engagement,\" adds Chein. \"These findings are consistent with the common perception that frequent smartphone use goes hand in hand with impatience and impulsivity.\" ||||| Are you the type to respond to every single text ASAP? Or are you capable of putting your smartphone down for hours and forget about its flashing blue light? A new study suggests that the more people check their devices, the more impulsive they are in their everyday lives. \n \n Two researchers from Temple University had 91 undergraduates fill out a questionnaire assessing how often they used their phones to update social media, browse the Internet, or interact with friends. Then they tested students' ability to delay gratification (aka wait) by asking them whether they'd prefer a small sum of money right now or a large sum anywhere from a few days to a year from the immediate moment. \n \n Advertisement - Continue Reading Below \n \n The researchers also assessed students' sensitivity to rewards by having them rate how greatly they identified with statements like, \"I'll try anything once,\" and, \"I like wild and uninhibited parties.\" Finally, they ranked students' impulsivity by placing them at a computer and asking them to press a button whenever an \"x\" popped up on the screen but resist pressing a button whenever they saw a \"k.\" (The more participants hit buttons when they weren't supposed to, the less impulse control the researchers concluded they had.) \n \n Impatient undergrads \u2014 the ones least interested in waiting more than a day to get a hypothetical amount of money \u2014 were more likely to be preoccupied with their smartphones on a regular basis. Those who had a harder time controlling impulses to press buttons were also more tethered to their devices. Surprisingly, students' sensitivity to rewards didn't appear to be an influence on their phone-checking habits. \n \n The more compulsively you check your smartphone, the more impulsive and impatient you probably are. And not just when it comes to technology. (Other studies have found similar parallels between how compulsively people check their cellphones and how negatively it can impact their well-being.) \n \n If you're the type to never let a retweet remain un-liked or a friend request go unnoticed, take a peek at some other areas of your life. If you're having trouble reining in urges \u2014 to, say, eat the whole pint of ice cream, resist ordering one more round, or flip out at a coworker or friend \u2014 it may be time to take a break from your smartphone and start practicing some self-regulation. \n \n Follow Katherine on Twitter. ||||| Mobile electronic devices are playing an increasingly pervasive role in our daily activities. Yet, there has been very little empirical research investigating how mobile technology habits might relate to individual differences in cognition and affect. The research presented in this paper provides evidence that heavier investment in mobile devices is correlated with a relatively weaker tendency to delay gratification (as measured by a delay discounting task) and a greater inclination toward impulsive behavior (i.e., weaker impulse control, assessed behaviorally and through self-report) but is not related to individual differences in sensitivity to reward. Analyses further demonstrated that individual variation in impulse control mediates the relationship between mobile technology usage and delay of gratification. Although based on correlational results, these findings lend some backing to concerns that increased use of portable electronic devices could have negative impacts on impulse control and the ability to appropriately valuate delayed rewards. \n \n Keywords Cognitive and attentional control Impulse control Reward sensitivity Technology \n \n Electronic devices have become more and more portable and convenient, providing nearly constant (and ever more efficient) access to the Internet and a diverse range of software applications and digital media. With this ease of access, technology is playing an increasingly large role in our mental lives, serving as a form of \u201cextended cognition\u201d (Barr, Pennycook, Stolz, & Fugelsang, 2015; Clark & Chalmers, 2002; Clayton, Leshner, & Almond, 2015). This situation can be viewed as a double-edged sword: although it allows us to communicate, learn, and entertain ourselves, it also makes it difficult to avoid doing so\u2014even when engaging with technology is likely to detract from other ongoing activities. Notifications built into smartphones and other e-devices can intrude on three of our five senses, with lights, tones, and vibrations each beckoning us to extricate ourselves from our current tasks and engage instead with the device. Even in the absence of notifications, internal and external cues (a thought about work or a social relationship, something brushing against your pocket, noticing others on their phones, etc.) provide regular reminders of the opportunity to engage with the digital world. \n \n These constant notifications and cues, and the relative immediacy with which we can acquire information and satisfy specific desires by responding to them, may alter our basic cognitive and affective functioning. Regular intrusions into ongoing cognition present a challenge to the self-regulatory, cognitive control processes that support the maintenance of goal-directed behaviors. And, by offering an often-gratifying escape from ongoing tasks, engagement with e-devices may occupy basic reward-related processes and even impact the fundamental mechanisms through which we valuate and process rewards (Atchley & Warden, 2012). Indeed, some have argued that today\u2019s youth\u2014referred to at times in the popular media as the \u201cNow Generation\u201d and \u201cGeneration C\u201d (for \u201cConnected\u201d; \u201cIntroducing Generation C,\u201d 2012), having grown up in an era in which mobile technology is omnipresent, possess an especially strong need for instant gratification, which has diminished their ability to plan effectively for the future (Muther, 2013). Such assertions are part of a larger movement generally espousing the ills of technology access and use (Bauerlein, 2008; Ellison, 2012; Greenfield, 2013; Sutter, 2012). Unfortunately, most of the relevant assertions (e.g., today\u2019s youth are more immediacy oriented) are based principally on anecdote, while empirical evidence regarding any relationship between technology habits and delay of gratification (or other aspects of cognition) is still quite limited. Some foundational work, such as that of Atchley and Warden (2012), shows a close parallel between the willingness to delay the receipt of monetary rewards and to delay responding to informational prompts (to text or call someone back). These findings indicate that technology behaviors can be understood in terms of frequently researched decision-making processes (i.e., intertemporal preference), though the specific mechanisms that are most directly linked to regular technology use remain poorly understood. \n \n Prior research on intertemporal preference (Kalenscher & Pennartz, 2008; Peters & B\u00fcchel, 2011; van den Bos & McClure, 2013) has established that individual differences in the inclination to forego a smaller near-term reward in favor of a larger delayed reward (i.e., to delay gratification) relates to the behavior of two interacting systems: one governing the capacity to control impulses and the other influencing the individual\u2019s sensitivity to immediately available rewards (McClure, Laibson, Loewenstein, & Cohen, 2004). Put differently, the tendency to seek immediate gratification can be explained either by weak impulse control (i.e., the inability to withhold a reactive or reflexive response in favor of more deliberative actions; Ainslie, 1975) or greater immediate reward sensitivity (i.e., the tendency to seek out novel or rewarding sensations and to experience greater sensation upon acquiring a reward; Carver & White, 1994). \n \n As the opportunities for technology use have grown, so too has a body of literature investigating the resultant cognitive and behavioral impacts (cf. Baumgartner, Weeda, van der Heijden, & Huizinga, 2014; Minear, Brasher, McCurdy, Lewis, & Younggren, 2013; Ralph, Thomson, Seli, Carriere, & Smilek, 2014; Wang & Tchernev, 2012). Understandably, a significant area of focus in recent research is the safety implications of using a cellphone while driving (e.g. Atchley, Atwood, & Boulton, 2011; Strayer & Drews, 2007). For example, work in this field has demonstrated that individuals who have a tendency to text on their cellphones while driving show a steeper discounting function compared to those who do not (Hayashi, Russo, & Wirth, 2015). That is, those who more frequently engage in this dangerous behavior are also generally less inclined to delay gratification in favor of a larger, later reward. This work shows that at least one technology-related habit\u2014texting while driving\u2014is related to variation in intertemporal preference. Whether this relationship arises from individual differences in impulse control or reward sensitivity (or some other correlated variable), and whether it generalizes to other mobile technology habits, remains undetermined. \n \n Additional clues come from work by Pearson, Murphy, and Doane (2013) and Sanbonmatsu, Strayer, Medeiros-Ward, and Watson (2013). As in the aforementioned studies, Pearson and colleagues examined cell-phone use while driving, and explored possible relationships with individual traits that are related to impulse control and reward sensitivity (using the Urgency Premeditation Perseverance Sensation Seeking Impulsive Behavior Scale [UPPS]; Whiteside & Lynam, 2001). Likewise, Sanbonmatsu et al. (2013) asked participants to report how often they used their cellphones while driving, assessed a broader facet of technology engagement captured by the Media Multitasking Index (Ophir, Nass, & Wagner, 2009), and also examined trait impulsivity (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Version 11; Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995) and sensation seeking (Sensation Seeking Scale; Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978). In both studies, a significant relationship was found between the assessed technology habits and the individual trait questionnaires. \n \n These findings encourage the conclusion that personality variables related to both impulsivity and reward processing are relevant factors in mobile technology use. Still, some concern has been raised about the specificity, utility, and reliability of the particular questionnaires used in those studies (Gray & Wilson, 2007; Zuckerman, 2007). For instance, as noted by Zuckerman (1996; see also Zuckerman, 2007) the original Sensation Seeking Scale contains a number of \u201canachronistic\u201d questions and may be too narrowly focused on specific contextualized activities; limitations also adopted (in revised form) into the UPPS. Zuckerman and colleagues have since constructed a revised scale meant to better capture overall sensation seeking (Zuckerman, Kuhlman, Joireman, Teta, & Kraft, 1993). Subsequently, Steinberg et al. (2008) introduced the use of only a carefully selected subset of questions from the revised scale to disentangle impulsivity and reward/sensation seeking. \n \n In our pursuit of the question of what motivates smartphone usage, we hoped to delineate in a single study the interrelationships between smartphone usage, delay of gratification, impulse control, and reward sensitivity. In so doing, we first sought to develop a survey instrument with a focus on smartphone usage. Researchers have already developed a large number of self-report indices of technology use (Alloway & Alloway, 2012; Jacobsen & Forste, 2011; Junco, 2012; Ophir et al., 2009), but there exists little consensus on which instruments most aptly capture relevant individual differences. One recent, and already widely deployed, measure of technology usage is the aforementioned Media Multitasking Index. While media multitasking is certainly an important aspect of technology use, this instrument focuses on only this facet of technology-related behavior (multitasking with technology) and does not isolate the type of usage that differentiates smartphones from other technology (short, frequent usage throughout the day). Thus, we sought to develop an ecumenical, but still targeted, assessment of personal mobile technology device usage. \n \n With this assessment, we sought to determine if individuals who reported heavier mobile technology use also exhibit a differential tendency to delay gratification, as measured by performance on a \u201cdelay discounting\u201d task. Merely establishing a relationship between technology habits and delay of gratification would not be sufficient to clarify the factors that drive this relationship, whether differences in impulse control or differences in reward processing. So, we further assessed individual differences in both impulse control and reward sensitivity to determine which, if either, of these variables mediates the relationship between technology engagement and delay of gratification. To avoid the pitfalls of relying on individual, and potentially conflated, questionnaire instruments, we followed Steinberg et al. (2008) in using a validated subset of questions from existing questionnaires (as explained in the Method section), and additionally collected responses from secondary measures of both impulse control and reward sensitivity in order to develop construct-level estimates of each variable. \n \n Method Participants Participants were 91 undergraduate students (71.4 % female; age M = 20.05, SD = 2.19) who completed a battery of questionnaires and cognitive tests. The sample was racially (59.3 % self-identified as Caucasian or white, 15.4 % as African American or black, 14.3 % as Asian, 1.1 % as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 3.3 % as more than one race, and 6.6 % declined to respond) and ethnically (4.4 % self-identified as Hispanic) diverse. All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board at Temple University, and participants were given course credit for participation. Measures Technology engagement We created a technology engagement scale with the purpose of indexing mobile technology usage.1 By assessing self-reported behaviors regarding different facets of mobile technology, we hoped to create an index that could characterize individual technology engagement patterns while not being overly biased by any one technology-related habit. The three components of this scale were brief self-report questionnaires assessing (1) phone-based social media use, (2) frequency of public status updating, and (3) phone-checking behavior. Phone-based social media use was determined by the participants\u2019 responses to three Likert-style questions about their daily usage of various mobile social media applications (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat). Frequency of posting public status updates was determined by the participants\u2019 response to a single question, \u201cHow often do you post public status updates?\u201d Phone-checking behavior was determined by the average response of participants\u2019 answers to three Likert-style questions: \u201cHow often do you check your phone for new activity?\u201d, \u201cHow often do you find yourself checking your phone when you have a few moments to spare?\u201d, and \u201cHow often do you find yourself checking your phone during conversations or when hanging around with friends?\u201d The study sample indicated acceptable internal reliability for this construct (\u03b1 = .65). To further explore the validity of this technology engagement scale, we also gathered, from a subset of our participants, information regarding their technology multitasking habits using the Media Multitasking Index (MMI; Ophir et al., 2009) and examined correlations between the Technology Engagement scale and the MMI. The MMI provides an estimate of the amount of time one spends multitasking with various forms of media. In the standard form, participants are asked to estimate the total number of hours they spend engaging in 12 different forms of media (e.g., watching television, playing video games, talking on the phone, instant messaging) and to specify, across a series of pages (one for each media type), the degree to which they use each media technology concurrently with each of the other media formats (i.e., engage in media multitasking). The MMI score is an aggregated score based on the sum total of multitasking habits (specific calculation is described in Ophir et al., 2009). For expediency, in the present study we created a matrix-style version of the MMI (see supplemental online information), which allowed participants to detail their media multitasking habits on a single computerized form rather than across a series of repeated forms pertaining to each media type. Intertemporal preference We assessed individual differences in the tendency to delay gratification in favor of larger, later, rewards using a delay discounting task (O\u2019Brien, Albert, Chein, & Steinberg, 2011). In the delay discounting task, participants were asked to make hypothetical choices between a smaller sum of money offered now versus a larger sum of money (always $1,000) offered at six different delays, ranging from 1 day to 1 year. The smaller sum of money offered was varied systematically, until the participant reached an indifference point\u2014the value at which the subjective value of the smaller immediate offer matched the subjective value of the larger ($1,000) delayed offer (Ohmura, Takahashi, Kitamura, & Wehr, 2006). Participants completed 10 trials at each delay interval. Using this data, we calculated each individual\u2019s discount rate (k) as well as their indifference points at each delay. As is commonly done, a natural log transformation was applied to all k values in order to reduce skewness to an acceptable level. While we investigated indifference points at each delay, based on previous experience with this task (O\u2019Brien et al., 2011; Weigard, Chein, Albert, Smith, & Steinberg, 2014) we expected the responses to the longer delays to have the greatest individual subject variance. Thus, the longest two delays (6 months and 1 year) were averaged and taken as a more sensitive index of individual variation in immediacy orientation. Reward sensitivity Two instruments were used to create a reward sensitivity construct: a subset of questions from Zuckerman\u2019s revised Impulsive Sensation Seeking scale and a subscale of the BIS/BAS questionnaire. The Impulsive Sensation Seeking measure (Zuckerman et al., 1993) is a 19-item self-report questionnaire that intentionally conflates impulsive and sensation-seeking behaviors in order to broadly characterize these personality traits. To isolate sensation seeking, Steinberg et al. (2008) identified a subset of six items from the updated Zuckerman scale that most purely related to this construct (\u201cI like to have new and exciting experiences and sensations, even if they are a little frightening,\u201d \u201cI like doing things just for the thrill of it,\u201d \u201cI sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll try anything once,\u201d \u201cI sometimes do \u2018crazy\u2019 things just for fun,\u201d and \u201cI like wild and uninhibited parties\u201d). These items were answered as either true (coded 1) or false (coded 0), and item scores were averaged to create a mean Sensation Seeking score. This subset of items has been shown to exhibit good internal consistency (\u03b1 = .70; Steinberg et al., 2008). In the current sample, the internal consistency was similarly good (\u03b1 =.73). The BIS/BAS scales are measures of behavioral inhibition and behavioral approach (Carver & White, 1994). For the purposes of the present study, we were primarily concerned with the behavioral approach component (BAS), which is itself comprised three subscales: Fun Seeking, Reward Responsiveness, and Drive. Because we were specifically focused on targeting individual reward sensitivity, only the Reward Responsiveness subscale was used in our analyses. This subscale has been shown to have good internal consistency (\u03b1 = .73; Carver & White, 1994). The present sample indicated acceptable internal consistency (\u03b1 = .68) with this subscale. Impulse control An Impulse Control construct was calculated by taking the average score from two measures, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and false alarm rate on a go/no-go task. The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale is a widely used self-report measure of impulsivity (Patton et al., 1995). Again, based on the findings of Steinberg et al. (2008), we elected to use only 18 items of the full 30-item questionnaire having specificity with respect to impulsive behavior (rather than to sensation seeking). Each item was answered on a 4-point scale (rarely/never, occasionally, often, almost always) and scores were averaged, with higher scores indicative of greater impulsivity. Steinberg et al. (2008) showed that this subset of questions has good internal consistency (\u03b1 = .73). In the current sample, the internal consistency was similarly good (\u03b1 = .75). The go/no-go task used in the current study involved the rapid presentation of a series of go (x) and no-go (k) stimuli. Participants were instructed to give a button press response following each x, but to withhold responding whenever they saw a k stimulus. The stimuli were presented for 250 ms each, followed by an unpredictable ITI ranging between 750 ms and 1,750 ms. In total, 333 stimuli were presented, of which only 50 were no-go trials (ks). These no-go trials were pseudo-randomly interspersed into the series so that a no-go trial was equally often preceded by 1 to 10 prior go trials (five occurrences of each). The entire task lasted just over 8.5 minutes. Normalized scores from both the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and go/no-go measures were inverted so as to reflect impulse control rather than impulsivity (i.e., a higher score on the construct indicated a stronger tendency to control impulsive responses). \n \n Results Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations 1 2 Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation MMI 0.01 7.31 3.22 1.61 Technology engagement Phone-based social media use 4 25 12.32 4.76 Phone-checking behavior -2.72 1.59 -0.03 0.78 Frequency of posting public status updates 1 7 2.36 1.15 Intertemporal Preference (ITP) Mean indifference point 57.43 970.13 489.41 249.03 Impulse control Go /No-Go false alarms 2 44 19.95 8.88 Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 1.22 2.93 2.03 0.37 Reward sensitivity Zuckerman\u2019s Impulsive Sensation Seeking scale 0 1 0.68 0.29 BAS-reward 13 20 16.57 1.86 Open image in new window Basic descriptive statistics for each measure are provided in Table, and correlations between individual measures are shown in Table. To verify the validity of our Technology Engagement scale, we first examined the bivariate correlation between normalized scores on this scale and the MMI scores obtained from a subset of our participants (n = 50). The significant correlation (r = .310, p = .028) indicates that, despite focusing on different aspects of technology use, the two measures explain overlapping variance with respect to general technology habits. Relationship between technology engagement and intertemporal preference 1a Open image in new window A primary aim of the present study was to determine whether there is a relationship between technology use and intertemporal preference. Indeed, we found a significant correlation between individuals\u2019 discounting rate (logk) and their self-reported technology engagement (r = .240, p = .023). Next, we confirmed that the correlation was driven by participants\u2019 responses at the longest 2 delays. As expected, technology engagement scores were highly correlated with the mean indifference points for 6-month and 1-year delays (r = -.286, p = .006; see Fig.), but not for any of the shorter delays (all ps > .05, for the average of indifference points at the shorter delays: r = -.020, p = .849). Relationship between technology engagement, impulse control, and reward sensitivity We next sought to determine whether there was also a relationship between technology engagement and either impulse control or reward sensitivity. Bivariate correlations revealed a significant negative relationship between technology engagement and impulse control (r = -.234, p = .025; see Fig. 1b), indicating that individuals who report more engagement with e-devices tend to exhibit a lack of impulse control. Meanwhile, no such relationship existed between technology engagement and reward sensitivity (r = .052, p = .627; see Fig. 1c). Mediation of the relationship between technology engagement and delay of gratification 2004 2013 2004 2 Open image in new window The pattern of correlations we obtained suggested the possibility that the relationship between technology engagement and intertemporal preference might be specifically mediated by individual variation in impulse control, and not in reward sensitivity. To test this possibility we conducted mediation analyses using the bootstrapping methods delineated by Preacher and Hayes () and utilizing Hayes\u2019 PROCESS Model (Hayes,; Preacher & Hayes,). Each analysis was performed using 10,000 bootstrap resamples to estimate the indirect effect of the proposed mediator variables. The bootstrapping method yields 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) for each proposed mediator and its indirect effect. If zero is not included within an estimated 95 % CI, the indirect effect is taken to be significantly different from zero. In an initial mediation analysis we tested whether impulse control plays a mediating role in the relationship between technology engagement and intertemporal preference. The indirect effect of technology engagement through impulse control yielded a bootstrapped CI that did not include zero (b = .059, 95 % CI [0.005, 0.187]), indicating that impulse control is indeed a significant mediator of the relationship. That is, as shown in Fig., while higher levels of technology engagement are related to a tendency toward accepting a smaller immediate reward, this relationship is due in part to the relationship between technology engagement and impulse control. A further mediation analysis sought to determine whether reward sensitivity mediates the relationship between technology engagement and intertemporal preference. This mediation analysis yielded a bootstrapped CI that included zero, indicating that reward sensitivity is not a mediator in this relationship (b = .012, 95 % CI [-0.037, 0.116]). ||||| An article published by TIME in 2015 reported that on average Americans check their phone 48 times a day, with 18- to 24-year-olds averaging the most at 74 checks a day. Prompted by our growing dependence on technology, a new study published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review seeks to find out why some people are more addicted to their phones than others. \n \n I admit it \u2014 I am guilty of being one of the frequent checkers. Every time there is a Facebook or a Twitter notification I feel a burst of satisfaction. Sometimes, I even click the screen without being prompted by the soft \u201cding\u201d that signals an update. Me and my phone are best buds, and if anything happened to it, I\u2019d be devastated (and that's not just because I can\u2019t afford to replace it). But it seems checking my phone is due to more than seeking a reward or just a modern tic. Psychologists Henry Wilmer and Jason Chein of Temple University believe that frequent phone use is a telling behavior that might say something vital about our impulse control and behavior. \n \n The study, which examined what is driving the impulse to check and recheck our mobile devices, assessed if heavy usage is tied to certain mental functions and traits, such as delayed gratification and impulse control. To do so, 91 college undergrads were put through a volley of cognitive tests and questionnaires. These methods collected data on how much the students checked their phones and posted to social media on a daily basis. \n \n [Embed] \n \n The students were also tested on their ability to delay gratification by answering hypothetical questions about their preference towards receiving a large amount of money in the future or a smaller sum instantly. Tasks which tested their ability to control their impulses, as well as tests which measured their reaction to reward stimuli were also administered. \n \n The evidence from the study suggests that the people who obsessively check their phones are less likely to delay gratification. The tendency to devalue rewards that are not immediate and subpar impulse control are connected to the growing use of portable electronics as well. So, if you're wondering why you are having a hard time editing yourself on social media, perhaps our phone scanning compulsion is partly to blame. \n \n Wilmer described the findings to Springer, \"Mobile technology habits, such as frequent checking, seem to be driven most strongly by uncontrolled impulses and not by the desire to pursue rewards.\" I mean, if you asked if I wanted a small cookie now or a big cookie later, I would DEFINITELY choose the cookie now. \n \n Great, now I've made myself hungry again. \n \n [Embed] \n \n With these always accessible devices we have the world at our fingertips. Dr. Chein, who led the study, warned that there may be a downside to our growing dependence on this technology. \"The findings provide important insights regarding the individual difference factors that relate to technology engagement,\" says Chein. \"These findings are consistent with the common perception that frequent smartphone use goes hand in hand with impatience and impulsivity.\" \n \n Perhaps it's finally time to fight my smartphone addiction with a little digital detox? \n \n [Embed] \n \n Images: Pexels; Giphy", "summary": "\u2013 There's no denying that humans are mad for their cellphones, but some are clearly more attached than others\u2014and scientists now have a clearer understanding of why. Generally speaking, people who constantly check their phones have a problem controlling impulses, period, and they're not so great at delayed gratification, either, reports Bustle. Once a person of this nature checks their phone, it triggers the impulse to keep checking it again and again, even if the reward will be a paltry one, say psychologists Henry Wilmer and Jason Chein of Temple University in a post at Science Daily. They drew the conclusion after putting 91 undergrads through a series of tests that measured how often they checked their phones, how well they controlled their impulses, and whether they'd prefer to receive a small amount of money immediately or a larger sum if they waited a few days to a year. Among other things, Wilmer and Chein found that students who were least interested in waiting for that hypothetical sum of money\u2014in other words, they were impatient\u2014were more likely to check their phones frequently. \"Mobile technology habits, such as frequent checking, seem to be driven most strongly by uncontrolled impulses and not by the desire to pursue rewards,\" Wilmer concludes in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. A post at Cosmopolitan draws a lesson from the research: \"If you're the type to never let a retweet remain un-liked or a friend request go unnoticed, take a peek at some other areas of your life,\" writes Katherine Schreiber. \"If you're having trouble reining in urges\u2014to, say, eat the whole pint of ice cream, resist ordering one more round, or flip out at a coworker or friend\u2014it may be time to take a break from your smartphone and start practicing some self-regulation.\" (Some people have \"ringxiety.\")"}
{"document": "Charlie Sheen gets standing ovation in Chicago's 'Torpedo of Truth' show after Detroit's bombed show \n \n Kersey/AP Charlie Sheen waves to fans as he leaves the Chicago Theatre after getting a standing ovation. \n \n Charlie Sheen got the audience on his side Sunday night as he took his \"Torpedo of Truth\" tour to Chicago. \n \n Fresh off getting panned and slammed by fans Saturday night in Detroit, the fired \"Two and a Half Men\" star sought revenge on the Motor City Sunday night. \n \n He ended up getting a standing ovation. \n \n Sheen kicked off the show at the Chicago Theatre by reading a poem about how much he hates Detroit as the audience chanted, \"Detroit sucks!\" \n \n When an audience member yelled, \"Train wreck,\" Sheen shot back, \"Go back to Detroit, dude.\" \n \n The 45-year-old sobriety-challenged actor pleaded with the crowd not to boo him. They didn't. \n \n Someone in the crowd instead shouted, \"Get naked!\" prompting Sheen to trade shirts with him. \n \n Sheen seemed to have retooled his act after Saturday's debacle. Instead of winging it, he had an anonymous interviewer ask him questions Sunday night. \n \n The actor revealed that the first time he smoked weed was with the late actor Chris Penn. He talked about partying once with Mick Jagger and Eddie Van Halen and owing ex-Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss $2 million - saying he pays for sex because he has millions to spare. \n \n Sheen still got panned by Chicago film critic Richard Roeper, who tweeted from the audience: \"Whatever you're doing right now, including sleeping, it's probably more engaging than this.\" \n \n Online ticket brokers say they've been flooded with people trying to dump their tickets since the star's Saturday show. On StubHub.com, tickets for his New York show at Radio City were plummeting in demand and price. \n \n lalpert@nydailynews.com ||||| Charlie Sheen's life has been lived, at times, as if he were starring in his own reality show, part \"Celebrity Rehab,\" part \"Cribs,\" part \"Howard Stern Show,\" part \"The Girls Next Door.\"If we accept that premise, then Sunday at the Chicago Theatre was the makeover episode.Instead of the disjointed exercise in hero worship he had presented on night one of his theatrical tour in Detroit Saturday, Sheen mostly sat and fielded an interviewer's questions, bantering with the crowd, dropping the F-word, and actually seeming to satisfy, if not amaze, concertgoers.Gone was the dime-store Hunter S. Thompson manifesto he had recited, losing much of the Detroit crowd in his first half-hour on stage. Gone was the raucous banging bass and the videos cobbled together from old movies and YouTube clips about Sheen.And gone, almost entirely, were the boos for the embattled, family-troubled, recently fired, oft-interviewed sitcom star.It was a canny shift of the show's tone, from epic self-aggrandizement to a more casual, at times even likable, persona. We will not go so far as to say \"humble,\" because Saturday's Sheen seemed to be lurking at Sunday's edges, ready to return, especially for a few minutes early on when the 45-year-old actor seemed to be resisting the new stage-show format.While it didn't fully justify $80 main-floor ticket prices, it got the job done. And it gave the tour -- which looked doomed after Saturday -- a format it can work with going forward. The show was still not \"My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option,\" as the tour title promises, but it was at least a forward-moving projectile of moderate dish about celebrity.People outside before the show said they didn't expect magnificence. They just wanted to see and hear Sheen being more or less himself, like in all those TV interviews he's done since his life blew up this spring. And in the Chicago Theatre's interview setting, with Sheen chain-smoking, wearing a shirt borrowed from a guy in the front rows, they got it.They also got some news. Sheen said he would return to \"Two and a Half Men,\" the hit CBS sitcom that fired him after he viciously criticized creator Chuck Lorre. \"If they say 'Here's your job back,' I'll go back to work,\" he said.\"I think it's a great f------ show,\" he said, but his bosses, not so great: \"They didn't give a f--- that I was hammered for eight years money, ratings, money, ratings.\"He apologized to co-star Jon Cryer for having called him a \"troll,\" Sheen's most-used word for his perceived enemies, as things were going south: \"I was wrong. Jon's not a troll. Jon's a rock star.\"He acknowledged being jealous of George Clooney and how Clooney's movies always seem to work, told at least a little bit of what it was like to live with two women, his \"goddesses,\" and saved some special venom for Brooke Mueller, who has been listed as his ex-wife, but whom Sheen said he is still technically married to.Credit Sheen for being willing to dump the show he had planned for his mutlicity tour. And for taking on the Detroit debacle -- in which he was serenaded with chants of \"refund\" -- early and often. \"I had the best f------ time of my life, unlike that death sentence that was Detroit,\" he said at show's end Sunday.The Chicago crowd was ready to please him, too, delivering an unbidden \"Detroit sucks\" chant right away.And give special credit to Sheen's interviewer, former radio deejay Joey Scoleri, a co-producer on the tour who works in marketing for promoter LiveNation. He worked hard to keep the actor on track, telling stories rather than being distracted by noises in the crowd. One of Sheen's biggest problems in Detroit was that he had rabbit ears, only hearing the boos and letting it derail any control he had of the crowd.Sheen would start a story about, say, crack cocaine use, but when not everybody in the Motor City gave him instant adulation and approval, he stopped, only making the crowd's revolt worse.In Detroit, he told the folks in his manifesto that \"it's about to get a lot more radical,\" only to later answer a question about the possibility of another sequel to \"Major League\" (indeed, he said Sunday there will be a \"Major League 3\"). He talked big about telling the truth, the \"REAL story,\" as he put it. But he delivered less insight than you would get were Oprah to interview him.Before the show Sunday, as TV cameras and reporters swarmed the entrance, the mood was one of cautious optimism. Few interviewed before Detroit or Chicago came in with expectations any higher than being able to say they had been there for a potential public implosion. It's a powerful draw.\"I wanted to not go at all, then I read the review (of the Detroit show) this morning and it changed my mind,\" said Bill Termunde, 26, a Wicker Park resident who works in marketing. \"I wanted to see this disaster.\"Termunde and a friend paid $15 for $35 tickets outside the Chicago Theatre from someone who, they said, had made the opposite decision.Sheen was, in a sense, bulletproof. \"I'm not expecting him to do that well, or he wouldn't be Charlie Sheen,\" said Jenna Schaefer, a student at Eastern Illinois University from Gurnee.Said her date, consultant Michael Mock: \"I just want to pretty much see all the interviews I've seen on TV in real life. Tell us what he's done. Tell us about some 7-gram rocks (of cocaine). It's either gonna make history or it's gonna be a great show.\"Inside the theater, the preshow mood was decidedly more mellow than in Detroit; Jimmy Buffett was part of the music. Lines were long for official tour merchandise, including $35 T-shirts that made such proclamations as \"Sheenius\" and \"Bangin' 7Gs.\" The theater listed a drink special called the \"Train Wreck\": $9 for vodka and Red Bull, mostly. It was not, alas, a Sheen-inspired concoction, but something that has long been available there, the server said.Sheen's tour comes on the heels of a tabloid maelstrom during which he was hospitalized after trashing a New York hotel room and again after hosting what sounded like a marathon bender at his home. But through most of that, he continued to hold down his job as star of CBS' \"Two and a Half Men\" just fine. It wasn't until Sheen began insulting his employers, especially the show's creator, Lorre, that production was halted (in late February) and Sheen was fired (in early March).As lawsuits regarding the TV show wait to be settled, Sheen decided to follow the Conan O'Brien model: Take his personality directly to the people. But O'Brien has been running, writing and starring in very funny TV shows for decades. He knows what it takes to entertain crowds. Sheen apparently made the mistake, initially, of believing that his sitcom popularity and subsequent mass Twitter following meant he could do anything.As it turned out, all he had to do was sit back and, with a little guidance, be himself.sajohnson@tribune.com ||||| Charlie Sheen on His Chicago Show: 'I Won' \n \n Email This After an \n \n \n \n The \"winning\" actor said he stayed up until 4:30 Sunday morning re-working his live show, which debuted to \n \n \n \n \"Gotta go with what got you to the dance and give the people what they want,\" the actor said. \"On the bus someone said, 'You know, we could just keep driving to LA.' I said, 'F**k that. That's what losers do. I won.'\" \n \n \n \n Apparently so, since Sheen was greeted with a standing ovation from the Chicago crowd, along with chants of \"Detroit sucks!\" The former 'Two and a Half Men' star decided to ditch everything that didn't work during his first show -- like opening acts and video segments -- and give the audience what they want: Charlie Sheen. \n \n \n \n The actor sat in a chair with a pack of cigarettes as he was interviewed by the tour's co-producer Joey Scoleri -- just like the After an epic fail in Detroit, Charlie Sheen said he \"got back to basics\" for the second show of his 'Torpedo of Truth' tour, according to E! Online The \"winning\" actor said he stayed up until 4:30 Sunday morning re-working his live show, which debuted to boos and heckling Saturday night in Detroit.\"Gotta go with what got you to the dance and give the people what they want,\" the actor said. \"On the bus someone said, 'You know, we could just keep driving to LA.' I said, 'F**k that. That's what losers do. I won.'\"Apparently so, since Sheen was greeted with a standing ovation from the Chicago crowd, along with chants of \"Detroit sucks!\" The former 'Two and a Half Men' star decided to ditch everything that didn't work during his first show -- like opening acts and video segments -- and give the audience what they want: Charlie Sheen.The actor sat in a chair with a pack of cigarettes as he was interviewed by the tour's co-producer Joey Scoleri -- just like the interviews that prompted the bizarre rants that catapulted Sheen further into pop culture fame earlier this year. \n \n \n \n Looks like the second time's the charm for Sheen because the packed show ended as it began -- with a standing ovation from crowd. \n \n http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=691977&pid=691976&uts=1294158078 http://www.popeater.com/mm_track/popeater/music/?s_channel=us.musicpop&s_account=aolpopeater,aolsvc&omni=1&ke=1 http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf PopScene: Week's Hottest Pics Reese Witherspoon keeps her hands in her pockets as she tries to stay warm while out in New York City on January 3rd. X17online X17online \n \n During the show, he talked about marriage -- \"I'm 0-3\" -- and estranged wife Brooke Mueller. \"Nice try, bitch,\" he said of Mueller's attempt to take away his twin sons. \"I got those kids back, didn't I? She sent 9,000 cops to my house looking for drugs and guns. They found one gun from 1848.\"Of course he touched on the 'Two and a Half Men' debacle. \"I didn't walk away from s**t. I got fired,\" he said. \"That's not f**king cool. They didn't give a f**k that I was hammered for eight years ... If they hired me back I'd do it again.\"He also revealed his attempt to add a third \"goddess\" to his group didn't work out so well. \"I tried a third. I did,\" he said. \"You can't keep an eye on the third one. I have two eyes. I have two goddesses. I'm not bipolar. I'm bi-winning.\" ||||| Whoever this guy is questioning Sheen, he's just awful. If you were sitting next to these two guys in a bar, you'd find another table...", "summary": "\u2013 Charlie Sheen may have totally bombed in Detroit, but with a few changes, he managed to score a standing ovation last night in Chicago. Gone was the \"disjointed exercise in hero worship\" from the first night of his Violent Torpedo of Truth tour, writes Steve Johnson in the Chicago Tribune. In its place was Sheen, fielding questions from an interviewer, \"chain-smoking, wearing a shirt borrowed from a guy in the front rows\" ... \"bantering with the crowd, dropping the F-word, and actually seeming to satisfy, if not amaze, concertgoers.\" The result? The boos were nearly entirely gone. The Chicago show shifted the tone \"from epic self-aggrandizement to a more casual, at times even likable, persona.\" Did it justify the $80 ticket price? Not exactly, but \"it got the job done. And it gave the tour\u2014which looked doomed after Saturday\u2014a format it can work with going forward.\" (Even so, the New York Daily News reports that at least one audience member called out \"train wreck\"; noted Chicago film critic Richard Roeper was not impressed.) Click to read more about Sheen's show, which included some nasty comments about one of his babymommas."}
{"document": "A 73-year-old Vietnam veteran paid a high price for a free muffin. \n \n Joe Koblenzer says he was fired by a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Florida after he gave a needy person a corn muffin for free, WWSB reported. \n \n Koblenzer, who had been with the eatery in Sarasota for three years, told the station that he was previously written up twice before the muffin infraction: once for having a fountain drink while on duty, and another time for allegedly giving a woman a free cup of coffee. In the latter instance, Koblenzer says the customer paid for the coffee. \n \n \u201cIt's a rule. They legally can do this because I did break the rule.\" - Joe Koblenzer \n \n Cracker Barrel, however, says the muffin giveaway was Koblenzer\u2019s fifth violation of company policy, which includes not giving away food and not consuming food without paying for it. \n \n Koblenzer told WWSB that on the day he was fired, a man who looked like he may be homeless asked him for mayonnaise and tartar sauce. \n \n \u201cHe said he was going to cook fish,\u201d Koblenzer told the station. \n \n Koblenzer said he got the man the condiments, and added a corn muffin to the bag as he handed it over. \n \n The kindness cost the Vietnam vet his job, but he understands why he was fired. \n \n \n \n \u201cIt's a rule. They legally can do this because I did break the rule. I completely forgot about it. I am a host at Cracker Barrel with a little above minimum wage job, \" Koblenzer told the station. He said he took the job to supplement his monthly Social Security benefits. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m not casting doom and gloom on the company. They did their thing, and now people know about it,\u201d Koblenzer told Fox News. \n \n Was the gesture worth it? \n \n \u201cYes, it was worth it,\" Koblenzer told Fox News. \"I would do it again. A moral issue comes in.\" The veteran says that if Cracker Barrel would have asked him to pay for the muffin, he would have. \n \n Cracker Barrel released the following statement on the matter: \n \n \n \n \u201cMr. Koblenzer has worked as a host at Cracker Barrel\u2019s Sarasota store since April 2011. During the time he was employed, he violated the Company\u2019s policies regarding consuming food without paying or giving away free food, on five separate occasions. Mr. Koblenzer received multiple counselings and written warnings reminding him about the company\u2019s policies and the consequences associated with violating them. On the fifth occasion, again per Company policy, Mr. Koblenzer was terminated. \n \n Cracker Barrel is grateful for and honors Mr. Koblenzer\u2019s service to our country as we honor all service men and women and their families.\u201d \n \n Koblenzer says he is looking for a new job, but is unsure what he will do next. \n \n Click for the story from WWSB-TV. ||||| 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. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites.", "summary": "\u2013 A 73-year-old Vietnam veteran has lost his job for giving a needy man a muffin\u2014and says he doesn't regret his moment of charity, Fox News reports. Joe Koblenzer was working as a Cracker Barrel host in Venice, Fla., when a homeless-looking man came in asking for tartar sauce and mayonnaise. \"He said he was going to cook a fish,\" Koblenzer told WWSB. Koblenzer gave him the condiments and plunked a corn muffin in the bag as well. Soon after, he says, the general manager called him in and \"said he had some bad news for me. 'Joe we are going to have to let you go.'\" Cracker Barrel issued a statement saying this was Koblenzer's fifth time giving away food or consuming it without paying, but Koblenzer says it was only strike three, and one accusation was unfair. Either way, he's now jobless after three years at the company where he earned the highest number of stars on his apron for job performance. He admits to breaking a rule, but says he'd do it again because \"a moral issue comes in.\" The story has gained traction in social media, WWSB notes, and became a hot topic on the restaurant's Facebook page with more than 30 negative comments. \"I feel badly,\" says Koblenzer. \"I would not want that on any company, but it happened.\""}
{"document": "1 of 4. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) and China's Premier Wen Jiabao (R) smile during their meeting at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing August 19, 2011. \n \n CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday rejected views that American power is waning and said Washington would never default, wrapping up a China visit that has played down tensions between the world's two biggest economies. \n \n \"We are still the single best bet in the world, in terms of where to invest,\" Biden told a university audience in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, the southwest province that is the second and last stop of his visit to China. \n \n \"Please understand that no one cares more about this than we do, since Americans own 87 percent of all our financial assets and 69 percent of all our treasury bonds,\" Biden said, answering a question about U.S. debt. \n \n \"So our interest is not just to protect Chinese investment. We have an overarching interest in protecting the investment, while the United States has never defaulted and never will default.\" \n \n \"You're safe,\" he added. \n \n Biden also used his speech to renew U.S. calls for Beijing to do more to rein in North Korea and Iran, whose nuclear ambitions have alarmed the West. \n \n \"The fact is, China and the United States face many of the same threats and share many of the same objectives and responsibilities,\" he said. \n \n But his key theme was, as it has been throughout his five-day visit to China, economic: that the United States can reverse its high debt and low growth, and that China should play a part by buying more American-made goods and services. \n \n \"I also know that some of you are skeptical about America's future prospects. With that in view, I would like to suggest that I respectfully disagree with that view and will allay your concerns,\" said Biden. \n \n He told the audience to remember that the United States was by far the largest economy in the world, about two and a half times as large as China's. \n \n Biden and President Barack Obama, both Democrats, face re-election next year. Biden said the debate with Republicans over how to tackle U.S. fiscal problems would be at the heart of the 2012 presidential election. \n \n Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is virtually certain to succeed Hu Jintao as Chinese President in early 2013, has hosted Biden during this visit. Obama administration officials have said they want to build trust with Xi ahead of the transition that begins in late 2012, when Hu gives up his post as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party. \n \n Next year would need careful political footwork from both governments, said Biden. \n \n \"Both our countries are going through a political transition in 2012. It is very important, in my view, that we both are aware of the political sensitivities in each of the countries as they go through that,\" he said. \n \n \"NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT\" \n \n Sichuan province is a fast-growing example of the inland development that Beijing hopes will power the Chinese economy in coming decades -- and also a slice of the rising consumer power that Washington hopes will buy more U.S. goods and reduce a huge trade deficit with China. \n \n With 80 million people, Sichuan enjoyed economic growth of 15.1 percent last year, according to government statistics. \n \n Such economic concerns have dominated Biden's visit to China, which began on Wednesday, and has featured a succession of unusually vocal declarations of Beijing's confidence in the U.S. economy, despite Standard & Poor's recent downgrade of the sovereign credit rating of the United States. \n \n China has quarreled with the United States on trade, Internet censorship, human rights and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. While those thorny disputes have not disappeared, they appear to have been overtaken by a shared desire to show confidence and cooperation to a jittery global economy. \n \n In Sichuan, Biden raised human rights in general terms. \n \n \"Liberty unlocks a people's full potential, and in its absence, unrest festers,\" he told the university audience. \n \n Biden told Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday that China had \"nothing to worry about\" over the safety of its holdings of Treasury debt, and Wen voiced confidence in the resilience of the U.S. economy, troubled by debt worries and sluggish growth. \n \n Analysts estimate two thirds of China's $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, are in dollar holdings, making it the biggest U.S. foreign creditor. \n \n Biden will fly to Mongolia on Monday morning for a day before heading onto Japan. \n \n (Writing and additional reporting by Chris Buckley and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa) ||||| U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's head is framed by the teleprompter as he delivers a speech at Sichuan University in Chengdu in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011. Biden says... (Associated Press) \n \n U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's head is framed by the teleprompter as he delivers a speech at Sichuan University in Chengdu in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011. Biden says... (Associated Press) \n \n Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that the United States and China need to recognize their mutual global concerns and responsibilities and ensure greater fairness in trade and investment conditions. \n \n Biden brought a strong message of mutual interdependence on his visit to the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu on the final day of a five-day visit to the world's second-largest economy and a key U.S. trading partner. \n \n \"The more we can work together, the more our people can benefit ... the more the world can benefit,\" Biden told students in a speech at Sichuan University. \n \n Biden emphasized the frequent exchanges between President Barack Obama and China's Hu Jintao along with government officials in the political and economic field. He said there needed to be more exchanges between their civilian and military leaders over security issues, especially on cybersecurity and maritime issues where the sides view matters from different perspectives. \n \n \"The fact is, China and the United States face many of the same threats and share many of the same objectives and responsibilities,\" Biden said. \"Our generals should be talking to each other as frequently as our diplomats.\" \n \n Biden said both countries need global stability, which includes preventing Iran and North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons. He also reasserted that the U.S. will remain a Pacific nation in future, saying that the American presence had benefited regional stability and allowed China to focus on economic development. \n \n \"Asia and the United States are not separated by this great ocean. We are bound by it,\" he said. \n \n Biden said he recognized frustrations among many Chinese businessmen and officials at the length of time needed to obtain visas to visit the U.S. and said Washington was working on improvements. \n \n But he said U.S. companies continue to face major investment barriers in China, a frequent complaint among the business community here. He said U.S. businesses were locked out of entire fields and face \"restrictions that no other major economy imposes on us or so broadly.\" \n \n Biden also looked to reassure his audience over the security of China's $1.2 trillion in U.S. Treasury debt following the downgrading of America's credit rating. He said Chinese and U.S. prosperity was key to reviving the global economy. \n \n \"We're the two biggest engines in the world to be able to do that,\" he said. \n \n Biden was to spend the rest of the day Sunday visiting sites with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, who is expected to become the country's next leader.", "summary": "\u2013 Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up his five-day visit to China with a strong message of China-US interdependence and firm promises that the United States would never default on its debt, reports Reuters. Speaking in the southwest city of Chengdu earlier today, Biden emphasized the continued strength of the US economy, noting that America 's economy is two-and-a-half times larger than China's. He also pointed out that, as the United States owns 87% of its financial assets and 69% its treasury bonds, compared to the 1% of financial assets and 8% of treasury bills owned by China, it was in the US interest to pay its bills, adding \"the United States has never defaulted and never will default.\" Biden called on China to be more forceful in reining in North Korea and Iran, and encouraged Beijing to allow a freer flow of information and greater political dialogue, reports the AP. \"Liberty unlocks a people's full potential and in its absence, unrest festers,\" said Biden. In general, the visit emphasized common ties and building trust between the two countries. \"Asia and the United States are not separated by this great ocean,\" said Biden. \"We are bound by it.\""}
{"document": "A tweet from the McDonald's corporate account called President Trump \"a disgusting excuse of a President\" on Thursday morning, which the company said was the work of a hacker. \n \n The tweet, which was briefly pinned to the top of the account before being deleted, mocked Trump and called for the return of former President Obama. \n \n \"@realDonaldTrump You are actually a disgusting excuse of a President and we would love to have @BarackObama back, also you have tiny hands,\" the tweet read. \n \n McDonald's later said in a statement that the account was hacked and apologized. \n \n \"Based on our investigation, we have determined that our Twitter account was hacked by an external source. We took swift action to secure it, and we apologize this tweet was sent through our corporate McDonald\u2019s account,\" spokeswoman Terri Hickey said. \n \n Twitter notified us that our account was compromised. We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this. \u2014 McDonald's (@McDonaldsCorp) March 16, 2017 \n \n oh my it\u2019s even pinned pic.twitter.com/tGv6EdpZEm \u2014 Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 16, 2017 \n \n Trump was once in a commercial for the fast food giant, and has posted images eating McDonald's food on his social media accounts during his campaign. \n \n Celebrating 1237! #Trump2016 A post shared by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on May 26, 2016 at 2:29pm PDT \n \n --This report was updated at 11:04 a.m. ||||| The interactive transcript could not be loaded. \n \n Rating is available when the video has been rented. \n \n This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.", "summary": "\u2013 Is McDonald's anti-Trump? It briefly appeared so Thursday morning when a tweet insulting the POTUS was posted and even pinned to the top of the McDonald's corporate Twiitter feed, but the tweet was quickly deleted and McDonald's said its account had been \"compromised.\" The Hill has a screenshot of the original tweet: \"@realDonaldTrump You are actually a disgusting excuse of a President and we would love to have @BarackObama back, also you have tiny hands.\" McDonald's now says it is looking into who compromised its account. President Trump, who has been pictured eating Mickey D's, was even in a McDonald's commercial once."}
{"document": "Mariah Carey\u2019s ex-husband Tommy Mottola urges the singer to seek \u201cmore seasoned and respected professionals\u201d to guide her career after her disastrous New Year\u2019s Eve performance. He also blasts the singer\u2019s decision to do a reality show in a letter exclusively given to Page Six. \n \n \u201cMC is arguably the greatest pop voice to come along in the last three decades. She has had more number one hits than any pop artist in history!!! She is a global icon and a treasure with incredible talent not only as a singer but as a great songwriter. What happened on NYE could\u2019ve happened to anyone! Yes, her technical people should\u2019ve helped pay more attention to all of it so that there was no chance of that happening.\u201d \n \n Mottola launched Carey\u2019s career in 1990 with \u201cVision of Love.\u201d They wed in 1993, but divorced in 1998. Still, he continues to criticize her management and reality show, \u201cMariah\u2019s World.\u201d \n \n \u201cMy only advice is that she should hire more seasoned and respected professionals to surround her and help her with her career! I would never have encouraged her or guided her to do something like a reality television show!!!!! I don\u2019t get it!!\u201d Mottola wrote, adding, \u201cThat does absolutely nothing for her integrity, her credibility, or her massive talent!! She should take a step back, think carefully and figure out what to do next. That is what she does best.. most certainly none of these issues or problems ever existed with her in her early days at Sony for the first 10 years when she skyrocketed to global superstardom!! Where absolutely meticulous and methodical attention was paid to every single detail and nuance that went on into her career!\u201d \n \n Mottola, now a producer of Broadway\u2019s \u201cA Bronx Tale,\u201d believes there\u2019s still hope for Carey. \u201cIt could have happened to anyone and it has, so everyone should just get off her back and leave her the hell alone and hopefully she will find her way to the right professionals for guidance. It\u2019s never about the fall, it\u2019s all about the recovery.\u201d \n \n Meanwhile, Carey\u2019s manager Stella Bulochnikov fired back, \u201cReally? Tommy is a relic. Did he give you that statement from a rotary phone?\u201d ||||| Tommy Mottola Blames Mariah Carey's Professional Team For Botched NYE Performance \n \n Mariah Carey should ditch her advisers and \u201chire more seasoned and respected professionals\u201d in light of her disastrous New Year\u2019s Eve performance. That\u2019s the line according to her ex-husband, Tommy Mottola. \n \n Mottola, the one-time Sony Music chairman who helped guide Carey from a 19-year-old backup singer to one of the most popular singers on the planet, weighed in on her awkward appearance at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest. Carey should take some of the rap for her epic-fail, but only for choosing the wrong support team, he suggests. \n \n Describing Carey as a \u201cglobal icon and a treasure with incredible talent,\u201d Mottola admits the snafu \u201ccould\u2019ve happened to anyone.\u201d And it should never have happened in the first place. And nor should her participation in the reality TV show Mariah\u2019s World. \n \n \u201cMy only advice is that she should hire more seasoned and respected professionals to surround her and help her with her career,\u201d he wrote in a letter to the New York Post\u2019s Page Six column. \n \n Carey made global headlines with her headlining set which, leading up to midnight, went careening downhill as she got to \u201cEmotions\" and \u201cWe Belong Together.\" With the pop star apparently unable to hear through her in-ear monitor, she removed it completely. Then, unable to follow the backing track over the noise of the crowd, Carey eventually abandoned singing and lip-syncing all-together as she became frustrated, addressing the crowd, \u201cI\u2019m trying to be a good sport here.\u201d \n \n Both camps deflected blame and presented conflicting explanations for what went wrong. The singer and her reps said the in-ear monitors were faulty (and that action wasn't taken on prior warnings) and BWR-PR's Nicole Perna told Billboard that \"production set her up to fail.\" \n \n Dick Clark Productions issued its own statement claiming, \u201cTo suggest that dcp ... would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd,\u201d and insiders previously told Billboard that Carey\u2019s tech team had her in-ears \u201cset to the wrong frequency\u201d and that she had used a body double for rehearsals earlier in the day. \n \n Mottola, who recounted how he romanced, wed and later divorced Carey in his tell-all 2013 book Hitmaker: The Man and His Music, argued that Mariah\u2019s World was an unnecessary distraction which \u201cdoes absolutely nothing for her integrity, her credibility, or her massive talent.\u201d \n \n He added, \u201cShe should take a step back, think carefully and figure out what to do next.\u201d \n \n Carey\u2019s manager Stella Bulochnikov reportedly fired back: \u201cReally? Tommy is a relic. Did he give you that statement from a rotary phone?\u201d \n \n Billboard reached out to a rep for Mottola for additional comment. ||||| The fallout from Mariah Carey's headline-making New Year's Eve performance continues. \n \n Carey's manager, Stella Bulochnikov, is doubling down on accusations against the producers of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest in a new interview with ET. \n \n \"I'm furious,\" Bulochnikov told ET's Carly Steel on Wednesday in Studio City, California. \"She cut her vacation short. She came there to have a festive moment, not a disastrous moment.\" \n \n The singer suffered technical difficulties after hitting the stage just before midnight on Saturday in New York City, eventually causing her to walk off stage. After the show, Carey tweeted: \"S**t happens. Have a happy and healthy new year everybody. Here's to making more headlines in 2017.\" \n \n Shit happens \ud83d\ude29 Have a happy and healthy new year everybody!\ud83c\udf89 Here's to making more headlines in 2017 \ud83d\ude02 pic.twitter.com/0Td8se57jr \u2014 Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) January 1, 2017 \n \n \n \n WATCH: Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve Performance: Dick Clark Productions Denies Sabotage, Ryan Seacrest in Shock \n \n \"They could have cut to a commercial, they could have edited the west coast feed to make her look good,\" Bulochnikov suggested. \"So when we say words like sabotage, I'm not saying you intentionally decided, 'Hey! We're gonna sabotage Mariah Carey tonight.'\" \n \n While Bulochnikov made it clear that she doesn't believe DCP intentionally sabotaged Carey's performance, she still insisted that \"it happened!\" \n \n Bulochnikov went on to challenge the production decision to air the moment again on the west coast feed, saying: \"There are a myriad, a million ways to fix the feed for the west coast, because the people deserve better.\" \n \n DCP previously released a statement saying that they \"had no involvement in the challenges associated with Ms. Carey's New Year's Eve performance\" after Bulochnikov stated that \"a production issue\" and \"technical difficulties\" were to blame for the moment. \n \n On Wednesday morning, ET asked DCP executive vice president of television, Barry Adelman, for his side of the story. \"We have no comment on this,\" he said. \"I think the statements have been made.\" \n \n \n \n WATCH: Jenny McCarthy Says It's 'Completely Unfair' for Mariah Carey to Blame Others for 'Train Wreck' NYE Performance \n \n Carey voiced her displeasure with the situation on Tuesday, telling Entertainment Weekly: \"I'm of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time.\" \n \n The songstress added that she would be wary of working with external crews on future performances. \n \n \"It's not going to stop me from doing a live event in the future,\" she said. \"But it will make me less trusting of using anyone outside my own team.\" \n \n \n \n WATCH: Mariah Carey Plagued by Technical Difficulties During Live New Year\u2019s Eve Performance \n \n Related Gallery", "summary": "\u2013 Finally, Mariah Carey has received what she's likely been waiting for ever since her awkward New Year's Eve performance: advice from her ex-husband. In a letter given exclusively to Page Six, Tommy Mottola calls Carey \"arguably the greatest pop voice to come along in the last three decades,\" a \"global icon,\" and a \"treasure with incredible talent not only as a singer but as a great songwriter,\" but he says she needs to get some help. \"My only advice is that she should hire more seasoned and respected professionals to surround her and help her with her career!\" In addition to having once been married to Carey, Mottola also launched her career back in 1990 when he was a Sony Music exec, Billboard reports. That was three years before marrying her (and eight years before divorcing her). Mottola says that, while the New Year's Eve debacle \"could've happened to anyone,\" Carey's tech crew should have paid more attention in order to prevent it from happening. He also takes issue with her decision to do a reality show, Mariah's World. \"I would never have encouraged her or guided her to do something like a reality television show!!!!! I don't get it!!\" he wrote. \"That does absolutely nothing for her integrity, her credibility, or her massive talent!!\" Amusingly, Carey's current manager responded to Mottola's letter like so: \"Really? Tommy is a relic. Did he give you that statement from a rotary phone?\" That same manager told ETOnline Wednesday that she's \"furious\" over what happened to Carey at New Year's Rockin' Eve, again calling out Dick Clark Productions: \"They could have cut to a commercial, they could have edited the West Coast feed to make her look good\" after it was clear she was having issues with the audio. (Carey has also called out Dick Clark Productions.)"}
{"document": "Mr. Kelley then moved to a recreational vehicle park in Colorado Springs, where four witnesses told the police that they had seen Mr. Kelley chase down his white-and-brown Siberian husky and punch the dog four or five times, yelling at it, before dragging it into his camper, according to a report from the sheriff\u2019s office in El Paso County, Colo. Mr. Kelley was charged with animal cruelty, pleaded guilty and received a deferred sentence, records show. \n \n Image Devin P. Kelley Credit via Texas Department of Public Safety \n \n Brent Moody, a neighbor who called the police, said in an interview that he and his wife moved out sooner than they would have liked because they were scared of Mr. Kelley. \u201cIn his eyes, he looked like there was intense anger,\u201d Mr. Moody said. \u201cSomething didn\u2019t seem right with him.\u201d \n \n Last Sunday morning, Mr. Kelley took a Ruger AR-556 assault rifle to the First Baptist Church and opened fire, killing 26 people and wounding at least 20 others. After a shootout outside the church with a bystander, in which he was hit twice, Mr. Kelley raced away in his car, chased by the bystander and another man, and soon crashed. He was found dead, having shot himself in the head. \n \n Officials have said that the massacre may have stemmed from acrimony between Mr. Kelley and the family of his estranged second wife. His mother-in-law, who attended the church, was not there on Sunday, but his wife\u2019s grandmother was among those killed. \n \n But as they try to delve deeper into what might have motivated the rampage, investigators said, they have hit a roadblock: They have not been able to unlock the killer\u2019s cellphone, reviving an issue that received national attention after another mass shooting two years ago. \n \n \u201cUnfortunately, at this point in time, we are unable to get into that phone,\u201d Christopher H. Combs, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.\u2019s San Antonio office, said. He refused to name the brand of the phone, saying that it would encourage other criminals to get the same kind. \n \n After 14 people were shot to death in a conference room in San Bernardino, Calif., the F.B.I. was unable to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the attackers. The bureau went to court to try to force Apple to build a software \u201cback door\u201d allowing law enforcement agencies to get into phones, but the company refused. ||||| HOUSTON - Channel 2 Investigates obtained law enforcement documents revealing Devin Kelley escaped from a behavioral center in New Mexico a little more than five years before Sunday\u2019s deadly rampage in Sutherland Springs. \n \n The incident report, filed by the El Paso Police Department, states Kelley was picked up at a bus terminal in downtown El Paso before midnight on the evening of June 7, 2012. The report states two officers were dispatched to the terminal to look into a missing-person report. \n \n READ: Incident report on Devin Kelley \n \n Download File \n \n When they arrived, the two officers learned Kelley had escaped from Peak Behavioral Health Services, a mental health facility in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, that has a dedicated unit for service members and veterans. \n \n Xavier Alvarez, who was the director of military affairs for Peak Behavioral Health at the time, told the officers on scene that Kelley, who was 21 years old at the time, had \u201csuffered from mental disorders and had plans to run to from Peak Behavioral Health Services\u201d by purchasing a bus ticket out of state. \n \n NBC News spoke with Alvarez, who according to the police report, said he informed officers that Kelley \u201cwas a danger to himself and others as he had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force base,\u201d located approximately 100 miles from the bus terminal. The report further states that Kelley \u201cwas attempting to carry out death threats\u201d he had made on his military superiors. \n \n Alvarez told NBC News Kelley was ordered to Peak Behavioral Health Services by the military. \n \n On the day of the escape, Alvarez told NBC News he was home when he received a call at 1 or 2 in the morning that Kelley had absconded. \n \n \"He jumped a fence,\" he said. \n \n The facility is in a desolate area. Alvarez jumped in his truck and began driving through the desert while other Peak staffers were talking to patients \"to get any clues to what transpired.\" \n \n \"It turned out that several times he had mentioned he was practicing for a 12-mile run. So I asked Siri, 'What is the distance to the Greyhound station' and lo and behold, it was 12 miles,\" Alvarez told NBC News. \n \n Alvarez called Sunland Park and El Paso police and El Paso police created a perimeter around the Greyhound station. \n \n Alvarez sat there in the dark, watching for Kelley's arrival. He saw a taxicab pull up and he crept over to it; when it pulled away, he and Kelley were \"eye to eye.\" \n \n \"Because he made a reaction as if he was going to run, I quickly restrained him. He put up no fight. He laid on the ground and police were there in seconds,\" Alvarez said. \n \n He noted Kelley was wet. \n \n \"He thought he was going to be tracked and he went through the river to cover these tracks.\" \n \n \"He was very quiet, but he did mention that given the opportunity he would try to go for the [officers'] guns,\" Alvarez said. \n \n When he went back to the facility, Alvarez told NBC News Kelley was very docile. He was there only a couple of weeks before the military picked him up for his court-martial. \n \n Alvarez confirmed that during his time at Peak, \"he [Kelley] had verbalized that he wanted to get some kind of retribution to his chain of command.\" \n \n He said other patients also reported that Kelley seemed to be up to something on the computers they were allowed to use to pay bills, etc. The military examined the computers and it turned out \"he was ordering weapons and tactical gear to a PO Box in San Antonio,\" Alvarez told NBC News. \n \n He said he could not talk about Kelley's diagnosis but added, \"I had a very strong relationship with all the service members but this kid -- he was hollow. I could never reach him.\" \n \n He said that after Kelley was identified as the suspect, one of his former colleagues contacted him. The message? \"We stopped the first one.\" \n \n El Paso police officers spoke with Kelley after finding him at the terminal. The report states he did not make threatening comments. \n \n Kelley was released to police officers from Sunland Park Police Department in New Mexico, located just across the state line. \n \n The report states there was an entry submitted to the FBI\u2019s National Crime Information Center database. \n \n READ: Military Discharges Explained \n \n The El Paso incident took place months after Air Force documents state Kelley had attacked his wife by striking and kicking her and pulling her hair. Kelley, according to the documents, also pointed a loaded firearm at her. \n \n Kelley was also charged with unlawfully striking his child on various occasions between April 27, 2011, and June 16, 2011. Records indicate Kelley plead \u201cG\u201d (guilty) to assault on a child and the assault on his wife. Records show he pleaded \u201cNG\u201d (not guilty) on the others that were \u201cwithdrawn and dismissed with prejudice\u201d after Kelley\u2019s arraignment. \n \n Kelley received a general court martial and was sentenced Nov. 7, 2012. He was handed a bad conduct discharge, 12 months of confinement and a reduction in rank to the grade of E-1. \n \n The sentence came exactly five months to the day after the attempted escape from the behavioral facility in southern New Mexico. \n \n An Air Force spokesperson told Channel 2 Investigates that they cannot comment on the 2012 report, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. \n \n Rick Rousseau, a retired Army Colonel and Judge Advocate for 27 years, said he is not surprised that Kelley may have been in a behavioral facility in the midst of his legal battles. \n \n \u201cIt would be a normal course of negotiation that he had been in behavioral health in advance of going to court,\" he said. \n \n Rousseau also added that if the move was a preventative measure by Kelley and his team that it probably would have been revealed. \n \n \u201cAt a minimum the defense attorney may have told the prosecutor,\" Rousseau said. \n \n Copyright 2017 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By Tracy Connor and Daniel Arkin \n \n The gunman accused of the worst mass murder in Texas history escaped from a mental health hospital during his stint in the Air Force \u2014 after making death threats against his superiors, according to a 2012 police report. \n \n The incident raises new questions about whether Devin Kelley's past should have prompted authorities to make sure that he could not purchase weapons long before he killed 26 people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday. \n \n Police took Kelley into custody on June 7, 2012, at a bus terminal in downtown El Paso, Texas, after he broke out of Peak Behavioral Health Services, just over 10 miles away in New Mexico, according to the report, which was first obtained by NBC Houston affiliate KPRC. \n \n Kelley, who was 21 at the time of the escape, had been sent to the facility after he was accused of assaulting his wife and fracturing his baby stepson's skull. \n \n The person who reported Kelley missing told El Paso officers that Kelley \"was a danger to himself and others as he had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base,\" where he had been stationed, according to the police report. \n \n He \"was attempting to carry out death threats\" he had made against his military superiors, the report said. \n \n Xavier Alvarez, a former Peak Behavioral employee, confirmed to NBC News that during Kelley's time at the facility he \"verbalized that he wanted to get some kind of retribution to his chain of command.\" \n \n He said other patients had reported that Kelley seemed to be do something suspicious on computers they were allowed to use for things like paying bills. When the military examined the computers, it turned out that Kelley was \"ordering weapons and tactical gear and magazines to a P.O. Box in San Antonio,\" Alvarez said. \n \n Alvarez said he had a strong relationship with all the service members in the military wing at Peak Behavioral \u2014 but Kelley was an exception. \"This kid \u2014 he was hollow,\" Alvarez said. \"I could never reach him.\" \n \n Peak Behavioral declined to comment on the incident citing patient confidentiality. Alvarez said he could not discuss Kelley's diagnosis or any of his medical care. \n \n \"This kid \u2014 he was hollow. I could never reach him.\" \n \n But he vividly remembered getting the call that Kelley had \"jumped a fence\" in the middle of the night and was on the loose. He hopped into his truck and began driving through the desert while staff at the facility questioned other patients about Kelley's intentions. \n \n \"It turned out that several times he had mentioned he was practicing for a 12-mile run,\" Alvarez said. \"So I asked Siri, 'What is the distance to the Greyhound station?' And lo and behold, it was 12 miles.\" \n \n Alvarez, joined by police, said he spotted Kelly getting out of a cab at the bus station, where he \"quickly restrained him.\" \n \n \"He put up no fight,\" Alvarez said of Kelley. \"He laid on the ground and police were there in seconds. ... He was very quiet, but he did mention that, given the opportunity, he would try to go for the [officers'] guns.\" \n \n Kelley was taken back to the facility but eventually discharged for his court-martial. \n \n The Air Force reported that after Kelley was convicted of assault, he was confined for a year, given a bad conduct discharge and reduced in rank to E-1, or airman basic. \n \n Related: Senators Call for Probe After Military Error Let Texas Gunman Buy Weapons \n \n The military failed to enter the domestic violence case into a database that would have made it illegal for him to buy the Luger AR-556 rifle he used to commit the massacre \u2014 a mistake that is now under investigation by the Air Force. \n \n The entrance to the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, the site of the shooting, is seen in Sutherland Springs, Texas on Nov. 7, 2017. Jonathan Bachman / Reuters \n \n And in Comal County, Texas, the local sheriff is investigating another apparently missed opportunity to take action against Kelley. \n \n After being discharged from the military, Kelley returned to his hometown of New Braunfels. That's where, in June 2013, deputies received a report of sexual assault against Kelley. \n \n Sheriff Mark Reynolds, who was not the sheriff at the time, said the case file shows that detectives were working on the case in July, September and October \"and then it just kind of stalled out.\" \n \n Police believed Kelley had moved to Colorado, but made no apparent attempt to contact or arrest him there, Reynolds said. \n \n Four months later, they were called to Kelley's New Braunfels home after receiving a report of abuse, Reynolds said. A woman inside the home had texted a friend that she was being abused, and the friend called police. \n \n Reynolds would not identify the woman in the home, but a source familiar with the incident said it was Kelley's girlfriend, and future second wife, Danielle Shields. She told deputies she had sent the texts but denied being abused, and after interviewing Kelley, police chalked it up to a \"misunderstanding,\" the sheriff said. \n \n \"Why didn't someone put two and two together?\" Reynolds said. \"That's what my office is trying to investigate.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Fives years before killing 26 people in a Texas church, Devin Kelley escaped from a psychiatric hospital after trying to sneak weapons onto his Air Force base and making death threats against his superiors, the New York Times reports. Kelley was sent to Peak Behavioral Health Services in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, in 2012 after he was charged with assaulting his wife and young stepson, who was left with a fractured skull. He would later plead guilty to those charges and spend a year in a Navy prison. According to KRPC, Xavier Alvarez, former director of military affairs at the psychiatric hospital, said in a police report at the time that Kelley \"was a danger to himself and others.\" Prior to hopping a fence to escape, Alvarez tells NBC News that Kelley was caught using the hospital's computers to order weapons and tactical gear, which he was having shipped to a PO Box. In the police report, he said Kelley \"was attempting to carry out death threats\" against \"his military chain of command.\" Following his escape, Kelley was apprehended at a bus station in El Paso. Alvarez says he told the arresting officers he would go for their guns if he got the chance. \"This kid\u2014he was hollow,\" Alvarez says. \"I could never reach him.\" Meanwhile, authorities are still trying to piece together a motivation for Sunday's shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, hampered by an inability to unlock Kelley's cellphone."}
{"document": "Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) \n \n If you like Bill O\u2019Reilly, read this. Don\u2019t like him, read it anyway. It\u2019s interesting. \n \n TBA: Oct. 6 he and Jon Stewart will co-juice up a live mock debate rumble, 90 minutes, in DC\u2019s nice air-conditioned George Washington University auditorium. Filmed, available subsequently on DVD, it\u2019ll stream worldwide on the Internet. \n \n Cost: $5. Money to charity. Former \u201cFox and Friends\u201d host E.D. Hill moderates. \n \n Why? Why not. They\u2019ve done one another\u2019s programs. They like each other. And both can outtalk Obama. Even Clinton. \n \n Another thing. A two-hour movie job of O\u2019Reilly\u2019s best seller \u201cKilling Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever\u201d grabs National Geographic Channel early next year. Ridley Scott, exec producer. Tom Hanks, narrator. Through great-great-great-grandfather John Hanks, Oscar winner Hanks is also a third cousin, four generations removed, from Abraham Lincoln. \n \n EMMA Watson, Paul Rudd, Joan Cusack, Dylan McDermott grace the new film \u201cThe Perks of Being a Wallflower\u201d based on a best seller \u2014 banned from some schools \u2014 about love, not love, more love, less love, lots of love, hope, fear, a little sex, a lot of bacchanalia, and some heavy love. \n \n Emma\u2019s character, named Sam, is charismatic but melancholy. Who cares what she is? Nobody can take their eyes off her. Her first major role since becoming a \u201cHarry Potter\u201d star at 11, she\u2019s now a face of Lancome and attends Brown University. \n \n Screenings organizer Andrew Saffir told me: \u201cThe film\u2019s starting 7:30. Emma\u2019s arriving 7:15.\u201d Right. She showed promptly 7:50. \n \n \u201cWatching yourself in a movie is a struggle,\u201d she said. \u201cNot just now but even in early childhood days. Every second of the time I\u2019m on-screen, I\u2019ve had to step back and try to see myself. It\u2019s intense. Looking at myself, I had to try and explain: Am I just being me, or am I really the character? \n \n \u201cI\u2019m just back from filming in Iceland with Darren Aronofsky, who got an Oscar nomination for directing \u2018Black Swan.\u2019 He\u2019s so caring of his actors. He was always making sure I\u2019m OK. I\u2019d never seen Iceland before. The place is like going into space.\u201d \n \n She looked pretty heavenly herself. Short bob. Half-cutout all white dress by new designer Brood. Large middle finger ring. \n \n \u201cI seem to have passed over the \u2018Harry Potter\u2019 crazy. Nobody shouts that out at me anymore. When they see me now, they just call out, \u2018Hey . . . Emma . . .\u2019 \u201d \n \n Then \u2014 since it was late \u2014 somebody shouted out, \u201cHey . . . Emma . . . \u201d \u2014 and off she went. \n \n ONE of the most beautiful things on earth is the logo of 1stdibs, where Gloria Vanderbilt, 88, displayed her artwork. Most beautiful thing Anderson Cooper showed for a fast hello. Most beautiful Four Seasons private pool room got redecorated just for a private dinner afterwards in her favorite red \u2014 lights, flowers, cloths, seats, candles \u2014 by event planner Jerry Sibal, who just did the Princess of Doha\u2019s palace wedding. And may that last as long as Gloria. \n \n ROCKER Madame Mayhem celebrating her Social Life cover at the Sanctuary Hotel . . . Jonathan Goldberg\u2019s Cherub Improv cheering up the Kittay House elderly . . . Christy Cashman, in Parker Posey\u2019s new film (which I don\u2019t know what it is), modeled Callua Lillibelle for a fashion spread in Brooklyn. \n \n IT\u2019s mumbled that New Yorkers may form their own country, taking along other Blue States \u2014 Oregon, California, Hawaii, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the whole Northeast. \n \n We have Cuomo, Hillary, stem-cell research, the best beaches, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge and two-thirds of tax revenue. Also Intel, Microsoft and Harvard. Red States have Texas, Oklahoma, the slave territories, Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin, OpryLand and Dollywood. Also Alabama and Mississippi. And Perdue. We \u2014 85 percent of entrepreneurs and venture capital. Plus Hollywood and Yosemite. Them \u2014 majority of single moms and obese Americans, most tornadoes, hurricanes, mosquitoes, 99 percent of Southern Baptists, and 100 percent of all televangelists. \n \n We control the fresh fruit, fresh water, domestic wines, most low sulfur coal, and all redwoods, sequoias and condors. Red Staters consider life sacred except for the death penalty or gun laws, and 61 percent of those crazy bastards claim higher morals then we north of the Mason-Dixon. \n \n We\u2019ll be known as Citizens of the Enlightened States of America. \n \n BROADWAY bus. Cute head of a little white dog in a carrier poked out. Passenger alongside asked: \u201cWhat\u2019s its name?\u201d The owner: \u201cNone of your business.\u201d The questioner burbled, \u201cOhhh, sorry . . . I didn\u2019t mean to intrude . . . \u201d Owner: \u201cOh, no, it\u2019s OK. That\u2019s her name. I named her \u2018None of Your Business\u2019 because she always sticks her head out and gets into everything.\u201d \n \n Only in New York, kids, only in New York. ||||| In his \u201cTalking Points Memo\u201d tonight, Fox News\u2019 Bill O\u2019Reilly announced he\u2019ll be pairing up with Comedy Central\u2019s Jon Stewart for a 90-minute debate. It will stream online on Oct. 6. \n \n O\u2019Reilly said the debate will center on three topics: the national debt, American relations in Muslim countries and gas prices. \n \n \u201cI feel so strongly about this that I\u2019m teaming up with my pal Jon Stewart to do a 90-minute debate on those and other vital issues,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said. \n \n He said they were calling it \u201cThe Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium\u201d and it will be formatted like a presidential debate, \u201cwithout all the phoniness and pomposity.\u201d Furthermore, O\u2019Reilly said there will be a Q&A with the live audience and those streaming online can submit questions. \n \n The tickets are available for pre-order at TheRumble2012.com for $4.95. O\u2019Reilly said fifty-percent of the profits \u201cif there are any\u201d will go to \u201ca bunch of very worthy charities.\u201d \n \n The New York Post\u2018s Cindy Adams wrote this morning and said CNN anchor E.D. Hill will moderate. \n \n From The O\u2019Reilly Factor: \n \n [ooyala code=\u201dhiNnF3NTrM7RsUAGJ1tR5FGW8KaspF9D\u201d] \n \n And here\u2019s the promo for the debate:", "summary": "\u2013 Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart always make for an entertaining pair, so mark your calendars for Oct. 6. That's when they'll be debating issues including the national debt, America's relationship with the Muslim world, and gas prices, O'Reilly announced last night on his show. The 90-minute debate will be just like a presidential debate, except \"without all the phoniness and pomposity,\" O'Reilly promised. It will be streamed online and will include a Q&A session with the audience, The Blaze reports. Tickets to the amusingly named \"Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium\" are $4.95, and 50% of the proceeds go to charity. Former Fox and Friends host ED Hill will moderate, the New York Post reports, and a DVD will be sold after the fact."}
{"document": "The Australian radio presenters who made a prank call to the hospital treating the Duchess of Cambridge three days before the nurse who handled the call apparently killed herself have been taken off the air until further notice. \n \n The Sydney station 2Day FM released a statement on Friday evening expressing its sadness at Jacintha Saldanha's death and saying the presenters responsible for the call, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, were \"both deeply shocked\". \n \n It was not clear whether the pair had been suspended, nor whether they would return to their jobs. \n \n \"Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and 2Day FM are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha from King Edward VII's hospital and we extend our deepest sympathies to her family and all that have been affected by this situation around the world,\" said the statement. \n \n \"Chief executive officer Rhys Holleran has spoken with the presenters. They are both deeply shocked and at this time we have agreed that they not comment about the circumstances. SCA and the hosts have decided that they will not return to their radio show until further notice out of respect for what can only be described as a tragedy.\" \n \n Vicki Heath, PR manager for Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said she was being inundated with calls. \n \n Speaking to the Guardian in the early hours of the morning in Australia, Heath said: \"We've just heard about it and I guess there's still a lot of detail that we are unaware of.\" \n \n Heath said the process of removing content relating to the prank from the station's website was under way. \n \n She said: \"We are working through all of that at the moment. We are just having to get the right people out of bed.\" \n \n Heath added that the station had learned of the nurse's death when it was contacted at around midnight, local time, by the Daily Mail. ||||| Australian radio station boss refuses to sack Royal prank DJs and claims THEY are the victims \n \n \n \n Jacintha Saldanha found unconscious near King Edward VII Hospital \n \n Mother-of-two transferred prank call from Australian DJs asking about Kate \n \n \n \n William and Kate 'deeply saddened' by death and said they did not complain \n \n Presenters behind the hoax are taken off air following tragedy \n \n \n \n Australian media regulator inundated with complaints about prank \n \n Companies pull advertising from station following incident \n \n Mel Greig and Michael Christian boasted about prank as tragedy unfolded \n \n \n \n Both deleted their Twitter accounts after global backlash following death \n \n Hospital has written letter to radio station's parent company \n \n Described the prank as 'truly appalling' and 'extremely foolish' \n \n By Mario Ledwith and Richard Sears \n \n | \n \n The boss of the radio company at the centre of the royal hoax call today refused to sack the DJs behind the stunt and painted them as victims. \n \n \n \n 2DayFM presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian were taken off air after it emerged the nurse who took their prank call at Kate Middleton's hospital had died in a suspected suicide. \n \n Jacintha Saldanha, a 46-year-old mother of two, had been manning the hospital switchboard when the Australian hoaxers called and she transferred the call to the Duchess of Cambridge's ward. \n \n \n \n Tragic: The grieving husband of nurse Jacintha Saldanha who died in a suspected suicide has tonight told of his devastation at her death. She is pictured centre, believed to be with her two children \n \n Loss: Benedict Barboza, a 49-year-old hospital accountant, also known as Ben, posted a tribute to Mrs Saldanha on his Facebook page. He is pictured, left. It is believed the youngster on the right is the couple's son \n \n Rhys Holleran, the chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns the station, said the presenters were 'completely shattered' and had been offered counselling. \n \n His comments were made before King Edward VII hospital said they had sent a letter of complaint to the company about the 'truly appalling' prank earlier today. \n \n Lord Glenarthur, chairman of the hospital , said that he wanted to 'protest' against the prank and seek assurances that the station would never do anything similar again. \n \n \n \n Mr Holleran told a press conference in Melbourne that the primary concern was for the family of Jacintha Saldanha, whose body was found yards from the King Edward VII Hospital yesterday. \n \n He said: 'I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it's fair to say they are completely shattered. \n \n Nurse Jacintha Saldanha, 46, died yesterday in an apparent suicide after she transferred a hoax call from Australian DJs who retrieved sensitive information about Kate Middleton while in hospital \n \n ' These people aren't machines, they're human beings. What happened is incredibly tragic and we\u2019re deeply saddened and we\u2019re incredibly affected by that.\u2019 \n \n He added: 'I think prank calls as a craft in radio have been going for decades and decades and are not just part of one radio station or network or country. \n \n 'No-one could have reasonably foreseen what ended up being an incredibly tragic day.' \n \n \n \n Mr Holleran declined to reveal who had dreamed up the prank call but said: \u2018These things are often done collaboratively.' \n \n A source confirmed that 2DayFM\u2019s lawyers had listened to audio of the entire call and had given it clearance to go to air. \n \n Mr Holleran said it was \u2018a bit early\u2019 to be drawing conclusions from what was really a \u2018deeply tragic matter.\u2019 \n \n He added: \u2018I don\u2019t think anyone could have reasonably foreseen that this was going to be a result.' \n \n This evening, the grieving husband of nurse Mrs Saldanha has told of his devastation at her death. \n \n Benedict Barboza, a 49-year-old hospital accountant, also known as Ben, posted a tribute to Mrs Saldanha on his Facebook page. \n \n He wrote: 'I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, She will be laid to rest in Shirva, India.' \n \n Mrs Saldanha found herself at the centre of the controversy after answering the DJs' call, when they obtained intimate details about Kate Middleton's condition by posing as the Queen and Prince Charles. \n \n \n \n The grieving family of the 'excellent' nurse said: 'We as a family are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved Jacintha.' \n \n Scroll down for video \n \n \n \n Facing the media; Southern Cross Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran came out in defence of the DJs behind the prank call to Kate Middleton's hospital \n \n Tragedy: Kate and WIlliam have said they are 'deeply saddened' by Jacintha Saldanha's death and paid tribute to the care the Duchess received at the King Edward VII Abuse: Australian radio presenters Christian Michael and Mel Greig, whose prank call about the Duchess of Cambridge was transferred by nurse Jacintha Saldanha, have been bombarded with abuse on Twitter following news of her suspected suicide. They later removed their accounts \n \n Prince William and his pregnant wife Kate told how they are 'deeply saddened' by the tragedy. A Palace spokesman said the couple had not made a complaint about the prank call. 'Their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha\u2019s family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time,' a statement said. When asked if they had expressed concern, the spokesman added: 'On the contrary we offered our full and heartfelt support to the nurses involved and hospital staff at all times.' \n \n Sombre: Police guard the front of King Edward VII's hospital yesterday where Jacintha Saldanha had worked as a nurse for four years \n \n The shockwaves over the death of the nurse have spread rapidly around Australia. \n \n \n \n Australia's media regulator was inundated with complaints about the prank. \n \n \n \n The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which regulates radio broadcasting, has said it is currently in the process of discussing the matter with the Sydney-based station. \n \n A spokesman for the ACMA said it had received 'a lot' of complaints but declined to give a figure. \n \n \n \n 'Terrible tragedy': Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has offered her condolences to Jacintha's family \n \n The spokesman said: 'We've had a lot but it doesn't actually matter, we only need one complaint to launch an investigation. \n \n 'But we haven't launched an investigation yet, we're engaging with the licensee at the moment.' \n \n ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said: 'These events are a tragedy for all involved and I pass on my heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased nurse in London. \n \n 'The ACMA does not propose to make any comments at this stage, but will be engaging with the licensee, Today FM Sydney, around the facts and issues surrounding the prank call.' \n \n \n \n British-born Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the death as 'a terrible tragedy' and, through a spokesman, passed on her deep-felt condolences to the family of Jacintha. \n \n Mrs Saldanha, also known as Jess, is thought to have come to the UK from southern India ten years ago and settled in the UK with her partner, 49-year-old hospital accountant Benedict Barboza. \n \n The couple bought their \u00a3123,000 three-bedroomed home in 2005 in the Westbury-on-Trym district of Bristol. \n \n After registering as a nurse in 2003 when she initially worked for the North Bristol NHS Trust, which runs Frenchay and Southmead hospitals, it is believed the nurse chose to apply for a job at King Edward VII four years ago and appears to have been living in the nursing accommodation ever since. \n \n She has a son called Junal, 16, and daughter, believed to be 14. She stayed in London when she was working before returning to her family on days off. \n \n Mrs Saldanha is thought to have been from the Mangalore region of India. She is thought to have spent time in the Middle East before moving to Britain . \n \n \n \n The hospital said Mrs Saldanha had not been disciplined over the call. \n \n 'Deeply saddened': Body believed to be that of Jacintha Saldanha was found in lodgings only yards from the hospital where she worked Death: A police officer stands outside the home of Jacintha Saldanha in Bristol yesterday evening \n \n Distraught: Nurses at the hospital head inside while clinging to eachother after hearing the news about Jacintha \n \n Shattered: Hospital chief executive John Lofthouse spoke of their pain and sadness at the news of Jacintha's death - and clearly linked it to the hoax call she took from the Australian DJs \n \n Told about the tragedy last night, Vicki Heath, a spokesman for 2DayFM, said: \u2018Is this is a hoax call? You\u2019re having me on, aren\u2019t you?\u2019 Assured that the call was genuine, she burst into tears. \n \n \u2018I can\u2019t believe this \u2013 I just can\u2019t believe it,\u2019 she said. \u2018Oh my God, oh no.\u2019 \n \n The owners of the radio station that employ Mel Greig and Michael Christian announced that the duo will not return to their show until further notice. \n \n It is believed that senior management at 2Day FM were so shocked at the death of Jacintha that bosses have ordered the pair off the air. \n \n Concerns were expressed last night about the well-being of the DJs. \n \n Jeff Kennett, Melbourne-based chairman of the Beyond Blue group, which deals with people with mental issues, said: \u2018Australians should support, rather than crucify, the pair for a prank made in good faith.\u2019 \n \n He added: 'This is going to have terrible ramifications in terms of the impact on people\u2019s lives well beyond the nurse in the UK. \n \n \n \n \u2018I hope that both Mel and Michael are strong and firm. Nothing they did was offensive, it was a joke, a prank, never intended to have any ramifications of this sort \n \n \n \n \u2018We\u2019ve got to be careful we don\u2019t become so politically correct that we deny ourselves the opportunity right now to extend to these two all the support we can to ensure that they come through this as strongly as possible.\u2019 \n \n \n \n Others have come out in support of the DJs and said they were not to blame for what happened to the nurse \u2013 rather, the hospital should have had more strenuous security measures in place \n \n The telephone giant Telstra, joined a list of companies removing their advertising from the radio station last night. \n \n The station's owner was forced to pull advertising over panic from advertisers. \n \n \n \n Patrol: Police officers walk outside King Edward VII hospital \n \n Scene: A police car outside the lodgings where Jacintha Saldanha's body was found yesterday morning \n \n Accommodation: The lodgings where Jacintha was staying - around the corner from the hospital \n \n Guard: An officer guards the entrance to the block where the nurse's body was found \n \n 'A FIRST CLASS NURSE WHO CARED DILIGENTLY FOR HUNDREDS' \n \n King Edward VII hospital spoke of the their shock at the death of Jacintha Saldanha in a statement: \n \n 'It is with very deep sadness that we confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff, Jacintha Saldanha. \n \n 'Jacintha has worked at the King Edward VII\u2019s Hospital for more than four years. She was an excellent nurse and well-respected and popular with all of her colleagues. \n \n 'We can confirm that Jacintha was recently the victim of a hoax call to the hospital. The hospital had been supporting her throughout this difficult time.' \n \n John Lofthouse, Chief Executive at King Edward VII\u2019s Hospital, said: 'Our thoughts and deepest sympathies at this time are with her family and friends. Everyone is shocked by the loss of a much loved and valued colleague.\" \n \n Lord Glenarthur, Chairman of King Edward VII\u2019s Hospital, says, 'This is a tragic event. Jacintha was a first class nurse who cared diligently for hundreds of patients during her time with us. She will be greatly missed.' \n \n A statement from the station owners said: 'Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and 2Day FM are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha from King Edward VII Hospital and we extend our deepest sympathies to her family, and all that have been affected by this situation around the world. \n \n 'CEO Rhys Holleran has spoken with the presenters, they are both deeply shocked, and at this time we have agreed that they not comment about the circumstances. \n \n 'SCA and the hosts have decided that they will not return to their radio show, until further notice out of respect for what can only be described as a tragedy.' \n \n News of the death broke in the middle of the night in Australia and it was only during the evening London time yesterday that Australians woke to hear about the tragedy. \n \n It led the news on every radio station, including the national broadcaster ABC. It reported that there had been an outpouring of anger in the UK and said thousands of people had demanded that the DJs be fired. \n \n The Palace declined to say whether the Duchess met Jacintha Saldanha but it was very possible. \n \n Staff at King Edward VII hospital were not believed to be disciplining Jacintha over the incident. It said it announced her death with 'very deep sadness.' \n \n The statement added: 'Jacintha has worked at the King Edward VII Hospital for more than four years. She was an excellent nurse and well respected and popular with all over her colleagues.' \n \n Ms Saldanha answered the hoax call at 5.30am on Tuesday morning and transferred the call through to Kate's ward. \n \n Another nurse then told the giggling DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who were pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles, how the Duchess was about to 'get freshened up'. \n \n The station apologised for 'any inconvenience caused' but provoked widespread fury and disbelief by continuing to promote its hoax, calling it 'the prank call the world is talking about', before playing clips of the recording. \n \n As the backlash grew the DJs both deleted their Twitter accounts.The radio station's Facebook page was bombarded with thousands of abusive comments from outraged users. \n \n Shock: The exact cause of Jacintha's death has not yet been confirmed but it is being treated as suicide \n \n Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'This is tragic news, and the thoughts of all at the Royal College of Nursing go to the family of Jacintha Saldanha. \n \n 'It is deeply saddening that a simple human error due to a cruel hoax could lead to the death of a dedicated and caring member of the nursing profession.' \n \n \n \n Officers from Scotland Yard launched an investigation yesterday and are treating the death as \u2018unexplained\u2019. \n \n A Downing Street spokesman said: \u2018The Prime Minister\u2019s thoughts are with the family and colleagues of Jacintha Saldanha at this sad time.\u2019 \n \n \n \n The exact cause of death remained unclear. However, one source indicated that the woman appeared to have killed herself. \n \n A neighbour said the family have lived in their \u00a3130,000 terraced home in Bristol for about eight years. \n \n Household: The Bristol home of Jacintha Saldanha following news of her death yesterday \n \n The neighbour said: 'They're a lovely family - Ben gives my lad a lift when he goes refereeing at Bristol Rovers with Junal. \n \n 'It's so so tragic, she was such a lovely woman. \n \n 'She must have thought there was no way back, that's the only thing I can think of.' \n \n \n \n Another neighbour of Mrs Saldanha described the tragic nurse as 'a lovely woman'. \n \n Marianne Homes, 49, said: 'I've always known her as the doctor, she was always very smartly dressed. \n \n 'Their son was always really into football, we always saw him with a ball kicking it about with his friends. \n \n 'She was a lovely woman, everytime I saw her she would talk to me. \n \n 'I hadn't seen her for a while, I wondered what had happened to her it's so sad to know this has happened. \n \n 'She was always so smartly dressed and well presented. \n \n 'I think her kids are secondary school age, she definitely has one boy and one girl.' \n \n \n \n A former neighbour of the nurse described her as a 'nice, lovely lady'. \n \n Boast: 2dayFM kept a recording of the prank on their website days after it was first broadcast \n \n Pose: DJ Mel Greig lies across the laps of One Direction when they flew into Australia this year \n \n Still boasting: DJ Michael Christian's Twitter feed pictured after the incident \n \n Abuse: DJ Mel Greig has deleted her Twitter account after she was bombarded with messages calling on her to quit Fighting back tears, she said: 'What a terrible tragedy - just before Christmas as well. Oh those two young boys - they'll be heartbroken. Her and Ben were a lovely couple. \n \n 'They didn't live here very long, but they were such nice neighbours - they invited us in for a curry when they moved in. \n \n 'They lived here seven or eight years ago, if not more. They kept themselves to themselves mostly. \n \n 'They bought their own house and moved on - they were just renting here I think. \n \n 'I can't believe what happened. It's so sad, so tragic. They always spoke to us - she was such a nice lady. \n \n 'It's devastating to hear she's gone - and in such circumstances that could be so easily avoided. \n \n 'Those Australians that called the hospital want stringing up.' Even yesterday, before news of the death, DJ Michael Christian was urging people to tune in to their show to hear more about the prank. In the 5.30am call, Mrs Saldanha had connected them to another nurse who gave details of Kate's condition. \n \n The presenters, from 2Day FM, remarked during their show how their efforts were the 'easiest prank call ever made', as they put on mock British accents they later described as 'terrible'. \n \n The Australian station and presenters advertised the stunt worldwide. Both presenters have deleted their Twitter accounts after an online backlash called for them to lose their jobs. One user, Alison Hassell, told Greig: 'If you have any kind of conscience or morals..... Right about now you should be typing your resignation.' \n \n Scott Ashworth tweeted: 'You scumbag, hope you get what's coming to you!', while another user, Michael Hird, wrote: 'I hope you're happy now.. The receptionist you rang has COMMITTED SUICIDE! You have blood on your hands now!' \n \n Greig also received what appeared to be threats on the social networking site. \n \n Costas Loizou swore at the presenter and ended his message: 'I might start calling your mum and leaving messages..in fact expect one on xmas day....' \n \n Other users directed abuse at her co-presenter Christian. Justine Daniel told him the hoax was a 'sick joke' and added: 'Hope you're banished from being on air forever.' Peter Timmins wrote: 'There are no words to describe the disgust that everyone else is feeling about the prank you thought so funny.' \n \n Sinead Gavaghan called him a 'vile, stupid creature', while Chris Campbell claimed: 'You should be fired and the station shut down.' \n \n In the call at 5.30am on Tuesday impersonating the Queen, Miss Greig said: \u2018Oh, hello there. Could I please speak to Kate please, my granddaughter?\u2019 Row: The DJs - known simply as Matty and Mel - have been linked to the suspected suicide by the hospital Jacintha worked in Shame: Mel Greig pictured with Australian singer Natalie Bassingthwaighte, bragged along with her co-presenter for days of their hoax phone call Thinking she was speaking to the Queen, the receptionist replied: \u2018Oh yes, just hold on ma\u2019am\u2019. She then put the presenters through to one of the nurses who was caring for the Duchess. The nurse also believed she was speaking to the Queen and went on to make a number of deeply personal observations about Kate\u2019s health. A recording of the entire conversation was played on the Sydney-based radio station 2Day. A radio station spokesman later apologised for the 'inconvenience' caused by the call. \n \n According to the website of the talent agency that promotes Greig, the prank was 'a bit of fun and indicative of Mel's high energy, anything for a laugh, personality'. Her profile reads: 'Mel started at 2Day FM, Sydney's number one hit music station, in early 2012 after five years experience in commercial radio and off the back of running her own radio school from her home town in Adelaide. \n \n 'Mel is well known and loved for her stint on The Amazing Race Australia in 2011 with sister Alana. \n \n 'She is also the consummate MC and has hosted everything from fashion events, modelling comps and award nights.' \n \n Hospital boss John Lofthouse confirmed his staff had passed on information about Kate, saying: 'This was a foolish prank call that we all deplore.' Third visit: Prince William arrives at the King Edward VII Hospital to visit his wife the Duchess of Cambridge in central London \n \n A Scotland Yard spokesman said yesterday: \u2018Police were called at approximately 9.25am on Friday, December 7, to a report of a woman found unconscious an address in Weymouth Street, W1. \u2018London Ambulance Service attended and the woman was pronounced dead at the scene. \n \n 'Inquiries are continuing to establish the circumstances of the incident. \u2018The death is not being treated as suspicious at this stage\u2019. In a statement, the Royal College of Nursing said: 'The Royal College of Nursing has expressed sadness at the death of the nurse from the London hospital treating the Duchess of Cambridge who took a hoax call about the Duchess's condition. 'Jacintha Saldanha, who was found dead this morning, had worked at the King Edward VII Hospital for more than four years and was described by the hospital as a first-class nurse who had cared diligently for hundreds of patients during her time there.' \n \n Dr Peter Carter, RCN Chief Executive & General Secretary, said: 'This is tragic news, and the thoughts of all at the Royal College of Nursing go to the family of Jacintha Saldanha. 'It is deeply saddening that a simple human error due to a cruel hoax could lead to the death of a dedicated and caring member of the nursing profession.' \n \n MailOnline did not publish details of the tragedy until the hospital confirmed the woman's family had been contacted. Scrum: John Lofthouse the Chief Executive of King Edward VII's hospital and Lord Glenarthur, the hospital's Chairman, deliver a statement LEVESON: AUSSIE HOAX PROVES NEW PRIVACY LAWS NEEDED \n \n The prank call by Australian radio presenters who got a condition report from the Duchess of Cambridge's nurse by pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles proves the need for new privacy laws, Lord Justice Leveson has said. He blamed the 'historic failure' of successive British governments for failing to curb media intrusion and added individuals who tweet or use social media platforms are not beyond reach of the criminal law. \n \n The judge also criticised European magazines for publishing photographs of Kate topless on holiday and blamed the 'historic failure' of successive governments to curb media intrusion. \n \n During a speech in Sydney, he refused to respond to what he described as 'misconceived' criticism of his milestone report into the press. \n \n He was speaking to a \u00a3620-a-head audience at the Shangri-La Hotel. \n \n Leveson criticised 'certain sections' of the press which had \u201cstarted to push against ethical boundaries and in some instances have pushed too far'. He then highlighted the 'recent Australian intrusion' into the Duchess of Cambridge\u2019s 'private life while she was in hospital'. The Duchess of Cambridge is now resting at the London home she shares with Prince William after her release from the hospital where she had been recovering from hyperemesis gravidarum. She was forced to cancel a string of engagements because of her acute morning sickness. Kate, who was admitted to hospital on Monday, returned to Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace and cancelled upcoming engagements after doctors told her to rest. And she may have to recuperate without Prince William by her side, as he may be returning to duty with his Search and Rescue squadron at RAF Valley in Anglesey, it has been reported. \n \n She missed a planned fundraising engagement in the City of London on Wednesday because she was confined to hospital. William and the Duchess of Cambridge had been hoping to keep the news they were expecting a baby to themselves until Christmas Day. \n \n But with Kate admitted to hospital with acute morning sickness, they had little choice but to make the announcement. \n \n They delighted millions around the world \u2013 including their own families \u2013 with the happy news. \n \n But as the word spread, the parents-to-be were together in hospital, facing the first hurdle in a much longed for pregnancy. \n \n Kate, 30, who is barely eight weeks pregnant, was taken to the hospital just after Sunday lunch by her husband and immediately put on a drip to stop her becoming dehydrated. \n \n For confidential support call the Samaritans in the UK on 08457 90 90 90 or visit a local Samaritans branch. 'ROYAL HOSPITAL PRIDES ITSELF ON DISCRETION AND EXCELLENT CARE ' \n \n King Edward VII hospital is one of the most exclusive private hospitals in the country, attracting world-class medical specialists \n \n It has been treating the Royal Family since it opened in 1899 at the suggestion of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and its patron is the Queen. \n \n It prides itself on 'a strong tradition of excellence in nursing', with one of the best nurse-to-patient ratios in the country, far exceeding the national average. \n \n Its website states: 'Our nursing staff are some of the very best and - unlike many hospitals - the vast majority are permanently employed by us.' \n \n It also states there has never been a case of hospital acquired MRSA or C-difficile. \n \n The hospital has been run by John Lofthouse, who has been chief executive since June 2009. Prior to that he worked as a general manager at the privately owned Circle Health, managing the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre. \n \n Previous royal patients of King Edward VII include Prince Philip, who was treated for a bladder infection in June. Other royal patients are said to include Prince Charles, the Queen herself, the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and the Countess of Snowdon. \n \n However, it is unlikely that the new arrival to the family will be born at King Edward VII. St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, is the said to be the bookies' favourite, helping to affirm the new tradition of The royal family of having children in NHS hospitals. \n \n Both Prince William and Prince Harry were born there, as were Zara and Peter Philips, the Princess Royal\u2019s children. Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were born in the private Portland Hospital, while older generations, including Prince Charles, have traditionally been born at Buckingham Palace. \n \n As a registered charity, there are currently around 1,800 Friends of the Hospital who contribute \u00a340 per year. The hospital also claims to have more than 4,000 supporters and the 2010 annual report shows that more than \u00a32 million was raised through fundraising. \n \n Founded by Agnes Keyser in 1899 as a hospital for sick and wounded Officers returning from the Boer War, subsidies are automatically offered to all Service patients and are given regardless of rank, length of service or treatment. \n \n ANNA HODGEKISS \n \n \n \n VIDEO: RADIO STATION BOSS 'DEEPLY SADDENED' BY NURSE DEATH", "summary": "\u2013 The Australian radio hosts whose royal hoax led to the apparent suicide of the nurse they tricked are off the air for the time being, reports the Guardian. Sydney station 2Day FM said Mel Greig and Michael Christian were \"both deeply shocked\" at the death of Jacintha Saldanha. \"They will not return to their radio show until further notice out of respect for what can only be described as a tragedy.\" Earlier this week, the male-female radio team called up the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated and tricked Saldanha into giving them information by impersonating the queen. The mother of two was found unconscious today near King Edward VII hospital. \"We as a family are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved Jacintha,\" said a family statement. A hospital spokesperson called her an \"excellent nurse,\" reports the Daily Mail."}
{"document": "See more of D'Arreion Nuriyah Toles on Facebook ||||| Close Get email notifications on Venton Blandin daily! \n \n Your notification has been saved. \n \n There was a problem saving your notification. \n \n Whenever Venton Blandin posts new content, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox with a link. \n \n Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. ||||| He said it made him feel \u201clike you can\u2019t be who you are in America.\u201d \n \n In one of the videos, Mr. Toles is in an elevator and Ms. Mueller follows him. He says, \u201cSo now you\u2019re going to follow me?\u201d \n \n \u201cI am,\u201d she replies. \n \n In another video, she trails him in a hallway, saying she wants to introduce herself because he is a neighbor. \n \n \u201cI do not want to speak with you,\u201d he says. \u201cPlease stop following me. I\u2019m going to call the cops for harassment. That\u2019s my next step.\u201d \n \n The last video shows Ms. Mueller outside his unit, with Mr. Toles standing in the doorway. \u201cYou just followed me all the way to my door,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd you see my keys in the door.\u201d \n \n \u201cAs a record I just want to say, \u2018Hi, what is your name?\u2019\u201d she begins to say before Mr. Toles cuts her off. \n \n \u201cMa\u2019am \u2014 you just \u2014 no. Have a good night, ma\u2019am,\u201d he says. \u201cDon\u2019t ever do that again.\u201d \n \n Brandon Mueller, Ms. Mueller\u2019s estranged husband, said in an interview on Sunday that he was shocked to learn about the encounter after he got messages and notifications on Facebook. \n \n On Facebook, Mr. Mueller, who has a black father and white mother, posted a video in which he said he was disappointed about what happened. He said he had been separated from Ms. Mueller for more than a year and had not lived in the Elder Shirt Lofts building for just as long. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites.", "summary": "\u2013 In the latest high-profile \"living while black\" incident, a white woman attempted to block a black man from entering his building in St. Louis, then called the police on him after he successfully made his way into his apartment. D\u2019Arreion Toles recorded the Friday night encounter with Hilary Brooke Mueller, who was outside with her dog and repeatedly asked Toles what unit of the Elder Shire Lofts condominium complex he lived in. After he managed to get past her and into the building, she followed him into the elevator and all the way to his door, the New York Times reports. About 30 minutes later, police arrived at the unit and told Toles that Mueller had reported being \"uncomfortable\" with his presence; he told police he rented the unit and had shown Mueller his key fob. No one was cited, KMOV reports. He posted videos of the encounter on Facebook, where Mueller became known as \"Apartment Patty\" (reminiscent of \"Permit Patty\" and other such nicknames). Eventually her identity was uncovered and her employer, real estate management company Tribeca-STL, posted a statement on its website saying she had been fired. (The website is currently down.) Neither Mueller nor the police have yet commented on the situation, but Toles tells the Times he felt unsafe, even concerned he could end up like Botham Jean, the black man shot dead by a police officer in his own Dallas apartment. Even so, he asked supporters not to attack Mueller. \"I am not upset with her. I am not going to go after her legally or anything like that,\" he says. \"I wish her the best. I would still have a conversation with her.\" (This woman called 911 on a black lawmaker.)"}
{"document": "\u201cIt is true that he\u2019s broadened the search,\u201d Kellyanne Conway said. | AP Photo State Department choice: None of the above? The final four of Romney, Giuliani, Corker and Petraeus has been expanded. \n \n Donald Trump\u2019s short list for secretary of state is getting longer. \n \n Two new candidates are retired Adm. James G. Stavridis and Rex W. Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil. Both are expected to meet with Trump this week, according to sources familiar with the transition. At one point during the summer, Stavridis was mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for Hillary Clinton. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n The president-elect, who teased that \u201calmost all\u201d of his remaining Cabinet choices will be named this week, will interview more secretary of state candidates, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Sunday. \n \n \u201cIt is true that he\u2019s broadened the search,\u201d Conway said during a press briefing inside Trump Tower, confirming earlier comments from Vice President-elect Mike Pence. \n \n Trump\u2019s transition team last week identified former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and former CIA Director David Petraeus as the top four contenders. \n \n \u201cThat list is expanding because at the moment, there are no \u2014 there is not a finite list of finalists only because he will interview with additional candidates early this week,\u201d Conway said, later clarifying that the short list of candidates stands at \u201cmore than four.\u201d \n \n \u201cBut who knows how many finalists there will be,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big decision, and nobody should rush through it.\u201d \n \n The widening search for secretary of state suggests none of the initial final four candidates has stood out to Trump as the clear choice. Romney has been mocked by Conway and others, Giuliani has been bogged down by reports of foreign entanglements, senators have expressed support for Corker but Trump hasn\u2019t been as vocal, and tapping Petraeus would be treated as hypocritical, given how aggressively the president-elect went after Democratic nomineeClinton on the trail for her handling of classified information as secretary of state. \n \n Conway downplayed the expansion, though, remarking that all that has changed since Trump narrowed his list to four is \u201ca lot of qualified people.\u201d \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s many qualified people who have expressed an interest in serving,\u201d she said. \u201cI think one thing that really strikes us \u2014 and this is not unique to this president, who is unique \u2014 but there are a number of people that we may not have thought wanted to leave their very lucrative private industry positions to go and serve the government, and they are coming forth now and expressing interest, and it\u2019s exciting, frankly, to at least get their counsel.\u201d \n \n \n \n Pence had hinted earlier Sunday in an interview with host Chuck Todd on NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d that the secretary of state list would grow. \n \n \u201cWith regard to secretary of state, we\u2019ve been winnowing the list, but it might grow a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cI think to talk to the president-elect is to know he\u2019s simply looking for the best men and women to advance the agenda that we know will make America great again.\u201d \n \n Asked what it is about the current field that has prompted Trump to broaden his search, Pence argued that expanding the short list isn\u2019t a reflection of the field. \n \n \u201cI think everyone that he\u2019s talked to and has been talked about, whether it be Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney or General Petraeus or Senator Corker, John Bolton and others, bring extraordinary background and qualities to this,\u201d Pence said. \n \n \u201cBut I think you're going to see the president-elect continue that process, to ensure that as he has a vision for really reengaging the world with an America-first agenda, advancing America\u2019s interests in the world economically and diplomatically that he\u2019s going to make sure that he has the right person in that role just like he is in every role.\u201d \n \n POLITICO reported Friday that Trump\u2019s team would be closely monitoring Petraeus\u2019 interview with ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d to see how he would handle concerns over his possible nomination. \n \n The retired general and former CIA director was candid in his Sunday interview, acknowledging that it was a mistake to share classified information with his biographer and admitting to lying, albeit unknowingly at the time, he said, to the FBI. \n \n \u201cI made a mistake. I have, again, acknowledged it,\u201d Petraeus said. \u201cFolks will have to factor that in and determine whether that is indeed disqualifying or not.\u201d \n \n As for whether Petraeus is even nominated to head the State Department, Pence said Trump will \u201cfactor the totality of General Petraeus\u2019 career in making that decision.\u201d \n \n Conway, who has voiced her opposition to Romney, stressed that America\u2019s chief diplomat \u201cis an incredibly important position for any president to fill\u201d and said Trump is \u201cvery fortunate to have interest among serious men and women\u201d who understand their primary role \u201cwould be to implement and adhere to the president-elect\u2019s America-first foreign policy \u2014 if you will, his view of the world.\u201d \n \n \u201cSo, he continues to \u2014 he continues to talk to different people,\u201d Conway said. \n \n Reince Priebus, Trump\u2019s incoming chief of staff, said while \u201cthings are moving fast,\u201d the choice for secretary of state \u201cis just taking a little bit longer, and I think it\u2019s just fine.\u201d \n \n \u201cEverything doesn\u2019t have to happen all at once, but he\u2019s taking his time, making a smart decision. And we\u2019ll see where that goes,\u201d he said on CBS\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation.\u201d \n \n Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another vocal Romney critic, praised Trump for his patience, crediting him specifically for not rushing to choose Romney or hastily opposing him, either. \n \n But Gingrich noted that as tough and deliberately aggressive as he has been against choosing Romney, \u201cI\u2019ve gotten no blowback from anybody, including Reince.\u201d \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of you\u2019re allowed to have your own opinion. This is like \u2018The Apprentice,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we get to a decision, we ought to all be on the same team. But until that decision\u2019s made, you know, it\u2019s a fair conversation.\u201d \n \n Gingrich insisted he will support Trump\u2019s decision, even if it\u2019s Romney, but stressed that the real estate mogul needs \u201cto build a real team.\u201d \n \n \u201cHe can\u2019t possibly do it by himself, and he\u2019s showing that he understands that,\u201d Gingrich said. \n \n The vocal anti-Romney campaign could ultimately prove fruitful, though. As Gingrich said, Trump generally gives more weight to what people tell him in person, but \u201con occasion, it helps to reinforce that on TV.\u201d \n \n Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report. ||||| Vice President-elect Mike Pence speaks at a \"Get Out The Vote\" rally to stump for Republican senate candidates in New Orleans, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Associated Press) \n \n Vice President-elect Mike Pence speaks at a \"Get Out The Vote\" rally to stump for Republican senate candidates in New Orleans, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Associated Press) \n \n WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times local): \n \n 11 a.m. \n \n Kellyanne Conway is saying that President-elect Donald Trump is expanding his secretary of state search beyond the four finalists announced last week. \n \n Conway told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower on Sunday that Trump would have \"additional interviews\" this week but she did not identify the new candidates. \n \n Conway, who was Trump's campaign manager, said that all the candidates \"need to understand\" that they must \"be loyal\" to the president-elect's view of the world. \n \n Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is one candidate who might be considered, according to someone close to the transition process who was not permitted to speak publicly about the process. \n \n The previously identified finalists are Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former CIA director David Petraeus and Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker. \n \n ___ \n \n 10:10 a.m. \n \n Alec Baldwin says if Donald Trump releases his taxes, he'll stop impersonating him. \n \n The actor is lashing back at the president-elect's swipes of his performance on Saturday Night Live. \n \n Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the show and Baldwin's impersonation specifically, tweeted late Saturday night that the show is \"unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny.\" He added that \"the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad.\" \n \n Baldwin began impersonating Trump on the NBC show in the later months of the campaign and has continued the stint since Trump won the election last month. \n \n Baldwin replied, through the Twitter handle of the Alec Baldwin Foundation, \"Release your tax returns and I'll stop.\" \n \n Trump has long said he would release his taxes following the completion of an audit. \n \n ___ \n \n 9:30 a.m. \n \n Vice President-elect Mike Pence says Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwan's leader was a \"courtesy call\" and does not necessarily reflect a shift in U.S. policy. \n \n The phone call drew an irritated response from China, whose foreign minister called the contact a \"small trick by Taiwan\" and noted that \"healthy\" U.S.-China relations hinge upon the so-called \"one-China\" policy. \n \n In a Sunday interview with NBC's \"Meet the Press,\" Pence shrugged off China's annoyance as media hype and noted the estimated 50 calls Trump has had with world leaders since the Nov. 8 election. \n \n Pence said he's not aware of any contact between Trump or his advisers and Chinese officials since the incident. When asked if there might be a follow-up phone call to Chinese leaders this week, Pence said probably not. \n \n ___ \n \n 7:40 a.m. \n \n Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is confident that President-elect Donald Trump will soon realize the level of responsibility his job entails. \n \n Despite Trump's pro-Russian statements during the campaign, Russian politicians are concerned about reports that Trump is considering Mitt Romney, known for his harsh stance on Russia, to be his secretary of state. \n \n Putin said in an interview with the NTV channel to be broadcast later on Sunday that Trump's business accomplishments show him to be a \"smart man.\" \n \n He added that \"if he is a smart man, that means that he will fairly soon become aware of a different level of responsibility. We expect that he act with these considerations in mind.\" \n \n ___ \n \n 7:35 a.m. \n \n President-elect Donald Trump is threatening heavy taxes as retribution for U.S. companies that move their business operations overseas and still try to sell their product to Americans. \n \n In a series of early-morning tweets Sunday, Trump vowed a 35 percent tax on products sold inside the U.S. by any business that fired American workers and built a new factory or plant in another country. \n \n Trump campaigned on a vow to help American workers but also to reduce taxes and regulations on businesses. \n \n Trump tweets \"there will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35 percent for these companies wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units, etc., back across the border.\" \n \n He says companies should be \"forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Bob Corker, and David Petraeus: Donald Trump's shortlist for secretary of state is evidently not as short as previously thought, reports Politico. \"It is true that he\u2019s broadened the search,\" said Kellyanne Conway, who's made no secret of her personal contempt for Romney, on Sunday at Trump Tower. \"I think you've all seen the list before that already existed. I think there'll be additional interviews with other candidates for secretary of state and other Cabinet positions, and deputy Cabinet positions as well.\" That reveal syncs up with what Mike Pence earlier told Meet the Press: \"With regard to secretary of state, we've been winnowing the list, but it might grow a little bit.\" The AP floats a potential addition, citing an anonymous transition source: Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. Pence is downplaying Trump's call to Taiwan's leader as a \"courtesy call.\" China was not happy. Meanwhile, in Russia, Vladimir Putin is praising Trump as a \"smart man\" as evidenced by his business acumen. Further, \"if he is a smart man, that means that he will fairly soon become aware of a different level of responsibility. We expect that he act with these considerations in mind.\" Putin is said to be antsy that Trump might appoint Romney, whose stance toward Russia is harsh."}
{"document": "\u2014 The CIA said Thursday that it had opened an \u201cexploratory\u201d investigation into the conduct of former director David Petraeus, who resigned after admitting to adultery, on the same day that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the military services to review ways to strengthen ethics standards \u201cthat keep the military well led and well disciplined.\u201d \n \n The CIA and Pentagon actions were the latest fallout from the shocking resignation of Petraeus, a retired four-star Army general, and revelations that four-star Marine Corps Gen. John Allen exchanged inappropriate emails with the woman who triggered the FBI probe that exposed Petraeus\u2019 affair. \n \n The military brass also has been rattled by a slew of lesser-known, more serious cases, including a one-star general recalled from Afghanistan who is facing criminal charges of sexually assaulting or committing adultery with five women. The Pentagon, however, insisted that the timing of Panetta\u2019s directive was \u201ccoincidental.\u201d \n \n The FBI, meanwhile, was trying to determine if Paula Broadwell, the Army Reserve intelligence officer with whom Petraeus was romantically involved, had the security clearances needed to possess all of the classified materials found on her personal computer, according to a senior law enforcement official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the sensitive subject. \n \n \"There are levels of clearance that she may not have had authorization for certain documents,\u201d the senior law enforcement source said. \u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019re really trying to sort out is classification levels, clearance levels.\" \n \n The FBI investigation could take a while, the official said, because the bureau wants \"to conduct a thorough investigation to see if there was any classified information that was either compromised or mishandled. That\u2019s something (the FBI takes) very seriously.\" \n \n Broadwell, 40, who voluntarily allowed the FBI to search her Charlotte, N.C., home on Monday night and remove two computers, had her security clearances withdrawn by the Army on Wednesday. \n \n The preliminary investigation by the CIA inspector general\u2019s office into Petraeus was apparently aimed at assessing his general conduct during his 14-month stint as the nation\u2019s top spy. \n \n \u201cAt the CIA we are constantly reviewing our performance. If there are lessons to be learned from this case we\u2019ll use them to improve,\u201d said a statement quoting an unnamed CIA spokesperson. \u201cBut we\u2019re not getting ahead of ourselves; an investigation is exploratory and doesn\u2019t presuppose any particular outcome.\u201d \n \n The scope of the investigation wasn\u2019t disclosed, including whether it would involve questioning the CIA security team that accompanied Petraeus everywhere, 24 hours a day. \n \n Meanwhile, Petraeus will testify Friday before closed-door hearings of both the House and Senate intelligence committees on the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate and a nearby CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. They resulted in the deaths of four Americans, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, a State Department staffer and two CIA contract security officers. \n \n The attacks ignited a political firestorm, with critics questioning whether the Obama administration had provided adequate security, reacted properly and offered accurate accounts of what happened. \n \n \u201cThe opportunity to get his views is very important,\u201d Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of Petraeus. \n \n CNN reported that Petraeus told one of its reporters in a conversation that his resignation had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack and that he wanted to testify. \n \n Panetta\u2019s order to Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the ethical standards review by the service chiefs was announced during a visit by the defense secretary to Bangkok, Thailand. \n \n The assessment \u201cis intended to reinforce and strengthen the standards that keep the military well led and disciplined,\u201d Pentagon spokesman George Little said. \u201cThe secretary believes that the vast majority of our senior military officers exemplify the strength of character and the highest ethical standards the American people expect of those whose job it is to provide for the security of our nation.\u201d \n \n The review\u2019s findings will be used as the basis for a report that will be presented to President Barack Obama by Dec. 1. \n \n Some independent experts welcomed the announcement in light of the scandal enmeshing Petraeus and Allen, who is the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. \n \n \u201cThese are people who in their leadership role are supposed to set an example,\u201d said Nicholas Fotion, a professor of philosophy and military ethics at Emory University in Atlanta. \u201cIf they don\u2019t do that, they do more harm than if an ordinary male soldier has an affair with a female soldier. If you accept a leadership role, you accept certain responsibilities.\u201d \n \n Petraeus and other U.S. military leaders have been \u201cglorified\u201d by the American public during more than a decade of war, and some may have come to believe that they could relax their standards of conduct, he said. \n \n \u201cThe high status we gave them has gone to their heads,\u201d said Fotion. \n \n Frances V. Harbour, a professor of international security issues at George Mason University in Virginia who specializes in military ethics, said that the new review appeared to be aimed at reinforcing at senior levels lessons in \u201cmaking the right choices\u201d that military academies work to inculcate in cadets. \n \n She said that the pressures from long overseas deployments away from families to which service members have been subjected is \u201cpart of the explanation\u201d for troubling behavior by senior officers. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s an excuse,\u201d she added. \n \n \u201cYou are still obligated by the special promises you made to not just follow normal moral codes, but to follow these military codes which are much stricter,\u201d she said. \n \n Petraeus, 60, who has been married for 38 years, disclosed his affair with Broadwell, his married biographer, in resigning on Friday, saying his behavior was \u201cunacceptable.\u201d \n \n On Monday, Panetta announced that he\u2019d ordered the Pentagon inspector general to investigate more than 20,000 emails and other documents that Allen exchanged with Jill Kelley, a Tampa, Fla., socialite who threw parties for prominent citizens and senior officers from MacDill Air Force Base, home of the U.S. Central Command. \n \n Kelley, 37, and her husband were friends with Petraeus \u2013 who served as CENTCOM commander from October 2008 until June 2010 \u2013 and Allen, 58, who served as Petraeus\u2019 deputy, and his wife. \n \n Kelley\u2019s complaint earlier this year to an FBI agent who she knew about threatening anonymous emails triggered the FBI investigation that led to Broadwell and uncovered her affair with Petraeus. The first email reportedly was sent in May to Allen, who subsequently forwarded it to Kelley. \n \n The military also has been rocked by Panetta\u2019s decision this week to penalize William Ward, a former four-star general who led U.S. Africa Command, and order him to repay $82,000 for taking extravagant and unauthorized trips with his wife, and the sexual assault and adultery charges facing Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair of the 82nd Airborne Division. \n \n In another recent case, James H. Johnson III, a former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, was convicted of bigamy and fraud stemming from an improper relationship with an Iraqi woman and her family, busted in rank and expelled from the Army. \n \n Greg Gordon of the Washington Bureau contributed. \n \n Email: jlanday@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @JonathanLanday ||||| Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on Thursday that the F.B.I. investigation into a cyberstalking case that revealed the affair concluded that e-mails Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell exchanged did not violate national security. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Speaking at a news conference in New Orleans to announce a settlement with the oil company BP, Mr. Holder said the White House and Congress were not notified about Mr. Petraeus\u2019s situation until last week because the national security concerns had been allayed. \n \n \u201cAs we went through the investigation, we looked at the facts and tried to examine them as they developed,\u201d Mr. Holder said. \u201cWe felt very secure in the knowledge that a national security threat did not exist that warranted the sharing of that information with the White House or with the Hill.\u201d \n \n The spotlight will turn to Mr. Petraeus on Friday, when he testifies in closed session to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees \u2014 not about his affair, though that may well come up, but mainly about the attacks on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Mr. Petraeus gave his first interview since resigning, telling Kyra Phillips of CNN that he had never given classified information to Ms. Broadwell and that his resignation had been solely because of their relationship. He said it had nothing to do with disagreements over the attack on the American Mission and a C.I.A. safe house in Benghazi. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Leading administration officials, meanwhile, met privately with lawmakers for a third straight day to explain how the Petraeus investigation was handled and explore its national security implications. Among those appearing before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence; Michael J. Morell, the acting C.I.A. director; and Sean Joyce, the deputy F.B.I. director. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n After a four-hour closed hearing on Thursday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who heads the Intelligence Committee, said the panel had reviewed a detailed chronology of the attack on Sept. 11 that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. It included a video made from a composite of sources, including Predator drone video of the events that night. \n \n Ms. Feinstein said that in addition to meeting with Mr. Petraeus on Friday to hear his account of the attack \u2014 as well as an assessment of a visit he made just two weeks ago to the C.I.A.\u2019s station in Tripoli, Libya\u2019s capital \u2014 the committee would hold at least three additional hearings on the matter. \n \n Photo \n \n \u201cWe are in effect fact-finding,\u201d she said. \n \n Ms. Feinstein and the panel\u2019s senior Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, declined to tell reporters what questions they had asked the witnesses, but Mr. Chambliss and his colleagues said previously they would examine possible intelligence flaws, security lapses and the Obama administration\u2019s handling of the issue. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n \u201cWere mistakes made?\u201d Mr. Chambliss said. \u201cWe know mistakes were made, and we\u2019ve got to learn from that.\u201d \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Earlier in the day, the same administration officials faced tough questioning from members of the House Intelligence Committee. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Representative C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the committee\u2019s top Democrat, said after the hearing that he was satisfied the F.B.I. had behaved properly in not notifying the White House or lawmakers about the inquiry sooner, in keeping with post-Watergate rules set up to prevent interference in criminal investigations. \n \n Leading Republicans, including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, for suggesting that the siege in Benghazi was a spontaneous protest rather than an opportunistic terrorist attack. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n But Mr. Ruppersberger said on Thursday that this criticism was unfair and that the intelligence community\u2019s assessment of what had happened was now roughly what Ms. Rice recounted on several Sunday talk shows. \u201cYou had a group of extremists who took advantage of a situation, and unfortunately we lost four American lives,\u201d he said. \n \n Mr. Ruppersberger also underscored what intelligence officials have said for weeks: that the attack on the diplomatic mission seemed disorganized, and without good command and control, but that the second attack, a mortar strike on the C.I.A. base nearly eight hours later, was much more sophisticated. It was clearly the work of terrorists, he said. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat on the panel, said that Benghazi would be the main focus of Friday\u2019s hearing, but that lawmakers still had many questions \u201cwith respect to the facts about the allegations against General Petraeus.\u201d \n \n While the intelligence committees questioned witnesses behind closed doors, Democrats and Republican sparred openly at a hearing on Benghazi by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which heard testimony from outside experts. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Michael J. Courts, a specialist from the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, told lawmakers that his agency warned three years ago in a report that the State Department\u2019s diplomatic security division had failed to devise an effective strategic plan to deal with a growing number of operational challenges in increasingly dangerous overseas posts like Pakistan, Yemen and Libya. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican on the committee, suggested that the United States had been ill-prepared to cope with the threats posed in eastern Libya on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, despite a string of assaults against the Red Cross and Western diplomats in the previous several months. \u201cSomebody forgot to circle the calendar on 9/11,\u201d he said. \n \n Others, like Representative Gerald E. Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who visited Libya in May, said that the Foreign Service was inherently dangerous in certain places, but that American diplomats needed to keep doing their jobs. \n \n Libya was a case in point, Mr. Connolly said. \n \n \u201cWhen I landed at Tripoli, there was a militia, not the government, guarding the airport in Tripoli,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an inherently unstable situation after 40 years of autocratic rule by Qaddafi. Tragedies happen.\u201d ||||| * No CIA documents on mistress' computer -sources \n \n * Spy agency launches probe of its own \n \n * Petraeus says resigned CIA post over affair, not Benghazi \n \n By Mark Hosenball and Andy Sullivan \n \n WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Classified material kept by the woman who conducted an affair with former CIA Director David Petraeus predates their liaison and does not come from the spy agency, sources briefed on the investigation told Reuters on Thursday. \n \n The finding appears to bolster assertions by both Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, that their affair did not put national security secrets at risk - a central question hovering over the scandal that brought down one of the United States' most respected public figures last week. \n \n The CIA said on Thursday it had opened an \"exploratory\" investigation into Petraeus' conduct, building on the FBI's probe. Law enforcement officials have said they believe the FBI investigation is likely to end without criminal charges. \n \n The scandal has cast a spotlight on the private lives of some of the nation's top national security officials. \n \n The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Marine General John Allen, now faces a Pentagon inspector general's review of what sources describe as \"flirtatious\" emails with a Tampa socialite. \n \n Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the military's top brass to look for any gaps in ethics amid concerns officers' lapses in judgment could erode public confidence in the military. Traveling in Bangkok, Panetta said he knew of no other military officials who have been drawn into the investigation. \n \n Petraeus and Broadwell have separately told investigators they did not share security secrets, and Petraeus has repeated that assertion to associates and a television reporter. \n \n In his first public comments on the matter, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday the FBI did not see any possible threats over the course of the investigation that were urgent enough to notify President Barack Obama or lawmakers until shortly before Petraeus stepped down. \n \n BROADWELL HAD SECURITY CLEARANCE \n \n FBI agents have found a substantial amount of classified information on Broadwell's personal computer since they searched her Charlotte, North Carolina, home with her consent on Monday. \n \n Sources briefed on the investigation said the documents date from before August 2011, when Petraeus took up his post at the CIA and the two started their affair. None of the material comes from the CIA. \n \n As an Army reserve officer involved in military intelligence, Broadwell had a security clearance that allowed her to handle sensitive documents. However, she would still have to comply with strict rules that lay out how sensitive materials must be protected. \n \n Broadwell's security clearance has now been suspended. She could have it revoked and face harsher penalties if it is found she mishandled classified data. \n \n Petraeus' remarks notwithstanding, investigators said on Thursday they had not ruled out the possibility that he passed on classified material to Broadwell. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing law enforcement investigation. \n \n Broadwell, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, has made no public comment since the scandal erupted last week. \n \n 'PRETTY CRITICAL INTERVIEW' \n \n Some lawmakers have questioned why they were not notified of the probe until after last week's presidential election. \n \n Holder, at a news conference in New Orleans, defended the Justice Department's handling of the case and its sharing of information with top Obama administration officials. \n \n \"After a pretty critical interview occurred the Friday before we made that disclosure, when we got to that point where we thought it was appropriate to share the information, we did so,\" Holder said at a news conference. \n \n Petraeus is due on Friday to face lawmakers who are examining the September attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which led to the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. The attack has turned into a flash point between Obama and Republicans who accuse his administration of misleading the public in the days following the attack. \n \n The questioning will be confined to the events in Benghazi, said one lawmaker who is expected to participate. \n \n \"We'll get his perspective on what information he knew and how his assessment of that intelligence changed over time,\" said Democratic Representative Adam Schiff. \n \n Petraeus told the television network HLN that he resigned because of the affair, not Benghazi.", "summary": "\u2013 The CIA announced yesterday that it is opening its own investigation into the conduct of former chief David Petraeus, and sources tell the New York Times the investigation will center around whether Petraeus misused any CIA assets\u2014from security details to private jets\u2014to carry out his affair with Paula Broadwell. The CIA itself didn't shed much light into the scope of the probe, reports McClatchy. \"At the CIA we are constantly reviewing our performance,\" said a spokesperson. \"If there are lessons to be learned from this case we\u2019ll use them to improve. But we\u2019re not getting ahead of ourselves; an investigation is exploratory and doesn\u2019t presuppose any particular outcome.\u201d Meanwhile, sources tell Reuters that the classified information held by Paula Broadwell predated her relationship with Petraeus, backing up his assertion that he divulged none and that their affair did not put national security at risk. Eric Holder announced yesterday that the FBI probe that originally uncovered the affair found that Petraeus and Broadwell did not violate national security in their email exchanges. Petraeus is set to testify before a Congressional committee today on the Benghazi attack that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens."}
{"document": "This view from the Viking 2 shows Utopia Planitia on Mars in 1976. Some researchers think that the Viking lander's main instrument may have burned up organic molecules in collected soil samples. \n \n Over 40 years ago, a NASA mission may have accidentally destroyed what would have been the first discovery of organic molecules on Mars, according to a report from New Scientist. \n \n Recently, NASA caused quite a commotion when it announced that its Curiosity rover discovered organic molecules \u2014 which make up life as we know it \u2014 on Mars. This followed the first confirmation of organic molecules on Mars in 2014. But because small, carbon-rich meteorites so frequently pelt the Red Planet, scientists have suspected for decades that organics exist on Mars. But researchers were stunned in 1976, when NASA sent two Viking landers to Mars to search for organics for the first time and found absolutely none. \n \n Scientists didn't know what to make of the Viking findings \u2014 how could there be no organics on Mars? \"It was just completely unexpected and inconsistent with what we knew,\" Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, told New Scientist. [Viking 1: The Historic First Mars Landing in Pictures] \n \n A technician checks the soil sampler on the Viking Lander in 1971 before the probe traveled to Mars. Some scientists think that the organic molecules in the soil samples collected by the lander were burned up accidentally. Credit: NASA. \n \n A possible explanation arose when NASA's Phoenix lander found perchlorate on Mars in 2008. This is a salt used to make fireworks on Earth; it becomes highly explosive under high temperatures. And while the surface of Mars isn't too warm, the main instrument aboard the Viking landers, the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GCMS), had to heat the Martian soil samples to find organic molecules. And because perchlorate is in the soil, the instrument would have burned up any organics in the samples during this process. \n \n The discovery of perchlorate reignited scientists' convictions that the Viking landers could have found organics on Mars. \"You get some new insight, and you realize that everything you thought was wrong,\" McKay said. \n \n However, finding perchlorate didn't provide concrete proof that the Viking landers found and accidentally destroyed organic molecules, so the investigation continued. \n \n The variety of organic molecules that Curiosity recently discovered on the Red Planet included chlorobenzene. This molecule is created when carbon molecules burn with perchlorate, so scientists suspect that it could have been created when the soil samples were burnt, according to New Scientist. \n \n Researchers were inspired by this indirect evidence to dig a little deeper and find more evidence that the Viking landers could have found and then destroyed organics. In a new study, published in June in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, Melissa Guzman of the LATMOS research center in France, McKay and a handful of collaborators revisited the Viking lander data to see if anything was missed. \n \n This team found that the Viking landers also detected chlorobenzene, which the researchers said could have formed from burning organic material in the soil samples. \n \n Still, this is not proof that the Viking landers found organic molecules and then accidentally burned them, the researchers told New Scientist. Even the scientists who completed this investigation are divided. \n \n Guzman said she still isn't completely convinced that the chlorobenzene they detected formed when organics in Martian soil were burned. She said that the molecule could have come from Earth aboard NASA equipment. \n \n But despite this skepticism, others are convinced; \"this paper really seals the deal,\" Daniel Glavin, an astrobiologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who was not involved in the study, told New Scientist. \n \n Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her @chelsea_gohd. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. ||||| NASA/GSFC \n \n NASA recently announced its Curiosity rover had discovered complex organic molecules \u2013 key raw materials for life as we know it \u2013 on the surface of Mars. But now it seems a previous NASA probe may have made the same discovery more than 40 years ago, then accidentally burned it up. \n \n In 1976, NASA\u2019s twin Viking landers conducted the first experiments that searched for organic matter on the Red Planet. Researchers had long known that all planets receive a steady rain of carbon-rich micrometeorites and dust from space, meaning that Mars should be \u2026", "summary": "\u2013 Much was made of NASA's announcement last month that \"building blocks of life\" had been found on Mars. But new research suggests the same organic molecules may actually have been discovered by Viking landers NASA sent to Mars in 1976\u2014and then accidentally burned, New Scientist reports. The landers' main instrument was a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, which used heat in an attempt to find organic matter. But scientists now know that due to a chemical in the soil on Mars, that process would have destroyed anything organic. At the time, scientists were \"shocked\" when the Viking landers reported finding nothing organic, USA Today reports. \"It was just completely unexpected and inconsistent with what we knew,\" a NASA scientist explains, per Space.com. Small, carbon-rich meteorites frequently hit Mars, so researchers had long assumed there would be organic matter on the planet. When scientists discovered perchlorate, a salt that's explosive under high temperatures, in Mars soil, they realized what might have happened during the 1976 mission. The new study corroborates the idea of the Viking landers possibly discovering and then destroying organic matter, but it doesn't conclusively prove it."}
{"document": "Supreme Court blocks ruling that let transgender Va. student use boys' bathroom \n \n The Supreme Court signaled in an order Wednesday that it is highly likely to grapple with the issue of transgender bathrooms in its coming term. \n \n Acting on a 5-3 vote, the justices put on hold a groundbreaking court ruling requiring a Virginia school district to accommodate a transgender high school student\u2019s request to use the boys\u2019 bathroom. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n It\u2019s the first time the high court has shown interest in the transgender bathroom issue, which has prompted nearly half of states to sue the Obama administration over its interpretation of federal civil rights law. The Justice and Education Departments have said transgender students are offered sweeping civil rights protections under federal law, including their right to access bathrooms and locker rooms in alignment with their gender identity. \n \n The American Civil Liberties Union is representing student Gavin Grimm in the case. Senior staff attorney Joshua Block said, \u201cWe are disappointed that the court has issued a stay and that Gavin will have to begin another school year isolated from his peers and stigmatized by the Gloucester County school board just because he\u2019s a boy who is transgender. We remain hopeful that Gavin will ultimately prevail.\u201d \n \n Francisco Negr\u00f3n, general counsel and associate executive director of legal advocacy at the National School Boards Association, said the high court eventually will have to resolve the issue of transgender bathroom access. \n \n \"A quick court resolution would be a welcome thing,\" he said, as schools and districts are struggling with conflicting messages and policies from the federal government, states, districts and court cases. \n \n Attorneys for the school board said they welcomed the Supreme Court\u2019s action \"as the new school year approaches.\" \n \n \"The Board continues to believe that its resolution of this complex matter fully considered the interests of all students and parents in the Gloucester County school system,\" the school board said. \n \n The Justice Department declined to comment. \n \n Justice Stephen Breyer joined with the court\u2019s four GOP appointees to lift\u2014for now\u2014the obligation of the Gloucester County school system to allow Grimm to use the bathroom of his choice in accordance with Obama Administration guidance. \n \n In a statement accompanying the order, Breyer said he was agreeing to the stay as a \u201ccourtesy\u201d because the court is in recess and putting the ruling on hold \"will preserve the status quo.\" The three other Democratic appointees opposed the stay. \n \n However, since only four justices are needed to grant review in a case, the fact that the four Republican appointees favored the stay sought by the school district is a strong sign the high court will agree to take up the case this fall. \n \n Nathan Smith, director of public policy for the LGBT advocacy organization GLSEN, said \"preserving the 'status quo\u2019 unfortunately means allowing a school district to discriminate against a transgender student.\" \n \n \"But it doesn\u2019t seem like the decision here was on the merits of the case, so we feel pretty confident that they\u2019ll ultimately rule in a just way,\" Smith added. \"But at least in the short-term we\u2019re pretty disappointed.\u201d \n \n A Richmond, Va.-based federal appeals court ruled in April that the U.S. Department of Education acted within its authority when issuing guidance to school systems on the transgender bathroom issue and that Grimm\u2019s school had a duty to follow it. \n \n The school board filed an emergency application with SCOTUS last month, asking Chief Justice John Roberts to suspend a lower court\u2019s decision granting Grimm bathroom access while they ask the Supreme Court to take up the case. As is customary, Roberts referred the request to the full court. \n \n Authors: ||||| The school board said it intended to file an appeal petition by the end of this month that formally asks the high court to review the 4th Circuit's decision. If the justices agree to hear the case, which now seems likely, it would be one of the court's major cases of the coming term. If a 4-4 deadlock is averted, the case could yield the court's first ruling on the issue of transgender rights. ||||| RICHMOND, Va. (AP) \u2014 A Virginia school board can block a transgender male from using the boys restroom when school starts next month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. \n \n In a 5-3 decision, the high court put on hold a lower court ruling that ordered the Gloucester County School Board to let Gavin Grimm use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. The school board is expected to ask the justices to further intervene in the case later this month. \n \n The decision means Grimm will be barred from using the boys bathroom for at least the first half of his senior year, said Josh Block, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who's representing Grimm. \n \n The school board says it plans to formally ask the Supreme Court to review 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Grimm's case by the end of August and then it will be months before the justices decide whether to do so. \n \n Block said he's disappointed the teen will have to begin another school year being \"stigmatized and isolated from the rest of his peers just because he is transgender.\" But he said he remains hopeful that Grimm will ultimately prevail in the case. \n \n Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, was allowed to use the boys restroom at his high school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the school board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom. Grimm argues the policy violates Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in schools. \n \n The school board counters that allowing Grimm use the boys restroom raises privacy concerns and may cause some parents to pull their children out of school. An attorney for the board didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. \n \n If the justices agree to hear Grimm's case, the order will remain on hold until the court makes a final ruling, the court's ruling said. If they deny the school board's petition for review, the order requiring the board to let Grimm use the boys bathroom will be reinstated. \n \n The appeals court sided with Grimm in April, saying the federal judge who previously dismissed Grimm's Title IX discrimination claim ignored a U.S. Department of Education rule that transgender students in public schools must be allowed to use restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. \n \n The appeals court reinstated Grimm's Title IX claim and sent it back to the district court for further consideration. But the high court's decision Wednesday puts Grimm's case on hold until the justices decide whether to intervene. \n \n Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer said he agreed to put the case on hold to \"preserve the status quo\" until the court decides whether to weigh in. \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Alanna Durkin Richer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aedurkinricher. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/alanna-durkin-richer.", "summary": "\u2013 Seventeen-year-old Gavin Grimm will start his senior year of high school once again banned from using the boys restroom, the AP reports. In a 5-3 decision on Wednesday, the US Supreme Court put a hold on the decision of a lower court that would have allowed Grimm, a transgender male, to use the boys restroom at his school in Virginia. According to the Los Angeles Times, an appeals court ruled in April that the school board was in violation of Title IX when it barred Grimm from the boys restroom. Grimm's lawyer says the Supreme Court's decision means Grimm will continue to be \"stigmatized and isolated from the rest of his peers just because he is transgender.\" However, Politico reports it's likely the Supreme Court will hear Grimm's case when it reconvenes in the fall. And that's good news for Grimm and transgender students like him: A hearing on the issue will probably result in a 4-4 tie, which will uphold the appeals court's earlier ruling and allow Grimm to use the boys restroom\u2014albeit months from now, according to the Times. The appeals court's ruling will also be upheld if the Supreme Court decides not to hear the case. Grimm used the boys restroom for a few weeks in 2014 until a number of parents complained. The Virginia school board says it wants to \"protect the basic expectations of bodily privacy.\""}
{"document": "Not only did FiveThirtyEight's Silver pick all 50 state winners in the presidential race, he also beat out his polling aggregator rivals for sheer margin of accuracy. \n \n FiveThirtyEight blogger and statistician Nate Silver. (Credit: CBSNews.com) \n \n While there's already been whole swimming pools of ink devoted to the Election Day prediction performance of polling aggregators like FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver, CNET is ready to hand out one more round of kudos to the king of the quants. \n \n By now, anyone following the presidential election knows that Silver successfully predicted the winner in the race between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in all 50 states. That performance was one for the ages, earning him worldwide admiration and validating a polling aggregation model that had drawn mockery and ire from many pundits. \n \n This CNET chart shows that, among polling aggregators, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver was more accurate than anyone on Election Day. (Credit: Data by Daniel Terdiman/CNET) \n \n But Silver wasn't the only one to do exceptionally well in the prediction department. In fact, each of the five aggregators that CNET surveyed yesterday -- FiveThirtyEight, TPM PollTracker, HuffPost Pollster, the RealClearPolitics Average, and the Princeton Election Consortium -- successfully called the election for Obama, and save for TPM PollTracker and RealClearPolitics handing Florida to Romney, the aggregators were spot on across the board when it came to picking swing state victors. \n \n Read: The post-election tech tally: Winners and losers \n \n Still, even within the club of those who used computational analysis of thousands of national and statewide polls to peg the outcome of the election, someone had to be the most accurate. And a CNET examination of each aggregator's performance reveals a single winner -- unsurprisingly, Silver. \n \n In addition to picking the winner in all 50 states -- besting his 49 out of 50 slate in 2008 -- Silver was also the closest among the aggregators to picking the two candidates' popular vote percentages. All told, he missed Obama's total of 50.8 percent by just four-tenths of a percentage point (50.4) and Romney's 48 percent by just three-tenths of a point (48.3) for an average miss of just 0.35 percentage points. HuffPo Pollster and RealClearPolitics tied for second with an average miss of 0.85 points. \n \n In preparing to make these comparisons, CNET surveyed 11 swing states. In the end, Silver was closest to the final margins among the candidates in seven of them and also had the best overall record, missing by an average of just 1.46 points in the 11 states. TPM PollTracker was second with the closest predicted margins in three states, and the second-best average margin, 1.80 points. \n \n It is worth noting that while Silver's final pre-election calculations showed a tie vote in Florida, he still predicted a 50.3 chance that the president would prevail in the Sunshine State. \n \n The performances by Silver and his fellow polling aggregators should be sounding alarm bells in the halls of long-venerated pollsters like Gallup -- which, by the way, predicted that Romney would win the national popular vote by a point. \n \n For the Nate-haters, here's the 538 prediction and actual results side by side twitter.com/cosentino/stat... -- Michael Cosentino (@cosentino) November 7, 2012 \n \n But the situation does create a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. While the results of pollsters like Gallup and many of its competitors are looking increasingly suspect in the face of more accurate predictions by Silver and other aggregators, and while some may begin choosing to ignore those traditional polls, the aggregators could not do what they do without the standard polling systems. \n \n In the meantime, even Silver may need to tip his cap to someone who seems to have done an even better job at prognosticating the final presidential election results. In a blog post today, dailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas noted that he had predicted exactly the final Electoral College vote totals and reported an average margin in the swing states that was less than Silver's or that of any aggregator. Moulitsas' methodology? A savvy but seemingly manual reading of last-minute pre-election polls. Maybe the quants don't have all the answers after all. \n \n Correction, November 8, 4 p.m. PT: The above chart originally misreported the number of points by which TPM PollTracker was off in Florida. The correct figure is 1.7 points. ||||| Two more presidential elections, 2016 and 2020, will be contested under the current Electoral College configuration, which gave Barack Obama a second term on Tuesday. This year\u2019s results suggest that this could put Republicans at a structural disadvantage. \n \n Based on a preliminary analysis of the returns, Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College. The last Republican to accomplish that was George H.W. Bush, in 1988. In the table below, I have arranged the 50 states and the District of Columbia from the most Democratic to the most Republican, based on their preliminary results from Tuesday. Along the way, I have counted up the number of electoral votes for the Democratic candidate, starting at zero and going up to 538 as he wins progressively more difficult states. \n \n This process resembles how the FiveThirtyEight tipping-point analysis was calculated. In the simulations we ran each day, we accounted for the range of possible outcomes in each state and then saw which states provided Mr. Obama with his easiest route to 270 electoral votes, the minimum winning number. The state that put Mr. Obama over the top to 270 electoral votes was the tipping-point state in that simulation. \n \n Photo \n \n Now that the actual returns are in, we don\u2019t need the simulations or the forecast model. It turned out, in fact, that although the FiveThirtyEight model had a very strong night over all on Tuesday, it was wrong about the identity of the tipping-point state. Based on the polls, it appeared that Ohio was the state most likely to win Mr. Obama his 270th electoral vote. Instead, it was Colorado that provided him with his win \u2013 the same state that did so in 2008. \n \n The worry for Republicans is that Mr. Obama won Colorado by nearly five percentage points (4.7 points was his margin there, to the decimal place). In contrast, Mr. Obama\u2019s margin in the national popular vote, as of this writing, is 2.4 percentage points. We estimate that it will grow to 2.5 percentage points once some remaining returns from states like Washington are accounted for, or perhaps slightly higher once provisional ballots in other states are counted. But it seems clear that Mr. Obama had some margin to spare in the Electoral College. \n \n Had the popular vote been a tie \u2013 assuming that the margin in each state shifted uniformly \u2013 he would still have won re-election with 285 electoral votes, carrying Colorado and Virginia, although losing Florida and Ohio. \n \n In fact, had Mr. Romney won the popular vote by two percentage points, Mr. Obama would still have won the Electoral College, losing Virginia but holding onto Colorado. \n \n Of course, the relative order of the states can shift a bit from election to election: in 2000, after all, it was Democrats who lost the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote. \n \n Ohio might be one of the Republicans\u2019 lesser worries. Mr. Obama did win the state, but his margin is 1.9 percentage points based on the ballots in so far, slightly less than his margin of victory nationally, and he may have benefited there from the auto bailout, a one-off event. \n \n But Mr. Obama did not need Ohio to carry the Electoral College, it turned out. Instead, states where there have been demographic shifts, like Colorado, gave him enough of a cushion. \n \n Nor was Ohio the only formerly Republican-leaning state to move closer to the Electoral College tipping point. Mr. Obama\u2019s margins in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina also held up well as compared to 2008. \n \n Virginia, in fact, was incrementally more Democratic-leaning than the country as a whole this year, voting for Mr. Obama by three percentage points. \n \n In Florida, Democrats now seem to have a real advantage with Hispanic voters. Non-Cuban Hispanics there voted for Mr. Obama by roughly the same two-to-one margins that they did in other states, and the Cuban-American vote, long considered Republican-leaning, is now divided about equally between the parties. \n \n Mr. Obama lost North Carolina on Tuesday, but he did so by only about two percentage points. By contrast, in 2000 Al Gore lost North Carolina by 13 points despite winning the national popular vote. \n \n If these states are becoming more Democratic-leaning, which ones are shifting toward Republicans? \n \n Missouri, once a tossup, is now solidly Republican. And West Virginia, which was once Democratic-leaning enough that Michael Dukakis carried it in 1988, voted for Mr. Romney by 27 points on Tuesday. \n \n The problem for Republicans is that in states like these, and others like Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas, they are now winning by such large margins there that their vote is distributed inefficiently in terms of the Electoral College. \n \n By contrast, a large number of electorally critical states \u2013 both traditional swing states like Iowa and Pennsylvania and newer ones like Colorado and Nevada \u2013 have been Democratic-leaning in the past two elections. If Democrats lose the election in a blowout, they would probably lose these states as well. But in a close election, they are favored in them. \n \n The Republican Party will have four years to adapt to the new reality. Republican gains among Hispanic voters could push Colorado and Nevada back toward the tipping point, for example. \n \n States like Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Iowa are overwhelmingly white \u2013 but also highly educated, with fairly progressive views on social policy. If Republicans moderated their tone on social issues, they might be more competitive in these states, while regaining ground in Northern Virginia and in the Philadelphia suburbs. \n \n Finally, some of the Democrats\u2019 apparent advantage in the swing states may reflect Mr. Obama\u2019s voter targeting and turnout operations \u2013 which were superior, by most accounts, to John McCain\u2019s in 2008 and Mr. Romney\u2019s in 2012. \n \n It is not my job to give advice, but the next Republican nominee might be well served to remember that the party won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote in 2000, when George W. Bush and Karl Rove put more emphasis on the \u201cground game.\u201d But the Republicans seemed to be at a disadvantage in the last two years when their candidates put less of an investment into it. \n \n If the parties continue down the same paths, however, this won\u2019t be the last election when most of the swing states turn blue.", "summary": "\u2013 Nate Silver has a right to gloat, but his first post-election blog post at the New York Times resists the urge. Well, mostly: He acknowledges a \"very strong night\" and links to a glowing CNET review. Silver does, however, admit to getting one thing wrong on election night: Turns out the \"tipping point\" state for President Obama as defined by his formula was Colorado, not Ohio as he forecast. Republicans might take heed that Silver thinks they face a \"structural disadvantage\" in coming elections given that crucial states are turning bluer. \"The Republican Party will have four years to adapt to the new reality,\" he writes. \"Republican gains among Hispanic voters could push Colorado and Nevada back toward the tipping point, for example.\" Read the full post here. Or read about the (fake) \"drunk Nate Silver\" Twitter meme here."}
{"document": "These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| The former child star has been more famous for her run-ins with the police and the media than anything else in recent years, but a move to the UK and a London stage debut changed all that \n \n Sitting in the corner of the bar of the Connaught hotel in Mayfair, wide-eyed, sipping iced water, Lindsay Lohan is telling me in her cracked voice about the latest addiction she is having to suffer cold turkey from. \u201cIt was such a diligent thing,\u201d she says, \u201cthe schedule was very ritualistic, so not to have that every day has been a really strange feeling. It\u2019s been hard for me to adjust.\u201d \n \n Her compulsion, now removed from her life, has been to appear on stage eight times a week for three months in David Mamet\u2019s play Speed-the-Plow at the Playhouse theatre, a run that had come to an end a week before we met. Contrary to expectations, she didn\u2019t miss a show (or a cue) and is finding withdrawal tough. She is still talking to the director Lindsay Posner every day, planning her next fix: she is desperate to do another Mamet play with Posner \u2013 Oleanna \u2013 as early as possible in the new year. \n \n Lohan, 28, has been acting on screen since her parents (of whom it was once observed \u201cif they were any more low-rent they\u2019d be a spring-break destination\u201d) put her forward for auditions when she was three. The London show is only the second time she has appeared on stage, however \u2013 the other was a school production of Cinderella at 13 when, having been cast as an ugly sister rather than the lead (and already a real-life million-dollar-a-movie Disney princess) she walked out after a couple of performances. One of several great things about her latest commitment, she says, is that for three months it removed a question that has dogged her recent life: how to fill the evenings? \n \n \u201cIn LA I didn\u2019t know what to do apart from go out every night,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s when my friends were free. And I would go out and there would be all these cameras there and that\u2019s when it became difficult.\u201d That obsessively documented \u201cdifficulty\u201d is shorthand for the literal multiple-car-crash-of-a-life that saw Lohan twice imprisoned for driving under the influence, indicted for fights in nightclubs and for lying to the police, in and out of rehab for drug and alcohol addictions and on almost permanent probation for the last seven years: the ubiquitous cautionary caricature of celeb excess gone bad. At one point in 2011 Lohan was ordered to do a series of 12-hour shifts of community work in the LA county morgue. If the intention of that curious punishment was to give her a sense of her own fragile mortality, the talent she was throwing away, it has taken until this year to finally sink in. \n \n She herself puts her current sobriety down to a couple of things. Firstly, the intervention and example of the archetypal celebrity fairy godmother, Oprah Winfrey. In the curious double bind of Oprah\u2019s friendship, the counselling sessions she gave Lohan were broadcast to a global TV audience and an intrusive five-part reality show about Lohan\u2019s struggles with life lived in public was aired in the spring. Lohan remains grateful for the last of many \u201csecond chances\u201d Oprah offered her. The second strand of her strategy to change her life around was perhaps braver and more radical, however: she moved to London. \n \n Lohan has lived in the capital for nine months now, has a lease for another year on her flat in the West End, and is currently planning to make it her permanent home. She can\u2019t emphasise enough the liberation the move has given her. \u201cI can go for a run here on my own,\u201d she says. \u201cI do every morning, early, and I think how my friends in New York would still be up partying at that time. I needed to grow up and London is a better place for me to do that than anywhere else.\u201d \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lindsay Lohan (Karen) and Nigel Lindsay (Charlie Fox) in Speed-The-Plow at the Playhouse theatre in London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton \n \n The defining moment of this shift, she says, came on a holiday she took to Greece in the summer. \u201cIt was,\u201d she says, still thrilled at the idea, \u201cthe first time I have ever just been on a vacation by myself. I just wandered about on my own! I turned off my phone. It was so extraordinarily freeing for me. Like another life.\u201d The world, which had for so long reflected back to her an ugly image of herself, was suddenly just \u201cout there\u201d. \n \n \u201cI won\u2019t live in LA again, hell no,\u201d she says. \u201cMy friends tell me shit when they come over I don\u2019t want to hear. I don\u2019t even know who got married and who got pregnant. You turn on the news in LA and it is all gossip about people. All the stuff that is going on in the world right now and this gossip is the news?\u201d She laughs. \u201cI love the BBC. I haven\u2019t heard myself mentioned on TV since I have been here. That has been really weird for me, and great.\u201d \n \n Having moved to London, there was, she says, quickly only one thought in her head: to do a play. She was encouraged to take on the role of Karen in Mamet\u2019s Hollywood satire not only by the playwright himself but also by his friend, Al Pacino. The actor came to see Lohan a couple of nights into her performance and offered her advice throughout the play\u2019s run. \n \n \u201cHe said I know you are going to love this, it will be such a rush for you. He helped me get a routine; I like to meditate a bit before I go on to stage. He warned me the adrenaline you have after is tricky, it\u2019s late and you want to do something. I have let myself go eat, and then I have gone home.\u201d \n \n The other thing she has learned was that all-important lesson of having to turn up. Having infamously stood up the American justice system on several occasions, she was determined to prove herself able to keep an appointment. \u201cOne time I was sick with a bug, I had been vomiting all day, but no way was I going to miss a show. I was sitting there beforehand seeing spots in front of my eyes. I had a plan: if I felt sick on stage I was going to faint, play dead, pretend it was part of the script. Didn\u2019t happen fortunately.\u201d \n \n The self-imposed disciplines made her feel good about herself for the first time since she can remember, since the early successes of The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday, maybe. \u201cGoing on to a film set there have been times when I really hated it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I just wanted to stop and be home. I should have done that, because instead all the court stuff happened.\u201d \n \n Lohan\u2019s redemptive Hollywood journey from jail to stage would not be complete, of course, without a degree of 12-step wisdom. Oprah gave her a self-help book that has become her bible, The Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer. The book has helped her to shut down the destructive voice in her head, she says, the one that, against her first instincts, told her to get in the car drunk, or turn up late for the court appearance, or to have just one more. \u201cThere is a chapter called \u2018The Rose and the Thorn\u2019, you sit on a couch, and you imagine that voice in your head as a person next to you. You learn how to distance yourself from that person.\u201d \n \n Part of her \u201cintention-led\u201d life has been to become involved in a charitable community project in London, the Red Route Cafe in Hackney, which helps young people find a sense of purpose through volunteering. \u201cThe kids there know me a bit now,\u201d she says, \u201cand they treat me the same as everyone else. That is so cool for me. In the past I got used to meeting people who would seem like genuine people but often they would have other intentions. There is less of that for me here now.\u201d \n \n She hasn\u2019t given up on movies, but the immediacy of the stage is something she will not give up lightly. Will we be seeing Lohan doing Shakespeare any time soon? \u201cI would like to do a period piece at least,\u201d she says. \u201cI enjoyed having a British accent when I did Parent Trap so I guess I am halfway there. The way I see it,\u201d she says, a threat and a promise, \u201cthe longer I live here the less of a choice you will all have not to hire me for plays\u2026 \u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Those of you hanging around the Chateau Marmont hoping to catch a glimpse of Lindsay Lohan can go home. Lohan has been living in London for the past nine months, and in an interview with the Observer, she says she has no plans to return to the City of Angels. \"I won't live in LA again, hell no,\" she says. \"My friends tell me shit when they come over I don't want to hear. I don't even know who got married and who got pregnant. You turn on the news in LA and it is all gossip about people. ... I love the BBC. I haven't heard myself mentioned on TV since I have been here. That has been really weird for me, and great.\" She says London is one of the main reasons for her current sobriety (it's right up there with Oprah Winfrey's intervention). \"In LA I didn't know what to do apart from go out every night,\" she says. \"That's when my friends were free. And I would go out and there would be all these cameras there and that's when it became difficult.\" In London, she continues, \"I can go for a run here on my own. I do every morning, early, and I think how my friends in New York would still be up partying at that time. I needed to grow up and London is a better place for me to do that than anywhere else.\" (In addition to an acting comeback, Lohan is attempting a fashion comeback.)"}
{"document": "A day after police said two pipe bombs detonated in an unpopulated part of a mall in Lake Wales, Florida, the FBI now believes the incident was caused by a pair of marine flares. \n \n \"There is no indication of any explosion at the mall and no pipe bombs were found,\" according to a statement released Monday by the FBI's Tampa field office. \"It appears two items, believed to be marine flares, were ignited in a mall hallway, creating a large amount of smoke, and a backpack was located at the scene.\" \n \n Bomb technicians \"examined the contents of the backpack and determined it did not contain any incendiary or explosive devices,\" the statement said. \n \n Any fears of terrorism have so far been ruled out. \n \n \"There is no current indication of any terrorist connection to this incident,\" the statement added. \n \n A statement published on the Eagle Ridge Mall's website echoed the FBI, saying that \"two signal flares triggered a fire alarm\" and that it was open for business. \n \n It was a different story Sunday night, however. \n \n The reports coming from local authorities suggested the mall had sustained some kind of nefarious attack. \n \n Authorities said Sunday evening that two improvised explosive devices had detonated in the corridor of the mall. \n \n After Lake Wales police arrived, the mall was quickly evacuated and a perimeter established. No injuries were reported. \n \n Emergency personnel from surrounding counties responded to the mall around 5:30 p.m. Lake Wales Police Department Deputy Chief Troy Schulze said initially there was a \"smoke alarm\" inside a remote, unpopulated service corridor. \n \n When authorities arrived, \"they determined that an IED, or a pipe bomb explosive, had detonated in the corridor,\" Schulze said. \n \n Cops soon made the determination that it was not just one pipe bomb that went off, but two. \n \n Then, Schulze said, authorities found a \"backpack or book bag that contained five or six other IEDs that were not detonated,\" adding that those devices were \"safely removed.\" \n \n \"We had guys go in and do a cursory search to make sure there wasn't anything else suspicious or out of place,\" he said. \n \n Schulze said multiple witnesses told police about a middle-aged man -- with a \"heavy/stocky build, wearing a gray shirt and gray hat\" -- seen running from the area. \n \n \"If anybody knows or hears anything we hope they would contact us,\" he said on Sunday. \n \n It's unclear if police or the FBI are still in pursuit of this person-of-interest given the new information. \n \n ABC News' Darren Reynolds contributed to this report. ||||| Sign in using you account with: {* loginWidget *} \n \n Sign in using your wftv profile \n \n Welcome back. Please sign in \n \n Why are we asking this? \n \n By submitting your registration information, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . \n \n Already have an account? \n \n We have sent a confirmation email to {* data_emailAddress *}. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. \n \n Thank you for registering! \n \n Thank you for registering! \n \n We look forward to seeing you on [website] frequently. Visit us and sign in to update your profile, receive the latest news and keep up to date with mobile alerts. \n \n Click here to return to the page you were visiting.", "summary": "\u2013 Police are hunting what they call a \"person of interest\" after two improvised explosive devices went off at a mall in central Florida Sunday evening, causing damage and a small fire but no injuries. Police in Lake Wales say the pipe bombs went off in a service corridor near the entrance of the Eagle Ridge Mall's JC Penney store, WFTV reports. The mall was quickly evacuated after the IEDs went off around 5:20pm, reports ABC News. Authorities say the devices caused damage to a drop ceiling and to the wall of a docking area where trucks load and unload cargo. A backpack was found at the scene. Police say the person they're seeking is a middle-aged white male with a heavy/stocky build who was seen wearing a gray shirt and gray hat. The Polk County Sheriff's Office, the State Fire Marshal, and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Bomb Squad have joined the investigation, the Ledger reports. Lake Wales Police Department Deputy Chief Troy Schulze says the bombing could have been a lot more dangerous if it had hit an area where there were shoppers."}
{"document": "Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua have offered asylum to Edward Snowden, the US whistleblower who is believed to have spent the past two weeks at a Moscow airport evading US attempts to extradite him. \n \n The Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daniel Ortega, made the asylum offers on Friday, shortly after they and other Latin American leaders met to denounce the diversion of a plane carrying the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, due to suspicions that Snowden might have been on board. \n \n Shortly after, Morales also said Bolivia would grant asylum to Snowden, if asked. On Saturday, Venezuela's offer was given a warm reception by an influential member of the Russian parliament. \n \n In a tweet, Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Duma foreign affairs committee, said: \"Asylum for Snowden in Venezuela would be the best solution.\" \n \n The invitations from South America came as Snowden sent out new requests for asylum to six countries, in addition to the 20 he has already contacted, according to WikiLeaks, which claims to be in regular contact with the former National Security Agency contractor. \n \n Most of the countries have refused or given technical reasons why an application is not valid, but several Latin American leaders have rallied together with expressions of solidarity and welcome. \n \n \"As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden \u2026 to protect this young man from persecution by the empire,\" said Maduro who, along with his predecessor Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, often refers to the US as \"the empire\". \n \n The previous day, Maduro told the Telesur TV channel that Venezuela had received an extradition request from the US, which he had already rejected. \n \n A copy of the request, seen by the Guardian, notes that Snowden \"unlawfully released classified information and documents to international media outlets\" and names the Guardian and the Washington Post. Dated 3 July and sent in English and Spanish, it says: \"The United States seeks Snowden's provisional arrest should Snowden seek to travel to or transit through Venezuela. Snowden is a flight risk because of the substantial charges he is facing and his current and active attempts to remain a fugitive.\" \n \n It adds that he is charged with unauthorised disclosure of national defence information, unauthorised disclosure of classified communication intelligence and theft of government property. Each of these three charges carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. \n \n Describing Snowden as \"a fugitive who is currently in Russia\", it urges Venezuela to keep him in custody if arrested and to seize all items in his possession for later delivery to the US. It provides a photograph and two alternative passport numbers \u2013 one revoked, and one reported lost or stolen. \n \n Maduro said he did not accept the grounds for the charges. \n \n \"He has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the US spying on the whole world,\" Maduro said in his latest speech. \"Who is the guilty one? A young man \u2026 who denounces war plans, or the US government which launches bombs and arms the terrorist Syrian opposition against the people and legitimate president, Bashar al-Assad?\" \n \n The Bolivian government, which has said it would listen sympathetically to an aslyum request from Snowden, said it too had turned down a pre-emptive US extradition request. \n \n Ortega said Nicaragua had received an asylum request from Snowden and the president gave a guarded acceptance. \n \n \"We are an open country, respectful of the right of asylum, and it's clear that if circumstances permit, we would gladly receive Snowden and give him asylum in Nicaragua,\" Ortega told a gathering in Managua. \n \n So far, the countries that have been most vocal in offering support are close allies of Venezuela. Ecuador has also expressed support for Snowden, though the government there has yet to decide whether it would grant aslyum. It is already providing refuge for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for about a year. \n \n Many in Latin America were furious when the Bolivian president's flight from Russia was denied airspace by European countries, forcing it to land in Vienna, where Morales had to spend more than half a day waiting to get clearance to continue his journey. \n \n Morales said the Spanish ambassador to Austria arrived at the airport with two embassy personnel and asked to search the plane. He said he refused. \n \n The Spanish foreign minister, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Garc\u00eda-Margallo, acknowledged on Friday that the decision to block Morales plane was based on a tip that Snowden was on board. \n \n \"They told us that the information was clear, that he was inside,\" he told Spanish TV, without clarifying who the tip was from. \n \n It is assumed the US was behind the diversion, though US officials have said only that they were in contact with the countries on the plane's route. \n \n France has apologised to Bolivia. \n \n Morales said when he finally arrived in La Paz: \"It is an open provocation to the continent, not only to the president; they use the agent of North American imperialism to scare us and intimidate us.\" \n \n At a hastily called meeting of the Unasur regional bloc, many governments condemned the action against Morales plane. \n \n \"We are not colonies any more,\" Uruguay's president, Jos\u00e9 Mujica, said. \"We deserve respect, and when one of our governments is insulted we feel the insult throughout Latin America.\" \n \n The Argentinean president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was also present, along with a senior representative of President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. \n \n Regional support may make it easier for the country offering asylum to resist US pressure for extradition. But whether Snowden can make it to South America remains uncertain, as are his current circumstances. He has not been seen or heard in public since he flew to Russia from Hong Kong. WikiLeaks says it is in touch with him and that he has widened his search for aslyum by adding six new countries. \n \n In a tweet, the group said it would not reveal the names of the nations \"due to attempted US interference\". ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua explain their offers \n \n The presidents of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia have indicated their countries could offer political asylum to US fugitive Edward Snowden. \n \n Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro said it would give asylum to the intelligence leaker, who is believed to be holed up in a transit area of Moscow airport. \n \n Meanwhile Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said his country would do so \"if circumstances permit\". \n \n Bolivia's Evo Morales said Mr Snowden could get asylum there if he sought it. \n \n Mr Snowden has sent requests for political asylum to at least 21 countries, most of which have turned down his request. Earlier, Wikileaks said he had applied to six additional countries on Friday. \n \n The whistleblowing website said it would not name the countries \"due to attempted US interference\". \n \n But even if a country accepted the American's application, getting there could prove difficult, the BBC's Steven Rosenberg, in Moscow, reports. \n \n European airspace could be closed to any aircraft suspected of carrying the fugitive, our correspondent says. \n \n Earlier this week, several European countries reportedly refused to allow the Bolivian president's jet to cross their airspace on its way back from Moscow - apparently because of suspicions that Edward Snowden was on board. \n \n Mr Morales described Mr Snowden's actions as \"a fair way of protesting\" and described him as \"persecuted by his fellow countrymen\". \n \n \"We are not scared [of reprisals],\" he added. \n \n Speculation \n \n President Maduro made his announcement in a speech on Venezuela's Independence Day. \n \n \"As head of state and government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young US citizen Edward Snowden so he can come to the fatherland of Bolivar and Chavez to live away from the imperial North American persecution,\" President Maduro said. \n \n The US wants to prosecute Mr Snowden over the leaking of thousands of classified intelligence documents. \n \n Earlier Mr Ortega said Nicaragua had received an application at its embassy in Moscow. \n \n \"We are open, respectful of the right to asylum, and it is clear that if circumstances permit it, we would receive Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum here in Nicaragua,\" AFP news agency quoted the Nicaraguan president as saying. \n \n Image caption President Ortega said the asylum application was received in Moscow \n \n Daniel Ortega was a fierce opponent of the US during his first period as Nicaragua's president in the 1980s, after the left-wing Sandinista movement came to power. \n \n Bolivia, which had also suggested it could offer Mr Snowden asylum, saw its presidential plane barred from European airspace on Tuesday. \n \n There was speculation the 30-year-old was on the plane carrying President Evo Morales back from Russia to La Paz earlier this week. \n \n \"Edward Snowden has applied to another six countries for asylum,\" tweeted Wikileaks, which has been helping the former CIA contractor. \n \n \"They will not be named at this time due to attempted US interference.\" \n \n The US has been blamed for being behind the decision by France, Portugal, Italy and Spain to close its airspace to Bolivia's president, whose plane was grounded in Austria for 13 hours as a result. \n \n Earlier on Friday, Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo admitted he and other European officials had been told that Mr Snowden was on board - but refused to say who gave out the information. \n \n He denied Spain had closed its airspace to the presidential plane, explaining that the delay in Austria meant the flight permit had expired and needed to be renewed. \n \n His comment is the first official recognition by the European states that the incident with Mr Morales' plane was connected with the Snowden affair. \n \n It has been widely condemned by President Morales and several other South American nations, who were critical of the US. \n \n Mr Snowden arrived in the Moscow airport from Hong Kong last month. \n \n He revealed himself to be responsible for the leaking of classified US intelligence documents that revealed a vast surveillance programme of phone and web data. \n \n The documents have also led to allegations that both the UK and French intelligence agencies run similarly vast data collection operations, and the US has been eavesdropping on official EU communications. ||||| President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela said Friday that he would offer asylum to the fugitive intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, who has been stranded in a Moscow airport searching for a safe haven. \n \n \u201cI have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden,\u201d Mr. Maduro said during a televised appearance at a military parade marking Venezuela\u2019s independence day. \n \n Mr. Maduro said he had decided to act \u201cto protect this young man from the persecution unleashed by the world\u2019s most powerful empire.\u201d \n \n It was not immediately clear, however, how Mr. Snowden could reach Venezuela or if Mr. Maduro was willing to help transport him. \n \n Also on Friday, Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, said he was open to taking in Mr. Snowden. \u201cIt is clear that if the circumstances permit we will take in Mr. Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum in Nicaragua,\u201d Mr. Ortega said in Managua. \n \n Mr. Snowden has sought asylum from more than two dozen nations. Most countries have declined. \n \n The offers from Venezuela and Nicaragua appeared to be linked to outrage in Latin America over the treatment last week of President Evo Morales of Bolivia, whose plane was denied permission to fly over several European countries because of what Bolivian officials said were unfounded suspicions that Mr. Snowden was aboard. Mr. Morales was on his way home from a meeting in Moscow. \n \n Mr. Maduro had previously voiced sympathy for Mr. Snowden. He frequently bashes the United States, depicting it as an imperialist bully in Latin America. But at the same time he has shown a desire to improve relations with the United States, directing his foreign minister to start talks with Washington aimed at smoothing the rocky relationship with the top buyer of his country\u2019s all-important oil exports. \n \n Earlier on Friday, WikiLeaks said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Snowden, who is wanted by the United States on charges of revealing classified government information, \u201chas applied to another six countries for asylum,\u201d following up on similar applications to about 20 nations last week. \n \n Supporters of Mr. Snowden clearly blame the refusals on pressure from the United States, and, as a result, WikiLeaks said it would not reveal the latest countries in which he is seeking shelter. \u201cThey will not be named at this time due to attempted US interference,\u201d the group wrote on Twitter. \n \n In Russia, officials have expressed impatience over Mr. Snowden\u2019s continuing sojourn in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport. On Thursday, a deputy foreign minister, Sergey A. Ryabkov, told reporters that Mr. Snowden should pick a destination and leave as soon as possible. \n \n Russia was apparently among the original countries to which Mr. Snowden submitted an asylum request, but a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, Dmitri S. Peskov, has said since that the request was withdrawn. \n \n On Thursday, Mr. Putin sent a telegram to President Obama noting the Fourth of July holiday and restating his commitment to holding a summit meeting in Moscow in September, ahead of the G20 conference, which will be in St. Petersburg. American officials have signaled that Mr. Obama is unlikely to visit Moscow if Mr. Snowden is still holed up at Sheremetyevo airport.", "summary": "\u2013 He wasn't on that plane to Bolivia, but Edward Snowden may yet end up in Latin America. Venezuela and Nicaragua said yesterday they'd be willing to grant asylum to the NSA leaker, reports the BBC. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega was a little less expansive, saying his country would do so if \"circumstances permit,\" but Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro said his country would be proud \u201cto protect this young man from the persecution unleashed by the world\u2019s most powerful empire,\" reports the New York Times. Of course, even when Snowden picks a country, he still has to get there from Russia, and European countries have shown they're willing to shut down airspace to prevent that. WikiLeaks says Snowden applied to six more countries yesterday, reports the Guardian. He had previously applied to nearly two dozen nations, but diplomatic pressure from the US resulted in a series of rejections. Latin America has since united behind him, thanks in part to the treatment of the Bolivian president's plane."}
{"document": "Image caption The fragment of pelvis dates back to the period in history when King Alfred died \n \n A fragment of pelvis bone unearthed in Winchester in 1999 may belong to King Alfred the Great or his son Edward the Elder, academics have said. \n \n It was found at a previous dig at Hyde Abbey and has been dated to 895-1017 - the era the king died. \n \n Experts were originally testing remains exhumed last year from an unmarked grave at St Bartholomew's Church, where it was thought he was buried. \n \n But they were found to be from the 1300s, not 899, when the king died. \n \n The fragment of pelvis had been among remains stored in two boxes at Winchester's City Museum and was tested by academics at Winchester University after their study into the exhumed remains proved fruitless. \n \n Royal differences At first glance, the find appears similar to the discovery of King Richard III's skeleton beneath a Leicester car park. But there are a number of key differences between the two. DNA testing proved beyond \"reasonable doubt\" the bones thought to be Richard III's matched descendants of the monarch's family. Dr Katie Tucker, who analysed the bones found in Winchester, admits it will not be as easy to do likewise in this case. She said: \"This is a path that may be worth pursuing but it's a very long way to go back, an extra 500 years to go back than Richard III, it's always going to be more of a difficult task to find a descendant.\" More tests and investigations are planned, but it could be a while yet before the Alfred the Great 'discovery' attracts Richard III levels of attention and drama. Who was King Alfred the Great? BBC Two: The Search for Alfred the Great \n \n The university and the community group behind the search, Hyde900, are now calling for further excavations at Hyde Abbey Gardens in the hunt for more remains. \n \n 'Hard to prove' \n \n Experts said the bone, recovered from the site of the abbey, came from a man who was aged between 26 and 45-plus at the time of his death, leading them to believe it could be either Alfred or his son Edward. \n \n Dr Katie Tucker, whose examination of the bones will feature in a BBC documentary, said: \"These are the bones that were found closest to the site of the high altar. \n \n \"As far as we know, from the chronicles and the records, the only individuals close to the site of the high altar who are the right age when they died and the right date when they died would either be Alfred or Edward.\" \n \n The remains at St Bartholomew's Church, which carbon dating showed to be from the wrong era, were exhumed last year amid security fears after publicity surrounding the discovery of Richard III's remains under a Leicester car park. \n \n Dr Tucker said she was later made aware of the remains found at Hyde Abbey. \n \n No analysis of that find was conducted due to a lack of funding and because a bone discovered next to it was found to be from the 17th or 18th century, and it was not thought to be of any interest. \n \n Dr Tucker then arranged for tests to be carried out on the pelvic bone. \n \n She said: \"The simplest explanation, given there was no Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Hyde Abbey, is that this bone comes from one of the members of the West Saxon royal family brought to the site. \n \n DNA match \n \n \"Given the age at death of the individual and the probable male identity, the plausible candidates are King Alfred, King Edward the Elder, or the brother of King Edward, Aethelweard.\" \n \n Richard Buckley, co-director of the University of Leicester's archaeology services, led the search for Richard III. \n \n Image caption Dr Katie Tucker believes the fragment belongs to a member of the West Saxon royal family \n \n He said it would be \"very hard to prove\" the bone belongs to King Alfred. \n \n \"With Richard III we had to build a case with lots of different threads, we knew historic accounts... including trauma on the skeleton, we knew he died a violent death,\" he said. \n \n \"We got to the point with the balance of probability that it was him, with the DNA it meant we could say it was beyond reasonable doubt. \n \n \"The difficulty with this bone is that it is only one bone, you're having to rely on historical accounts of only two males being brought and reburied there - Alfred and his son - it depends if any males may have been buried without documentation. \n \n \"If they could find an articulated skeleton there could be other clues.\" \n \n The King Alfred team said it may be possible to extract DNA from the pelvic bone but the problem would be finding another DNA source to check it with. \n \n Dr Tucker said they tried to get a sample from Alfred's granddaughter, who is buried in Germany, but efforts failed as her grave was not well preserved. \n \n The investigation is the subject of a BBC2 documentary due to be broadcast on Tuesday 21 January at 21:00 GMT. ||||| King Alfred the Great's bones discovered in a MUSEUM: Remains inside box are thought to belong to Anglo-Saxon ruler \n \n \n \n Pelvis bone was stored at Winchester City Museum after an excavation in the late 1990s - but could also belong to Edward the Elder \n \n Remains of Alfred the Great were believed to lie in a grave in St Bartholomew\u2019s Church in Winchester, Hampshire \n \n You wait centuries for the discovery of a royal body \u2026 and then two come along at once. \n \n \n \n A year after the remains of Richard III turned up under a car park in Leicester, archaeologists have found a piece of a pelvis that could belong to Alfred the Great. \n \n \n \n Experts are sure the fragment, excavated from the grounds of Hyde Abbey in Winchester, came from Alfred or his son Edward the Elder. \n \n \n \n It has been kept in a box in a storeroom at Winchester City Museum since 1999, but only now have historians realised its importance. \n \n \n \n The pelvis bone (right) of King Alfred the Great (illustrated left) is believed to have been found in a box stored in a museum, and not buried in an unmarked grave as previously thought \n \n They initially disregarded the find because it was found near other remains which were hundreds of years younger. \n \n \n \n But carbon dating has shown the bone dates from 895-1017, which scientists believe makes it unlikely to have come from anyone apart from the father or the son. \n \n \n \n Alfred is known to generations of schoolchildren for burning the cakes, but his rule of Wessex was hugely important. \n \n \n \n The king, who died in 899, held back the Viking invaders, established the foundations of our law codes and justice system, and safeguarded the English language and Christian religion. \n \n His son Edward the Elder, who ruled until 924, continued his work, driving the Danes north and unifying the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. \n \n \n \n Finding Alfred\u2019s remains has long been a passion for historians, because his body was known to have been moved at least once after New Minster in Winchester, his first burial place, was demolished in the early 12th century. \n \n The bodies of Alfred and his successors were moved to Hyde Abbey in 1110, but the building was demolished during Henry VIII\u2019s dissolution of the monasteries and the graves were dug up when a prison was built on the site in 1788. \n \n Convicts building the prison looted royal jewellery from the coffins and stole the lead lining, before smashing up the bones and flinging them around the site. \n \n \n \n The search for Alfred\u2019s remains has for decades been complicated by a false lead suggesting they were buried in an unmarked grave at nearby St Bartholomew\u2019s Church. \n \n Three headstones mark the spot of the former Hyde Abbey, where a pelvic bone that could potentially belong to King Alfred the Great was found. Although the bone was discovered during an excavation in 1999, it is only recently that tests have led researchers to make a link between the bone and King Alfred and his son \n \n But historians who opened the grave last year found that the remains of six bodies inside, including at least one skull, dated from 1100 to 1500AD \u2013 much later than Alfred\u2019s reign. \n \n \n \n After that disappointment Dr Katie Tucker, researcher at the University of Winchester, went back to bones stored in the city museum to seek other leads. \n \n \n \n To her astonishment, she discovered one bone was much older than those around it. \n \n \n \n Human osteology researcher Katie Tucker demonstrates the size of the pelvic bone which tests have discovered could potentially belong to King Alfred the Great or his son \n \n HOW WILL SCIENTISTS KNOW IF THE BONE BELONGS TO KING ALFRED? Dr Tucker said that it might be possible to extract DNA from the pelvic bone but said the problem was finding another DNA source to check it with. \n \n \u2018There's a good chance of extracting DNA and comparing it to Alfred's granddaughter who is buried in Germany but they did try to get a DNA sample from her grave but were not able to because it was not so well preserved so we need to find someone else to compare them with,\u2019 she said. \n \n She explained that it would theoretically be possible to check against a living ancestor, as had been done with Richard III, but the problem was identifying a definite descendant. \n \n She said: \u2018We have had quite a number of individuals who have been contacting us, sending us their family trees, saying they are descendants of Alfred. \n \n \u2018This is a path that may be worth pursuing but it's a very long way to go back, an extra 500 years to go back than Richard III, it's always going to be more of a difficult task to find a descendant.\u2019 \n \n The carbon dating range was wide enough to cover both Alfred and his son. \n \n \u2018The range does cover the death dates of Alfred and Edward equally well, I would say it's likely to be one of them, I wouldn't like to say which one of them,\u2019 she said. \n \n She said it might be possible to extract DNA from the pelvic bone but the problem would be finding another DNA source related to Alfred to check it with. \n \n \n \n Archaeologist Neil Oliver, who will present a BBC2 documentary about the find, said: \u2018To find that Alfred the Great or his direct descendant has survived, literally by the seat of his pants, into the 21st century is astonishing. \n \n \n \n \u2018It overshadows the discovery of Richard III\u2019s remains. Alfred is one of the few great kings of England that most people can name. He\u2019s a mythologised figure, almost like Arthur.\u2019 \n \n Alfred the Great ruled from 871 to 899 and is remembered for his social and educational reforms, military victories against the Vikings and of course his legendary bad cooking skills. \n \n The story goes that the Vikings sprung a surprise attack on Alfred and his men, causing them to go on the run and beg for food in the Wiltshire marshes. \n \n \n \n The wife of a swineherd gave the men food and asked Alfred to keep an eye on the baking cakes, which he famously burnt. \n \n Historians have suggested the tale might be a metaphor for the ailing health of the Kingdom of Wessex or a show of the king's humility. \n \n Dr Tucker was made aware of the existence of the bones after the skeletons exhumed last year turned out to be a red herring. \n \n She arranged for tests to be carried out on the pelvic bone, which not only dated it but found that it belonged to a man aged between 26 and 45 at death. \n \n Dr Tucker said: 'The simplest explanation, given there was no Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Hyde Abbey, is that this bone comes from one of the members of the West Saxon royal family brought to the site. \n \n 'Given the age at death of the individual and the probable male identity, the plausible candidates are King Alfred, King Edward the Elder, or the brother of King Edward, Aethelweard. \n \n \n \n Alfred the Great ruled from 871 to 899 and is remembered for his social and educational reforms, military victories against the Vikings and of course his legendarily bad cooking skills where he burned cakes (an illustration is pictured) \n \n 'All were buried in the abbey. However, historical evidence indicates that only the coffins of Alfred and Edward were at the site of the high altar. \n \n \n \n 'The discovery of the bone in a pit dug into the graves in front of the high altar makes it far more likely it comes from either Alfred or Edward.' \n \n Dr Nick Thorpe, head of the department of archaeology at the university, said: 'The department of archaeology is extremely excited to have been able to plausibly link this human bone to one of these two crucial figures in English history. \n \n Archaeologists at the University of Winchester carried out an exhumation of the grave at St Bartholomew's Church in Winchester, Hampshire, last March in a bid to find the last resting place of the ninth-century king. They now believe the king's bones have been found inside Winchester City Museum \n \n Archaeologists carried out an exhumation of a grave at St Bartholomew's Church Winchester, Hampshire, (pictured) last March in a bid to find the last resting place of King Alfred the Great \n \n 'We also believe that we are thereby helping the city to right a historical wrong done to the remains of these great kings, which began with the dissolution of Hyde Abbey in 1539 to be followed by centuries of neglect, destruction and disturbance up to the last antiquarian diggings in 1901. \n \n 'Monks brought their remains to Hyde in 1110 because they wanted to preserve and honour them and this project enables us to do this once more.' \n \n The university is now going to work with local heritage charity Hyde900 on further investigations into the findings with further excavations being considered and a suitable resting place being planned for the royal bones. \n \n \n \n Professor Yorke said that Alfred was revered by the Victorians, partly because he was the only Anglo-Saxon king with a full biography and he was often accredited with many achievements which did not actually originate with him. In 1901, a famous statue of Alfred (pictured) was raised in Winchester", "summary": "\u2013 Archaeologists may have uncovered a bone fragment belonging to Alfred the Great\u2014in 1999. The English king, who ruled from 871 until his death in 899, made news last year when experts thought they had found his unmarked grave. Except the remains they found there turned out to be from the 1300s, so they turned to decade-old dig records from Hyde Abbey, where Albert's bones were said to have been moved, the BBC reports. Gathering dust in a storage box at Winchester's City Museum sat a fragment of pelvic bone that had never been examined, because funding on that dig ran out and because a bone found next to it was dated to the 17th or 18th century. Now, carbon dating places the fragment in the right time period: 895 to 1017, the Daily Mail notes. It was also determined to come from a man who died between the ages of 26 and roughly 45. \"These are the bones that were found closest to the site of the high altar,\" an archaeologist says. \"As far as we know, from the chronicles and the records, the only individuals close to the site of the high altar who are the right age when they died and the right date when they died would either be Alfred or (his son) Edward.\" Researchers now plan to break ground again near the spot the bone was found in the hope that more will turn up. (Click for news on another Great\u2014this one felled by a bad batch of wine.)"}
{"document": "Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia said he did \"nothing wrong\" as he left federal court in Boston Thursday afternoon, following his early morning arrest on charges that he defrauded investors in his company to fuel his \"lavish lifestyle.\" \n \n The 26-year-old mayor, who pleaded not guilty to nine counts of wire fraud and four counts of filing false taxes Thursday, emerged from the courthouse with a smile and a message. \n \n \"I've done nothing wrong. If you look at my track record as mayor all you see is positive results,\" he told media gathered outside in the rain. \"I was elected and re-elected with 65 percent of the vote in Fall River and if you look at those bogus charges or whatever they're called there is not a single thing...I did wrong as the mayor of the city of Fall River.\" \n \n Correia was arrested by FBI and IRS agents at a home in Bridgewater at 6:30 a.m. Thursday. Andrew Lelling, U.S. Attorney for the district of Massachusetts, alleges the mayor spent more than half of the money Massachusetts residents invested in his app SnoOwl on personal items. \n \n This included airfare, luxury hotel stays, adult entertainment, dating services, designer clothes, and a Mercedes, prosecutors allege in an indictment. \n \n Correia changed from the polo shirt and jeans he wore during his arraignment into a suit before exiting court to speak with more than a dozen reporters. He thanked the agents who arrested him for being \"nice.\" He said he was not angry. \n \n \"It's not my best Thursday. It's raining,\" he said. \"I don't like to be out in the rain.\" \n \n He said he was headed straight to the office to \"get back to serving the people of Fall River.\" \n \n Correia said he will not resign because the charges are not related to his work as mayor. \n \n \"There is absolutely no reason,\" to resign, he said. ||||| Fall River Mayor Jasiel F. Correia II calls himself a \u201cclassic example of a Fall River kid made good\u201d in an official biography, which highlights his rise from \u201cyouth of the year\u201d in 2008 to being elected the youngest mayor in the city\u2019s history in 2015 at age 23. \n \n But a federal indictment unsealed Thursday cast an ignominious shadow over Correia\u2019s precocious political ascent with allegations that he stole more than $231,000 from investors in his tech startup and used the money on expensive travel, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, casinos, and adult entertainment. \n \n The stolen funds, equal to about six times the median household income in Fall River, were taken from investors in SnoOwl, which Correia founded in 2012, federal prosecutors said. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Correia is also charged with filing fraudulent tax returns in an effort to conceal the scheme. Prosecutors allege Correia stole about 64 percent of the $363,690 that SnoOwl\u2019s seven investors contributed and spent it before becoming mayor. \n \n Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here \n \n \u201cToday\u2019s arrest is a shock to many in the city which has prided itself on a tradition of honest government, hard work, and public service,\u201d Harold Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI\u2019s Boston office, said at a news conference. \u201cYet its mayor was far from honest, selling out his friends and associates for his own personal gain. His actions were underhanded, shameless, and greedy.\u201d \n \n FBI agents arrested Correia, 26, in Bridgewater at about 6:30 a.m. Thursday and brought him to Boston, where he appeared in a federal courtroom smiling and wearing leg irons with his hands cuffed behind his back. \n \n He pleaded not guilty to nine counts of wire fraud and four counts of filing false tax returns as Magistrate Judge M. Page Kelley set unsecured bond of $10,000, a sum Correia would only have to pay if he fails to appear in court. After being set free, Correia changed into a blue suit, red tie, and Fall River lapel pin, and then denied the charges after leaving court. \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve done nothing wrong,\u201d said Correia, a Democrat who was reelected last year by a wide margin. \u201cIf you look at those bogus charges, whatever they\u2019re called, there\u2019s not a single thing . . . that the US attorney\u2019s office said in that 19-page indictment that I did wrong as the mayor of Fall River.\u201d \n \n Advertisement \n \n He said he has no plans to resign. \n \n \u201cI love the city of Fall River,\u201d said Correia, flanked by his defense attorneys. \u201cI\u2019m going to go back to my office tonight and get back to work serving the people of Fall River.\u201d \n \n One of his lawyers, Mark Berthiaume, said Correia established SnoOwl while he was an undergraduate student at Providence College. \n \n \u201cThis is a business dispute that has no business being in a federal, criminal court,\u201d Berthiaume said. \n \n SnoOwl was developing an app that would connect businesses and consumers. The fraud unfolded, prosecutors said, when Correia falsely claimed in his pitch to potential investors that he already built and sold an app called FindIt Networks for a profit. \n \n Advertisement \n \n A prototype for SnoOwl was built, but the product never made it to market, despite representations Correia made to investors that the company was in good standing and their money was being spent on the app, US Attorney Andrew Lelling said at the news conference. \n \n None of the investors have received returns, and investigators believe Correia has spent their money, he said. Correia largely abandoned SnoOwl in 2015 when he launched his mayoral campaign, according to the indictment. \n \n \u201cDespite the trappings of a company and whatever technical progress was made on the app product that SnoOwl intended to sell, the company was first and foremost a clever way to defraud well-intentioned investors and fund Correia\u2019s lifestyle,\u201d Lelling said. \n \n The first victim listed in the indictment is identified as an orthodontist whose son attended high school with Correia. In January 2013, he invested $50,000 in exchange for equity in SnoOwl. But about a month later, according to the indictment, Correia used $10,000 of that money to buy a 2011 Mercedes-Benz sports sedan. \n \n The orthodontist, who sunk a total of $145,000 into SnoOwl, declined to comment Thursday, as did a lawyer for another investor. None of the investors are named in the indictment, though some have come forward in The Herald News, a newspaper in Fall River. \n \n Lelling said authorities \n \n haven\u2019t found evidence that Correia misused public funds while in office, but stressed the investigation is continuing. \n \n Correia also is accused of using $10,000 of the investment money to pay off student loans and finance his political campaign, while other funds paid for charitable donations in his own name, jewelry, restaurants, and designer clothing, the indictment said. \n \n While making his first run for mayor three years ago, Correia, then a city councilor, said his stewardship of SnoOwl was proof he was qualified to run Fall River, Lelling said. \n \n Former mayor Sam Sutter, whom Correia defeated in 2015, said he had information three years ago that SnoOwl was a failure. \n \n \u201cOne of the frustrating aspects of the campaign was that a lot of people thought he was a success and had been an entrepreneurial wizard,\u201d Sutter said. \u201cBut the exact opposite was true.\u201d \n \n Investigators said Correia tried to cover his tracks by filing false tax returns for 2013 and 2014. When Correia learned he was under federal investigation in spring 2017, he directed his accountant to file amended personal tax returns to account \u201cfor the diverted investor funds that he had previously failed to report as income,\u201d Lelling said. \n \n In January, the Friends of Jasiel F. Correia II Legal Defense Fund was registered with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance, records show. \n \n The fund has collected more than $76,000, including thousands of dollars donated by Correia\u2019s campaign committee. \n \n Among Fall River residents, reaction to Correia\u2019s arrest was mixed. \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s a thief \u2014 that\u2019s what he is,\u201d said Eddie Perriera, 90, shaking his head as he sat with arms folded on a park bench. \u201cThis has been going on for years, and they\u2019re just catching on.\u201d \n \n Another resident, David Pacheco, 70, said he voted for Correia in 2015, but not last year. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m not shocked about this. Money does things to people,\u201d Pacheco said. \u201cAt 26 years old, he had the world in the palm of his hand, and the people believed in him.\u201d \n \n Some expressed support for Correia. \n \n \u201cI love the man,\u201d said a woman who gave only her first name, Lydia . \u201cHe\u2019s done a lot of good things for this city that a lot of people aren\u2019t noticing. He\u2019s fixing the streets. He\u2019s fixing the pipes. What more do people want?\u201d \n \n A status conference in Correia\u2019s case is scheduled for Dec. 6. As he walked away from the courthouse Thursday afternoon with his lawyers, Correia was followed by journalists shouting questions about reports that he was partying Wednesday night in a Seaport District nightclub. \n \n Travis Andersen of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Matt Stout contributed. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com . Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi . Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com ||||| FALL RIVER \u2014 A defiant Fall River Mayor Jasiel F. Correia II returned to City Hall Friday amid a call from Governor Charlie Baker to relinquish his post while his criminal case is pending and plans by city councilors to hold a special session to discuss the indictment. \n \n Baker, who renounced Correia\u2019s endorsement Thursday, released a statement Friday urging the 26-year-old Democratic mayor to hand over the reins of power following his arrest on federal fraud and tax evasion charges. \n \n \u201cGovernor Baker and Lieutenant Governor Polito believe that in light of these serious allegations, Mayor Correia should act in the best interests of the people of Fall River and step aside until the case is resolved,\u201d the statement from Baker/Polito campaign spokesman Terry MacCormack said. \u201cUltimately, it is up to residents and voters to decide who is best fit to lead the city.\u201d \n \n Advertisement \n \n City Council President Cliff Ponte said he\u2019s convening a special meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday to discuss the criminal case against Correia and any proposals from members \u201cregarding the leadership of our city.\u201d \n \n Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here \n \n Correia was arrested Thursday morning and charged with stealing more than $231,000 from investors in his SnoOwl tech startup. Federal prosecutors said he used the money on expensive travel, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, casinos, and adult entertainment. \n \n He is also charged with filing fraudulent tax returns in an effort to conceal the alleged scheme. Prosecutors allege Correia stole about 64 percent of the $363,690 that SnoOwl\u2019s seven investors contributed and spent it before being sworn in as mayor in 2016. He has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of wire fraud and four counts of filing false tax returns. \n \n Correia, back on the job Friday morning, insisted he would not resign. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m back at work and doing the people\u2019s business,\u201d he said as he walked out of his office and into an elevator. \u201cI was elected to do the job, and it is my job to be the mayor, and, until such time as it isn\u2019t my job, I\u2019m going to continue to do the job.\u201d \n \n Advertisement \n \n City Councilor Leo Pelletier said Correia should step aside, citing allegations that he spent ill-gotten gains on adult entertainment. \n \n \u201cSome of the money he spent and the way he spent it is embarrassing,\u201d said Pelletier, who has served on the council for 30 years. \u201cHe\u2019s a college man. He should know better.\u201d \n \n The city charter includes a recall process for elected officials and a mechanism for replacing the mayor \u201cby reason of sickness or other cause.\u201d \n \n The nine-member City Council has the authority to find Correia \u201cunable to perform the duties of the office\u201d and install its president, Ponte, as acting mayor with a vote of seven councilors, according to the charter. \n \n Pelletier, however, said he doesn\u2019t believe enough councilors would vote to force Correia to step aside. The recall process takes too long, he said. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \u201cYou could probably squeeze five [votes] unless the people badger these other guys,\u201d Pelletier said. \n \n If Correia is convicted, he would be ousted under the charter. \n \n Another councilor, Steven A. Camara, said Correia should decide whether to resign. He said he wouldn\u2019t support a recall or any effort to force Correia to step aside and put an acting mayor in charge of Fall River. \n \n \u201cOne is innocent until proven guilty,\u201d Camara said. \u201cAn indictment is an accusation.\u201d \n \n City operations aren\u2019t solely reliant upon Correia, Camara said, noting Fall River has a city administrator and department heads who run different aspects of municipal government. \n \n \u201cThe mayor is one person,\u201d he said. \n \n In 2014, the city ousted Mayor William Flanagan in a recall election and voted in Samuel Sutter, who was then Bristol district attorney. A few months before the vote, Correia, then a city councilor, accused Flanagan of trying to intimidate him. He said Flanagan showed him a gun during a ride in Flanagan\u2019s vehicle, after Correia signed a petition seeking the recall. \n \n Correia first ran for mayor in 2015 at age 23, defeating Sutter and becoming the youngest person elected to the post in Fall River\u2019s history. Last year he won reelection by a wide margin. \n \n The state Democratic Party declined to say whether Correia should resign. \n \n \u201cThe charges against Mayor Correia are serious, and the people of Fall River deserve a thorough, fair, and transparent investigation,\u201d Veronica Martinez, the party\u2019s executive director, said in a statement. \n \n Asked Friday how he would respond to a city councilor who has called on him to step down, Correia chuckled. \n \n \u201cOh, come on,\u201d he said. \u201cCity councilors always talk.\u201d \n \n Correia said he has a full agenda and plans to attend events throughout the city. \n \n Then he let the elevator doors close, ending the interview. \n \n Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @mlevenson . Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com . Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi", "summary": "\u2013 Elected at age 23, arrested three years later: That's the latest on Jasiel Correia, the youngest-ever mayor of Fall River, Mass., and alleged defrauder of investors in a tech startup, the Boston Globe reports. Before turning mayor in 2015, Correia allegedly spent $231,000 in investors' money on everything from a Mercedes-Benz to pricey travel to adult entertainment\u2014then filed fraudulent tax returns to cover his trail. \"It's not my best Thursday,\" he said after pleading not guilty to 13 counts of wire and tax fraud in federal court in Boston, per MassLive. \"It's raining. I don't like to be out in the rain.\" Correia also issued a public denial of sorts: \"There is not a single thing ... I did wrong as the mayor of the city of Fall River,\" he said. Per a federal indictment, Correia lied to investors of the business app SnoOwl by saying he'd created a profitable app before. He then allegedly spent almost two-thirds of their money: $10,000 on a 2011 Mercedes sports sedan, another $10,000 to pay off student loans and boost his political campaign, and other funds on designer clothing, restaurants, jewelry, and charitable donations in his name. None of the seven investors have seen returns. \"One of the frustrating aspects of [Correia's first mayoral] campaign was that a lot of people thought he was a success and had been an entrepreneurial wizard,\" says former mayor Sam Sutter, who lost to Correia in 2015. \"But the exact opposite was true.\" Correia returned to work Friday at City Hall saying he would not resign, per the Globe."}
{"document": "Associated Press \n \n Yes, it was that time again, folks. Jobs Friday, when for one ever-so-brief moment the interests of Wall Street, Washington and Main Street are all aligned on one thing: jobs. \n \n The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. economy added 257,000 jobs in January, ahead of the consensus expectation of 237,000. Revisions showed that employment gains in the last two months of 2014 included 147,000 more jobs than previous estimated. \n \n Here at MoneyBeat HQ, we crunched the numbers, tracked the markets and compiled the commentary before and after the data crosses the wires. Now that we\u2019re done, feel free to continue the conversation in the comments section. And while you\u2019re here, why don\u2019t you sign up to follow us on Twitter. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. employers added a vigorous 257,000 jobs in January, and wages jumped by the most in six years \u2014 evidence that the U.S. job market is accelerating closer to full health. \n \n In this Friday, Jan. 23, 2015 photo, job applicant Rafael Ferrer, 49, left, shakes hands with a representative of the Hilton Bentley Miami Beach hotel during a job fair at the Hospitality Institute, Friday,... (Associated Press) \n \n The surprisingly robust report the Labor Department issued Friday also showed that hiring was far stronger in November and December than previously thought. Employers added 414,000 jobs in November \u2014 the most in 17 years. Job growth in December was also revised sharply higher, to 329,000, from 252,000. \n \n Average hourly wages soared 12 cents in December to $24.75, the biggest gain since September 2008. In the past year, hourly pay has increased 2.2 percent. That is ahead of inflation, which rose just 0.7 percent in 2014. \n \n The sharp drop in gas prices in the past year has held down inflation and boosted Americans' spending power. Still, wages typically rise at a roughly 3.5 percent pace in a fully healthy economy. \n \n The unemployment rate in January rose to 5.7 percent from 5.6 percent. But that occurred for a good reason: More Americans began looking for jobs, though not all of them found work. Their job hunting suggests that they are more confident about their prospects. \n \n Strong hiring pushes up wages as employers compete for fewer workers. Job gains have now averaged 336,000 a month for the past three months, the best three-month pace in 17 years. Just a year ago, the three-month average was only 197,000. \n \n The Federal Reserve is closely monitoring wages and other job market data as it considers when to begin raising the short-term interest rate it controls from a record low near zero. The Fed has kept rates at record lows for more than six years to help stimulate growth. Most economists think the central bank will start boosting rates as early as June. \n \n Steady economic growth has encouraged companies to keep hiring. The economy expanded at a 4.8 percent annual rate during spring and summer, the fastest six-month pace in a decade, before slowing to a still-decent 2.6 percent pace in the final three months of 2014. \n \n There are now 3.2 million more Americans earning paychecks than there were 12 months ago. That lifts consumer spending, which drives about 70 percent of economic growth. \n \n More hiring, along with sharply lower gasoline prices, has boosted Americans' confidence and spending power. Consumer confidence jumped in January to its highest level in a decade, according to a survey by the University of Michigan. And Americans increased their spending during the final three months of last year at the fastest pace in nearly nine years.", "summary": "\u2013 The US economy added 257,000 jobs last month, a full 20,000 more than economists had expected today's jobs report to show, the Wall Street Journal reports. The unemployment rate ticked up from 5.6% to 5.7%, but as the AP explains, that's partially because more Americans started looking for work, showing confidence in the economy. As Kevin Kingsbury writes for the Journal, \"In this case, today\u2019s increase is actually a good sign.\" But while the labor force participation rate did inch up to 62.9%, last month's 62.7% was a \"multi-decade low.\" Paul Vigna's take: \"So, that\u2019s at least movement in the right direction, but it\u2019s not much movement. ... It\u2019s hard to get growth really going with so many people out of the work force.\" December's new jobs number was revised significantly upward from 252,000 to 329,000, and November's number was revised all the way up to 414,000\u2014the highest total in 17 years. Plus, average hourly wages rose 12 cents to $24.75, the biggest gain since September 2008. In the past year, hourly pay has increased 2.2%. That is ahead of inflation, which rose just 0.7% in 2014. All in all: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 2014, in which average monthly job gains were 258,000, was the best year since 1999 for jobs growth."}
{"document": "Nicolas Cage Bailed Out by Dog the Bounty Hunter \n \n Nicolas Cage received the help of an unlikely ally after being arrested in New Orleans Reality star Duane 'Dog' Chapman \u2013 aka Dog the Bounty Hunter \u2013 posted the actor's $11,000 bond after he was charged with domestic abuse and disturbing the peace Saturday in the French Quarter.\"I am a truly dedicated fan of Mr. Cage and will not be granting any interviews about my client as I wish to respect his privacy,\" Chapman, 58, told E! News in a statement.\"I performed my duties as a bail bondsman and not in connection with our show,\" the statement continued. \"This is what I do for a living. There are two sides of my job: I release my clients after they have been arrested; and pick them up if they don't show up in court. I do not believe the latter will be the case for Mr. Cage.\"Cage, 47, is scheduled to appear in court May 31. ||||| Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage, jailed in New Orleans over an alleged outburst against his wife, police and a few parked cars, is free today after reportedly being bailed out by reality TV star Duane \"Dog\" Chapman. \n \n \"I am a truly dedicated fan of Mr. Cage and will not be granting any interviews about my client as I wish to respect his privacy,\" Chapman, a bail bondsman and bounty hunter who parlayed his colorful personality to land a TV show, \"Dog the Bounty Hunter.\" \n \n \"I performed my duties as a bail bondsman and not in connection with our show,\" he said. \"This is what I do for a living.\" \n \n According to the New Orleans Police Department, Cage, 47, was \"heavily intoxicated and arguing with his wife Alice Kim, 27, in front of a home at 11:30 p.m. Saturday on Dumaine Street in the city's French Quarter, insisting that the house they were in front of was their rental property. \n \n Police said that Cage grabbed his wife by her upper arm and dragged her towards the property that he believed they were renting -- there were no visible signs of injury to Kim's arm. \n \n The actor then allegedly began to strike cars in the immediate vicinity and attempted to jump into a taxi, police said. At this point a police officer \"immediately observed that Cage was heavily intoxicated and ordered him out of the cab, which prompted Cage to start yelling,\" according to police. \n \n Cage allegedly said to the police \"Why don't you just arrest me?\" gossip website TMZ.com reported. \n \n The police did just that, arresting him on one count of domestic abuse and one count of disturbing the peace. \n \n TMZ also stated that Kim is not a complaining witness, does not want her husband to be charged and that witnesses have said there was no physical contact between the two. \n \n Cage has been married to the former waitress Kim since July 30, 2004. The two had a son, Kal-El, in 2005. \n \n The actor has been nominated for an Academy Award twice and won the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of an alcoholic spiraling out of control in 1995's \"Leaving Las Vegas.\" \n \n Born Nicolas Kim Coppola, Cage changed his name to avoid the appearance of nepotism, as he is the nephew of legendary film director Francis Ford Coppola. Cage has previously been married to Patricia Arquette and Lisa Marie Presley. \n \n Nicolas Cage's Troubles Off the Screen \n \n Late last year Nicolas Cage -- who is known to fly off the handle in memorable performances in films such as \"Moonstruck\" and \"Adaptation\" -- made the news for his off-screen temper. \n \n While leaving a night club in Romania, where he was on location filming the sequel to his 2007 hit \"Ghost Rider,\" the actor was filmed bursting into a rage during an altercation with a companion. \n \n Cage was taped screaming: \"I thought we were brothers, man,\" and \"I'll die in the name of honor!\" \n \n TMZ has also previously reported that the actor is facing financial troubles. A federal tax lien from 2009 showed that Cage owes over $6.7 million in taxes for 2008. \n \n He's been forced to sell off some of his \"national treasure\" including a Bavarian castle, and a Rhode Island home sold earlier this month at a $9.5 million loss. \n \n \"I mean everybody makes mistakes. It's part of being human,\" Cage said on \"Good Morning America\" earlier this year. \"And when we make mistakes, I think sometimes it can be a great lesson because it puts you in to looking for something. Some people say you have to be a sinner before you can be a saint.\" \n \n Cage made news earlier this week when a missing mint copy of Action Comics No. 1 -- the comic book debut of Superman -- belonging to him surfaced in a San Fernando Valley, Calif., storage locker. The comic, which has been authenticated, was stolen from Cage more than a decade ago, according to Detective Don Hrycyk with the Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail. \n \n Cage accepted an insurance payout after the theft, so it is unclear if he will regain his missing comic.", "summary": "\u2013 In a case of reality not imitating \"art,\" Dog the notorious bounty hunter bailed actor Nicolas Cage out of jail. Reality star Duane \"Dog\" Chapman posted Cage's $11,000 bond after he was charged with domestic abuse and disturbing the peace over the weekend in New Orleans. \"I am a truly dedicted fan,\" Dog, 58, said by way of explanation. \"There are two sides of my job: I release my clients after they have been arrested; and pick them up if they don't show up in court. I do not believe the latter will be the case for Mr. Cage.\" Cage, 47, was busted after arguing loudly with his 27-year-old wife and dragging her down the street, said police. The actor, who appeared to be \"heavily intoxicated\" then began hitting cars, according to cops. He's due in court next month, reports People. Click for more details on Cage's French Quarter bust."}
{"document": "A Tennessee woman posted a heartbreaking tweet Friday of the last bouquet of flowers she would receive from her late father who promised to send her a gift until she was 21 years old. \n \n Bailey Sellers of Knoxville, Tenn., tweeted the photo of the purple bouquet along with pictures of a letter her father wrote to her and a snap of them together on the beach. \n \n FATHER CHARGED WITH RAPING, KILLING INFANT DAUGHTER, TENNESSEE COPS SAY \n \n Sellers wrote: \u201cMy dad passed away when I was 16 from cancer and before he died he prepaid flowers so I could receive them every year on my birthday. Well this is my 21st birthday flowers and the last. Miss you so much daddy.\u201d \n \n The note, which she also received each year from her father, read: \u201cThis is my last love letter to you until we meet again. I do not want you to shed another tear for me my baby girl for I am in a better place.\u201d \n \n Sellers\u2019 father concluded he would be with her \u201cthrough every milestone\u201d and to respect her mother. \n \n TENNESEE MAN ARRESTED AFTER 3-YEAR-OLD SHOT 1-YEAR-OLD WITH HIS GUN, REPORTS SAY \n \n A social media user tweeted to Sellers her condolences and called the gesture \u201csad and heartwarming.\u201d \n \n Sellers replied back that she looked forward to receiving flowers each year but this time was \u201cheartbreaking.\u201d \n \n Sellers tweet, which has received more than 715,000 likes as of Saturday afternoon, has gone viral on social media. Sellers retweeted a number of responses and tweeted that she was \u201cthankful\u201d that her father\u2019 \u201cthoughtful brought so many people happiness.\u201d ||||| We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter? \n \n Yes", "summary": "\u2013 After turning 21 on Friday, a Tennessee woman received a bittersweet gift from her father\u2026who died five years ago. Bailey Sellers of Knoxville posted photos to Twitter of the last bouquet of flowers she\u2019ll get from her dad, who paid to have them sent to her on her birthdays, Fox News reports. \u201cMy dad passed away when I was 16 from cancer\u201d Sellers wrote on Twitter, adding that he arranged for her to receive flowers every year on her birthday until she turned 21. \u201cWell this is my 21st birthday flowers and the last. Miss you so much daddy.\u201d A card decorated with butterflies that accompanied the flowers had a beautiful message from her dad, who told her to respect her mother and that \u201cI will still be with you through every milestone, just look around and there I'll be.\u201d The heartbreaking post has since gone viral, with over 1.3 million likes and over 300,000 retweets by Sunday afternoon. Sellers responded with gratitude to the outpouring of responses on social media, writing, \u201cI'm so thankful that my dads thoughtfulness brought so many people happiness.\u201d"}
{"document": "Although Joan Rivers went to Yorkville Endoscopy for a routine procedure, her time spent there was anything but routine. \n \n As RadarOnline.com has previously reported, Rivers\u2019 female ear, nose and throat doctor stepped in once Dr. Lawrence Cohen, Rivers\u2019 gastroenterologist, discovered something on her vocal cords. The ENT, who wasn\u2019t authorized to perform any medical procedures at the clinic, took over and began a biopsy. \n \n PHOTOS: Celebrities Who Died In Bizarre Circumstances \n \n The biopsy was not authorized, as Rivers never signed a consent form. And once it began, her vocal cords began to swell, Anderson 360 revealed Tuesday night. But that\u2019s not all. Not only was the ENT not supposed to be treating the comedienne, 81, at this time, medical staffers have also told investigators that the ENT snapped a selfie with the Fashion Police star while she was under anesthesia \u2013 a major violation of privacy, given she did not give her consent to have her picture taken. \n \n Dr. Cohen, who doubled as the clinic\u2019s medical director, has since parted ways with Yorkville. The clinic confirmed his departure, stating, Dr. Cohen \u201cis not currently performing procedures\u2026nor is he currently serving as medical director.\u201d \n \n PHOTOS: 10 Celebrity Spawn Who Look Just Like Their Famous Mothers \n \n As Radar has reported, Rivers\u2019 daughter Melissa is now considering a lawsuit against the clinic and associated doctors. \n \n Story developing. \n \n What do you think about the new details that have come to light? Sound off in the comments below. ||||| See more of Susan Candiotti's investigation of Yorkville Endoscopy at 8 p.m. ET/PT Wednesday on \"Anderson Cooper 360\" on CNN. \n \n (CNN) -- The cardiac arrest leading to Joan Rivers' death happened as the comedian's personal doctor began performing a biopsy on her vocal cords, a source close to the death investigation told CNN. \n \n A staff member at Manhattan's Yorkville Endoscopy clinic told investigators that the doctor, who has not been publicly identified, took a selfie photo in the procedure room while Rivers was under anesthesia, the source said. \n \n Rivers, 81, was at the clinic for a scheduled endoscopy by another doctor, gastroenterologist Dr. Lawrence Cohen. That procedure, intended to help diagnose her hoarse voice and sore throat, involved the insertion of a camera down her throat. \n \n After Cohen, the clinic's medical director, finished his work, a biopsy was done on Rivers without her prior consent, according to the source. \n \n An ear, nose and throat specialist not certified by the clinic as required by law performed a biopsy on her vocal cords. The doctor is described by the source as Rivers' personal ear-nose-throat physician. \n \n Clinic: Vocal-cord biopsy did not kill Joan Rivers \n \n \"Even though you are a licensed physician, you still should have, if you will, the checks and balances to get your approval to practice in that particular place,\" said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at New York University's Langone Medical Center. \n \n Investigators believe that Rivers' vocal cords began to swell during the allegedly unauthorized biopsy, cutting off the flow of oxygen to her lungs, which led to cardiac arrest on the morning of August 29, the source said. \n \n Rivers, 81, was rushed by paramedics from Yorkville Endoscopy to New York's Mount Sinai Hospital a mile away, where she died a week later. \n \n Yorkville Endoscopy issued a statement last Thursday denying reports that any vocal cord biopsy has ever been done at the clinic, although federal privacy law prevented any patient information from being released. \n \n The day after the denial was issued, the clinic confirmed that Dr. Cohen \"is not currently performing procedures... nor is he currently serving as medical director.\" \n \n The source said that at this time neither Cohen nor the ear, nose and throat doctor have been accused of wrongdoing by investigators. \n \n The clinic declined to respond to the source's comments about a biopsy or a selfie, citing federal privacy law. \n \n Timeline emerges in Joan Rivers' death \n \n See more about the comedy business at CNN Comedy.", "summary": "\u2013 Joan Rivers' personal doctor not only performed an unplanned biopsy during a routine procedure\u2014the ear, nose, and throat specialist snapped a \"selfie\" with the star while she was unconscious, a source close to the investigation tells CNN. The cardiac arrest that led to her death happened during the unplanned procedure, but neither Rivers' personal doctor nor Yorkville Endoscopy co-owner Dr. Lawrence Cohen have been accused of wrongdoing by state investigators, the source says. The New York City clinic says Cohen, who performed the routine endoscopy on Rivers, is no longer its medical director. Rivers' daughter, Melissa, is considering a lawsuit against the clinic and the doctors involved, Radar reports."}
{"document": "Pope Francis delivers his speech during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican , Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Associated Press) \n \n Pope Francis delivers his speech during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican , Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Associated Press) \n \n VATICAN CITY (AP) \u2014 Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a U.S. bishop Thursday and authorized an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults, adding awkward drama to an audience with U.S. church leaders over the abuse and cover-up scandal roiling the Catholic Church. \n \n The resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield was announced just as the four-member U.S. delegation was sitting down with Francis in his private study in the Apostolic Palace. Among the four was Bransfield's cousin, Monsignor Brian Bransfield, secretary-general of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. \n \n Bishop Bransfield had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week. \n \n The Vatican said Francis accepted his resignation Thursday and appointed Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to take over Bransfield's Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily. Lori said in a statement that Francis had also instructed him to \"conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield.\" \n \n No details of the allegations were revealed and his diocese said it had \"no idea\" where Bransfield was after the Vatican ordered him to live outside the diocese. \n \n Lori set up a hotline for potential victims to call, said the Vatican had instructed him to make the investigation public, and vowed to conduct a thorough study into what he said were \"troubling\" claims against Bransfield, who was a major fundraiser for the Vatican via the Pennsylvania-based Papal Foundation. \n \n The revelation was the latest twist in an incredible turn of events in the U.S. church that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious U.S. cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. \n \n Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation found the allegation credible. After news broke of the investigation, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they, too, had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults. \n \n The McCarrick affair \u2014 coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses \u2014 has fueled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002. \n \n Outrage has also been directed at Francis and the Vatican and has fueled conservative criticism of Francis' pontificate. \n \n The head of the U.S. bishops conference, Houston Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, had requested the papal audience last month following revelations that McCarrick had risen through church ranks even though the allegations of sexual misconduct were known in U.S. and Vatican circles. \n \n DiNardo requested a full-fledged Vatican investigation into the McCarrick affair, and said he also wanted answers to allegations that a string of Vatican officials knew of McCarrick's misdeeds since 2000, but turned a blind eye. \n \n A statement issued by DiNardo after the papal audience made no mention of his request for a Vatican investigation. It said that the Americans briefed the pope on the \"laceration\" that abuse has caused and that \"we look forward to actively continuing our discernment together identifying the most effective next steps.\" \n \n The statement also made no mention of the Bransfield investigation. McCarrick was a co-consecrator when Bishop Bransfield was ordained a bishop in 2005 and the two were active in the Papal Foundation, the big U.S. fundraising organization that McCarrick co-founded and which has funneled millions of dollars to the Vatican over the years. \n \n Bransfield was president when the foundation was thrown into disarray last year over a revolt by its lay donors. They were incensed that the cardinals who run the foundation had agreed to a $25 million request from the Vatican to bail out a troubled Rome hospital. Under pressure, the cardinals pulled the plug on the funding mid-way through. \n \n Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston spokesman Tim Bishop said Thursday he couldn't answer questions about Bransfield's whereabouts or whether he has an attorney. \n \n \"The Holy See has instructed him to live outside the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston,\" Bishop said. \"I have no idea of his whereabouts.\" \n \n The Vatican hasn't responded to allegations by its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, that Francis effectively rehabilitated McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over allegations McCarrick would routinely invite seminarians to his beach house and into his bed. \n \n Francis has, however, responded to the overall scandal with a series of initiatives aimed at trying to convince the faithful that he \"gets it\" and is prepared to take measures to put an end to what he has called the \"culture of cover-up\" in the church. \n \n On the eve of the U.S. audience, Francis announced he was summoning the presidents of bishops conferences around the world to a February summit to discuss prevention measures and protection of minors and vulnerable adults. \n \n The surprise announcement was largely dismissed as a belated damage control effort by victims' advocates. Church historians questioned why such an urgent problem was being scheduled for discussion six months from now with the very bishops who are blamed for much of the scandal. \n \n \"Where are the laity and others who might provide both new and uncomplicit voices and insights into the process?\" asked Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history at Syracuse University. \n \n Even DiNardo's own record on protecting children has now come into question. On the eve of his audience with Francis, The Associated Press reported that two victims in Houston had accused him of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges. \n \n The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both alleged victims had come forward to report abuse by the priest, the Rev. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001. \n \n The delegation of U.S. bishops announced no plans to speak to the media after their audience. \n \n ___ \n \n AP writers Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and John Raby in Charleston contributed to this report. \n \n ___ \n \n This story has been corrected to say that Lori is Archbishop of Baltimore, not bishop. ||||| FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677 abuses cases by Catholic clergy between 1946 and 2014. Spiegel Online wrote Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677 abuses cases by Catholic clergy between 1946 and 2014. Spiegel Online wrote Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018... (Associated Press) FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677... (Associated Press) \n \n BERLIN (AP) \u2014 A report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany says 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014, two leading German media outlets said Wednesday. \n \n Spiegel Online and Die Zeit said the report they obtained \u2014 commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and researched by three universities \u2014 concludes that more than half of the victims were 13 or younger and most were boys. Every sixth case involved rape and at least 1,670 clergy were involved, both weeklies reported. Die Zeit wrote that 969 abuse victims were altar boys. \n \n The report also says that the actual number of victims was likely much higher, according to the research by experts from the Universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim. \n \n The German Bishops Conference said in a written response a few hours later that it regretted the leaking of the report, but that the study confirms \"the extent of the sexual abuse\" that took place. \n \n \"It is depressing and shameful for us,\" Bishop Stephan Ackermann said. He didn't further elaborate on the findings of the report, but said the Catholic group would present the study as initially planned on Sept. 25 together with the authors. \n \n Die Zeit wrote that researchers weren't allowed to look at the original church files but had to provide questionnaires to the dioceses, which then provided the information. \n \n In their conclusions, the researchers write that there was evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, many cases were not brought to justice, and that sometimes abuse suspects \u2014 primarily priests \u2014 were simply moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past. \n \n The Catholic Church has been struggling with sex abuse by its clergy for a long time. \n \n In 2010, the German church was roiled by a sex abuse scandal triggered by the head of a Jesuit school in Berlin who went public about decades-long sexual abuse of high school students by clergy. Following that, a whole wave of victims who were sexually abused by clergy spoke out across the country. \n \n An investigation in the United States last month found rampant sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by about 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania. \n \n Earlier this week, the Vatican said it is preparing the \"necessary clarifications\" about accusations that top Vatican officials including Pope Francis covered up the sexual misconduct of a now-disgraced American ex-cardinal. \n \n Also on Wednesday, the Vatican said it's summoning the presidents of every bishops conference around the world for a February summit to discuss preventing clergy sex abuse and protecting children.", "summary": "\u2013 Pope Francis accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield on Thursday and authorized an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults, adding awkward drama to an audience with US church leaders over the abuse and cover-up scandal roiling the Catholic Church, the AP reports. Bishop Bransfield\u2014a major fundraiser for the Vatican\u2014had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week. Baltimore Archbishop William Lori will take over Bransfield's Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily and investigate accusations against him. The revelation was the latest twist in an incredible turn of events in the US church that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious US cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July. The McCarrick affair\u2014coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses\u2014has fueled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002. In Germany, a new report on sexual abuse inside the church says clergy members in that country abused 3,677 people between 1946 and 2014."}
{"document": "Get the local report from WJHG. \n \n (CNN) -- Clay Duke sat quietly through the first portion of the Bay District Schools, Florida, school board meeting Tuesday afternoon as local children were honored for their achievements. \n \n When it came time for citizens to bring up issues, the 56-year-old resident calmly approached the front. \n \n He spray painted a red \"V\" with a circle around it on the wall, brandished a small-caliber handgun and ordered the room cleared at a Panama City schools building. \n \n \"Six men stay. Everyone else leave,\" the burly gunman said. \n \n Moments later, Ginger Littleton, a board member, returned to the room and swung a purse at him. She ended up on the ground after the two struggled. The gunman cursed her, but did not open fire and he let her leave the room. \n \n Someone was going to die, he said. \n \n At that point, Duke, as seen on the dramatic live internet feed provided by CNN affiliates WJHG and WMBB, began a rambling discourse that included the apparent firing of his wife and sales taxes. \n \n The confrontation ended in the gunman identified as Duke calmly firing at the school officials, being wounded and, according to police, taking his own life. \n \n At first, school board members and Superintendent Bill Husfelt tried to reason with Duke, who had a criminal record. They talked about possibly finding a job for Duke's wife or looking into the case. \n \n Husfelt told the gunman that he likely signed the termination papers, but didn't recall the circumstances. \n \n \"I'm the one who signed the papers,\" Husfelt. \"Let them go,\" he said referring to the school board members. \n \n At one point, Husfelt said, \"I don't want anybody to get hurt. I've got a feeling that what you want, is you want the cops to come in and kill you because you are mad. Because you said you are going to die.\" \n \n \"But why? This isn't worth it,\" the superintendent told him. \"This is a problem.\" \n \n The gunman then pointed the pistol at the official. \n \n \"Please don't. Please don't. Please,\" Husfelt said. \n \n The gunman opened fire at Husfelt and school board members. He missed them all, even though he was at close range, said Lee Stafford, director of student services of Bay District Schools. Duke said, \"I'm going to kill [unintelligible],\" while he fired. \n \n Mike Jones, chief of security for the school system and a retired police officer, exchanged fire with Duke, who was wounded and rolled to the ground. Duke turned his gun on himself, dying of a fatal gunshot to the head, authorities said. Husfelt called Jones a \"hero.\" \n \n The gunman was declared dead at a local hospital. An autopsy is expected Wednesday. \n \n Police and school officials were left to piece together what happened. \n \n \"I'm sure they never expected this kind of event to occur,\" Sgt. Jeffrey Becker of the Panama City Police Department. \n \n The superintendent later related the event as being \"surreal,\" Becker said. \n \n Husfelt told reporters that Duke had almost a smile on his face. \"He made up his mind. You could tell he was going to die.\" \n \n The superintendent said he believes the gunman used a combination of live bullets and blanks. But police said live bullets were used. \n \n Husfelt told \"AC360\" Tuesday night that the gunman was \"just mixed up\" and that he tried to calm him down. \"I knew the police were on their way.\" \n \n \"You knew he had something in mind he was going to do and it would not end well,\" Husfelt said. \n \n The superintendent said he wanted to protect the school board members, but Duke did not want to talk. \n \n \"The good Lord was standing in front of me,\" said the school chief, adding authorities found two bullet holes behind his desk. \n \n Police have a solid lead on Duke's motive, Becker said, but were not prepared Tuesday night to release it. \n \n The investigation includes Duke's assertions that his wife had been terminated by the school district. Police were talking with Duke's wife, Becker said. \n \n School officials said they were unaware of the significance of the spray painting. \n \n But a Facebook page belonging to a Clay Duke has a profile photo of a \"V\" in a red circle, a logo that is used in the movie \"V for Vendetta.\" \n \n According to the Internet Movie Database, the 2006 film is about \"a shadowy freedom fighter known only as \"V\" uses terrorist tactics to fight against his totalitarian society. Upon rescuing a girl from the secret police, he also finds his best chance at having an ally.\" \n \n CNN could not verify if the Facebook page belonged to the gunman, but it does list Duke, 56, as living in Panama City, Florida. \n \n A biography on Duke's Facebook page reads: \"My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)... no... I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats... same-same... rich... they take turns fleecing us... our few dollars... pyramiding the wealth for themselves. The 95%... the us, in US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South. Our Masters, the Wealthy, do, as they like to us...\" \n \n Under \"political views,\" Duke labels himself a \"Freedom Fighter.\" Under religious views, he wrote, \"Humanism.\" \n \n Duke, who lived in Lynn Haven, a suburb of Panama City, has a previous record, Becker told CNN. \n \n According to the website of the Florida Department of Corrections, Duke was sentenced in 2000 for aggravated stalking, obstructing justice and throwing or shooting into a vehicle. \n \n According to the Panama City News Herald, after six months of stalking a former girlfriend, Duke confronted the woman outside her home on Oct. 20, 1999. He was wearing the mask and vest and holding two .22-caliber guns. He threatened to kill her, then kill several others and then himself, the newspaper said. When the woman tried to drive away, Duke shot out a rear tire. \n \n The photo of Duke on the corrections page matches the Facebook page. \n \n The News Herald reported that the gunman was taken out of the building on a stretcher. According to Panama City Police Chief John Van Etten, no one other than the suspect was injured, affiliate WJHG said. \n \n School board spokeswoman Karen Tucker said the man \"was a large guy\" she had seen sitting in the back of the boardroom earlier, according to the News Herald. \n \n Superintendent Husfelt will hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at the administration building in Panama City, police said. \n \n CNN affiliate WMBB reported children and parents were at the meeting to be recognized for achievements, but were gone before the incident began. \n \n \"We are absolutely in state of shock,\" said Stafford. \"I was in the third floor and we were watching the live feed, and first we thought it was a drill. But the more that you watched it, we realized this was an actual incident and emergency situation.\" \n \n Duke's Facebook page listed him as a 1972 graduate of King High School in Tampa. \n \n His favorite quotation: \"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth,\" from the movie \"A Few Good Men.\" \n \n From CNN's Vivian Kuo. ||||| A gunman who fired point-blank at school board members before fatally shooting himself had for much of the meeting sat with the rest of the audience, listening to routine business. \n \n This photo provided by the Florida Dept. of Corrections shows Clay Duke. (AP Photo/Florida Dept of Corrections) (Associated Press) \n \n As the board was in the midst of a discussion Tuesday, Clay A. Duke walked to the front of the room, spray painted a red \"V\" with a circle around it on the white wall, then turned and waved a handgun. He calmly ordered everyone to \"hit the road\" except the men on the board sitting behind a long beige desk. \n \n Despite his shock, Bay City Schools Superintendent Bill Hasfelt mustered a calm voice and tried to persuade Duke to drop the gun, but the 56-year-old ex-convict just shook his head, blaming officials for his wife being fired. Video showed him slowly raising the gun and leveling it at Husfelt, who pleaded \"Please don't, please don't.\" \n \n \"We could tell by the look in his eyes that this wasn't going to end well,\" Husfelt later told The Associated Press. \n \n Duke shot twice at Husfelt from about 8 feet away and squeezed off several more rounds before security guard Mike Jones bolted in and, after exchanging gunfire with Duke, wounded him in the leg or side. Duke then fatally shot himself, police Sgt. Jeff Becker said. Somehow, no one else who remained in the small board room was injured in the clash that lasted several minutes, and Husfelt said at least two rounds lodged in the wall behind him. \n \n \"It was so surreal. You couldn't believe it was going on,\" he said. \n \n Before the shooting started, the only woman on the five-member board _ who had left the room as ordered _ came back, sneaked up behind Duke and whacked his gun arm with her large, brown purse. \n \n \"In my mind, that was the last attempt or opportunity to divert him,\" Ginger Littleton told AP. \n \n Duke, a large, heavyset man dressed in a dark pullover coat, got angry, turned around, and she fell to the floor, as board members pleaded with her to stop. Duke pointed the gun at her head and said, \"You stupid b----\" but he didn't shoot her, she said. She's not sure why. \n \n \"He had every opportunity to take me out,\" she said. \n \n In his brief exchange with the board, Duke said his wife had been fired from the northern Florida district, but never told Husfelt or the board who she was or her job. Members promised to help her find a new job, but Duke just shook his head. Husfelt told Duke he would be responsible for her dismissal, so the board members should be allowed to leave. \n \n \"He said his wife was fired, but we really don't know what he was talking about,\" Husfelt told the AP at his Panama City home. \"I don't think he knew what he was talking about.\" \n \n Husfelt in the exchange on video tells Duke: \"I've got a feeling you want the cops to come in and kill you because you said you are going to die today.\" Later, the head of more than 30 district schools said he was sure someone was going to be killed. \n \n Tommye Lou Richardson, the school district's personnel director, who was at the meeting, called district security chief and former police officer Jones a hero. In the video, as Duke lay on the floor, colleagues comforted a shaken Jones, who said he had never shot anyone before. \n \n SWAT officers then storm the room and order everyone onto the ground. School officials tell them that Duke is shot and appears dead. His feet can be seen near the board's seats. The district said Jones would not be available for an interview. \n \n Minutes before Duke rose from his seat, the room had been filled with students receiving awards, Husfelt said. \n \n \"It could have been a monumental tragedy.\" \n \n Husfelt spoke to the AP wearing a sweat shirt and pajama bottoms, surrounded by his family. With a Christmas tree as backdrop, he said his faith anchored him during the ordeal and that he thought, \"I don't want to die today but I'm prepared if I do. \n \n \"God was standing in front of me and I will go to my grave believing that,\" he said. \n \n As for the V inside a circle that Duke painted, it's the same symbol used in the graphic novel series and movie \"V for Vendetta,\" though police didn't talk about his motive. \n \n After everything stopped, some board members speculated that the bullets Duke was firing were fake or caps. But police say the gun was real _ and the video shows papers flying up on Husfelt's desk. \n \n Duke was charged in October 1999 with aggravated stalking, shooting or throwing a missile into a building or vehicle and obstructing justice, according to state records. He was convicted and sentenced in January 2000 to five years in prison and was released in January 2004. Records show Duke was a licensed massage therapist before his arrest but it wasn't clear if he was employed. \n \n Attorney Ben Bollinger, who represented Duke during his trial, told The News Herald of Panama City that Duke was waiting in the woods for his wife with a rifle, wearing a mask and a bulletproof vest. She confronted him and then tried to leave in a vehicle, and Duke shot the tires. He said that as part of his sentence, Duke was required to complete psychological counseling. Bollinger did not immediately return a phone message from the AP. \n \n \"The guy obviously had a death wish,\" district spokeswoman Karen Tucker said of Duke.", "summary": "\u2013 If there was a prize for America's bravest school board member, Ginger Littleton would be a shoo-in. Video of yesterday's hostage-taking incident at a Florida school board meeting shows that after gunman Clay Duke ordered everybody apart from six men to leave the room, Littleton returned to the room and swung a purse at him. Duke, who later shot himself after being injured in an exchange of fire with a security guard, swore at her but didn't shoot, CNN reports. Nobody except Duke, a 56-year-old ex-con, was harmed in the incident. As board members and superintendent Bill Husfelt tried to reason with him, Duke rambled about grievances including sales taxes. \"He said his wife was fired, but we really don't know what he was talking about,\" Husfelt tells the AP. \"I don't think he knew what he was talking about.\" Duke then opened fire on the superintendent and board members at close range but missed them all before the security guard bolted in. \"God was standing in front of me and I will go to my grave believing that,\" Husfeldt says."}
{"document": "The front of the McLaren F1 supercar was wrecked in the collision with the rear of a Rover Metro in Lancashire at 1400 BST on Monday. \n \n \n \n \n \n The star's brother says it is his first accident \n \n The star, also famous for his role as Edmund Blackadder in the eponymous TV series, reportedly asked police not to name him following the accident in the 230mph supercar. \n \n Mr Atkinson's brother Rodney said the star - whose Mr Bean character drives a Mini rather than a high-powered sports car - was \"an absolute fanatic\" about cars. \n \n He said: \"The faster they are the more he likes them. He's a very good driver, there's no doubt about it, and this is the first accident I have heard of involving him. \n \n \"Obviously, we are relieved he is uninjured.\" \n \n Mr Atkinson's sports car, which can travel from 0-60mph in just 3.2 seconds, is not the only prestige vehicle he has owned. \n \n He has also driven Aston Martins, Rolls Royces, Lancias and Mercedes. \n \n The McLaren car was delivered to his Oxfordshire home in 1997. ||||| For the Formula One team, see McLaren \n \n The McLaren F1 is a sports car designed and manufactured by McLaren Cars. Originally a concept conceived by Gordon Murray, he convinced Ron Dennis to back the project and engaged Peter Stevens to design the exterior and interior of the car. On 31 March 1998, the XP5 prototype with modified rev limiter set the Guinness World Record for the world's fastest production car, reaching 240.1 mph (386.4 km/h), surpassing the modified Jaguar XJ220's 217.1 mph (349 km/h) record from 1992. The McLaren's record lasted until the Koenigsegg CCR surpassed it in 2005, followed by the Bugatti Veyron. Only low production volume cars like the 1993 Dauer 962 Le Mans which attained 251.4 mph (404.6 km/h) in 1998 were faster.[2][3] \n \n The car features numerous proprietary designs and technologies; it is lighter and has a more streamlined structure than many modern sports cars, despite having one seat more than most similar sports cars, with the driver's seat located in the centre (and slightly forward) of two passengers' seating positions, providing driver visibility superior to that of a conventional seating layout. It features a powerful engine and is somewhat track oriented, but not to the degree that it compromises everyday usability and comfort. It was conceived as an exercise in creating what its designers hoped would be considered the ultimate road car. Despite not having been designed as a track machine, a modified race car edition of the vehicle won several races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995, where it faced purpose-built prototype race cars. Production began in 1992 and ended in 1998. In all, 106 cars were manufactured, with some variations in the design.[4] \n \n In 1994, the British car magazine Autocar stated in a road test regarding the F1, \"The McLaren F1 is the finest driving machine yet built for the public road.\" They further stated, \"The F1 will be remembered as one of the great events in the history of the car, and it may possibly be the fastest production road car the world will ever see.\"[5] In 2005, Channel4 placed the car at number one on their list of the 100 greatest cars, calling it \"the greatest automotive achievement of all time\". In popular culture, the McLaren F1 has earned its spot as 'The greatest automobile ever created' and 'The Most Excellent Sports Car Of All Time' amongst a wide variety of car enthusiasts and lovers.[6] Notable past and present McLaren F1 owners include Elon Musk,[7] Jay Leno,[8] George Harrison,[9] and the Sultan of Brunei.[10] In the April 2017 issue of Top Gear Magazine, the McLaren F1 was listed as one of the fastest naturally aspirated cars currently available in the world, and in the same league as the more modern vehicles such as the Ferrari Enzo and Aston Martin One-77 despite being produced and engineered 10 years prior the Ferrari Enzo and 17 years prior the Aston Martin One-77.[11] \n \n Design and implementation [ edit ] \n \n The logo of McLaren F1 \n \n McLaren F1 \n \n Chief engineer Gordon Murray's design concept was a common one among designers of high-performance cars: low weight and high power. This was achieved through use of high-tech and expensive materials such as carbon fibre, titanium, gold, magnesium and kevlar. The F1 was the first production car to use a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis.[12] \n \n The three seat setup inside an F1 \n \n Gordon Murray had been thinking of a three-seat sports car since his youth. When Murray was waiting for a flight home from the Italian Grand Prix in 1988, he drew a sketch of a three-seater sports car and proposed it to Ron Dennis. He pitched the idea of creating the ultimate road car, a concept that would be heavily influenced by the company's Formula One experience and technology and thus reflect that skill and knowledge through the McLaren F1. \n \n Murray declared that \"During this time, we were able to visit Honda's Tochigi Research Center with Ayrton Senna. The visit related to the fact that at the time, McLaren's F1 Grand Prix cars were using Honda engines. Although it's true I had thought it would have been better to put a larger engine, the moment I drove the Honda NSX, all the benchmark cars\u2014Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini\u2014I had been using as references in the development of my car vanished from my mind. Of course the car we would create, the McLaren F1, needed to be faster than the NSX, but the NSX's ride quality and handling would become our new design target. Being a fan of Honda engines, I later went to Honda's Tochigi Research Center on two occasions and requested that they consider building for the McLaren F1 a 4.5 litre V10 or V12. I asked, I tried to persuade them, but in the end could not convince them to do it, and the McLaren F1 ended up equipped with a BMW engine.\"[13] \n \n Later, a pair of Ultima MK3 kit cars, chassis numbers 12 and 13, \"Albert\" and \"Edward\", the last two MK3s, were used as \"mules\" to test various components and concepts before the first cars were built. Number 12 was used to test the gearbox with a 7.4 litre Chevrolet V8, plus various other components such as the seats and the brakes. Number 13 was the test of the V12, plus exhaust and cooling system. When McLaren was done with the cars they destroyed both of them to keep away the specialist magazines and because they did not want the car to be associated with \"kit cars\".[14] \n \n The car was first unveiled at a launch show, 28 May 1992, at The Sporting Club in Monaco. The production version remained the same as the original prototype (XP1) except for the wing mirror which, on the XP1, was mounted at the top of the A-pillar. This car was deemed not road legal as it had no indicators at the front; McLaren was forced to make changes on the car as a result (some cars, including Ralph Lauren's, were sent back to McLaren and fitted with the prototype mirrors). The original wing mirrors also incorporated a pair of indicators which other car manufacturers would adopt several years later. \n \n The car's safety levels were first proved when during a testing in Namibia in April 1993, a test driver wearing just shorts and a T-shirt hit a rock and rolled the first prototype car several times. The driver managed to escape unscathed. Later in the year, the second prototype (XP2) was specially built for crashtesting and passed with the front wheel arch untouched. \n \n Engine [ edit ] \n \n History [ edit ] \n \n The McLaren F1's engine compartment contains the mid-mounted BMW S70/2 engine and uses gold foil as a heat shield in the exhaust compartment \n \n Gordon Murray insisted that the engine for this car be naturally aspirated to increase reliability and driver control. Turbochargers and superchargers increase power but they increase complexity and can decrease reliability as well as introducing an additional aspect of latency and loss of feedback. The ability of the driver to maintain maximum control of the engine is thus compromised. Murray initially approached Honda for a powerplant with, 558 PS (550 bhp; 410 kW) 600 mm (23.6 in) block length and a total weight of 250 kg (551 lb), it should be derived from the Formula One powerplant in the then-dominating McLaren/Honda cars. When Honda refused, Isuzu, then planning an entry into Formula One, had a 3.5-litre V12 engine being tested in a Lotus chassis. The company was very interested in having the engine fitted into the F1. However, the designers wanted an engine with a proven design and a racing pedigree.[15] \n \n Specifications [ edit ] \n \n Gordon Murray then approached BMW, which took an interest, and the motorsport division BMW M headed by engine expert Paul Rosche[16] designed and built Murray a 6,064 cc (6.1 L; 370.0 cu in) 60\u00ba V12 engine called the BMW S70/2.[17] At 627 PS (618 bhp; 461 kW)[18][19] and 266 kg (586 lb) the BMW engine ended up 14% more powerful and 16 kg (35 lb) heavier than Gordon Murray's original specifications, with the same block length. \n \n It has an aluminium alloy block and heads, with bore x stroke of 86 mm \u00d7 87 mm (3.39 in \u00d7 3.43 in) DOHC with variable valve timing (a relatively new and unproven technology for the time) for maximum flexibility of control over the 4 valves per cylinder, and a chain drive for the camshafts for maximum reliability. \n \n The engine uses a dry sump oil lubrication system. The carbon fibre body panels and monocoque required significant heat insulation in the engine compartment, so Murray's solution was to line the engine bay with a highly efficient heat-reflector: gold foil. Approximately 16 g (0.8 ounce) of gold was used in each car.[20] \n \n The road version used a compression ratio of 11:1 to produce a maximum power output of 627 PS (618 bhp; 461 kW) at 7,400 rpm and 479 lb\u22c5ft (650 N\u22c5m) at 5,600 rpm of torque.[21][22] The engine has a redline rev limiter set at 7,500 rpm. In contrast to raw engine power, a car's power-to-weight ratio is a better method of quantifying acceleration performance than the peak output of the vehicle's powerplant. The standard F1 achieves 550 hp/ton (403 kW/tonne), or just 4.0 lb/hp. \n \n The cam carriers, covers, oil sump, dry sump, and housings for the camshaft control are made of magnesium castings. The intake control features twelve individual butterfly valves and the exhaust system has four Inconel catalysts with individual Lambda-Sondion controls. The camshafts are continuously variable for increased performance, using a system very closely based on BMW's VANOS variable timing system for the BMW M3;[23] it is a hydraulically actuated phasing mechanism which retards the inlet cam relative to the exhaust cam at low revs, which reduces the valve overlap and provides for increased idle stability and increased low-speed torque. At higher rpm the valve overlap is increased by computer control to 42 degrees (compare 25 degrees on the M3)[23] for increased airflow into the cylinders and thus increased performance. \n \n To allow the fuel to atomise fully, the engine uses two Lucas injectors per cylinder, with the first injector located close to the inlet valve \u2013 operating at low engine rpm \u2013 while the second is located higher up the inlet tract \u2013 operating at higher rpm. The dynamic transition between the two devices is controlled by the engine computer.[23] Each cylinder has its own miniature ignition coil. The closed-loop fuel injection is sequential. The engine has no knock sensor as the predicted combustion conditions would not cause this to be a problem. The pistons are forged in aluminium. \n \n Every cylinder bore has a Nikasil coating giving it a high degree of wear resistance.[23] From 1998 to 2000, the Le Mans\u2013winning BMW V12 LMR sports car used a similar S70/2 engine. The engine was given a short development time, causing the BMW design team to use only trusted technology from prior design and implementation experience. The engine does not use titanium valves or connecting rods. Variable intake geometry was considered but rejected on grounds of unnecessary complication.[23] As for fuel consumption, the engine achieves on average 15.2 mpg (15 L/100 km), at worst 9.3 mpg (25 L/100 km) and at best 23.4 mpg (10 L/100 km).[5] \n \n McLaren F1 with all user accessible compartments opened \n \n Chassis and body [ edit ] \n \n The McLaren F1 was the first production road car to use a complete carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) monocoque chassis structure.[24] Aluminium and magnesium were used for attachment points for the suspension system, inserted directly into the CFRP.[25] \n \n The car features a central driving position \u2013 the driver's seat is located in the middle, ahead of the fuel tank and ahead of the engine, with a passenger seat slightly behind and on each side.[26] The doors on the vehicle move up and out when opened, and are thus of the butterfly type, also called Dihedral doors. Gordon Murray's design for the doors was inspired by a Toyota Sera.[27] \n \n The engine produces high temperatures under full application and thus causes a high temperature variation in the engine bay from no operation to normal and full operation. CFRP becomes mechanically stressed over time from high heat transfer effects and thus the engine bay was not constructed from CFRP.[28] \n \n Aerodynamics [ edit ] \n \n The overall drag coefficient on the standard McLaren F1 is 0.32,[29] compared with 0.36 for the faster Bugatti Veyron, and 0.357 for the SSC Ultimate Aero TT, which was the fastest production car from 2007 to 2010. The vehicle's frontal area is 1.79 square metres, and the S\u00b7Cd figure is 0.57. Because the machine features active aerodynamics[30][20][31] these are the figures presented in the most streamlined configuration. \n \n The normal McLaren F1 features no wings to produce downforce (compare the LM and GTR editions); however, the overall design of the underbody of the McLaren F1 in addition to a rear diffuser exploits ground effect to improve downforce which is increased through the use of two electric Kevlar fans to further decrease the pressure under the car.[32] A \"high downforce mode\" can be turned on and off by the driver.[32] At the top of the vehicle, there is an air intake to direct high pressure air to the engine with a low pressure exit point at the top of the very rear.[32] Under each door is a small air intake to provide cooling for the oil tank and some of the electronics.[32] The airflow created by the electric fans not only increases downforce, but the airflow that is created is further exploited through design, by being directed through the engine bay to provide additional cooling for the engine and the ECU.[32] At the front, there are ducts assisted by a Kevlar electric suction fan for cooling of the front brakes.[32] \n \n There is a small dynamic rear spoiler on the tail of the vehicle, which will adjust dynamically and automatically attempt to balance the centre of gravity of the car under braking[20] \u2013 which will be shifted forward when the brakes are applied. Upon activation of the spoiler, a high pressure zone is created in front of the flap, and this high pressure zone is exploited\u2014two air intakes are revealed upon application that will allow the high pressure airflow to enter ducts that route air to aid in cooling the rear brakes.[32] The spoiler increases the overall drag coefficient from 0.32 to 0.39 and is activated at speeds equal to or above 40 mph (64 km/h) by brake line pressure.[23] \n \n Suspension [ edit ] \n \n Steve Randle, who was the car's dynamicist, was appointed responsible for the design of the suspension system of the McLaren F1.[23] It was decided that the ride should be comfortable yet performance-oriented, but not as stiff and low as that of a true track machine, as that would imply reduction in practical use and comfort as well as increasing noise and vibration, which would be a contradictory design choice in relation to the former set premise \u2013 the goal of creating the ultimate road car. \n \n From inception, the design of the F1 had a strong focus on adjusting the mass of the car as near the middle as possible by extensive manipulation of placement of, among other things, the engine, fuel and driver, allowing for a low polar moment of inertia in yaw. The F1 has 42% of its weight at the front and 58% at the rear,[23] this figure changes less than 1% with the fuel load. \n \n The distance between the mass centroid of the car and the suspension roll centre were designed to be the same front and rear to avoid unwanted weight transfer effects. Computer controlled dynamic suspension were considered but not applied due to the inherent increase in weight, increased complexity and loss of predictability of the vehicle. \n \n Damper and spring specifications: 90 mm (3.5 in) bump, 80 mm (3.1 in) rebound with bounce frequency at 1.43 Hz at front and 1.80 Hz at the rear.[23] Despite being sports oriented, these figures imply a soft ride and inherently decrease track performance. As can be seen from the McLaren F1 LM and the McLaren F1 GTR track variants, the track performance potential is much higher than that in the standard F1 road car due to fact that car should be comfortable and usable in everyday conditions. \n \n The suspension is a double wishbone system with an unusual design. Longitudinal wheel compliance is included without loss of wheel control, which allows the wheel to travel backwards when it hits a bump \u2013 increasing the comfort of the ride. \n \n Castor wind-off at the front during braking is handled by McLaren's proprietary Ground Plane Shear Centre \u2013 the wishbones on either side in the subframe are fixed in rigid plane bearings and connected to the body by four independent bushes which are 25 times more stiff radially than axially.[23] This solution provides for a castor wind-off measured to 1.02 degrees per g of braking deceleration. Compare the Honda NSX at 2.91 degrees per g, the Porsche 928 S at 3.60 degrees per g and the Jaguar XJ6 at 4.30 degrees per g respectively. The difference in toe and camber values are also of very small under lateral force application. Inclined Shear Axis is used at the rear of the machine provides measurements of 0.04 degrees per g of change in toe-in under braking and 0.08 degrees per g of toe-out under traction.[23] \n \n When developing the suspension system the facility of electro-hydraulic kinematics and compliance at Anthony Best Dynamics was employed to measure the performance of the suspension on a Jaguar XJR16, a Porsche 928S and a Honda NSX to use as references. \n \n Steering knuckles and the top wishbone/bell crank are also specially manufactured in an aluminium alloy. The wishbones are machined from a solid aluminium alloy with CNC machines.[23] \n \n Tyres [ edit ] \n \n The McLaren F1 uses 235/45ZR17 front tyres and 315/45ZR17 rear tyres.[30] These are specially designed and developed solely for the McLaren F1 by Goodyear and Michelin. The tyres are mounted on 17-by-9-inch (430 mm \u00d7 230 mm) front, and 17-by-11.5-inch (430 mm \u00d7 290 mm) rear five-spoke cast magnesium wheels, coated with a protective paint and secured by magnesium retention pins.[26] \n \n The turning circle from kerb to kerb is 13 m (43 ft), allowing the driver 2 turns from lock to lock. \n \n Brakes [ edit ] \n \n The F1 features unassisted, vented and cross-drilled brake discs made by Brembo. Front size is 332 mm (13.1 in) and at the rear 305 mm (12.0 in).[30][23] The callipers are all four-pot, opposed piston types, and are made of aluminium.[23] The rear brake callipers do not feature any handbrake functionality, however there is a mechanically actuated, fist-type callipers which is computer controlled and thus serves as a handbrake. \n \n To increase calliper stiffness, the callipers are machined from one single solid piece (in contrast to the more common being bolted together from two halves). Pedal travel is slightly over one inch. Activation of the rear spoiler will allow the air pressure generated at the back of the vehicle to force air into the cooling ducts located at either end of the spoiler which become uncovered upon application of it. \n \n Servo-assisted ABS brakes were ruled out as they would imply increased mass, complexity and reduced brake feel; however at the cost of increasing the required skill of the driver.[23] \n \n Gordon Murray attempted to utilise carbon brakes for the F1, but found the technology not mature enough at the time;[28] with one of the major culprits being that of a proportional relationship between brake disc temperature and friction\u2014i.e. stopping power\u2014thus resulting in relatively poor brake performance without an initial warm-up of the brakes before use.[33] Since carbon brakes have a more simplified application envelope in pure racing environments, this allows for the racing edition of the car, the F1 GTR, to feature ceramic carbon brakes.[16] \n \n Gearbox and powertrain [ edit ] \n \n The standard McLaren F1 has a transverse 6-speed manual gearbox with an AP carbon triple-plate clutch[30] contained in an aluminium housing. The second generation GTR edition has a magnesium housing.[16] Both the standard edition and the 'McLaren F1 LM' have the following gear ratios: 3.23:1, 2.19:1, 1.71:1, 1.39:1, 1.16:1, 0.93:1, with a final drive of 2.37:1, the final gear is offset from the side of the clutch.[30] The gearbox is proprietary and was developed by Weismann.[34] The Torsen LSD (Limited Slip Differential) has a 40% lock.[30] \n \n The McLaren F1 has an aluminium flywheel that has only the dimensions and mass absolutely needed to allow the torque from the engine to be transmitted. This is done in order to decrease rotational inertia and increase responsiveness of the system, resulting in faster gear changes and better throttle feedback. This is possible due to the F1 engine lacking secondary vibrational couples and featuring a torsional vibration damper by BMW.[23] \n \n Interior and equipment [ edit ] \n \n 1996 McLaren F1 side luggage compartment \n \n Standard equipment on the stock McLaren F1 includes full cabin air conditioning, a rarity on most sports cars and a system design which Murray again credited to the Honda NSX, a car he had owned and driven himself for 7 years without ever needing to change the AC automatic setting.[citation needed] Further comfort features included SeKurit electric defrost/demist windscreen and side glass, electric window lifts, remote central locking, Kenwood 10-disc CD stereo system, cabin access release for opening panels, cabin storage compartment, four-lamp high performance headlight system, rear fog and reversing lights, courtesy lights in all compartments, map reading lights and a gold-plated Facom titanium tool kit and first aid kit (both stored in the car).[35] In addition, tailored, proprietary luggage bags specially designed to fit the vehicle's carpeted storage compartments, including a tailored golf bag, were standard equipment.[26] Airbags are not present in the car.[5][16] Each customer was given a special edition TAG Heuer 6000 Chronometer wristwatch with its serial number scripted below the centre stem.[36] \n \n All features of the F1 were, according to Gordon Murray, obsessed over including the interior.[28] The metal plates fitted to improve aesthetics of the cockpit are claimed to be 20 thousandths of an inch (0.5 mm) thick to save weight.[28] The driver's seat of the McLaren F1 is custom fitted to the specifications desired by the customer for optimal fit and comfort; the seats are handmade from CFRP and covered in light Connolly leather.[26] By design, the F1 steering column cannot be adjusted; however, prior to production each customer specifies the exact preferred position of the steering wheel and thus the steering column is tailored by default to those owner settings. The same holds true for the pedals, which are not adjustable after the car has left the factory, but are tailored to each specific customer.[5] \n \n During its pre-production stage, McLaren commissioned Kenwood, the team's supplier of radio equipment, to create a lightweight car audio system for the car; Kenwood, between 1992 and 1998 used the F1 to promote its products in print advertisements, calendars and brochure covers. Each car's audio system was especially designed to tailor to an individual's listening taste, however radio was omitted because Murray never listened to the radio. \n \n Purchase and maintenance [ edit ] \n \n Only 106 cars were manufactured: 5 prototypes (XP1, XP2, XP3, XP4, XP5), 64 road versions (F1), 1 tuned prototype (XP1 LM), 5 tuned versions (LM), 1 longtail prototype (XPGT), 2 longtail versions (GT), and 28 racecars (GTR). Production began in 1992 and ended in 1998.[4] At the time of production, each car took around three and a half months to make.[5] \n \n Although production stopped in 1998, McLaren still maintains an extensive support and service network for the F1. Every standard F1 has a modem which allows customer care to remotely fetch information from the ECU of the car in order to assist the customer in the event of a mechanical vehicle failure.[37] There are eight[38] authorised service centres throughout the world, and McLaren will on occasion fly a specialised technician to the owner of the car or the service centre. All of the technicians have undergone dedicated training in service of the McLaren F1. In cases where major structural damage has occurred, the car can be returned to McLaren directly for repair.[38] \n \n Performance [ edit ] \n \n The F1 remains one of the fastest production cars ever made; as of July 2013 it is succeeded by very few cars, including the Koenigsegg CCR,[39] the Bugatti Veyron,[40] the SSC Ultimate Aero TT,[41] and the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. However, all of the higher top speed machines use forced induction to reach their respective top speeds, whereas the McLaren F1 is naturally aspirated. \n \n McLaren F1 has a power to weight ratio of 1.79 kg (3.95 lb) per horsepower. \n \n Acceleration (Test By Autocar Magazine) [ edit ] \n \n 0\u201330 mph (48 km/h): 1.8 s [42] \n \n 0\u201340 mph (64 km/h): 2.3 s [42] \n \n 0\u201350 mph (80 km/h): 2.7 s [42] \n \n 0\u201360 mph (97 km/h): 3.2 s [42] \n \n 0\u201370 mph (113 km/h): 3.9 s [42] \n \n 0\u201380 mph (129 km/h): 4.5 s [42] \n \n 0\u201390 mph (145 km/h): 5.6 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013100 mph (161 km/h): 6.3 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013110 mph (177 km/h): 7.2 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013120 mph (193 km/h): 9.2 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013124.3 mph (200 km/h): 9.4 s [43] \n \n 0\u2013130 mph (209 km/h): 10.4 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013140 mph (225 km/h): 11.2 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013150 mph (241 km/h): 12.8 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013160 mph (257 km/h): 14.6 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013170 mph (274 km/h): 17.2 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013180 mph (290 km/h): 20.3 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013190 mph (306 km/h): 23.8 s [42] \n \n 0\u2013200 mph (322 km/h): 28 s [42] \n \n 30\u201350 mph (48\u201380 km/h): 1.8 s, using 3rd/4th gear [42] \n \n 30\u201370 mph (48\u2013113 km/h): 2.1 s, using 3rd/4th gear [42] \n \n 40\u201360 mph (64\u201397 km/h): 2.3 s, using 4th/5th gear [42] \n \n 50\u201370 mph (80\u2013113 km/h): 2.8 s, using 5th gear [42] \n \n 180\u2013200 mph (290\u2013322 km/h): 7.6 s, using 6th gear [42] \n \n 0\u2013400 m (0.25 mi): 11.045 s at 138 mph (222 km/h) [44] \n \n 0\u20131,000 m (0.62 mi): 19.548 s at 276.41 km/h (171.75 mph)[44] \n \n Acceleration (On a customer car) [ edit ] \n \n Braking and handling [ edit ] \n \n 30\u20130 mph (48\u20130 km/h): 9.7 m / 31.83 ft [46] \n \n 50\u20130 mph (80\u20130 km/h): 25.2 m / 82.68 ft [46] \n \n 70\u20130 mph (112\u20130 km/h): 49 m / 162 ft [42] \n \n Skidpad Lateral Acceleration: 1.2[47]\u20131.3g[15] \n \n Track tests [ edit ] \n \n Tsukuba Circuit, time trial : 1:04.62 (Driven by Naoki Hattori in Best Motoring) on a hot lap with humid (92%) weather and some miss shifting. [48] Which means that lap time can be improved to 59s with ideal conditions and if miss shifts were corrected as said by Best Motoring (who tested it) on Facebook. [49] \n \n : 1:04.62 (Driven by Naoki Hattori in Best Motoring) on a hot lap with humid (92%) weather and some miss shifting. Which means that lap time can be improved to 59s with ideal conditions and if miss shifts were corrected as said by Best Motoring (who tested it) on Facebook. Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, 2-mile (3.2 km) banked circuit, top speed test : An average speed of 195.3 mph (314.3 km/h), with a maximum speed of 200.8 mph (323.2 km/h) (driven by Tiff Needell using the XP5 prototype). [50] \n \n : An average speed of 195.3 mph (314.3 km/h), with a maximum speed of 200.8 mph (323.2 km/h) (driven by Tiff Needell using the XP5 prototype). MIRA, 2.82-mile (4.54 km) banked circuit, top speed test : An average speed of 168 mph (270 km/h), with a maximum speed of 196.2 mph (315.8 km/h) (driven by Peter Taylor). [50] \n \n : An average speed of 168 mph (270 km/h), with a maximum speed of 196.2 mph (315.8 km/h) (driven by Peter Taylor). Bedford Autodrome West Circuit Post 2006 Hot Lap: 1:21.20 done by Evo magazine with a custom modified McLaren F1(with same tyres as Enzo) on 10 January 2007 which was faster than a Ferrari Enzo lap of 1:21.30 [51] \n \n Estoril circuit lap is 1:55.9 in 1994 (4.36 km) configuration of the track with 3 people on board in July 1994. [52] [53] \n \n Mclaren F1 XP4 prototype was tested by Tiff Needell on TopGear at Goodwood track. [54] He said that its handling was superb and precise. The car reaches same part of the GoodWood that is woodcote corner from 6:53 to 8:18 of the video so expect the laptime to be around 1:25 (it may vary as it is estimation from video). [54] \n \n He said that its handling was superb and precise. The car reaches same part of the GoodWood that is woodcote corner from 6:53 to 8:18 of the video so expect the laptime to be around 1:25 (it may vary as it is estimation from video). The 1st lap of Nurburgring was completed by Jonathan Palmer in the XP4 prototype, where he reached a maximum of 200 mph (322 km/h) on the track.[55] \n \n Record claims [ edit ] \n \n The title of \"world's fastest production road car\" was constantly in contention, especially because the term \"production car\" is not well-defined. \n \n In August 1993 McLaren tested the XP3 prototype \u2013 which had only about 580 hp \u2013 at Nardo. They calculated a top speed of 231 mph from the data recording inside the car.[56] \n \n The British magazine Autocar was given access and tested the XP5 prototype in May 1994. They wrote:\"Had we enough tarmac, we have no doubt that it would finally stop accelerating at its rev-limiter in top which, taking tyre growth into account, would be somewhere the far side of 230mph.\"[46] \n \n Car and Driver wrote in their August 1994 issue (\"Courtesy of Autocar & Motor\" written in the box with performance numbers): \"Top speed? The F1 runs into the 7500 rpm redline in sixth at 221 mph\u2014but it's still accelerating. Gordon Murray, the F1's designer, is convinced that with taller gearing, the car is capable of at least 230 mph.\"[42] \n \n On 31 March 1998 Andy Wallace drove the five-year-old XP5 prototype at Volkswagen's test track in Ehra-Lessien, setting a new production car world record of independently measured 240.1 mph (386.4 km/h) two-way average (peak speed 243 mph(391 km/h) measured by McLaren)[57] with the rev-limiter raised to 8300 rpm.[30][58] \n \n It's said that the certified 240.1 mph were converted from 386.7 km/h which is almost 240.3 mph if converted more precisely, so top speeds in the 240.1\u2013240.3 mph (386.4\u2013386.7 km/h) range can be read from various sources. \n \n Depending on the definition of \"production car\" it was dethroned in November 1998 by the Dauer 962 Le Mans (404.6 km/h (251.4 mph) in Ehra-Lessien)[2][59] or in April 2007 by the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 (408.47 km/h (253.81 mph) in Ehra-Lessien).[40] \n \n Motorsports [ edit ] \n \n Following its initial launch as a road car, motorsports teams convinced McLaren to build racing versions of the F1 to compete in international series. Three different versions of the race car were developed from 1995 to 1997.[60] \n \n Many F1 GTRs, after the cars were no longer eligible in international racing series, were converted to street use. By adding mufflers, passenger seats, adjusting the suspension for more ground clearance for public streets, and removing the air restrictors, the cars were able to be registered for road use. \n \n F1 GTR 1995 [ edit ] \n \n Built at the request of race teams, such as those owned by Ray Bellm and Thomas Bscher, in order to compete in the BPR Global GT Series, the McLaren F1 GTR was a custom-built race car which introduced a modified engine management system that increased power output \u2014 however, air-restrictors mandated by racing regulations reduced the power back to 600 hp (608 PS; 447 kW) at 7,500 rpm.[61] The car's extensive modifications included changes to body panels, suspension, aerodynamics and the interior. The F1 GTR would go on to take its greatest achievement with first, third, fourth, fifth, and 13th places in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, beating out custom built prototype sports cars.[60] \n \n In total, nine F1 GTRs were built for the 1995 season.[61] \n \n The 1995 version of F1 GTR created so much downforce that it was claimed to run along the ceiling at 100 mph (160 km/h).[62] \n \n F1 GTR 1996 [ edit ] \n \n To follow up on the success of the F1 GTR into 1996, McLaren further developed the 1995 model, leading to a size increase but weight decrease.[60] Nine more F1 GTRs were built to 1996 spec, while some 1995 cars were still campaigned by privateers. F1 GTR 1996 chassis #14R is notable as being the first non-Japanese car to win a race in the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC).[63] The car was driven by David Brabham and John Nielsen. The weight was reduced with around 37 kg (82 lb) from the 1995 GTR but the engine was kept detuned at 600 hp (608 PS; 447 kW) to comply with racing regulations.[18] \n \n F1 GTR 1997 [ edit ] \n \n With the 2 F1 GT homologation street version s produced, McLaren could now develop the F1 GTR for the 1997 season. Weight was further reduced and a sequential gearbox was added.[60] The engine was slightly destroked to 6.0 L instead of the previous 6.1 L. Due to the heavily modified bodywork, the F1 GTR 1997 is often referred to as the \"Longtail\" thanks to the rear bodywork being extended to increase downforce. A total of ten F1 GTR 1997 were built for the 1997 season. The weight was reduced to a total of 910 kg (2,010 lb).[60] \n \n Variants [ edit ] \n \n Total production Variant Road Prototype Race Total F1 64 5 69 F1 LM 5 1 6 F1 GT 2 1 3 F1 GTR 28 28 Total 71 7 28 106 \n \n The McLaren F1 road car, of which 64 were originally sold, saw several different modifications over its production span which were badged as different models. Of the road versions, 21 are reportedly in the United States. The company maintains a database to match up prospective sellers and buyers of the cars. \n \n Prototypes [ edit ] \n \n McLaren XP3 prototype, photographed during testing in 1993. The car is now owned by Gordon Murray \n \n A McLaren F1 with the wing mirrors mounted on the A-pillar as on the prototypes \n \n Prior to the sale of the first McLaren F1s, five prototypes were built, carrying the numbers XP1 through XP5.[64] These cars carried minor subtle differences between each other as well as between the production road cars. Contrary to common misunderstanding, XP1, the first ever running prototype, was never publicly unveiled. The XP1 was never painted (with bare carbon fibre exterior) and later destroyed in an accident in Namibia. The car unveiled at the Monaco 1992 event was actually a \"Clinic Model\", aesthetically convincing but without a powertrain. XP2 was used for crash testing (sporting a blue colour during the test) and also destroyed. As it was a crash test car, it didn't have full interior equipment or a powertrain. XP3 did durability testing, XP4 stress tested the gearbox system and XP5 was a publicity car. The XP3 has been in Murray's ownership since the completion of the programme, XP4 was seen by many viewers of Top Gear when reviewed by Tiff Needell in the mid-1990s and later on sold to a private owner, while XP5 went on to be used in McLaren's famous top speed run and is still owned by McLaren. \n \n Ameritech [ edit ] \n \n This version of the McLaren F1 is modified in order to obtain road legality in the United States. These modifications include the deletion of side seats, the replacement of headlights, a heightened bumper and dampened performance figures including handling and braking compared to the European F1, due to road legality issues. It weighs in at 1,288.2 kg (2,840 lb). \n \n Performance [ edit ] \n \n Performance figures as tested by Road And Track Magazine in 1997:[65] \n \n Performance figures are lower than a regular F1 in all aspects (apart from 0\u201330 mph (0\u201348 km/h)) relating to performance. As Mario Andretti noted in a top speed comparison test after hitting the rev limiter at 217.7 mph (350.4 km/h) on Ameritech F1, the Ameritech F1 is fully capable of pulling a seventh gear, thus with a higher gear ratio or a seventh gear the car would probably be able to reach an even greater top speed.[66] \n \n Acceleration figures [ edit ] \n \n Braking [ edit ] \n \n 60\u20130 mph: 127 ft [65] \n \n 80\u20130 mph: 215 ft[65] \n \n Handling [ edit ] \n \n Skidpad 200 ft: 0.86g [65] \n \n Slalom 700 ft Speed: 64.5 mph[65] \n \n F1 LM [ edit ] \n \n The McLaren F1 XP1 LM prototype on display \n \n The McLaren F1 LM (LM for Le Mans) is a series of five special cars which were built in honour of the five McLaren F1 GTRs which finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, including the winning car.[68] \n \n The weight was reduced by approximately 76 kg (167.6 lb) to a total of 1,062 kg (2,341 lb) \u2013 achieved by having no interior noise suppression, no audio system, a stripped-down base interior, no fan-assisted ground effect and no dynamic rear wing. The car also had a different transaxle, various aerodynamic modifications, specially designed 18-inch (457 mm) magnesium alloy wheels and upgraded gearbox. The F1 LM used the same engine as the 1995 F1 GTR, but without race-mandated restrictors, to produce 680 hp (507 kW; 689 PS). It had a top speed of 225 mph (362 km/h), which is less than the standard version because of added aerodynamic drag, despite identical gear ratios. In the place of the small dynamic rear wing there is a considerably larger, fixed CFRP rear wing mounted on the back of the vehicle. \n \n The LM has the following specifications: \n \n Peak torque of 705 N\u22c5m (520 lbf\u22c5ft) at 4,500 rpm \n \n Peak power of 680 PS (500 kW; 670 hp) at 7,800 rpm \n \n A redline at 8,500 rpm \n \n Total weight of 1,062 kg (2,341 lb) which gives the car a 110.16 bhp (82 kW; 112 PS) per litre ratio.[69] \n \n While McLaren has never claimed specific acceleration figures for the LM, Motortrend recorded traction-limited times of 0\u201360 mph in 3.9s and 0\u2013100 mph in 6.7s.[62] The LM was once the holder of the 0\u2013100\u20130 mph record, which it completed in 11.5 seconds when driven by Andy Wallace at the disused airbase RAF Alconbury in Cambridgeshire.[70] \n \n The F1 LMs can be identified by their Papaya Orange paint. They were painted in this colour in memory of, and tribute to, Bruce McLaren, whose race colour was Papaya Orange. Two of the chassis were painted in Black with Grey trim similar to the Ueno Clinic sponsored Le Mans 24 Hours winning car. These cars were bought by the Sultan of Brunei as such, also feature horizontal stripes down the sides in yellow, red and blue. \n \n Although only five F1 LMs were sold, a sixth chassis exists in the form of XP1 LM, the prototype for modifications to the existing F1 to form the new F1 LM. This car is also painted Papaya Orange and is retained by McLaren. \n \n F1 GT [ edit ] \n \n The final incarnation of the road car, the F1 GT was meant as a homologation special. With increased competition from homologated sports cars from Porsche and Mercedes-Benz in the former BPR Global GT Series and new FIA GT Championship, McLaren required extensive modification to the F1 GTR in order to remain competitive. These modifications were so vast that McLaren would be required to build a production road-legal car on which the new race cars would be based. \n \n The F1 GT featured the same extended rear bodywork as the GTRs for increased downforce and reduced drag, yet lacked the rear wing that had been seen on the F1 LM.[72] The downforce generated by the longer tail was found to be sufficient to not require the wing. The front end was also similar to the racing car, with extra louvers and the wheel arches widened to fit larger wheels. The interior was modified and a racing steering wheel was included in place of the standard unit. \n \n The F1 GTs were built from standard F1 road car chassis, retaining their production numbers. The prototype GT, known as XPGT, was F1 chassis #056, and is still kept by McLaren. The company technically only needed to build one car and did not even have to sell it. However, demand from customers drove McLaren to build two production versions that were sold. The customer F1 GTs were chassis #054 and #058. It weighs 1120 kg which is 20 kg lighter than Standard F1 and has the top speed above 240 mph (386 km/h) although this was never tested. \n \n References [ edit ] ||||| Rowan Atkinson was rushed to hospital last night after crashing his ultra rare \u00a32million sports car. \n \n The Mr Bean star lost control of the 230mph McLaren F1 after wet weather hit much of the country last night. \n \n The supercar spun several times before hitting a tree and a lamppost, coming to a rest at the roadside before bursting into flames. \n \n One onlooker said: \u201cRowan is lucky to be alive considering the state of the car.\u201d \n \n When emergency services arrived at the scene, Atkinson, whose character Mr Bean drives an old Mini, was sitting in a passing motorist\u2019s car. \n \n The actor, 56, suffered shoulder injuries in the crash, which happened at about 7.30pm on the A605 in Cambridgeshire. \n \n Paramedics took him to Peterborough City Hospital for treatment and firefighters made the car safe to be towed away by McLaren recovery experts. Atkinson, who is well-known as a fast car enthusiast, bought the McLaren, one of only 65 in existence, to celebrate the success of the Mr Bean movie and its value has since soared to around \u00a32million. \n \n He also owns vintage and classic cars including Aston Martins and Rolls Royces, has written articles for car magazines and recently appeared as the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car on the BBC\u2019s Top Gear. \n \n It is the second time he has crashed his F1. The front of the car was damaged in a collision in Forton, Lancs, in 1999. ||||| British media say actor Rowan Atkinson, famed for his \"Mr. Bean\" television shows and films, is recovering in hospital after crashing his supercar. \n \n The 56-year-old comedian, also known for the \"Blackadder\" historical comedy shows, was expected to be discharged on Friday after treatment for a shoulder injury, the Daily Mirror reported. \n \n Atkinson's spokesman could not immediately be reached. \n \n Police and firefighters both said that a vehicle crashed late Thursday close to Haddon, a village about 85 miles (137km) north of London. \n \n The car struck a tree, a lamppost and caught fire, authorities said. Firefighters said the driver was not trapped and he was taken to hospital. \n \n Atkinson was driving his McLaren F1 supercar _ one of the world's fastest road cars, the newspaper said.", "summary": "\u2013 The comic know around the world as nerdy Mr. Bean is recovering in a British hospital after crashing his McLaren F1 supercar and striking a tree and lamppost before the vehicle burst into flames. Rowan Atkinson is \"lucky to be alive considering the state of the car,\" said a witness. The actor suffered only a minor shoulder injury in the wreck some 85 miles north of London, reports AP. Authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, but some media reported that Atkinson spun out on a portion of rain-slicked highway. Atkinson also crashed the car in 1999, rear-ending a Land Rover. He bought the sports car, which can reach speeds of 230 mph, to celebrate the success of Mr. Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie. It's only one of 65 street versions ever made and is valued at more than $2 million, reports the Mirror. While his character Mr. Bean putts along in a Mini-Cooper, Atkinson is a fan of luxury sports cars, and has also owned Aston Martins, Mercedes, and Rolls Royces."}
{"document": "In the U.S., legal hurdles have long hampered research into marijuana. But as more states approve medical and even recreational marijuana, scientific inquiries have spiked, especially studies aimed at finding out what exactly is in today's weed\u2014and what it does to our bodies. \n \n In Colorado, which made marijuana legal in November 2012, the latest results show that the pot lining store shelves is much more potent than the weed of 30 years ago. But the boost in power comes at a cost\u2014modern marijuana mostly lacks the components touted as beneficial by medical marijuana advocates, and it is often contaminated with fungi, pesticides and heavy metals. \n \n \u201cThere's a stereotype, a hippy kind of mentality, that leads people to assume that growers are using natural cultivation methods and growing organically,\" says Andy LaFrate, founder of Charas Scientific, one of eight Colorado labs certified to test cannabis. \"That's not necessarily the case at all.\" LaFrate presented his results this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Denver. \n \n LaFrate says he's been surprised at just how strong most of today's marijuana has become. His group has tested more than 600 strains of marijuana from dozens of producers. Potency tests, the only ones Colorado currently requires, looked at tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound that produces the plant's famous high. They found that modern weed contains THC levels of 18 to 30 percent\u2014double to triple the levels that were common in buds from the 1980s. That's because growers have cross-bred plants over the years to create more powerful strains, which today tout colorful names like Bruce Banner, Skunkberry and Blue Cookies. \n \n Those thinking that stronger pot is always better pot might think again. Breeding for more powerful marijuana has led to the virtual absence of cannabidol (CBD), a compound being investigated for treatments to a range of ills, from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia, Huntington's disease and Alzheimer's. Much of the commercially available marijuana LaFrate's lab tested packs very little of this particular cannabinoid. \u201cA lot of the time it's below the detection level of our equipment, or it's there at a very low concentration that we just categorize as a trace amount,\u201d he says. Consumers specifically seeking medical benefits from cannabis-derived oils or other products may have a tough time determining how much, if any, CBD they contain, because Colorado doesn't currently require testing. \n \n \u201cI've heard a lot of complaints from medical patients because somebody claims that a product has a high level of CBD, and it turns out that it actually doesn't,\u201d LaFrate says. Colorado also does not yet require testing of marijuana for contaminants. Washington, the second state to legalize recreational marijuana, does require such testing for microbial agents like E. coli, salmonella and yeast mold, and officials there rejected about 13 percent of the marijuana products offered for sale in 2014. \n \n \"It's pretty startling just how dirty a lot of this stuff is,\" LaFrate says. His team commonly found fungi and bacteria in the marijuana products they tested. But for now it's unclear just how much marijuana growers need to clean up their product. \"Like ourselves, this plant is living with bacteria that are essential to its survival. In terms of microbial contamination, it's kind of hard to say what's harmful and what's not,\" he adds. \"So the questions become: What's a safe threshold, and which contaminants do we need to be concerned about?\" \n \n At the top of that list would be chemical contaminants in products such as concentrates, like the hard, amber-colored Shatter, which contains more than 90 percent THC, LaFrate suggests. Concentrates and edibles (think brownies) make up perhaps half of the current Colorado market. Their makers sometimes suggest that their chosen products are healthier than standard weed because they don't involve frequent smoking. But some manufacturers employ potentially harmful compounds like butane to strip the plant of most everything but THC. Tests also show that marijuana plants can draw in heavy metals from the soil in which they are grown, and concentrating THC can increase the amounts of heavy metals, pesticides or other substances that end up in a product. That means regulations for their production still need to be hammered out, LaFrate says. \n \n \u201cPeople use all kinds of different methods to produce concentrates,\u201d LaFrate says. \u201cThey allow people to use rubbing alcohol and heptane. But what grade of solvents are they using? Are they buying heptane on eBay, and if so, what exactly is in there? There are a whole bunch of issues to figure out, and right now there are not enough resources and really no watchdog.\u201d ||||| Phillipa Morton Verified CBD Oil \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 This is a great product. Easy to just take when needed. Raw and very well produced. 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I am 81 yrs old.. \n \n Martha Adams Elixinol Hemp Oil Drops \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 I have anxiety almost everyday. 6 weeks ago I started using Elixinol. To my absolute amazement my symptoms vanished. Just a few drops everyday sub lingual (Under tongue). Every symptom of anxiety has been cleared up. \n \n Bojana Grkovic Elixinol Hemp Oil Drops \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 I have tried several different brands and variations of CBD oil and this is by far my favorite. Aids in relieving and preventing migraines as well as chronic pain. \n \n Gregory A. NuLeaf Naturals Full-Spectrum CBD Oil \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 I have reordered my 3rd and 4th bottles. I use a few drops early in the evening and after a few minutes I feel a relaxing sensation, and then it helps for a good sleep. ||||| By Amy Norton \n \n HealthDay Reporter \n \n MONDAY, March 23, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- New lab tests on Colorado's legal marijuana suggest that the state's weed supply is more potent than ever, and also a little dirty. \n \n For over a year, Coloradans age 21 and up have been able to buy recreational marijuana from state-regulated dispensaries. As part of the experiment, several labs have been certified to monitor samples from the state's burgeoning pot industry. \n \n One of those labs is scheduled to report its initial findings on Monday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, in Denver. \n \n Those tests revealed one pattern that was somewhat surprising -- namely, the pot's high concentrations of THC, according to Andy LaFrate, president of Denver-based testing firm Charas Scientific. \n \n THC is the compound that gives marijuana users a \"high,\" and on average, the pot in Colorado's retail supply is 30 percent THC. According to LaFrate, that's more than triple the THC level typically found in street marijuana a few decades ago. \n \n Is that concerning? \"I don't think so,\" LaFrate said. \"Especially when you're talking about smoking.\" \n \n However, he added, high potency can be an issue with marijuana-infused \"edibles.\" People can easily overdo it with ingested pot because its effects aren't as immediate as when it is smoked. LaFrate noted that Colorado has passed new regulations targeting edible marijuana -- including potency restrictions and stronger child-resistant packaging. \n \n LaFrate's lab also found some contaminants in retail pot samples, including fungus and the chemical butane, which is used in making marijuana extracts. Whether that's any cause for worry, however, is unclear. \n \n \"Some contamination is inevitable,\" LaFrate said. \"Is there a threat from the contaminants we found? It's hard to say. But if you're smoking, these [substances] will be inhaled into the lungs.\" \n \n Finally, the lab found that pot samples contained little to no cannabidiol, or CBD -- one of the marijuana compounds believed to have medicinal properties. \n \n That's not surprising, LaFrate said, given that the point of recreational pot is to get high. But, he added, \"there is a decent number of people buying retail marijuana who want some medicinal value.\" \n \n So those folks should be aware that what they buy could be devoid of CBD, LaFrate said. \n \n Paul Armentano, deputy director of the nonprofit NORML, saw no surprises in the findings. \n \n \"It is well known that Colorado possesses two separate markets for [marijuana] -- one for medical consumers and one for retail consumers,\" said Armentano, whose Washington, D.C.-based group advocates for legal marijuana use. \n \n So it's \"hardly surprising,\" he said, that the state's retail pot would be high in THC, but low in CBD. \n \n And, Armentano said, concerns about high THC levels seem \"largely misplaced.\" People seeking a high will probably smoke less, because it will take less higher-potency marijuana to achieve a high. \n \n As for contaminants, Armentano said, \"obviously one wants consumers to be able to obtain a product of consistent quality and safety.\" And that's why ongoing quality testing is crucial, he added. \n \n \"Further regulatory oversight may be needed in order to assure that consumers are presented with a product of consistent and acceptable quality,\" Armentano said. \n \n That may eventually happen, LaFrate speculated. Still, he said, \"even though we did find these contaminants, I think overall the supply is very safe.\" \n \n Along with Colorado, three other states -- Alaska, Oregon and Washington -- and Washington, D.C. currently have a legal marijuana market. \n \n More information \n \n NORML keeps track of state marijuana laws. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated \n \n This is not your father's weed. \n \n Colorado marijuana is nearly twice as potent as illegal pot of past decades, and some modern cannabis packs triple the punch of vintage ganja, lab tests reveal for the first time. \n \n In old-school dope, levels of THC \u2014 the psychoactive chemical that makes people high \u2014 were typically well below 10 percent. But in Colorado's legal bud, the average THC level is 18.7 percent, and some retail pot contains 30 percent THC or more, according to research released Monday. \n \n \u201cThat was higher than expected,\u201d said Andy LaFrate, president of Charas Scientific. His Denver lab is licensed by the state and paid by marijuana businesses to measure the THC strength in their products before they go to market. \u201cIt\u2019s common to see samples in the high 20s.\u201d \n \n What\u2019s really in \u2014 and not in \u2014 Colorado\u2019s retail weed surprised LaFrate. After analyzing more than 600 samples of bud provided by certified growers and sellers, LaFrate said he detected little medical value and lots of contamination. He presents those findings Monday to a national meeting of the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit scientific group chartered by Congress. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be alarmists and freak people out, but at the same time we have been finding some really dirty marijuana,\u201d LaFrate told NBC News. \n \n Some green buds he viewed were covered in funghi \u2014 and he estimated that several marijuana flowers were \"crawling\" with up to 1 million fungal spores. \n \n \"It's a natural product. There's going to be microbial growth on it no matter what you do,\" LaFrate said. \"So the questions become: What's a safe threshold? And which contaminants do we need to be concerned about?\" \n \n For example, he also examined more than 200 pot extracts or \"concentrates\" and found some contained solvents like butane. All the tests were done with high-performance liquid chromatography, a method to separate, classify and measure individual compounds. \n \n What LaFrate didn't see, however, also astonished him. The 600-plus weed samples generally carried little or no cannabidiol, or CBD \u2014 the compound that makes medical marijuana \u201cmedical.\u201d The average CBD amount: 0.1 percent, his study reports. \n \n CBD is anecdotally known to control depression, anxiety, and pain. About 200 families with ill children also moved to Colorado to access a strain called Charlotte\u2019s Web, which appears to control seizures in some kids. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s disturbing to me because there are people out there who think they\u2019re giving their kids Charlotte\u2019s Web. And you could be giving them no CBD \u2014 or even worse, you could be giving them a THC-rich product which might actually increase seizures,\u201d LaFrate said. \u201cSo, it's pretty scary on the medical side.\" \n \n The majority of samples tested came from recreational-pot merchants. Under Colorado law, recreational weed must be tested for potency. Some medical-pot sellers voluntarily provided samples to LaFrate. Colorado does not require pre-sale testing of medical marijuana. LaFrate did not analyze any edibles. \n \n \"Really, there is very little difference between recreational and medical in terms of the THC-to-CBD ratio, at least at the aggregate level,\" LaFrate said. \n \n What does that mean for buyers? There may be little difference in how various strains make users feel, even though some people claim one type induces relaxation and another hikes alertness, LaFrate said. \n \n Three decades of cross-breeding pot strains \u2014 done to meet a demand for stronger weed \u2014 generally elevated THC and decreased CBD in many marijuana varieties, LaFrate said. \n \n \"These samples are representational, I think, of what\u2019s happening here in the state and, probably, across the country,\" LaFrate said. \"Because most of the new states coming online with medical or retail marijuana have people from Colorado coming in to set up those markets. \n \n \"We found there\u2019s a tremendous amount of homogeneity within the genetics, at least as far as potency.\" \n \n But some legal weed producers have launched new breeding projects, using different genetic combinations to boost CBD content, said Sean Azzariti, a cannabis advocate in Denver. \n \n Azzariti also champions contamination testing as \"an integral part of our industry.\" \n \n \"I personally am very excited to see technology in testing continue to advance. You would be very hard pressed to find a garden that hasn't at one point had some sort of issue, whether it's an infestation, microbial problems,\" said Azzariti, an Iraq War veteran. He uses cannabis to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder. \n \n On Jan. 1, 2014, he became Colorado's first buyer of legal weed. \n \n Meanwhile, pot-legalization opponents are using LaFrate's findings to compare retail weed to food raised or grown with genetically modified organisms or GMOs. And pot foes continue to link the rise of the marijuana industry to the long-ago advance of Big Tobacco. \n \n \"This study is further evidence that Colorado legalization is not working. It proves that even under government control, there's no way to ensure marijuana is free of bacteria and chemicals,\" said Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). \n \n \"This shows that marijuana is a GMO product just like other products sold by big business. And just like other industries, now you have a big marijuana industry determined to hide these findings from the public. Where is their outcry? Where are the promises to change the way they do business?\" Sabet said. \"I won't hold my breath. For years, the tobacco industry did the same thing. Welcome, America, to Big Tobacco 2.0 \u2014 Big Pot.\"", "summary": "\u2013 If a meeting of the American Chemical Society wouldn't typically catch your attention, this week's Denver gathering may prove an exception. That's after Andy LaFrate presented his pot-themed paper, which had three standout (but not particularly worrisome) findings: retail pot is way more potent, potentially less medically beneficial, and a little dirty. LaFrate runs Charas Scientific; it's one of eight labs certified to test recreational pot in the state, and what it found after examining 600 strains of marijuana from legally certified growers and sellers is that THC\u2014the compound behind pot's \"high\"\u2014is present in levels as high as 30%, though NBC News reports the average is 18.7%. In the '80s, it was usually below 10%. As Smithsonian explains, that isn't an accidental occurrence: Growers have been crossbreeding strains in a bid to up the potency. LaFrate tells HealthDay it's not really a big deal, at least in terms of smoking, as smokers can just smoke less. But in that cross-breeding, cannabidiol\u2014that's CBD, a compound that may benefit those suffering from everything from depression to Alzheimer's\u2014has nearly been bred-out. \"A lot of the time it's below the detection level of our equipment,\" says LaFrate. The director of a nonprofit that tracks state marijuana laws isn't wowed by the finding, saying he expects retail pot would be heavy on the THC and light on the CBD. But LaFrate noted that his lab has seen \"very little difference between recreational and medical in terms of the THC-to-CBD ratio, at least at the aggregate level.\" As for it being \"really dirty,\" his lab found fungus (up to 1 million spores, in some cases) on buds, and butane in some pot concentrates. \"There's going to be microbial growth on it no matter what you do,\" he notes. But \"what's a safe threshold?\" (Would you ever put your pet on pot?)"}
{"document": "For the latest GDP data for the following countries please check the \"Projected % Change\" on the individual country pages, in the At A Glance section : \n \n The World Economic Outlook (WEO) database contains selected macroeconomic data series from the statistical appendix of the World Economic Outlook report, which presents the IMF staff's analysis and projections of economic developments at the global level, in major country groups and in many individual countries. The WEO is released in April and September/October each year. Use this database to find data on national accounts, inflation, unemployment rates, balance of payments, fiscal indicators, trade for countries and country groups (aggregates), and commodity prices whose data are reported by the IMF. Data are available from 1980 to the present, and projections are given for the next two years. Additionally, medium-term projections are available for selected indicators. For some countries, data are incomplete or unavailable for certain years. The World Economic Outlook (WEO) database is now available in SDMX format from our Entire Dataset page. For more information about SDMX, please visit SDMX.org Changes to the April 2018 Database In the April 2018 WEO, there has been a similar exercise as of October 2017 to improve the net debt data to bring the data into better alignment with the definition of net debt in the IMF GFS Manual 2014 (GFSM 2014). \n \n \n \n ||||| LISTEN TO ARTICLE 1:46 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email \n \n Qatar is on track to lose its status as the richest place in the world to the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau. \n \n The global casino hub\u2019s economy will reach the equivalent of about $143,116 per person by 2020, according to projections from the International Monetary Fund. That will put Macau ahead of the current No. 1 Qatar, which will reach $139,151 in the same time frame. \n \n A former Portuguese outpost on the southern tip of China, Macau has become a gambling mecca since returning to Chinese control almost two decades ago. It\u2019s the only place in China where casinos are legal, turning it into a magnet for high-rollers from the mainland. Macau\u2019s gross domestic product has more than tripled from about $34,500 per capita in 2001, the IMF data shows. \n \n Rich Getting Richer By 2020 these will be the richest places on earth, the IMF says Source: IMF World Economic Outlook database, as of April 2018. \n \n The wealth gap between the two places is also expected to widen beyond 2020, with Macau\u2019s GDP per capita set to reach about $172,681 by 2023, according to data compiled from the April edition of the IMF\u2019s Global Economic Outlook database. Qatar\u2019s, meanwhile, will grow to just $158,117. \n \n Elsewhere, financial hub Singapore\u2019s GDP per capita is expected to top six digits by next year and is on track to grow to about $117,535 by 2023, while Hong Kong -- across the water from Macau -- will touch almost $80,000 by that time, the IMF projections show. \n \n Three European countries -- Luxembourg, Ireland, and Norway -- made the top 10 places expected to be the world\u2019s wealthiest by 2020, while the U.S. came in at No. 12. ||||| Just when you thought it was safe to store away the superlatives to describe its meteoric rise to the top of world gaming, Macau is set to outdo itself by becoming the richest place on the planet. \n \n Fresh data from the Inter\u00adnational Monetary Fund (IMF) \u00adpredicted that by 2020, the city would overtake oil-rich Qatar with the highest per-capita gross domestic product of any country or jurisdiction on earth. \n \n The IMF\u2019s World Economic Outlook Update \u2013 published at the end of last month \u2013 expected \u00adcontinuing economic growth in the casino hub would see it leapfrog Qatar by 2020. \n \n This year the IMF ranked \u00adMacau, with a US$122,489 per capita GDP, second behind Qatar, for which it said the equivalent \u00adfigure was US$128,702. Singapore was ranked fourth with US$98,014, just behind Luxembourg with US$110,870 while Hong Kong took 10th place with a per capita GDP of US$64,533. \n \n However, by 2020, Hong Kong\u2019s sister SAR \u2013 which outstripped Las Vegas to become the world\u2019s richest casino destination several years ago \u2013 would become the richest place in the world with a per capita GDP of US$143,116, leaving Qatar, with a paltry US$139,151, in its wake. \n \n The IMF forecast assumed a period of sustained growth which would see Macau continue to open up a gap on its rivals until 2023. \n \n However, Macau lawyer and social commentator S\u00e9rgio \u00adAlmeida Correia, wrote in his blog: \u201cIn terms of quality of life, green areas, pollution, education, health, sport, renewable energies, recycling of urban waste, hygiene and cleanliness of public spaces, accessibility for disabled people, road cycling, public transport might not rank quite as high by any means.\u201d \n \n With a population of just over 650,000, packed into just 30.8 sq km, Macau also holds top spot as the most densely populated place on Earth, according to the United Nations. The tight squeeze means the casino city has 21,322 people per square kilometre packed into its bustling streets. \n \n Hong Kong, the fourth most densely populated place on the planet behind Monaco and Singapore, packs in 6,490 people per square kilometre. \n \n However, within its most dense areas, such as Mong Kok, the population density is more than 120,000 people per square kilometre, according to the Population Division of the United \u00adNations Department of \u00adEconomic and Social Affairs.", "summary": "\u2013 A \"gambling mecca\" is set to oust Qatar as the richest place on Earth, per the International Monetary Fund's newest stats. Bloomberg reports that the IMF's World Economic Outlook database has pegged Macau as the planet's wealthiest place, with its economy on track to reach the equivalent of $143,116 by 2020. Qatar, meanwhile, will come in at $139,151 by then. Macau, an autonomous region that holds the only legal casinos in China, is also set to even further outpace Qatar by 2023, with an expected GDP per capita of $172,681 to Qatar's $158,117. The South China Morning Post describes Macau's \"meteoric rise to the top of world gaming\" as the reason behind its newfound status, though a Macau social commentator and attorney says the region has a lot to improve on in many areas, including quality of life, education, health, and pollution. Luxembourg, Singapore, and Brunei Darussalam round out the IMF's top five, while the US takes the No. 12 spot in the rankings."}
{"document": "Add a location to your Tweets \n \n When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| Ginnifer Goodwin Pregnant: Once Upon a Time Star Expecting Baby With Fiance Josh Dallas \n \n A little prince or princess is on the way for Snow White and Prince Charming! Once Upon a Time actress Ginnifer Goodwin is pregnant and expecting a baby with fiance (and costar) Josh Dallas, their reps confirm to Us Weekly. \n \n PHOTOS: Celeb pregnancy confessions \n \n Rumors that the 35-year-old Something Borrowed star had a baby on board first swirled when she was photographed on the set of her hit ABC drama in a gray swing coat that seemed to strategically conceal her stomach. \n \n PHOTOS: Costar couples \n \n This will be the first child for Goodwin and Dallas, 31. Together since March 2012, the couple confirmed their engagement to Us in October of this year, just a few days after the actor popped the question. \n \n \"They really hit it off,\" a source told Us Weekly of the costars in 2012. \"She and Josh have a blast together and had instant chemistry.\" \n \n PHOTOS: The cast of Once Upon a Time \n \n Goodwin was previously engaged to actor Joey Kern. Dallas was wed to actress Lara Pulver; they split in 2011 after four years of marriage. ||||| Leighton Meester and Adam Brody are engaged! \n \n The cutie pie couple of 10 months is heading to the altar after the former Gossip Girl star accepted Adam\u2019s surprise proposal. \n \n \u201cLeighton and Adam are crazy about each other and have talked about getting married eventually,\ufffd? an insider tells Star. \u201cBut she had no idea he would propose so soon! It was the surprise of her life and she\u2019s ecstatic!\ufffd? \n \n Adam, 33, and Leighton, 27, have been friends for years, getting close in 2011 while co-starring in the independent film, The Oranges. In January they took their relationship to the next level and were soon spotted taking in art exhibits at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and traveling together through Bangkok in February. \n \n Adam previously dated director Lorene Scafaria in 2010 and his co-star on The O.C., Rachel Bilson, for three years. Leighton was most recently linked to actor Aaron Himelstein, which followed her 2-year relationship with Gossip Girl co-star Sebastian Stan ending in 2010. \n \n \u201cRight now their plan is to get married next summer,\ufffd? adds the insider. \u201cThey are still deciding if they want a destination wedding or if they\u2019ll marry in Southern California somewhere.\u201d \n \n While there are no plans for children in the immediate future the couple do have two dogs together, Penny Lane and Trudy.", "summary": "\u2013 Well, at least one celebrity is explaining her odd name choice: Fergie says she and hubby Josh Duhamel chose their baby's name, Axl Jack, after a dream she had while pregnant. In the dream, \"I was in the audience at this festival. It was outdoors and it was all grimy and nobody knew who I was,\" she reveals in an appearance airing today on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. \"On stage singing was Jim Morrison and then came Bob Marley and then Axl Rose. I was in heaven in this dream and I\u2019m dancing and just getting into the music.\" Then her still-in-utero baby woke her up by kicking her for the first time. \"It was like he was feeling the music with me,\" she says. \"It was really beautiful and I woke Josh up and I said, 'Honey, honey, honey, he kicked me. He finally kicked me.'\" They figured it was a sign, and after considering the names \"Morrison\" and \"Marley,\" finally settled on \"Axl.\" They had already chosen \"Jack\" as a tribute to Fergie's late uncle. More in the world of celebrity romance and babies: Kelly Clarkson is expecting her first baby with husband Brandon Blackstock, tweeting yesterday, \"I'm pregnant!!! Brandon and I are so excited! Best early Christmas present ever :)\" Ginnifer Goodwin is also expecting her first baby, with fiance and Once Upon a Time co-star Josh Dallas, their reps confirm to Us. And no baby yet, but Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester is engaged to The OC star Adam Brody, if Star's sources are to be believed."}
{"document": "WASHINGTON\u2014Strong hiring and low unemployment are delivering U.S. workers their best pay raises in nearly a decade. \n \n Employers shook off a September slowdown to add 250,000 jobs to their payrolls in October, above monthly averages in recent years, the Labor Department said Friday. With unemployment holding at 3.7%, a 49-year low, and employers competing for scarce workers, wages increased 3.1% from a year earlier, the biggest year-over-year gain for average hourly earnings since 2009. \n \n ... ||||| FILE- In this Jan. 30, 2018, file photo, Loredana Gonzalez, of Doral, Fla., fills out a job application at a JobNewsUSA job fair in Miami Lakes, Fla. On Friday, Nov. 2, the U.S. government issues the... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE- In this Jan. 30, 2018, file photo, Loredana Gonzalez, of Doral, Fla., fills out a job application at a JobNewsUSA job fair in Miami Lakes, Fla. On Friday, Nov. 2, the U.S. government issues the October jobs report. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) (Associated Press) \n \n FILE- In this Jan. 30, 2018, file photo, Loredana Gonzalez, of Doral, Fla., fills out a job application at a JobNewsUSA job fair in Miami Lakes, Fla. On Friday, Nov. 2, the U.S. government issues the October jobs report. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) (Associated Press) FILE- In this Jan. 30, 2018, file photo, Loredana Gonzalez, of Doral, Fla., fills out a job application at a JobNewsUSA job fair in Miami Lakes, Fla. On Friday, Nov. 2, the U.S. government issues the... (Associated Press) \n \n WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. employers added a stellar 250,000 jobs last month and raised average pay by the most in nearly a decade. \n \n The Labor Department's monthly jobs report, the last major economic data before Tuesday's congressional elections, also showed that the unemployment rate remained at a five-decade low of 3.7 percent. \n \n The influx of new job-seekers in October increased the proportion of Americans with jobs to its highest level since January 2009. \n \n Consumers are the most confident they have been in 18 years and are spending freely and propelling brisk economic growth. The U.S. economy is in its 10th year of expansion, the second-longest such period on record, and October marked the 100th straight month of hiring, a record streak. \n \n The resulting strength in customer demand has led companies to steadily add workers. Though economists predict that hiring will eventually slow as the pool of unemployed Americans dwindles, there's no sign of that happening yet. \n \n Still, the latest month of healthy job growth might not tip many votes in the midterm elections. Polls have suggested that while Americans generally approve of the economy's performance, that sentiment hasn't necessarily broadened support for President Donald Trump or Republican congressional candidates. \n \n In October, consumer confidence reached its highest point in 18 years, propelled by optimism about the job market. Last month's plunge in stock prices didn't dampen Americans' enthusiasm, though the survey was conducted in the first half of October, before the full market decline had occurred. \n \n In the July-September quarter, consumer spending grew by the most in four years and helped the economy expand at a 3.5 percent annual rate. That growth followed a 4.2 percent annual pace in the April-June quarter. Combined, the two quarters produced the strongest six-month stretch of growth in four years. \n \n Manufacturing output and hiring remain healthy, according to a survey by a private trade association, although increased tariffs have raised factory costs. \n \n By contrast, housing remains a weak spot in the economy, with sales of existing homes having fallen for six straight months as mortgage rates have risen to nearly 5 percent. But slower sales have started to limit home price increases, which had been running at more than twice the pace of wage gains. \n \n There are signs that pay growth is picking up. A measure of wage and salaries rose 3.1 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the best such showing in a decade. \n \n Although pay increases can help boost spending and propel the economy's growth, they can also lead companies to raise prices to cover their higher labor costs. That trend, in turn, can accelerate inflation. \n \n So far, though, inflation remains in check. The Federal Reserve's preferred price measure rose 2 percent in September compared with a year earlier, slightly lower than the year-over-year increase in August.", "summary": "\u2013 The last unemployment report before the midterms is a strong one. Employers added 250,000 jobs in October, above the forecast of 188,000, reports the Wall Street Journal. The unemployment rate itself remained at a five-decade low of 3.7%, per the AP. The influx of new job-seekers in October increased the proportion of Americans with jobs to its highest level since January 2009. What's more, wages rose 3.1% when compared to last October, the best such gain since 2009. It's the first time since the recession ended that wages rose more than 3% over a year. Average hourly earnings in the private sector increased 5 cents to $27.30."}
{"document": "Former Vice President Joe Biden said his family would be the deciding factor in his decision about whether to pursue a 2020 bid for the White House. | Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP 2020 Biden: 'I'm the most qualified person in the country to be president' \n \n Former Vice President Joe Biden is fueling more 2020 speculation, claiming that he is \"the most qualified person in the country to be president\" and teasing that an announcement about his candidacy could come within six weeks. \n \n Biden has been flirting with another presidential run after deciding not to seek the highest office in 2016, a decision he has said he regrets every day. But his remarks Monday evening at the University of Montana in Missoula, where he was promoting his book \"Promise Me, Dad,\" suggested the wheels of a White House bid may already be in motion. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n \"I'll be as straight with you as I can. I think I'm the most qualified person in the country to be president,\" Biden said, according to CNN. \"I've been doing this my whole adult life, and the issues that are the most consequential relating to the plight of the middle class and our foreign policy are things that I have \u2014 even my critics would acknowledge, I may not be right, but I know a great deal about it.\" \n \n Biden has openly sparred with President Donald Trump over the past two years, trading barbs with the commander in chief and casting himself as a foil to what he sees as a democracy-eroding force in the West Wing. But Biden also admitted he had some vulnerabilities, including his age and his co-sponsorship of the 1994 crime bill. \n \n COUNTDOWN TO 2020 The race for 2020 starts now. Stay in the know. Follow our presidential election coverage. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. \n \n \"I am a gaffe machine, but my God, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can't tell the truth,\" he said. \"I'm ready to litigate all those things. The question is, what kind of nation are we becoming? What are we going to do? Who are we?\" \n \n Democratic strategists say he would also be forced to confront his mishandling of the 1991 Anita Hill hearings involving sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, when Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be something he can charm out of. I think in 2018, you can\u2019t just smile it away,\" Toi Hutchinson, an Illinois state senator who launched a #MeToo awareness effort in the state, said earlier this year. \n \n Biden's simpatico bonds with the Democratic Party and his appeal to white working-class voters in the Midwest appear to be his clearest advantages in navigating what is shaping up to be one of the most crowded primary fields on the left. But Biden said his family would be the deciding factor. \n \n \"I have two young grandchildren my son left who love me and adore me and want me around. I want to be there to take care of them, so we've got to figure out whether or not this is something we can all do as a family,\" he said. \"We're going to make that decision in the next six weeks to two months.\" ||||| (CNN) During a stop for his book tour in Missoula, Montana, Monday night, former Vice President Joe Biden discussed his 2020 prospects, saying he believes that he is the \"most qualified person\" to be president, noting a decision is coming in the next two months, and acknowledging he's a \"gaffe machine.\" \n \n \"I'll be as straight with you as I can. I think I'm the most qualified person in the country to be president,\" Biden said to applause at the University of Montana. \"The issues that we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I've worked on my whole life.\" \n \n \"No one should run for the job unless they believe that they would be qualified doing the job. I've been doing this my whole adult life, and the issues that are the most consequential relating to the plight of the middle class and our foreign policy are things that I have -- even my critics would acknowledge, I may not be right but I know a great deal about it,\" he added. \n \n Biden said his family must now decide as a \"unit\" whether or not they're prepared for a run -- setting a decision time frame of the next six weeks to two months. \n \n \"I have two young grandchildren my son left who love me and adore me and want me around. I want to be there to take care of them, so we've got to figure out whether or not this is something we can all do as a family,\" he said. \"We're going to make that decision in the next six weeks to two months, and that's the basis of the decision.\" \n \n Read More", "summary": "\u2013 Joe Biden says he knows who should be the next president: himself. But the former VP says he's not ready to commit to a 2020 run. The comments came Monday during a stop in Montana to plug his book Promise Me, Dad, reports CNN. \"I'll be as straight with you as I can,\" Biden told the crowd at the University of Montana in Missoula. \"I think I'm the most qualified person in the country to be president.\" He said two big issues of the day\u2014\"the plight of the middle class and our foreign policy\"\u2014were his strong suits. \"Even my critics would acknowledge, I may not be right but I know a great deal about it.\" Biden said he would decide in the next two months whether to run, with one factor being the time he's currently able to spend with his two young grandchildren from his late son, Beau. Event moderator Bruce Feiler pointed out some potential weaknesses, including Biden's age of 76, his chairmanship of the judiciary panel that grilled Anita Hill, and his propensity to be a \"gaffe machine.\" Politico reports that party strategists say Biden would have to confront the Anita Hill controversy in particular. Biden insisted Monday that he's \"ready to litigate all those things,\" before taking a shot at President Trump. \"I am a gaffe machine,\" he said, \"but my God, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can't tell the truth. (Hill's family has a running joke about Biden.)"}
{"document": "She was the artist who put the contemporary in contemporary Inuit art, a catalyst for other Inuit artists, young and old, to deal with life as it was in Canada\u2019s North, an award-winning international standard-bearer. And now Annie Pootoogook is dead at 47. \n \n Officials with the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in her hometown of Cape Dorset confirmed Friday afternoon that the woman whose body had been recovered Monday morning from the Rideau River in Ottawa was Ms. Pootoogook. \n \n Police said they were not treating the incident as a homicide but crime investigators are seeking the public\u2019s help in retracing the artist\u2019s last hours and days. \n \n Ms. Pootoogook had been living for roughly the past nine years in Ottawa, sometimes on the street and in shelters, sometimes plagued by alcohol and drug abuse and, in 2012, an unwanted pregnancy. She\u2019d relocated there from Nunavut in the wake of a string of major artistic successes in southern Canada and internationally. These included an acclaimed solo exhibition, in 2006, of her ink, crayon, pencil and chalk drawings at Toronto\u2019s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, one of Canada\u2019s premier venues for cutting-edge art. This in turn led to her winning the $50,000 Sobey Art Award that same year, given annually to an artist of singular talent under 40. In 2007 she was invited to participate at the prestigious Documenta 12 showcase, held every five years in Kassel, Germany. Two years later, she was given a solo show at New York\u2019s National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center. \n \n In photos: The work of artist Annie Pootoogook \n \n Ms. Pootoogook\u2019s art was far removed from the imagery of kayaks, walruses, harpoons and the other tried-and-true themes and subjects that had informed much Inuit art from the 1950s onward. She wielded a matter-of-fact, almost deadpan style to closely depict all facets of modern Inuit life, from a husband beating his wife and families shopping, to men watching television porn and women beading. \n \n Ms. Pootoogook, who began drawing in 1997, was the granddaughter of Pitseolak Ashoona, one of the earliest Cape Dorset drawers and print-makers. Her mother Napachie was a prolific graphic artist while father Eegyvudluk was similarly esteemed as a carver and print-maker. \n \n However, after her triumphs of 2006-09, Ms. Pootoogook\u2019s output slowed, then seemed to stop. Toronto dealer Pat Feheley, who\u2019d given Ms. Pootoogook her first commercial bow in 2001 as part of a group show called The Unexpected, then her first solo outing in 2003, told The Globe and Mail in July of 2012 that she hadn\u2019t received an original Pootoogook drawing in more than three years. \n \n In an interview Friday, Ms. Feheley said she was \u201cstunned\u201d by the loss. \u201cShe had a rough couple of years but I always thought she\u2019d be back. We\u2019d go back to Dorset and the image bank she would have had would have been amazing.\u201d \n \n Ms. Pootoogook\u2019s art, at least initially, was almost a kind of therapy, Ms. Feheley said. \u201cIt was simply to get it out of her head. She didn\u2019t particularly care if they sold or not.\u201d \n \n Tributes were quick to pour in. \n \n Andrew Hunter, Canadian art curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, called her \u201ca profoundly influential artist who had the courage to push the boundaries of Inuit art.\u201d \n \n Academic curator Gerald McMaster said \u201cher legacy will not be forgotten, in that she leaves us thinking about the same troubled world she was brave enough to depict.\u201d \n \n Nancy Campbell, former AGO associate curator of special projects, spoke of Ms. Pootoogook\u2019s \u201cpoignant, often difficult pictures\u201d being \u201ca crucial part of opening the dialogue about art-making in the North.\u201d \n \n Report Typo/Error ||||| Prominent Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook has been identified as the woman whose body was found in Ottawa's Rideau River earlier this week. \n \n Officials with the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in her hometown, Cape Dorset, Nunavut, confirmed the death of the chalk-and-ink artist, who rose to prominence when she won the Sobey Award in 2006. \n \n Pootoogook, 47, had been living in Ottawa. \n \n Her drawings offered a contemporary take on her culture, where old customs intermingled with modern technology and goods. \n \n Her work is part of the collections at the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario and was recently part of an exhibition on Indigenous pop art at Ottawa's Saw Gallery. \n \n \"Her inclusion in the exhibition was a no-brainer, in that she looked at contemporary life in a way no other artist had ever done,\" said Saw Gallery curator Jason St-Laurent, who first met Pootoogook five years ago. \n \n Fine Liner Eyebrow one of Pootoogook's drawings on display at the National Gallery of Canada. (Annie Pootoogook/National Gallery of Canada/Dorset Fine Arts) \n \n 'Revolutionary' impact \n \n Pootoogook was from an artistic family. Her parents, Napachie and Eegyvudlu Pootoogook, and her grandmother Pitseolak Ashoona were all artists. \n \n It was \"like the artistic lives were already aimed to be passed on to Annie,\" said Jimmy Manning, the president of the Inuit Art Foundation, in Inuktitut. \n \n Saw Gallery curator Jason St-Laurent, standing in front of one of Annie Pootoogook's drawings, said the artist was a \"shining light\" to those who knew her. (CBC News) \n \n \"As soon as she started sketching [when she was a child] you knew her art was going to go somewhere.\" \n \n \"Her impact was revolutionary and it's no surprise she had international acclaim for her work,\" he said. \n \n St-Laurent described Pootoogook as a free spirit who lived life on her own terms. He said he lost touch with her a few months ago, but said she was always welcome at the gallery. \n \n \"When she came into Saw, she was a shining light, and made everyone laugh\u2026 she was the kindest soul you could ever meet. If you talk to anyone who has met Annie Pootoogook, they'll never forget her,\" he said. \n \n AGO Canadian art curator Andrew Hunter said in a statement Pootoogook would \"be deeply missed.\" \n \n \"She was a profoundly influential artist who had the courage to push the boundaries of Inuit art, capturing in her work challenging and even troubling themes that reflected the reality of contemporary life for women in the North. Her work has had a remarkable impact not only on Inuit art, but on contemporary Canadian art as well.\" \n \n Major crimes unit investigating \n \n Ottawa police say they are not treating it as a homicide, but the major crimes unit is investigating. Police are hoping to get the public's help in retracing her steps leading up to the discovery of her body on Sept. 19. \n \n A city worker called 911 just before 9 a.m. ET Monday after seeing a body in the river near Bordeleau Park, which sits off King Edward Avenue, Cathcart and Bruy\u00e8re streets in the Lowertown neighbourhood. \n \n Anyone who saw Pootoogook in the days leading up to Sept. 19 is asked to contact the major crimes unit at 613-236-1222 ext. 5493. \n \n Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), or by downloading the Ottawa Police Service app. ||||| Ottawa police are asking for the public\u2019s help in tracing the last movements of Annie Pootoogook, an acclaimed Inuit artist whose body was found in the Rideau River earlier this week. \n \n Pootoogook\u2019s body was discovered Monday at about 8:50 a.m. in the water close to Bordeleau Park in Lowertown. Police do not consider her death to be suspicious or a homicide, said Const. Marc Soucy. \u201cWe just want to recreate her final moments.\u201d \n \n Soucy said an autopsy has been performed, but police are not releasing a cause of death. It is unclear where Pootoogook was last seen. \n \n Pootoogook\u2019s story is one of a rocket ride to superstardom in the art world, followed by a crash into addiction, life on the street and tragedy. \n \n Originally from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Pootoogook was considered one of Canada\u2019s most pre-eminent Inuit artists. Her grandmother, Pitseolak Ashoona, an artist, was the last to grow up in the traditional Inuit lifestyle. Her mother, Napachie Pootoogook, was also an artist who died in 2002. \n \n Pootoogook began drawing in 1997 and was discovered about 14 years ago by Patricia Feheley of Feheley Fine Arts, a Toronto art gallery that began buying her work through the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in Cape Dorset. Her drawings were a jarring chronicle of modern Inuit life \u2014 a family watching Jerry Springer on television, ATM cash machines, scenes of alcoholism and spousal abuse. \n \n Feheley helped to raise Pootoogook\u2019s profile and sold her drawings in coloured pencils for as much has $2,600. \n \n Related \n \n \u201cI was just hit by their power,\u201d Feheley said in a 2012 interview. \u201cThe best I have ever heard it described is they are so direct, they are so honest, they so come from the head to the hand to the paper, and that is why they resonate so much with people.\u201d \n \n Pootoogook won the $50,000 Sobey Art Award in 2006 and exhibited on an international scale. In 2007, showed at the Montreal Biennial, the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland and Documenta 12 in Kasel, Germany. In 2009-10 there was a solo show in New York, and a review in the New York Times which called her work \u201cdisconcertingly autobiographical.\u201d \n \n \n \n Her last solo show was in 2011 in Kingston. \n \n Pootoogook, who has lived in Ottawa since 2007, battled the demons of sexual abuse, alcohol and drugs. By 2012 she had disappeared from view and journalists who attempted to track down the media-shy artist were disappointed. She drew attention again when Citizen reporter Hugh Adami found her in July of 2012, pregnant, panhandling and selling drawings for $25 to $30 on the street to pay for cigarettes. \n \n That September, she gave birth to a baby girl, named Napuchie, in a bathroom at the Shepherds of Good Hope. The baby was a month premature and weighed three pounds, 10 ounces. (She had two previous children on Baffin Island.) Three days later, Pootoogook was back on Rideau Street. \n \n Her art appeared to reflect the torment of her life. Crying While Making a Drawing, dated 2003, shows a woman in tears on her knees in a near-empty room, with drawings of Christian crosses on the floor in front of her. Another drawing from that time period, called Evil Spirit, shows a woman on her hands and knees being tormented by a horned demon. \n \n Last October, Pootoogook told Adami that she was living at a women\u2019s shelter after moving out of an ex-boyfriend\u2019s apartment in the wake of a tumultuous relationship. She said she knew she had an alcohol problem and planned to see an addiction counsellor. She was on probation because she made a \u201cmistake\u201d related to drinking. \n \n \n \n \u201cWhen people tell you to stop drinking,\u201d Pootoogook told Adami, her tendency is to \u201ckeep drinking and drinking.\u201d \n \n On Friday, Adami, now retired, said when he first met Pootoogook \u201cI thought she was going to pull it together. People in the art community were reaching out to her. Lots of people wanted to help.\u201d \n \n He interviewed her several times after that, most recently last October. \u201cIt was getting worse and worse. She was ravaged by alcohol. She mentioned her baby and started crying. It was very, very sad.\u201d \n \n In a 2012 interview with Citizen arts writer Paul Gessell, Feheley said Pootoogook\u2019s fame was \u201cjust too much, too fast.\u201d \n \n \u201cHer vault to stardom, which was serious stardom, was really a two-and-one-half year thing for someone who was living a relatively sheltered life and not that happy a life in Cape Dorset, when suddenly she was in Switzerland and she was in Germany and she won all this money and there were three books and two movies,\u201d said Feheley. \n \n \u201cI think she just literally got overwhelmed.\u201d \n \n Police ask anyone who saw Pootoogook in the days leading up to the discovery of her body to contact the Ottawa Police major crime unit at 613 236 1222, ext. 5493. \n \n Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477. \n \n jlaucius@postmedia.com ||||| The body of Pootoogook, 46, was spotted in the water around 8:50 a.m. Monday near Bordeleau Park in Lowertown, near the Ontario-Quebec border. An autopsy was performed later in the week to confirm her identity; Ottawa police identified Pootoogook in a news release Friday. \n \n Pootoogook, born in Cape Dorset, Nunavut, was an acclaimed, award-winning contemporary Inuit artist best known for her frank, ink-and-crayon drawings of contemporary northern life. Her work was reflective of her own life and community, at times chronicling her experience of physical and sexual abuse and living with relatives suffering from alcoholism. \n \n In 2006, Pootoogook won the Sobey Art Award, beating out four other shortlisted artists from across Canada for the $50,000 prize. The same year, her work was exhibited at a landmark show at Toronto\u2019s Power Plant Gallery, the first time Canada\u2019s pre-eminent contemporary art venue had held a major show by an Inuit. In 2007 she took part in Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, a prestigious, invitation-only art exhibition \u2014 held once every five years \u2014 that defines the current state of contemporary and modern art. Pootoogook\u2019s Toronto dealer, Pat Feheley, said at the time that it was the first time that an Inuit artist had been invited to participate. \n \n Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna offered his condolences to Pootoogook\u2019s family Friday afternoon on Twitter.", "summary": "\u2013 An Inuit artist whose \"impact was revolutionary\" but who had trouble coping with \"serious stardom\" was found dead in a river this week. Annie Pootoogook's life changed dramatically in 2006, the Ottawa Citizen reports. She went from drawing in a tiny town in Canada's deep north to having her work displayed in Toronto, New York, Germany, and Switzerland. She won a $50,000 award for her art, which could sell for up $2,600 per piece. But it was \"too much, too fast,\" says the art dealer who discovered her. According to the Globe and Mail, Pootoogook had largely stopped creating art by 2009. She was living on and off the street in Ottawa and struggling with drugs and alcohol. She could occasionally be found selling drawings for cigarette money. Authorities confirmed Friday that a body pulled from a river on Monday was Pootoogook. She was 47. Authorities haven't released a cause of death but aren't treating it as a homicide. \"She has left a tremendous legacy to the Canadian cultural fabric,\u201d the Toronto Star quotes a statement from the Sobey Art Foundation. Her work will be remembered for portraying contemporary Inuit life\u2014from women beading to spousal abuse\u2014in a \"poignant, often difficult way.\" \"She was the kindest soul you could ever meet,\" a gallery curator tells CBC. \"If you talk to anyone who has met Annie Pootoogook, they'll never forget her.\" (Her art was her photos. She didn't take a single one.)"}
{"document": "The singed fur and charred feet are testament to the weasel\u2019s last stand: an encounter with the world\u2019s most powerful machine that was never going to end well. \n \n Now an exhibit at the Rotterdam Natural History Museum, the stone marten met its fate when it hopped over a substation fence at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva and was instantly electrocuted by an 18,000 volt transformer. \n \n \n \n The incident in November last year knocked out the power to the vast particle accelerator which recreates in microcosm the primordial fire that prevailed at the birth of the universe. The partly-cooked corpse was duly secured for inclusion in the museum\u2019s Dead Animal Tales exhibition. \n \n \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a fine example of what the exhibition is all about,\ufffd? said Kees Moeliker, director of the museum. \u201cIt shows that animal and human life collide more and more, with dramatic results for both.\ufffd? \n \n \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Cern stone marten, secured for inclusion in the Rotterdam Natural History Museum\u2019s Dead Animal Tales exhibition. Photograph: Kees Moeliker \n \n The stone marten is the latest dead animal to go on display at the museum. It joins a sparrow that was shot after it sabotaged a world record attempt by knocking over 23,000 dominoes; a hedgehog that got fatally stuck in a McDonalds McFlurry pot, and a catfish that fell victim to a group of men in the Netherlands who developed a tradition for drinking vast amounts of beer and swallowing fish from their aquarium. The catfish turned out to be armoured, and on being swallowed raised its spines. The defence did not save the fish, but it put the 28-year-old man who tried to swallow it in intensive care for a week. \n \n \n \n It was another unfortunate incident that spurred Moeliker to establish the exhibition in the first place. In 1995, a male duck flew into the glass facade of the museum and died on impact, a fate that did not deter another male duck from raping the corpse for 75 minutes. The incident ruffled feathers in the community but earned Moeliker a much-coveted IgNobel prize when he published his observations . \u201cI was the one and only witness,\ufffd? Moeliker said. \u201cI\u2019m a trained biologist but what I saw was completely new to me.\ufffd? \n \n \n \n The LHC has been brought to its knees by stone martens before. In April last year, one of the animals bounded into a 66,000 volt transformer and shut the collider down for a week. The Rotterdam museum tried to obtain the remains of the beast, known as the \u201cCern weasel\ufffd?, but the highly efficient staff at the European particle physics laboratory had already disposed of the corpse. When a second stone marten met a similar fate in November, Moeliker was ready to secure the animal for the exhibition. \n \n \n \n Stone martens - or \u201cfouines\ufffd? - have a habit of gnawing through electrical cables and are known for causing power outages in the region. \u201cWe want to show that no matter what we do to the environment, to the natural world, the impact of nature will always be there,\ufffd? Moeliker said. \u201cWe try to put a magnifying glass on some fine examples. This poor creature literally collided with the largest machine in the world, where physicists collide particles every day. It\u2019s poetic, in my opinion, what happened there.\ufffd? ||||| World's Most Destructive Stone Marten Goes On Display In The Netherlands \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Natural History Museum Rotterdam Natural History Museum Rotterdam \n \n The remains of the world's most destructive stone marten are now on display at a museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands. \n \n On Nov. 20, 2016, the animal hopped over a fence at the $7 billion Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, touched a transformer and was electrocuted by 18,000 volts. \n \n The marten died instantly. The collider, which accelerates particles to near the speed of light to study the fiery origins of the universe, lost power and shut down. \n \n \"There must have been a big flame,\" said Kees Moeliker, the director of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam and the man behind its Dead Animal Tales exhibit, where the preserved marten is now displayed. \n \n \"It was scorched. When you're not really careful with candles and your hair, like that,\" he explained. \"Every hair of this creature was kind of burned and the whiskers, they were burned to the bare minimum and especially the feet, the legs, they were cooked. They were darker, like roasted.\" \n \n \"It really had a bad, bad encounter with this electricity.\" \n \n The November incident wasn't the first time a marten has sabotaged the vast scientific instrument. In April 2016, an animal originally thought to be a weasel and later guessed to be a marten, which is in the weasel family, appeared to have gnawed through a power cable, as we reported. (OK, to be fair, maybe that animal was really the world's most destructive marten.) \n \n \"This was big news [in April]. The collider was out of work for a week, so they had other things on their mind than an excited museum director in the Netherlands,\" explained Moeliker, who said he could understand why staffers at the collider weren't able to provide him with the animal's corpse. \n \n When it happened again in November, he was ready. \n \n \"We had a couple of people who got interested in the request from April, and we contacted them and they made sure [the corpse] wasn't destroyed,\" Moeliker said. \n \n He outfitted a car with a small refrigerator that plugged into the vehicle's cigarette lighter, bought a block of ice at a local supermarket and drove to France's border with Switzerland to pick up the carcass. \n \n \"It was in good condition,\" he said. \"Well, for an electrocuted marten it was in good condition.\" \n \n The exhibit also houses a sparrow that was shot to death after knocking over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands in 2005, sabotaging a world record attempt. And a seagull that died after it flew into an ambulance. And a mallard duck known in the scientific community for its documented history of homosexual necrophilia. And a hedgehog that died after it put its head into a McDonald's McFlurry cup and could not escape. \n \n And then there's the smallest critter in the collection. \n \n A few years ago, Moeliker started collecting pubic lice after two British doctors alerted him that the animal might be endangered by habitat destruction associated with modern personal grooming habits. Moeliker said he has since provided specimens of human pubic lice to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Natural History Museum Rotterdam Natural History Museum Rotterdam \n \n \"The things we get are so surprising,\" Moeliker said. \"Just before the stone marten we had a fish that lodged himself in the throat of a man.\" \n \n The man had deliberately swallowed the catfish as part of a game with friends \u2014 they had reportedly worked up from goldfish to larger, more exotic species. But he didn't know it was an armored catfish. \n \n When it entered the man's throat, the catfish raised spines to defend itself, which did not save its life but did put the 28-year-old man in the hospital for a week. \n \n \"I never thought we would get a fish ... that had qualifications to be part of this show,\" Moeliker remarked. \n \n \"Let me be clear, I prefer all wildlife to be happy and flying and crawling around alive,\" he explained of the museum's approach to the Dead Animal Tales exhibit. \n \n \"But if [an animal] has a story attached to it [that] shows how and when animal and human life collide, then they are welcome here. It's only going to increase, the collisions between man and animal. We more and more share the same environment, the same habitat. Nature strikes back. We have to get used to it.\" ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites.", "summary": "\u2013 The Large Hadron Collider facilitated the discovery of the Higgs boson, but it's not yet immune to animal troubles. Following a similar incident last April, a stone marten jumped a fence at the $7 billion site in Switzerland on Nov. 20 and came into contact with a transformer, causing the LHC to lose power, reports NPR. \"There must have been a big flame\" because \"every hair of this creature was kind of burned\" and the feet and legs \"were cooked,\" says Kees Moeliker. He should know. After making some calls, Moeliker, of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, got his hands on the marten, had it stuffed, and put it on display in the museum's \"Dead Animal Tales\" exhibit, which shows how \"animal and human life collide \u2026 with dramatic results.\" \"We want to show that no matter what we do to the environment, to the natural world, the impact of nature will always be there,\" Moeliker tells the Guardian. The marten\u2014a member of the weasel family\u2014is \"a fine example\" of that, he adds. Among the other animals on display: a sparrow killed after knocking over 23,000 dominoes meant to be part of a world record attempt, a seagull that died after colliding with an ambulance, a hedgehog that died with its head stuck in a McDonald's McFlurry cup, an armored catfish that got stuck in a man's throat, and pubic lice said to be endangered thanks to humans' sudden dislike of pubic hair. (Perhaps this squirrel would qualify for a place in the exhibit.)"}
{"document": "This artist's rendering shows NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby of Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015. The spacecraft awoke from its final hibernation period on Dec. 6, 2014 in preparation for the epic Pluto encounter at the edge of the solar system. \n \n LAUREL, Md. \u2014 Pluto, get ready for your close-up: A NASA spacecraft has roused itself from the final slumber of its nine-year trek to the edge of the solar system, setting the stage for the first close encounter with Pluto next year. \n \n The New Horizons spacecraft, currently located 2.9 billion miles (4.6 billion kilometers) from Earth, had been in hibernation since August \u2014 with most of its systems turned off to reduce wear. But late Saturday (Dec. 6), mission scientists received a confirmation signal from New Horizons at the probe's Mission Operations Center here at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The probe is now wide awake for its 2015 flyby of Pluto. \n \n At the time of its wakeup call, New Horizons was just over 162 million miles (261 million km) from Pluto. About 20 people gathered in a conference room here at APL to await the signal from New Horizons. [Photos from NASA's New Horizons Pluto Probe] \n \n NASA's New Horizon Pluto flyby mission operations manager Alice Bowman and operations team Karl Whittenburg watch screens for signals confirming that the New Horizons probe awoke from hibernation on Dec. 6, 2014. The New Horizons mission is managed from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Credit: NASA \n \n First word from the probe arrived at about 9:30 p.m. EST on Saturday (Dec. 6) \u2014 generating a burst of happy applause from the attendees, including Alan Stern, New Horizon's principle investigator, and Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary sciences. \n \n At 9:52 p.m. EST (0252 GMT), mission managers confirmed that New Horizons was awake, with all systems functioning normally. The wakeup sets the stage for the probe's flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. \n \n \"This is the turning of a page. This is changing from a mission in cruise to a mission at its destination,\" said Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Stern popped a champagne bottle and offered a toast to the mission following the signal confirmation. \n \n New Horizons even got a wakeup song to mark the occasion: the tune \"Where My Heart Will Take Me\" by English tenor Russell Watson. The song, which included a special greeting from Watson for New Horizons, was played in the mission operations center after the confirmation signal was received. You can hear Watson's New Horizons wakeup song here. \n \n This photo of Pluto (center) and its largest moon Charon was captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in July 2014 and released on Aug. 7. New Horizons took this image and others from a range of 267 million to 262 million miles (429 million to 422 million kilometers). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute \n \n English tenor Russell Watson recorded a special version of his song \"Where My Heart Will Take Me\" to help wake up NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on Dec. 6, 2014 ahead of the probe's 2015 Pluto flyby. Credit: NASA \n \n New Horizons will begin its Pluto science campaign in January, and will make its closest approach to Pluto in July. It will explore the outer-most and most-populated region of the solar system, the Kuiper belt, which is full of rocky, icy objects that have remained largely unchanged since the formation of the solar system. \n \n \"This is the place that this spacecraft was built to operate, and these are the operations that this team has waited a decade to actually go and execute,\" Stern said. \"So it's game time.\" \n \n NASA launched the New Horizons mission in 2006 on a $700 million mission to be the first spacecraft ever to see Pluto and its five moons up close. The piano-size spacecraft is powered by a nuclear power source and has traveled nearly 3 billion miles (4.8 billion km) to reach Pluto in a mere nine years, making it the fastest space probe ever launched). It has spent two-thirds of its journey in a hibernation state that has both prolonged the life of the instruments and reduced staff costs on the ground. \n \n While New Horizons has gone through 18 hibernation periods, sleeping for about 1,873 days in all, this is the last one before it begins taking data on the Pluto system. \n \n For 20 weeks of its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons will provide better photos of Pluto and its moons than those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, Stern said. In analogy, if the spacecraft were flying over a city it would be able to count the individual buildings on the ground. New Horizons may also identify as-yet-unknown moons or rings around Pluto. \n \n At the wake-up event, Stern handed out small, 2-inch-long pencils \u2014 whittled down from extensive use. \n \n \"This is the metaphor for persistence,\" Stern said, holding up the pencil stub. \"Since this mission went through so many ups and downs \u2014 the way the exploration of Pluto did \u2014 I thought this was an appropriate thing to give away. It's very simple, but it's meaningful.\" \n \n Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. \n \n Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet in our solar system, underwent a well-publicized (and somewhat controversial) reclassification that took away its title as the ninth and most distant planet from the sun. So, how well do you know this fascinating world? Start the Quiz 0 of 10 questions complete ||||| 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": "\u2013 New Horizons just got what's probably the earliest wakeup call ever. Even though it's not supposed to fly by Pluto\u2014the destination of its nine-year, 3-billion-mile journey\u2014until July, the NASA craft roused itself from its \"hibernation\" slumber and is fully awake for the last leg of its mission, Space.com reports. Russell Watson's \"Where My Heart Will Take Me\" blasted NH out of its somnambulant state with a personal message from Watson himself before crooning the appropriate lyrics, \"It's been a long road/Getting from there to here.\" About 20 scientists waiting back home in Maryland at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory got the confirmation signals on Saturday evening that New Horizons was up and at 'em, just over 162 million miles from Pluto. The piano-sized craft, which was launched in 2006, had been \"asleep\" since August to conserve energy and reduce wear and tear on its systems. It's been asleep before (18 other times, to be exact) during its long trip, but this was the last sleep before it makes it to the Kuiper Belt, the icy \"disc-shaped region\" that harbors Pluto and other dwarf worlds, NASA notes. \"This is the place that this spacecraft was built to operate, and these are the operations that this team has waited a decade to actually go and execute,\" New Horizons' principle investigator says. \"So it's game time.\" (New Horizons got some great pics of Jupiter during its flyby nearly eight years ago.)"}
{"document": "Bill Keller\u2019s column in The Times on Monday about Lisa Bonchek Adams has generated a great deal of negative response. Xeni Jardin, the well-known writer who blogs on Boing Boing, sometimes about her own experience with cancer, was outraged, calling it bullying. \n \n Ms. Adams herself responded this way on Twitter: \n \n I don\u2019t know why I, a person dedicated to education and personal choice by cancer patients, have been so mischaracterized as lay in hospital \u2014 Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) 13 Jan 14 \n \n And a reader, Ximena Pena, who wrote that she has breast cancer, included this among her several objections: \u201cThe piece lacks empathy. It is an open attack on someone who has decided to be open about her treatment to help people with my diagnosis.\u201d \n \n A particularly tough takedown came from Zeynep Tufekci, writing in Medium. She wrote that Mr. Keller \u201chas something he wants to say about how end of life is perhaps unwisely prolonged by small, painful amounts with massive technological intervention in this country so projects this situation to Lisa Adams \u2013 except that is not applicable in this case. Lisa Adams is not prolonging her last few weeks with a cascade of interventions. She\u2019s getting treatment for pain in her bones \u2013 the type of tumors that won\u2019t kill her till they spread elsewhere which may be soon or may be years away.\u201d \n \n \n \n One of the odd aspects of the column is that it follows, by just days, a column about Ms. Adams by Mr. Keller\u2019s wife, Emma Gilbey Keller, who writes for The Guardian. Ms. Keller\u2019s piece was also criticized, and she added a line at the bottom that said she regretted not letting Ms. Adams know in advance that the post was coming. Now the piece has been removed from the site, \u201cpending investigation.\u201d The Guardian told iMediaEthics that the piece was \u201cinconsistent with The Guardian editorial code.\u201d \n \n That negative response was not universal. My email on Monday included correspondence from those who defended the column. And the comments under the column itself include many positive ones. \n \n But for most of those who have been in touch with me, the subject matter is intensely personal. And for those who know and admire Ms. Adams, that personal reaction is multiplied. \n \n I asked Mr. Keller, a former executive editor of The Times, to respond. He wrote to me, noting that \u201cit\u2019s clear the column touched a nerve, particularly among her devoted following.\u201d \n \n He added: \n \n Some of the reaction (especially on Twitter, which as a medium encourages reflexes rather than reflection) has been raw, and some (especially in comments posted to the article online, where there is space for nuance) has been thoughtful and valuable. I tried to be clear in the column that I respect Lisa Adams\u2019s choices, and I meant it. I wish every cancer victim could have those options \u2013 to fight with all the resources of medicine, or not. By living her disease in such a public way, by turning her hospital room into a classroom, she invites us to think about and debate some big, contentious issues. I think some readers have misread my point, and some \u2013 the most vociferous \u2013 seem to believe that anything short of an unqualified \u201cright on, Lisa!\u201d is inhumane or sacrilegious. But I\u2019ve heard from readers who understood the point and found it worth grappling with. \n \n I followed up with a question about the similarity of his piece to that of his wife\u2019s in The Guardian, making the point that many critics see the two pieces together as a sort of double-pronged slam, greater together than the sum of their parts. He answered: \n \n I only learned of Lisa Adams\u2019s story because of Emma, who follows the subject of breast cancer with personal interest. (See her Guardian piece from 2012.) She told me she was planning to write about Lisa for The Guardian. Normally I would have left the subject alone, or put it off until later, but it turned out Emma and I had different angles on the subject. She was interested in it as a new frontier in social media \u2013 a woman living every intimate detail of her disease in such a public way, and why readers are so drawn to such unsparing self-revelation. Except for the snarky headline, which Emma didn\u2019t write, I thought she wrote a sensitive and provocative piece, clearly aimed at stimulating a reader discussion of this hyper-transparent world we inhabit. (She responded to the backlash in The Guardian\u2019s comments section.) My interest, as I said in the column, was in the continuing debate in American medicine about how aggressively to fight terminal diseases if the fight may mean trading quality of life for quantity. My view is that this is a highly personal choice that should be made by patients in consultation with their families and physicians. It is not always presented that way to patients. I don\u2019t think either of the Keller pieces was a \u201cslam\u201d of Lisa Adams or her choices. \n \n As a columnist, Mr. Keller \u2013 by definition \u2013 has a great deal of free rein. As I\u2019ve written before, Times opinion editors very rarely intrude on that process by steering a writer away from a topic or killing a column before it runs. It\u2019s a columnist\u2019s job, in short, to have an opinion and to speak it freely. That\u2019s as it should be. \n \n I don\u2019t make a practice of commenting on whether I agree with columnists, or if I like their columns in general or on a particular day, whether it\u2019s David Brooks on pot-smoking or Maureen Dowd on Chris Christie. That is pretty clearly not my job as public editor. \n \n In this case, I\u2019ll go so far as to say that there are issues here of tone and sensitivity. For example, when Ms. Adams has made it so abundantly clear in her own work that she objects to the use of fighting metaphors in describing experiences with cancer, it was regrettable to use them throughout a column about her, starting with the first sentence. It suggests that Mr. Keller didn\u2019t make a full effort to understand the point of view of the person he\u2019s writing about on the very big and public stage that is The Times. And although I haven\u2019t read all of Ms. Adams\u2019s writing, readers are complaining about other examples of this disconnect. The Times should consider publishing some opposing points of view, possibly in the form of an Op-Ed column from a contributor. \n \n In addition, Mr. Keller\u2019s views here fall within what journalists would call \u201cfair comment\u201d only to the extent that they are based on facts. A line often attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former New York senator, makes this point well: \u201cYou\u2019re entitled to your own opinion; you\u2019re not entitled to your own facts. \u201c \n \n Anything that\u2019s not accurate must be corrected, and one such correction \u2013 concerning Ms. Adams\u2019s number of children \u2013 has already been made to Mr. Keller\u2019s column. Many readers are making the point that Ms. Adams\u2019s cancer metastasized in 2012. Mr. Keller suggests in his lead sentence (\u201cLisa Bonchek Adams has spent the last seven years in a fierce and very public cage fight with death\u201d) that the known seriousness of the disease came much earlier. ||||| Last week at the Guardian, the writer Emma Gilbey Keller wondered aloud, \u201cForget funeral selfies. What are the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness?\u201d Her commentary centered on the public presence of Lisa Bonchek Adams, who has blogged and tweeted her way through treatment for metastatic breast cancer. \u201cAs her condition declined, her tweets amped up both in frequency and intensity. I couldn\u2019t stop reading \u2014 I even set up a dedicated @adamslisa column in Tweetdeck \u2013 but I felt embarrassed at my voyeurism,\u201d Keller explained. \u201cShould there be boundaries in this kind of experience? Is there such a thing as TMI? Are her tweets a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies, one step further than funeral selfies? Why am I so obsessed?\u201d \n \n Keller\u2019s rhetorical questions were met with anger and hurt from her audience, including Adams, and the Guardian has since removed the entire column, but not before she passed the obsession on to her husband, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. \n \n In the Times today, Mr. Keller picked up where his wife left off, likening Adams\u2019s treatment and personal writing to \u201ca military campaign\u201d and contrasting her cancer fight with that of his father-in-law\u2019s: \u201cHis death seemed to me a humane and honorable alternative to the frantic medical trench warfare that often makes an expensive misery of death in America,\u201d Keller wrote. \n \n I've written extensively on my hatred of war metaphors and cancer. \u2014 Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014 \n \n His point, like his wife\u2019s, is underinformed and muddled in a mess of condescension toward Adams\u2019s suffering and her work. In addition to factual errors, he described Adams as \u201ca cheerleader for cancer research,\u201d noting the research fund she helped start, but added, \u201cBeyond that, whether her campaign has been a public service is a more complicated question.\u201d Her writing was described as pecking, and so on: \n \n \u201cThe words of disease become words my brain gravitates to,\u201d she pecked the other day after a blast of radiation. [\u2026] \u2026 any reader can see that Adams\u2019s online omnipresence has given her a sense of purpose, a measure of control in a tumultuous time, and the comfort of a loyal, protective online community. Social media have become a kind of self-medication. [\u2026] Her digital presence is no doubt a comfort to many of her followers. On the other hand, as cancer experts I consulted pointed out, Adams is the standard-bearer for an approach to cancer that honors the warrior, that may raise false hopes, and that, implicitly, seems to peg patients like my father-in-law as failures. \n \n Adams responded in a huge, emotional string of critical tweets: \n \n I don't know why I, a person dedicated to education and personal choice by cancer patients, have been so mischaracterized as lay in hospital \u2014 Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014 \n \n my dear family should not be subjected to this. Hope some of you can help me get this fixed. \u2014 Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014 \n \n As did Jeopardy! celeb Ken Jennings and Boing Boing blogger Xeni Jardin, who has written extensively about her own breast cancer: \n \n Terrified I might get cancer, because what if Bill and Emma Keller yell at me. \u2014 Ken Jennings (@KenJennings) January 13, 2014 \n \n God forbid a person with metastatic cancer cope with it by telling people what it feels like and how the science works. \u2014 Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 13, 2014 \n \n Let the little lady peck her Tweets and receive her silly treatment. Real men know how to do cancer right: by dying offline. \u2014 Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 13, 2014 \n \n Even before her husband doubled-down on the unnecessary second-guessing, Ms. Keller\u2019s column had problems. \u201cSince this article was published two days ago, there\u2019s been a lot of negative comment on Twitter and below the line. Lisa Adams herself was upset by it,\u201d Emma Keller amended in an update on Friday. \u201cI had been in communication with her a number of times in recent weeks; given her health, I could have given her advance warning about the article and should have told her that I planned to quote from our conversations. I regret not doing so.\u201d The piece has since been taken down for quoting the private correspondence, \u201cpending investigation.\u201d \n \n But beyond the potential journalistic malfeasance, the larger issue remains the discounting of one woman\u2019s vast and varied experiences to make more general, misguided points about the types of treatment available or our culture\u2019s urge to \u201covershare.\u201d Adams is very much alive and has found an audience that values her personal journey as more than just voyeurism. Instead of using their respective positions of power to wrestle awkwardly with something that makes them uncomfortable, the Kellers could attempt to consider Adams\u2019s online presence on its own terms, or just unsubscribe. \n \n Update: \u201cSome of the reaction (especially on Twitter, which as a medium encourages reflexes rather than reflection) has been raw, and some (especially in comments posted to the article online, where there is space for nuance) has been thoughtful and valuable,\u201d Bill Keller told Times public editor Margaret Sullivan, who took on the issue in a post this afternoon. \u201cI think some readers have misread my point, and some \u2013 the most vociferous \u2013 seem to believe that anything short of an unqualified \u2018right on, Lisa!\u2019 is inhumane or sacrilegious. But I\u2019ve heard from readers who understood the point and found it worth grappling with.\u201d ||||| Unranked media power couple Bill and Emma Keller have discovered a question so pressing, so important to our time that they both felt the need to write a column in their respective papers about it in the same week. Is Lisa Bonchek Adams, a stage four cancer patient, having cancer wrong? According to the Kellers, the answer is \"yes.\" \n \n The biggest problem in their views, seems to be that Adams \u2014 who is aggressively blogging and tweeting about every aspect of illness and treatment \u2014 just won't be quiet about having cancer. \n \n Emma Keller, who has had cancer herself, published a critical op-ed in the Guardian last Wednesday about Adams's Twitter feed. In it, Keller seems to be concerned about whether Adams's decision to publicly discuss her diagnosis and treatment is \"dignified,\" both for Adams (who \"is dying,\" according to Keller, even though this is a characterization Adams rejects), and for Emma Keller personally. You see, a particularly intense series of updates from Adams apparently ruined the Kellers' Christmas, because Emma couldn't stop reading what Adams wrote, and that gives her complicated feelings: \n \n She could hardly breathe, her lungs were filled with copious amounts of fluid causing her to be bedridden over Christmas. As her condition declined, her tweets amped up both in frequency and intensity. I couldn't stop reading \u2013 I even set up a dedicated @adamslisa column in Tweetdeck \u2013 but I felt embarrassed at my voyeurism. Should there be boundaries in this kind of experience? Is there such a thing as TMI? Are her tweets a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies, one step further than funeral selfies? Why am I so obsessed? \n \n But the Kellers' concern with how Adams is doing cancer actually goes deeper than Emma's reading habits. Keller's Sunday New York Times piece goes after the aggressive, no-holds-barred manner in which Adams has decided to pursue treatment for the disease. She is willing to try anything, no matter how risky, if it might prolong her life, instead of a more peaceful pain management and palliative approach that others have chose, like Keller's father-in-law. He died from cancer in the U.K., and Keller decides to compare Adams's approach (which he characterizes as \"her decision to treat her terminal disease as a military campaign\") unfavorably to that of his father-in-law's: \n \n [In the U.K.] more routinely than in the United States, patients are offered the option of being unplugged from everything except pain killers and allowed to slip peacefully from life. His death seemed to me a humane and honorable alternative to the frantic medical trench warfare that often makes an expensive misery of death in America. \n \n For the record, the \"military\" metaphors Keller repeatedly associates with Adams's approach to treatment and choice to be public about it is a metaphor Adams herself soundly rejects. \n \n To hear it from the Kellers, Adams's public engagement with cancer invites \"judgement\" as the \"ethical questions abound,\" as Emma writes. Or, as Bill posits, \"her decision to live her cancer onstage invites us to think about it, debate it, learn from it.\" Not only is it incorrect to assume that Adams's writing comes with an RSVP for judgement from Team Keller, it also appears that the Kellers aren't even looking closely at what they're attacking. For instance, Keller states that Adams has two children at home. According to her Twitter bio, Adams actually has three. They are young \u2014 15, 11, and 7, as of last November. Although it should be obvious, it seems that the Kellers forgot to notice that Adams is neither Bill Keller's father-in-law, nor is she a generic idea of a cancer patient. She is a person, pursuing treatment to extend her life, so that she can spend as much of it as possible with her kids. That is a different thing from refusing palliative \u2014 or pain management \u2014 care at the end of one's life, as Bill Keller seems to believe (erroneously) that Adams is doing. \n \n And then there's Bill Keller's mini-investigative mission into the parts of Adams's medical treatment and prognosis that remain confidential. Keller apparently asked both Adams and her hospital to detail the financial costs of her treatment, so he could weigh it more accurately against his own assessment of whether it's worth it or not: \"Whether or not this excellent care has added months or years to her life, as she clearly believes, is a medical judgment, and her doctors, bound by privacy rules, won\u2019t say,\" he writes. The insinuation is that her choice to continue to treat her cancer after her stage four diagnoses \"may raise false hopes.\" Keller thinks that such an approach \"implicitly, seems to peg patients like my father-in-law as failures.\" \n \n Except, is not what Adams is doing, as Adams herself said in response: \n \n Again, let me make it clear. honest discussion and acceptance of the reality of diagnosis is what I have always been doing. READ MY WORK. \u2014 Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014 \n \n I've been doing exactly what he supports all along. If he'd actually been reading the posts. \u2014 Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014 \n \n Others have rightly responded with anger to the tag-team cancer-explaining (or \"cansplaining,\" as Megan Garber put it in the Atlantic). Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin \u2014 who live-tweeted her own cancer diagnosis \u2014 took on Bill Keller's piece in particular. Her whole Twitter response to Keller is worth a read. But here are a few highlights: \n \n Problems I have w Bill Keller's bullying NYT oped about @AdamsLisa, which oddly mirrors & follows his wife's earlier Guardian shitfest: \u2014 Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 13, 2014 \n \n 14) \u201cLisa Adams\u2019s choice is in a sense the opposite\u201d of \u201cmy father-in-law\u2019s calm death.\u201d SHE'S ALIVE AS YOU CAN TELL BY HER FUCKING TWEETS. \u2014 Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 13, 2014 \n \n 15) \u201cthere is something enviable about going gently\u201d LADIES WITH METS SHOULD BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD. \u2014 Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 13, 2014 \n \n False hopes my ass! I remember the day she called me before my mastectomy, with pragmatic, calm, not-fun info. She told me a story. \u2014 Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 13, 2014 \n \n I am appalled on every level by Bill Keller's oped piece about @AdamsLisa. Astonishing. \u2014 Susan Orlean (@susanorlean) January 13, 2014 \n \n Meanwhile, Adams has taken a break from addressing the Kellers' concerns about Adams's life choices, because she is in the middle of a round of treatment . Luckily, she's got plenty of people online to respond for her. \n \n Update: The Guardian has since removed the piece in question by Emma Keller, \"because it is inconsistent with the Guardian editorial code.\"", "summary": "\u2013 A pair of columns questioning a woman's very public battle with Stage IV breast cancer are lighting up the Internet. Former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller and his wife, writer Emma Gilbey Keller, both wrote pieces on Lisa Bonchek Adams, who is chronicling her fight via Twitter and her blog. Emma Keller's column (with a headline that compared Bonchek Adams' social media postings to \"funeral selfies\"), posted last week, was removed from the Guardian's website yesterday amid all the furor; Bill Keller's column was published in the Times yesterday. Both Kellers weigh various questions that seem to come down to this: Is Bonchek Adams engaging in \"TMI\"? And would it be better for someone like her to opt for a peaceful, quiet death instead of \"heroic measures\"? A sample of the reactions: \"[Emma] Keller seems to be concerned about whether Adams's decision to publicly discuss her diagnosis and treatment is 'dignified,' both for Adams ... and for Emma Keller personally. You see, a particularly intense series of updates from Adams apparently ruined the Kellers' Christmas, because Emma couldn't stop reading what Adams wrote, and that gives her complicated feelings,\" writes Abby Ohlheiser for The Wire. Ohlheiser refers to the Keller columns as \"tag-team concern trolling,\" and goes on to quote the relevant portion of Emma Keller's piece: \"As her condition declined, her tweets amped up both in frequency and intensity. I couldn't stop reading\u2014I even set up a dedicated @adamslisa column in Tweetdeck\u2014but I felt embarrassed at my voyeurism. Should there be boundaries in this kind of experience? Is there such a thing as TMI? Are her tweets a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies, one step further than funeral selfies?\" As for Bill Keller's column, \"His point, like his wife's, is underinformed and muddled in a mess of condescension toward Adams's suffering and her work,\" writes Joe Coscarelli for Daily Intel. \"Instead of using their respective positions of power to wrestle awkwardly with something that makes them uncomfortable, the Kellers could attempt to consider Adams' online presence on its own terms, or just unsubscribe.\" There's much, much more\u2014but in a response to the uproar posted on the Times website yesterday, Bill Keller insists he's also \"heard from readers who understood the point and found it worth grappling with.\""}
{"document": "While people were standing by at a Chevron gas station in Beaverton, taking video of a woman trapped inside of her burning car, a 19-year-old came to her rescue. \n \n \"I wasn't really thinking, I just saw her and knew I had to get her out of there before it gets worse,\" Phillipe Bittar said after saving the woman's life Saturday. \n \n Bittar was on his way to get some food with his brother when they saw the plume of smoke and fire. \n \n But what surprised Bittar wasn't the flames, it was the crowd of people he said standing around, taking video of what he found to be a woman trapped in her burning car. \n \n \"There was like six bystanders just videotaping like oh man she needs to get some help.\" \n \n PHOTOS: Woman rescued from burning car at gas station \n \n That's when Bittar took the situation into his own hands. \"I told her, hey I'm going to pull you out, get away from the window because I have to break it and she's like okay,\" he described. \n \n The woman was taken by medic crews to a nearby hospital. \n \n And now, Bittar is being called a hero. \n \n \"I just did what any person's supposed to do,\" he said. \n \n Fire crews later said in a statement that Bittar's actions were nothing short of \"heroic\". They said if he didn't pull the woman out in time, she probably would not have survived. \n \n Crews also said one of Chevron's employees turned off the gas pump right away, preventing the fire from spreading. \n \n Right now the cause of the fire is being investigated. \n \n Bittar walked away with cuts from breaking the window while the woman suffered non-life threatening injuries from smoke inhalation. \n \n Copyright 2015 KPTV-KPDX Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. ||||| It's not every day that you see a car burning in front of you. So when Phillipe Bittar and his 16-year-old brother, Raphael, spotted flames and thick smoke rising from a sedan Saturday at a Raleigh Hills Chevron station, they stopped to take a picture. \n \n Then they noticed the woman inside. \n \n Another woman ran up to the car and desperately tried to open the passenger side door as the fire spread to a gas pump and worked its way through the car's trunk. The passenger, who firefighters say is in her 70s, was shaking in the seat. \n \n \"Seeing her like that hit me in a certain way that just made me react,\" said Bittar, 19, of Raleigh Hills. \n \n Though a Chevron attendant scrambled to shut the lines that flow gasoline to the pumps, Bittar didn't see anyone else trying to help and ran to the car. By this time the flames had reached the back seats, and the woman in the car was still frantically trying to free herself. Bittar looked for another way in. \n \n Then with only one punch, the former Beaverton High School linebacker shattered the window. \n \n The 19-year-old told the woman he was going to get her out. He reached in and grabbed her under her armpits and pulled her through the window. \"She was light in my arms,\" he said. \n \n Once out of the car, Bittar held her up and walked her over to two other women, who embraced her. Then they hugged and thanked him. \n \n By the time Bittar turned back to look at the car, it was engulfed in flames. \n \n Adrenaline helped mask the heat of the fire and the initial pain of smashing the window with his bare fist, Bittar said. Firefighters responded around 2:15 p.m. to the station along Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, and paramedics treated the cuts on his hand. \n \n The woman, whose name has not been released, was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, said Alisa Cour, a Tualatin Fire & Rescue spokeswoman. She was taken to a hospital as a precaution, but is expected to recover. \n \n What caused the fire is still under investigation, Cour said. No one else was injured. \n \n Firefighters likely would not have been able to reach the woman in time had Bittar not gotten her out, said Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue Battalion Chief Leonard Damian. \n \n \"His actions were nothing short of heroic,\" he said. \n \n The brothers had been leaving a nearby New Seasons Market to get some food when they drove toward the gas station and saw the burning car. Afterward, once the woman was safe, Bittar said that he felt dazed as he watched the flames consume the car. \n \n \"I didn't really have much time to think and process everything as it was happening,\" he said. \"But seeing the fire and the car and knowing she was out, it really hit me that I saved her life, and it felt really good.\" \n \n Bittar, a pre-med student at Oregon State University who is on summer break, said he's often seen videos on YouTube of people captured in life-or-death situations and always wondered how he would react if he happened upon one. \n \n He comes from a family of people who work in the medical field and hopes to become a doctor one day. He said he's relieved to know that he won't shy away from a situation where someone needs help. \n \n \"I just wanted to make sure she was safe,\" Bittar said. \"Now that I know she is, I know I'll be able to rest a little easier tonight.\" \n \n -- Everton Bailey Jr. \n \n ebailey@oregonian.com \n \n 503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey ||||| PORTLAND, Ore. \u2013 Two brothers pulled a woman from a burning car Saturday afternoon after it had crashed into a gas pump. \n \n One of the brothers punched through the car's passenger-side window to get inside the car as it and two gas pumps burned. \n \n The crash happened at a Chevron service station at 7200 S.W. Beaverton Hillsdale Highway around 2 p.m. \n \n Phillipe and Raphael Bittar pulled their car over to take a picture of the flames and spotted the woman inside the Volvo. Phillipe, 19 years old and a student at Oregon State, ran toward the burning sedan. He said the older woman inside the car had tried to get out herself. She had managed to move from the driver seat to the passenger side but was trapped. \n \n \"The woman, she was just panicking inside the car and I told her, 'I'm going to get you out of here as fast as I can,'\" said Phillipe. \"I just punched the window and I took her out. I picked her up and gave her to her friends.\" \n \n \"The flames were already starting to creep into the back seat, and after we got her out and go her behind the building for safety, we came back (and) the flames were already out of the front seat,\" said Raphael. \n \n According to Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, the woman suffered from smoke inhalation and was taken to the hospital. She was expected to recover. \n \n A gas station employee quickly shut off the main switch to the gas pumps, preventing the situation from becoming worse, TVF&R said. \n \n Phillipe got scraped up during the rescue. \n \n \u201cHad this individual not broken out the window and pulled the patient out of the burning car and to safety, I don't believe she would have survived. His actions were nothing short of heroic,\" said TVF&R Battalion Chief Leonard Damian. \n \n Video and photographs taken at the scene showed the car completely engulfed in flames as well as the gas pumps. At one point an explosion occurred, shooting a ball of flame toward the station's building. \n \n While the car burned, people stopped to take pictures and video with their phones, but Phillipe and Raphael were two of only one or two others to put down their phones and rush to help. \n \n \"I was expecting for everybody to be safe because there was nobody trying to intervene or anything,\" said Phillipe. \"So I just kind of came over here and I was like, 'Oh wow, that's a pretty bad fire.' I didn't realize there was somebody in the car until a woman ran up and my brother's like, 'There's a woman in there.' And I was like, 'Let's go.'\" \n \n The Washington County Sheriff's Office is investigating the crash. \n \n Heroes! These brothers pulled a woman from a burning car at a Chevron. Pure bravery. Punched through glass#liveonk2 pic.twitter.com/KKleiNve2M \u2014 Julie Murray (@videojulie) July 18, 2015 \n \n Below Video: Joshua McCool:", "summary": "\u2013 An Oregon State University student is being called \"heroic\" for rescuing an elderly woman from a burning car while others stood by shooting videos. Phillipe Bittar, 19, says he didn't have much time to react yesterday afternoon when he saw the car at a Chevron station in Portland, KPTV reports. \"I wasn't really thinking, I just saw her and knew I had to get her out of there before it gets worse,\" he says. \"There was like six bystanders just videotaping like oh man she needs to get some help.\" With the passenger frantic inside, Bittar smashed the car window open with a single punch, the Oregonian reports. A former high-school linebacker, he easily pulled her out: \"She was light in my arms,\" he says. Right after, the fire grew so rapidly that flames were already shooting out of the car's front seat, Bittar's brother Raphael tells KVAL. A gas station worker swiftly turned off the gas pump, but the car and more than one pump were toast; an explosion rocked the gas station at one point, sending a ball of fire into the main building. The woman was taken to hospital with smoke inhalation and is expected to recover, while Phillip received treatment on the scene for cuts to his hand. \"Had this individual not broken out the window and pulled the patient out of the burning car and to safety, I don't believe she would have survived,\" says a local fire chief. \"His actions were nothing short of heroic.\""}
{"document": "Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n Nov. 17, 2016, 3:54 AM GMT / Updated Nov. 17, 2016, 7:24 AM GMT By Amanda Sakuma \n \n The man who helped write the book on creating a federal Muslim registry in the name of national security, now has Donald Trump\u2019s ear as a top member of his transition team. \n \n Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a policy wonk with a reputation for handcrafting the legal means to political ends, says he has a plan to help Trump pull off some of his most contentious campaign promises. \n \n Trump has explored a variety of methods to vet potential terror threats, targeting specifically Muslims by proposing outright travel bans or creating a federal database of all people in the United States who practice Islam. \n \n Kobach believes Trump can take action immediately with the swipe of a pen. In an interview with Reuters this week, Kobach said Trump's immigrant transition team proposed drafting executive actions to reinstate a post-9/11 era program that registered immigrants and visitors from countries designated as havens for extremist activity. \n \n Related: Trump Backer Cites Japanese Internment as Precedent for Registry \n \n Kobach would know \u2014 he helped write the blueprint for it while working for the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. \n \n \u201cThese programs had Kobach\u2019s signature all over them,\u201d said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the non-partisan think tank the Migration Policy Institute. \"Now, the architect of the old program again has a seat at the table.\" \n \n Kobach is renowned as the mastermind behind the Republican Party's heavily contested anti-immigrant bills and restrictions on voter registration. \n \n Kobach first met Trump days before the New Hampshire primary, the Kansas secretary of state said last month in a podcast with Politico\u2019s Glenn Thrush. The policy savant said he offered his services in helping Trump nail down the details of his immigration platform. \n \n Related: Mike Pence Orders Lobbyists Be Removed From Transition Team \n \n But Kobach soon had his fingerprints all over Trump\u2019s policy white papers. He even found a potential way to pull off even Trump\u2019s most far-fetched of campaign promises \u2014 like forcing the Mexican government to write a blank check to build a massive wall along the U.S. border. \n \n Using a technicality tucked within the Patriot Act, Kobach plotted a way to force Mexico\u2019s hand by holding hostage the millions of dollars that Mexican nationals in the U.S. send home to family each year. \n \n Kobach is now on a tour touting himself as the brains behind the border wall payment plan. And with Trump assembling the final pieces of his cabinet, Kobach has indicated he may have another trick up his sleeve. \n \n The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, targeted people from 25 countries that were considered \"higher risk\" of extremist activity. The program focused only on young men over the age of 16, who underwent intense interrogations. An earlier iteration asked for Muslims to come forward and identify themselves, provide fingerprints and personal information. \n \n Chishti says the registry was broad by design. Rather than discriminate people by religion, the program instead focused on all people from Muslim-majority countries. \n \n \u201cThere is no way of establishing a registry of Muslims because there is no way of establishing who is a Muslim and who is not,\u201d he said. \n \n President Obama shut down the operations in 2011, but the policy infrastructure technically remains on the books. Trump could simply revitalize the program by designating which countries were deserving of the \"extreme vetting\" of all individuals, Muslim or not. \n \n The DHS Inspector General later issued a report finding that the program was costly and unreliable. More than 80,000 men participated in the registry. Thousands of those were interrogated and even detained. None were ever prosecuted on terrorism charges. \n \n Related: 'Never Ever Give Up': Clinton Makes First Public Appearance Since Conceding the Election \n \n Instead the program created a pipeline for deportation. More than 13,000 men were removed from the country for either overstaying a visa or being unlawfully present in the U.S. \n \n Fahd Ahmed, executive director of New York-based Arab and south Asian advocacy group DRUM, said the program had a lasting impact on Muslims who soon grew accustomed to being targeted for interrogation at airports. \n \n \u201cFor thousands of people, families were destroyed, livelihoods were destroyed, the social fabric of our communities \u2014 destroyed,\u201d Ahmed said. \n \n And Kobach\u2019s new proximity to the power structures in a future Trump administration has top Democrats sounding alarms that he is unfit to serve. \n \n Rep. John Conyers issued a statement on Wednesday railing against two Trump advisers \u2014 Kobach and Frank Gaffney, founder of the hard-right Center for Security Policy \u2014 for being \u201cright wing extremists.\u201d \n \n Conyers took particular aim at Kobach\u2019s tenure at the Justice Department and his blueprint for a Muslim registry, calling it \"a proposal that flies in the face of the constitution and is a threat to the civil liberties of all Americans.\" ||||| NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval. \n \n Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach talks in his Topeka, Kansas, U.S., office May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Dave Kaup/File Photo \n \n Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump\u2019s policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries. \n \n Kobach, who media reports say is a key member of Trump\u2019s transition team, said he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers for the past two to three months. \n \n Trump\u2019s transition team did not respond to requests for confirmation of Kobach\u2019s role. The president-elect has not committed to following any specific recommendations from advisory groups. \n \n Trump, who scored an upset victory last week over Democrat Hillary Clinton, made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign and has pledged to step up immigration enforcement against the country\u2019s 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has also said he supports \u201cextreme vetting\u201d of Muslims entering the United States as a national security measure. \n \n Kobach told Reuters last Friday that the immigration group had discussed drafting executive orders for the president-elect\u2019s review \u201cso that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running.\u201d \n \n To implement Trump\u2019s call for \u201cextreme vetting\u201d of some Muslim immigrants, Kobach said the immigration policy group could recommend the reinstatement of a national registry of immigrants and visitors who enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist organizations are active. \n \n Kobach helped design the program, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, while serving in Republican President George W. Bush\u2019s Department of Justice after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants. \n \n Under NSEERS, people from countries deemed \u201chigher risk\u201d were required to undergo interrogations and fingerprinting on entering the United States. Some non-citizen male U.S. residents over the age of 16 from countries with active militant threats were required to register in person at government offices and periodically check in. \n \n NSEERS was abandoned in 2011 after it was deemed redundant by the Department of Homeland Security and criticized by civil rights groups for unfairly targeting immigrants from Muslim- majority nations. \n \n Kobach said the immigration advisers were also looking at how the Homeland Security Department could move rapidly on border wall construction without approval from Congress by reappropriating existing funds in the current budget. He acknowledged \u201cthat future fiscal years will require additional appropriations.\u201d \n \n Congress, which is controlled by Trump\u2019s fellow Republicans, could object to redirecting DHS funds designated for other purposes. \n \n HELPED DRAFT TOUGH ARIZONA LAW \n \n Kobach has worked with allies across the United States on drafting laws and pursuing legal actions to crack down on illegal immigration. \n \n In 2010, he helped draft an Arizona law that required state and local officials to check the immigration status of individuals stopped by police. Parts of the law, which was fiercely opposed by Hispanic and civil rights groups, were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011. \n \n Kobach was also the architect of a 2013 Kansas law requiring voters to provide proof-of-citizenship documents, such as birth certificates or U.S. passports, when registering for the first time. A U.S. appeals court blocked that law after challenges from civil rights groups. \n \n Kobach said in the interview he believed that illegal immigrants in some cases should be deported before a conviction if they have been charged with a violent crime. Trump said in an interview on CBS\u2019 \u201c60 Minutes\u201d that aired on Sunday that once he took office, he would remove immigrants with criminal records who are in the country illegally. \n \n Kobach said the immigration group had also discussed ways of overturning President Barack Obama\u2019s 2012 executive action that has granted temporary deportation relief and work permits to more than 700,000 undocumented people or \u201cdreamers\u201d who came to the United States as children of illegal immigrants. ||||| poster=\"http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201611/883/1155968404_5214507358001_5214501338001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404\" true Trump supporter cites Japanese internment 'precedent' in backing Muslim registry \n \n A spokesman for the pro-Trump Great America PAC cited World War II Japanese internment camps as \"precedent\" for President-elect Donald Trump's discussed plan for a Muslim registry system. \n \n Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL, appeared on Fox News' \"The Kelly File\" to argue in favor of the plan, which Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said in a Reuters interview is being modeled after the highly controversial National Security Entry-Exit Registration System implemented after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Confronted with questions about the constitutionality of such a plan, Higbie cited history, in particular the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. \n \n \"We've done it based on race, we've done it based on religion, we've done it based on region,\" he said. \"We've done it with Iran back \u2014 back a while ago. We did it during World War II with [the] Japanese.\" \n \n Pressed by host Megyn Kelly on whether he was suggesting re-implementing the internment camps, Higbie said no, before adding: \"I'm just saying there is precedent for it.\" \n \n Kelly then swiftly rebuked his suggestion. \n \n \"You can't be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is gonna do,\" she said.", "summary": "\u2013 How might Donald Trump translate his calls for restrictions on Muslim immigration into policy? One possibility is the reinstatement of a national registry of visitors from high-risk countries. The revelation comes from a Reuters interview of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is known for his anti-immigration views within the GOP and who has been advising Trump since the campaign's early days. Kobach said Trump's transition team is considering dusting off the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which Kobach himself helped design as a member of George W. Bush's Justice Department in the wake of 9/11. Under the program, people from nations deemed high-risk had to undergo interrogations, fingerprinting, and, in some cases, periodic check-ins upon entering the US. The program, NSEERS, was abandoned in 2011. \"These programs had Kobach's signature all over them,\" the director of the Migration Policy Institute tells NBC News. \"Now, the architect of the old program again has a seat at the table.\" Kobach, in fact, is rumored to be on Trump's list of attorney general candidates, reports McClatchy. Meanwhile, a spokesman for a pro-Trump super PAC has drawn attention for saying the mass internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII could serve as a model for Trump's policy on Muslim immigrants. \"We've done it based on race, we've done it based on religion, we've done it based on region,\" Carl Bigbie of the Great America PAC told Fox News, per Politico. \u201cCome on, you\u2019re not proposing we go back to the days of internment camps, I hope,\u201d responded Megyn Kelly. \u201cI\u2019m not proposing that at all,\u201d Higbie responded. \"But I\u2019m just saying there is precedent for it.\""}
{"document": "The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a southern Oregon couple must quiet their incessantly barking dogs by sending them to the vet to have their voices surgically squelched. \n \n The Appeals Court ruled \u201cdebarking\u201d surgery is an appropriate solution to a noisy and relentless problem that neighbors living next to the dogs have had to endure for more than a decade on their rural property outside Grants Pass. \n \n Debarking operations, also known as devocalization, are highly controversial. Groups such as the Oregon Humane Society and American Humane have spoken out against them. Six states have outlawed the procedure under certain circumstances, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. \n \n The surgery involves cutting the vocal cords. Opponents say removing a dog or cat's prime means of communication is cruel and unnecessary. Proponents say if done correctly, it can save problematic animals from being euthanized and still allow them to express themselves with a soft, raspy bark or muffled squeak. \n \n But it\u2019s rare for courts in Oregon to order the procedure done, in part because barking-dog disputes usually are resolved long before cases get that far. \n \n \u201cWe are just shocked,\u201d said David Lytle, a spokesman for the Oregon Humane Society. Lytle said his organization pushed for a bill to outlaw debarking surgeries in Oregon, but it failed a few years ago. \n \n The lawsuit began as a last resort, according to the neighbors who filed it. \n \n Debra and Dale Krein said they could no longer take the barking of the six or more Tibetan and Pyrenean Mastiffs owned by the couple who lived next door for almost 20 years. \n \n The barking started in 2002, but the Kreins didn't sue Karen Szewc and John Updegraff until 10 years later, according to a court summary of the case. Like the Kreins, Szwec and Updegraff are married. \n \n The Kreins contended the barking started as early as 5 a.m. and continued for hours on end after Szewc and Updegraff left the house for the day. \n \n The dogs routinely roused the Kreins from sleep, deterred relatives from visiting their property and forced them to turn up the volume of their TV to watch shows, they said. Their children dreaded coming home from school. \n \n The Kreins made audio recordings to prove their case. \n \n After a four-day trial in Jackson County Circuit Court in April 2015, a jury ruled that Szewc and Updegraff had to pay the Kreins $238,000. \n \n The Kreins at the time also argued that while the money compensated them for several years of disruption, it didn\u2019t stop the problem. \n \n Judge Timothy Gerking agreed and ordered that the Mastiffs be debarked, given that the owners hadn't stopped the barking by other means, including using citronella-spray and shock collars or erecting a visual barrier between the dogs and the neighbors\u2019 property. \n \n The Appeals Court upheld the $238,000 verdict and Gerking\u2019s ruling, reasoning that the Kreins shouldn't have to file lawsuit after lawsuit to recover compensation as the problem continues. In his written opinion, Appeals Judge Joel DeVore likened that to a \u201cjudicial merry-go-round.\u201d \n \n Reached by phone, Debra Krein declined comment. The Kreins' Medford attorney, Michael Franell, couldn't be reached for comment. \n \n Szewc told The Oregonian/OregonLive that efforts to silence her dogs have threatened her ability to run her farm. \n \n \u201cThe dogs are my employees,\u201d she said. \u201cWe do not have the dogs to harass the neighbors. We have the dogs to protect our sheep.\u201d \n \n The dogs bark, she said, when they sense predators, such as bears and cougars. She said agricultural properties generate farm noise -- something her neighbors haven't come to accept. \n \n \u201cThe next line of defense is a gun. I don\u2019t need to use a gun, if I can protect my sheep with dogs,\" Szewc said. \"This is a passive way of protecting livestock.\u201d \n \n Szewc said she and her husband currently have six dogs, but the number has fluctuated over the years. \n \n In 2005, Jackson County cited Szewc for allowing two of her dogs to become a public nuisance with frequent and prolonged barking. After reviewing the case, county hearings officer Donald Rubenstein in 2006 ordered Szewc to pay a $400 fine and have the dogs debarked or moved off of her land. \n \n In making his decision, Rubenstein found that Szewc\u2019s farm activities then were so small and unprofitable that they didn't fall under farm-use laws that might have protected the sound of the barking dogs. \n \n Szewc and Updegraff have strongly disputed that. Szewc said the farm made $26,000 last year and it has supplemented their income. \n \n Court papers describe the couple's land as a 3.4-acre parcel, populated by sheep, goats and chickens. \n \n Szewc said the couple did debark the dogs, but it had disastrous effects in 2010. A cougar ran off with six lambs in a single week, she said. \n \n \u201cThat\u2019s $3,000 of income,\u201d Szewc said. \n \n Now, Szewc said, she doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019ll do -- whether she\u2019ll try to appeal the decision or accept it. Only one of the couple's six dogs have been debarked. \n \n The ruling was made by a three-judge panel of the Appeals Court: Joel DeVore, Chris Garrett and Bronson James. Read the opinion here. \n \n -- Aimee Green \n \n agreen@oregonian.com \n \n o_aimee ||||| Full Width Column 1 \n \n Decisions of the Oregon Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and Tax Court are posted weekly after 8:00 a.m., or as soon as available, on the day issued by the court. Final publication in the bound volumes of the Oregon Reports are accessible through the State of Oregon Law Library Digital Collection. \n \n Opinions ||||| Owners must surgically 'debark' loud dogs, court rules https://t.co/cnggmgZZdj pic.twitter.com/148pp9Y9mk \u2014 The Oregonian (@Oregonian) August 31, 2017 \n \n An Oregon appeals court agreed Wednesday that a couple must surgically lacerate their dogs\u2019 vocal cords in a procedure known as \u201cdebarking\u201d or \u201cdevocalization,\u201d following a lawsuit brought by neighbors annoyed by the pets\u2019 \u201cincessant barking.\u201d The ruling upheld a lower court order. \n \n The case began in 2002, when Karen Szewc and John Updegraff began breeding Tibetan Mastiffs, large fluffy dogs often employed to protect sheep from predators, at their home in Rogue River, Ore., about 150 miles south of Eugene. \n \n The married couple\u2019s neighbors, Debra and Dale Krein, quickly grew tired of the dogs\u2019 barking. According to the Kreins, the \u201cdogs bark[ed] uncontrollably for long periods of time while defendants [were] away from the residence,\u201d court documents state. \n \n But they weren\u2019t the first ones to take action against the dog owners. In both 2004 and 2005, Jackson County cited Szewc for violating a county code provision on public nuisance \u201cby allowing two of her dogs to bark frequently and at length,\u201d according to court documents. \n \n Szewc argued the provisions didn\u2019t apply to her because she ran a farm on the couple\u2019s 3.4-acre parcel of land, which includes sheep, goats and chickens. Farms fall under different ordinances. \n \n The Jackson County Circuit Court rejected this argument, saying the property was not a farm, ordered her to pay $400 and to debark the two offending dogs or to move them to a different area. \n \n It is unclear if she debarked these dogs, but in 2012, the Kriens filed a lawsuit against Szewc and Updegraff, claiming they had not taken the necessary actions to prevent the dogs from barking. At that point, there were at least six dogs on the property, all either Tibetan or Pyrenean Mastiffs, the Oregonian reported. \n \n Again, the dog owners argued that they were not subject to the dog barking ordinance because they were running a farm. \n \n The Kreins claimed the dogs often began barking at 5 a.m., sometimes waking the couple. Relatives refused to visit, and their children hated being around the house, according to the Oregonian. They recorded the barking to prove it. \n \n \u201cThe dogs are my employees,\u201d Szewc told the Oregonian. \u201cWe do not have the dogs to harass the neighbors. We have the dogs to protect our sheep.\u201d \n \n \u201cThe next line of defense is a gun. I don\u2019t need to use a gun, if I can protect my sheep with dogs,\u201d she added. \u201cThis is a passive way of protecting livestock.\u201d \n \n In April 2015, a jury sided with the Kreins and ordered Szewc and Updegraff to pay them $238,000 in damages. Also in response to the suit, Judge Timothy Gerking ordered the couple to debark the mastiffs, since they hadn\u2019t stopped them from barking using other means such as shock collars. \n \n Szewc and Updegraff again argued unsuccessfully that the dogs were necessary because they had a farm. \n \n On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals consisting of Joel DeVore, Chris Garrett and Bronson James upheld that ruling, agreeing that the dog owners were not running a farm. \n \n The question of whether debarking is an appropriate remedy was not at issue in the case. \n \n Debarking is a surgical procedure in which parts of a dog\u2019s vocal folds or cords are cut out in an effort to lower the volume of its barks or, more severely, to eliminate the dog\u2019s ability to bark altogether, according to the American Veterinary Medical Foundation. \n \n The procedure is partially prohibited in six states, according to the AVMF. Many animal welfare organizations oppose it, as do some veterinarians. \n \n \u201cDebarking is not a medically necessary procedure,\u201d Jeffrey S. Klausner, chief medical officer of the Banfield Pet Hospital, told the New York Times in 2010. \u201cWe think it\u2019s not humane to the dogs to put them through the surgery and the pain. We just do not think that it should be performed.\u201d \n \n Wednesday\u2019s ruling left some animal rights activists reeling. \n \n \u201cWe are just shocked,\u201d David Lytle, a spokesman for the Oregon Humane Society, told the Oregonian. \n \n More from Morning Mix \n \n Trump and Manafort get big reminder that pardon power does not extend to state crimes \n \n Investors say SeaWorld lied about business downturn after orca outcry. Now feds are investigating. \n \n Evangelicals\u2019 \u2018Nashville Statement\u2019 denouncing same-sex marriage is rebuked by city\u2019s mayor \n \n Lesbians win $10,000 judgment against county clerk for calling them an \u2018abomination\u2019 ||||| MEDFORD-- An Oregon couple who sued their neighbors because of their constantly barking dogs was awarded nearly $240,000 in damages. \n \n The Mail Tribune reports that a Jackson County jury found in favor of Dale and Debra Krein of Rogue River, awarding damages for what was described as more than a decade of ceaseless barking. \n \n The defendants, John Updegraff and Karen Szewc, said their dogs were necessary to protect their livestock from predators. \n \n The court last week found that the Tibetan mastiffs weren't ideally suited to be livestock guardians and ordered them debarked within 60 days or replaced with a more suitable breed. \n \n Szewc and Updegraff reportedly began breeding the dogs at their home around 2002. According to the Mail Tribune, the Kreins claimed the dogs would often begin barking at 5 a.m. and would continue throughout the day. They also claimed the couple did nothing to quiet their dogs even after being cited by Jackson County Animal Control in 2002 and 2004 for violating public nuisance codes. \n \n -- The Associated Press", "summary": "\u2013 \"We are just shocked.\" That's the reaction of the Oregon Humane Society to a Wednesday ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals that will require a Rogue River couple to have their six dogs' vocal cords cut. The court case was one between neighbors of nearly 20 years, reports the Oregonian: Debra and Dale Krein said the barking from Karen Szewc and John Updegraff's Tibetan and Pyrenean Mastiffs began in 2002\u2014at 5am each day, and didn't stop. The suit was filed 10 years later, with the Kreins alleging an auditory hell so bad their kids didn't want to come home from school. Szewc and Updegraff reportedly did attempt to rectify the situation with methods including shock collars, to no avail. A jury ruled in the Kreins' favor in 2015; Szewc and Updegraff were ordered to pay the couple $238,000 and have their dogs undergo devocalization. The Appeals Court upheld that ruling. Szewc and Updegraff had argued that the dogs were what kept their livestock\u2014sheep, goats, and chickens on 3.4 acres\u2014safe from predators. The Washington Post reports that as such, they argued the county's public nuisance code didn't apply as they were subject instead to farming ordinances. But the AP in 2015 reported on the original ruling, which found Tibetan mastiffs aren't a breed designed to guard livestock. It also cited the 2006 decision of a local hearings officer (related to a citation over the barking) who found the farm use defense was unavailable to the couple due to the small size and profits of their farming endeavors. They have not decided whether to appeal the latest decision. The Oregonian notes the surgery still allows dogs to make a very quiet bark or squeak; critics call it a \"cruel and unnecessary\" procedure. (Read about another case of discord between neighbors.)"}
{"document": "A group founded by American actor George Clooney said Tuesday it has teamed up with Google, a U.N. agency and anti-genocide organizations to launch satellite surveillance of the border between north and south Sudan to try to prevent a new civil war after the south votes in a secession referendum next month. \n \n Clooney's Not On Our Watch is funding the start-up phase Satellite Sentinel Project that will collect real-time satellite imagery and combine it with field analysis from the Enough Project and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, organizers said. \n \n The data will point out movements of troops, civilians and other signs of impending conflict. The U.N. Operational Satellite Applications Program and Google will then publish the findings online. \n \n \"We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we're watching, the world is watching,\" Clooney said in a statement. \"War criminals thrive in the dark. It's a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight.\" \n \n The groups hope that early warnings will reduce the risk of violence. \n \n Southern Sudan's looming Jan. 9 independence referendum has raised fears of renewed north-south civil war. The vote is the result of a 2005 peace deal that ended a 21-year conflict that claimed the lives of two million people and left twice as many displaced. \n \n Organizers said the Satellite Sentinel Project will be available online Wednesday at http://www.satsentinel.org. \n \n . ||||| Tim Freccia / Enough Project George Clooney visits Sudan to draw attention to the dangers that could result should southern Sudan vote to separate from the north \n \n George Clooney and John Prendergast slumped down at a wooden table in a dusty school compound in southern Sudan. It was Oct. 4, and the two men were in the hometown of Valentino Achak Deng, whose experiences wandering the desert as a refugee during Sudan's last civil war were the basis for the best-selling book What Is the What. \n \n Clooney, the actor, and Prendergast, a human-rights activist with 25 years of experience in Africa, had heard enough on their seven-day visit to know that a new round of atrocities could follow the January referendum on independence. If it did, the likelihood was that no one would be held accountable. Why not, Clooney asked, \"work out some sort of a deal to spin a satellite\" above southern Sudan and let the world watch to see what happens? (See photos of Clooney in Sudan.) \n \n Three months later, Clooney's idea is about to go live. Starting Dec. 30, the Satellite Sentinel Project \u0097 a joint experiment by the U.N.'s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, Harvard University, the Enough Project and Clooney's posse of Hollywood funders \u0097 will hire private satellites to monitor troop movements starting with the oil-rich region of Abyei. The images will be analyzed and made public at www.satsentinel.org (which goes live on Dec. 29) within 24 hours of an event to remind the leaders of northern and southern Sudan that they are being watched. \"We are the antigenocide paparazzi,\" Clooney tells TIME. \"We want them to enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get. If you know your actions are going to be covered, you tend to behave much differently than when you operate in a vacuum.\" \n \n You don't have to be a spook to have an eye in the sky anymore. Private firms with names like GeoEye, DigitalGlobe and ImageSat International have a half-dozen \"birds\" circling the globe every 90 minutes in low-Earth orbit, about 297 miles (478 km) up. The best images from these satellites display about 8 sq. in. (50 sq cm) of the ground in each pixel on a computer screen. That is not enough granularity to read a car's license plate or ID a person, but analysts can tell the difference between cars and trucks and track the movements of troops or horses. \"It is Google Earth on lots of steroids,\" says Lars Bromley, a top U.N. imagery analyst. (See pictures of southern Sudan preparing for nationhood.) \n \n But you need money for it. A hurry-up order of what Bromley calls a \"single shot\" from a satellite covers an area of about 105 sq. mi. (272 sq km) and costs $10,000. A rush job on a \"full strip\" image of land roughly 70 miles (115 km) long and 9 miles (14 km) wide could run nearly $70,000. Sentinel is launching with $750,000 in seed money from Not On Our Watch, the human rights organization Clooney founded along with Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, David Pressman and Jerry Weintraub. Clooney predicted he won't have much trouble raising more money once the project goes live. (See the top 10 world news stories of 2010.) \n \n Prendergast's group, the Enough Project, is the human-rights arm of the liberal Center for American Progress; it recruited Bromley's team at the U.N. and brought in analysts from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to pore over the images as they arrive. \"Generally, what we have done in the past is an after-the-fact documentation exercise,\" Bromley explains. \"This is proactive, wide-area monitoring,\" he says. \n \n Clooney, who has made four trips to Sudan since 2006, believes Sentinel might have applications in other global hot spots. \"This is as if this were 1943 and we had a camera inside Auschwitz and we said, 'O.K., if you guys don't want to do anything about it, that's one thing,'\" Clooney says. \"But you can't say you did not know.\" \n \n See the best pictures of 2010.", "summary": "\u2013 As southern Sudan votes on a secession referendum Jan. 9, sparking fears of a new civil war with the north, someone will be watching: George Clooney. And the actor hopes you\u2019ll watch, too, via his new Satellite Sentinel Project website, the AP reports. The idea: Train a bunch of cameras on Sudan in an effort to spotlight the region\u2014and hopefully halt genocide and war crimes. \u201cWe are the anti-genocide paparazzi,\u201d Clooney tells Time. The project, a joint effort with Google, the UN, and anti-genocide organizations, will provide real-time satellite surveillance of the border, because \u201cit\u2019s a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight,\u201d and Clooney wants Sudanese leaders \u201cto enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is as if this were 1943 and we had a camera inside Auschwitz and we said, 'OK, if you guys don't want to do anything about it, that's one thing. But you can't say you did not know.\u2019\u201d"}
{"document": "If you suffer from a fear of sheep you might want to skip this video showing 1,300 sheep running on the loose and basically taking over a town as if they were in New Zealand horror movie Black Sheep. \n \n The freakish incident occurred just after 4 a.m. in the northeastern Spanish city of Huesca, south of the Pyrenees mountains, on the French border, after a shepherd fell asleep, according to local police. \n \n SEE ALSO: A little town is being ruled by hundreds of crazy goats \n \n Alerted by several phone calls from residents, Huesca police were forced to round up the flock, which had already taken over the city centre, and deliver them back to the shepherd. \n \n Two police cars were sent to the scene and five officers spent about 45 minutes trying to round up all the sheep and return them to their pen. \n \n A video posted by Huesca police on their Facebook page shows a police car with it lights on pulling up in front of the flock. \n \n The shepherd had dozed off instead of guiding the sheep onto the pastures of the Pyrenees, where they'll spend the summer. \n \n Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. \n \n This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.", "summary": "\u2013 A YouTube video proves why you should never fall asleep on the job\u2014particularly if you have 1,300 sheep in your care. A resident in the Spanish city of Huesca called police around 4:30am Tuesday to report a herd of sheep making its way through the city streets, per the Telegraph. And what a herd it was. About five officers spent 45 minutes rounding up the animals before delivering them to their shepherd, who was fast asleep, reports Mashable. The shepherd\u2014who was apparently waiting to begin an age-old tradition of migrating the sheep through the city to summer grazing grounds in the Pyrenees mountains\u2014hadn't even realized the sheep were missing."}
{"document": "This month, the full moon falls on Friday the 13th. \n \n Freaky? Nah, probably not. \n \n 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. \n \n Sign up for top Science news delivered direct to your inbox \n \n 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] \n \n Play Facebook \n \n Twitter \n \n Google Plus \n \n Embed World Cup Excitement in Zero Gravity 0:27 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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 \n \n Here's how it works: The Earth rotates on a tilted axis; in June \u2014 summer in the Northern Hemisphere \u2014 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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\u2014you'll be able to catch the spectacular full \"honey moon\" in the night sky. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n The Moon at Its Closest \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n \"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. \n \n A full moon coinciding on Friday the 13th is not all that uncommon, occurring every three or so years. \n \n 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. \n \n Marital Traditions? \n \n 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. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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). \n \n Follow Andrew Fazekas, the Night Sky Guy, on Twitter, Facebook, and his website.", "summary": "\u2013 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."}
{"document": "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. \n \n 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": "\u2013 \"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\u2014even from the Vatican\u2014gushing 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.)"}
{"document": "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. \n \n 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. \n \n And when her baby needed it, she didn't hesitate to feed her. \n \n 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. \n \n Just 10 weeks after giving birth, Queensland Senator Larissa Waters is returning to work with her daughter, Alia Joy, in tow \u2013 and she plans to breastfeed her in the Senate chamber. \n \n 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 \n \n Breastfeeding has been permitted in the chamber since 2003, but Alia will be the first. \n \n \u201cIf she\u2019s hungry, that\u2019s what you do, you feed your baby,\u201d Senator Waters said. \n \n The 40-year-old Greens senator last year successfully extended breastfeeding rules in the Senate to include caring for an infant. \n \n media_camera Kelly O\u2019Dwyer \u2013 with then four-month-old Olivia \u2013 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. \n \n 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. \n \n \u201cI hope she doesn\u2019t squawk her head off too much, but she\u2019s probably going to be better behaved than many of the people in that room,\u201d Senator Waters said. \n \n In 2009, Senator Sarah \u00adHanson-Young\u2019s two-year-old daughter, Kora, was infamously ejected from the Senate. \n \n Senator Waters said the rule changes were designed to encourage more parenting Australians to enter parliament to ensure it is representative of the community. \n \n \u201cIt is important we make all workplaces more family friendly, not just parliament,\u201d she said. \n \n Senator Waters said the recent unsuccessful push to unseat Cabinet minister and fellow new mum Kelly O\u2019Dwyer shows how women still face workplace discrimination. \n \n \u201cThat was atrocious, but sadly, it\u2019s not that uncommon,\u201d she said. \u201cOne in five women experience severe discrimination on the basis of their parenthood. It is a very sobering statistic, and it\u2019s really disheartening for people to see that even Cabinet ministers can be subjected to that as well.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 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.)\""}
{"document": "JUBA/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - South Sudan\u2019s 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. \n \n 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 \n \n 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\u2019s SPLA government forces and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar is still a long way off. \n \n 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. \n \n The talks had been scheduled to begin in Addis Ababa on January 1, and made a slow start on Friday. \n \n \u201cBoth delegations are meeting the mediators separately,\u201d said Dina Mufti, a spokesman for Ethiopia\u2019s Foreign Ministry. \u201cWe hope to bring both sides into face-to-face talks soon.\u201d \n \n 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. \n \n Bor lies 190 km (118 miles) to the north of Juba and has changed hands three times since the unrest began. \n \n \u201cThe rebels will be flushed out of Bor any time,\u201d SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said. \n \n 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 \u201cclose\u201d to Juba. \n \n 200,000 DISPLACED \n \n 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\u2019s ethnic Dinkas against Machar\u2019s Nuer. \n \n The United States has been withdrawing non-essential embassy staff since mid-December and said Friday it was evacuating more. \n \n 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. \n \n \u201cWe are not suspending our operations. We are just minimizing our presence,\u201d said Susan Page, the U.S. ambassador. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n An emergency message to U.S. citizens on the embassy\u2019s website said the move was due to a \u201cdeteriorating security situation\u201d. It said there would be an evacuation flight on Friday arranged by the U.S. State Department. \n \n Slideshow (17 Images) \n \n 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. \n \n Mediators say Kiir\u2019s 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Tedros Adhanom said direct talks between the two sides, aimed at ending the violence, would begin on Saturday. \n \n 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. \n \n The US has announced a further cut of its embassy staff in South Sudan. \n \n 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. \n \n More than 180,000 people have been displaced in the conflict. Aid workers say many are living without shelter, clean water and sanitation. \n \n Tensions are increasing around the rebel-held cities of Bor, in Jonglei state, and Bentiu, in the northern state of Unity. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Evacuation flight \n \n Delegates from both sides began arriving in the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday but talks were delayed until the full negotiating teams had arrived. \n \n 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. \n \n Mabior Garang, left, part of the negotiating team backing Riek Machar, arrives for talks in Addis Ababa \n \n A government soldier patrols Malakal in Upper Nile State \n \n These refugees in the town of Awerial are among the 180,000 people estimated displaced by the conflict \n \n The mediators are preparing the ground for direct talks, he adds. \n \n 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. \n \n Meanwhile, the US state department said it had ordered a \"further drawdown\" of its embassy staff in Juba \"because of the deteriorating security situation\". \n \n It evacuated a large number of non-essential staff soon after the fighting began on 15 December. \n \n But ambassador Susan Page told Reuters: \"We are not suspending our operations. We are just minimising our presence.\" \n \n However, the state department also said that, from Saturday, it would no longer be providing consular services to US citizens in South Sudan. \n \n 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. \n \n A political squabble has become a conflict - and one with nasty ethnic undertones Analysis: Bitter divide Q&A: South Sudan clashes \n \n 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. \n \n South Sudan is the world's newest state. It was formed in 2011, gaining independence from Sudan after decades of conflict. \n \n The latest trouble has its roots in tensions that go back long before 2011, rebels were fighting each other as well as for independence. \n \n But what began as a squabble between former fighters turned politicians has taken on an ethnic dimension. \n \n Politicians' political bases are often ethnic. President Kiir is from the Dinka community while Mr Machar is a Nuer. \n \n Mr Kiir has ruled out any power-sharing arrangement with his rival in the longer term. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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 \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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) \u2014 The U.S. Embassy in South Sudan is evacuating more of its personnel because of a deteriorating security situation. \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n The embassy said it will no longer provide consular services in South Sudan as of Saturday. \n \n Even as rebels threaten to march on the capital, representatives for the warring parties are holding preliminary peace talks in Ethiopia.", "summary": "\u2013 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."}
{"document": "A man who took part in the kidnapping and murder of a Kansas City girl is scheduled to die Tuesday evening. \n \n 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. \n \n 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 \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Michael Taylor, the other man convicted in the case, was executed last year. \n \n 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. \n \n \u201cIf somebody had told me it was going to take 25 years to get them executed, I would have said, \u2018You are out of your mind,\u2019\u201d said retired detective Pete Edlund, who worked the case. \n \n 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. \n \n The executions were held up during lengthy appeals and challenges to Missouri\u2019s execution procedures. After debates over which drugs should be used to give lethal injections, Missouri no longer identifies the exact drugs it uses. \n \n Harrison's parents, Bob and Janel, released a statement that read in part: \n \n \"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.\" \n \n \n \n The Harrisons' went on to say that they don't know if the executions of Nunley and Taylor will bring them closure. \n \n \n \n \"Will it put the heartbreak of reliving what they did to Ann during all the hearings, appeals and seemingly endless stalling attempts? \n \n \"We certainly hope so. \n \n \"If this is the only form of closure we receive, then we will gladly take it.\" \n \n Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster noted that it took years for Nunley's sentence to be carried out. \n \n \"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,\u201d Koster said. \n \n \"The two men who were found guilty of Ann\u2019s 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.\" \n \n Harrison's father, uncle and two family friends were at the prison to witness the execution. \n \n Harrison\u2019s friends are now adults, many with teenage children of their own. \n \n \u201cIt is a tough day. It brings back lots of feelings, emotions and memories,\u201d said Carrie Willis, one of Harrison\u2019s friends. \n \n She said this is a difficult, but important day. \n \n \u201cMaybe now we can move on and remember Ann,\u201d she said. \u201cJust remember Ann and not why it has taken so long.\u201d \n \n Harrison\u2019s friends Kelly Potter and Amy Kaye also posted a message on Facebook. \n \n \n \n \u201cToday 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.\u201d \n \n \n \n \u201cAnn 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.\u201d \n \n \n \n \u201cOn 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.\u201d \n \n \"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) \u2014 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. \n \n 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. \n \n He was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. CDT. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Robert Harrison, the father of the girl killed, watched the execution along with the victim's uncle and two family friends. \n \n 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. \n \n Her body was found in the trunk of the abandoned car days later. \n \n Both men were sentenced to death in 1991. Taylor was executed last year. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Later that morning, the men were driving around Kansas City when they saw Ann, her school books and flute on the ground beside her. \n \n \"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. \n \n 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. \n \n \"She knew something was wrong,\" Edlund said. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Edlund said the case was cracked months later when a man in jail for robbery \u2014 and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case \u2014 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. \n \n Edlund said Ann's father was a former reserve officer with the Police Department, and her uncle was a Kansas City officer. \n \n \"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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Ann Harrison's family did not provide a statement after the execution, which was witnessed by an uncle and two family friends. \n \n Corrections Director George Lombardi read a prepared statement from Gov. Jay Nixon: \n \n Tonight, as we remember Ann Harrison, our thoughts and prayers are again with Bob and Janel Harrison, and the other members of Ann\u2019s 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\u2019s 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. \n \n Attorney General Chris Koster also issued a brief statement: \n \n \"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.\" \n \n Pete Edlund is a retired Kansas City police officer who led the investigation into Harrison's death. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n Nunley's attorney, Jennifer Herndon, has not responded yet to requests for comments. \n \n 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. \n \n Within minutes, Gov. Jay Nixon denied Nunley's request for clemency: \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Nunley was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison in the Kansas City area. \n \n This is a developing story and we'll have more details as they come in. \n \n Original story \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Nunley then drove to his mother\u2019s 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n In 1994, Nunley filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which was rejected. His attorneys had argued that he suffered from a \u201cdependent personality disorder\u201d and that his judgment was impaired due to his cocaine use when Harrison was murdered. They also accused the Jackson County prosecutor\u2019s 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. \n \n Late Friday, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected Nunley\u2019s request to withdraw the execution warrant, and a motion on Monday to reconsider that decision was also rejected. \n \n Meanwhile, Nunley\u2019s attorney, Jennifer Herndon, has filed another appeal based on the state\u2019s 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. \n \n Nunley\u2019s window of execution is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday night. \n \n The Associated Press contributed to this report. \n \n 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) \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n He was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. CDT. \n \n 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. \n \n Bob and Janel Harrison, the parents of the young victim, released a statement afterwards, saying: \n \n \"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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s classmates, The Raytown Girls Softball League, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Governor Nixon, The Attorney General\u2019s office, the Department of Corrections and especially to the officers and detectives of the KCPD who worked tirelessly to bring Ann\u2019s 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.\" \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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 \u2014 an argument rebuffed by a detective with a 42-year career who helped break the case. \n \n Retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund said the only thing cruel and unusual is how long Nunley and Taylor remained on death row. \n \n \u201cA travesty,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m frustrated by the fact it\u2019s taken so long and over ridiculous excuses to extend their time on death row.\u201d \n \n He said Nunley should have been put to death long ago. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n To this day neighbor Deborah Bowen carries a picture of Ann and her sisters in her car. It\u2019s there to remind her of the innocent girl down the street from her. \n \n \u201cI will never forget the girl, she was just a beautiful thing,\u201d Bowen said. \u201cMy dad went to his grave knowing those two were still alive.\u201d \n \n The former detective is hoping, with Nunley\u2019s execution, it will offer some sort of peace for Ann\u2019s family. \n \n \u201cIt has been a long time, justice delayed,\u201d Edlund said. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Edlund said the case was cracked months later when a man in jail for robbery \u2014 and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case \u2014 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. \n \n Copyright 2015 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) and The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.", "summary": "\u2013 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\u2014who St. Louis Radio reports requested a final meal of steak, shrimp, chicken strips, salad, and cheesecake, per a prison rep\u2014had 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.)"}
{"document": "Published on Mar 28, 2017 \n \n Watch the new trailer for An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. In theatres July 28, 2017. #BeInconvenient \n \n \n \n Climate Changes, Truth Does Not. \n \n \n \n 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 \u2013 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. \n \n \n \n Directed by Jon Shenk & Bonni Cohen \n \n \n \n Cast: Al Gore \n \n \n \n Official Movie Site: http://www.inconvenientsequel.com/ \n \n Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnInconvenie... \n \n Twitter: https://twitter.com/aitruthfilm \n \n Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aninconveni... \n \n \n \n Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9i... \n \n \n \n Watch all the latest movie trailers from Paramount Pictures: \n \n https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... \n \n \n \n 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. \n \n \n \n Connect with Paramount Pictures Online: \n \n \n \n Official Site: http://www.paramount.com/ \n \n Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Paramount \n \n Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ParamountPics \n \n Twitter: https://twitter.com/paramountpics \n \n 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. \n \n Filmmakers behind \u201cAn Inconvenient Sequel,\u201d a documentary that covers the accord\u2019s signing and stars Al Gore, will update the movie to include Trump\u2019s Thursday withdrawal from the emissions-cutting deal before it hits theaters in July. \n \n The highly criticized move \u201cwill appear in the final film,\u201d a spokesperson for Paramount Pictures told TheWrap. The studio is releasing the movie with Participant Media. \n \n Also Read: Al Gore Will Keep 'Open Line of Communication' With Trump on Climate (Exclusive Video) \n \n 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. \n \n \u201cInconvenient Sequel\u201d is a follow-up to Davis Guggenheim\u2019s Oscar-winning 2006 film \u201cAn Inconvenient Truth,\u201d which followed Gore\u2019s efforts to convince legislators and the public of the devastating effects of climate change. \n \n Bonnie Cohen and Jon Shenk directed the sequel, which premiered the day before Trump took office at January\u2019s Sundance Film Festival. \n \n Also Read: Angry Emoji: Mark Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley Execs Strongly Dislike Trump's Climate Deal Pullout \n \n \u201cRemoving the United States from the Paris Agreement is a reckless and indefensible action,\u201d Gore said in response to Trump\u2019s decision. \n \n \u201cIt undermines America\u2019s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity\u2019s ability to solve the climate crisis in time. But make no mistake: if President Trump won\u2019t lead, the American people will,\u201d he concluded. \n \n \u201cAn Inconvenient Truth\u201d opens in limited release on July 28, and expands wide on August 4.", "summary": "\u2013 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.\")"}
{"document": "Suspected Islamist fires at Sarajevo US embassy \n \n SARAJEVO \u2014 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\". \n \n Bosnia's intelligence chief later said they had arrested a Serbian national with ties to the local Wahhabi community, a radical branch of Islam. \n \n But a police officer guarding the building in the Bosnian capital was seriously wounded, police said. \n \n Local television showed video footage of a bearded man carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. \n \n A special police unit shot and injured the suspect before arresting him, Irfan Nefic told national BHT television. \n \n \"The person who fired an automatic weapon was wounded and arrested during the police operation,\" he said. \n \n \"After receiving medical treatment on the scene the person was hospitalised.\" \n \n 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\". \n \n \"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. \n \n Following the attack, Bosnia's acting president Zeljko Komsic met US ambassador Patrick Moon. \n \n He told him that Bosnia was capable of \"guaranteeing the security of all US citizens and diplomatic representatives\" in the country. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"I expect the competent authorities to carry out a quick and efficient investigation of this senseless act,\" he added. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"People started running in all directions.\" \n \n Another eyewitness, Admir Hrenovica, told BHR1 television the gun shots had lasted around 15 minutes. \n \n \"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. \n \n Bosnia's intelligence chief Almir Dzuvo said the suspect was Mevlid Jasarevic, 23, a Serbian national with ties to the local Wahhabi community. \n \n \"He crossed the border (between Bosnia and Serbia this morning,\" he said. \n \n 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. \n \n Serbian broadcaster B92 reported that Serbian police had stepped up security around the US embassy in Belgrade following the Sarajevo incident. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Copyright \u00a9 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More \u00bb ||||| 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. \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n The U.S. Embassy said none of its employees was injured. \n \n 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.\" \n \n \"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. \n \n The gunman wore a beard and was dressed in an outfit typical for followers of the conservative Wahabi branch of Islam. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n A Sarajevo city official, Muhamed Budimlic, told The Associated Press that a policeman guarding the embassy was injured.", "summary": "\u2013 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, \u201cone in the leg and one in the head,\u201d 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\u2019s three presidents, Bakir Izetbegovic, condemned \u201cthe terrorist attack,\u201d the AP reports. \u201cThe 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.\u201d"}
{"document": "\"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. \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n 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) \n \n The shootout \u2014 which killed nine people and wounded 18 \u2014 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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Even the terminology is interchangeable. \n \n Good and bad alike call their organizations \"clubs.\" Both use the term \"colors\" for the emblems on the backs of their jackets and vests. \n \n \"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. \n \n Don Chambers, founder of the Bandidos gang, modeled his club's emblem \u2014 a sombrero-wearing Mexican caricature carrying a sword and pistol \u2014 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. \n \n \"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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n Some clubs boast chapters on the other side of the globe. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n Part of the problem, Dobyns says, is that the entertainment world tends to glamorize these groups. \n \n 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.\" \n \n \"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.\" \n \n FX spokesman John Solberg declined to respond to Dobyns' comments. \n \n 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 \u2014 and die \u2014 for your club. \n \n \"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 \u2014 Mr. Jimmy did not want to be quoted using the club\u2019s name, referring to it instead as \u201cthe other side\u201d \u2014 were not part of the meeting, but the Bandidos were. Eight Cossacks and one Bandido were killed in the gunfight, he said. \u201cThe only reason I am not in jail,\u201d he added, \u201cis that I got there late.\u201d \n \n 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 \u2014 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\u2019s license for a week, and its corporate headquarters revoked its franchise agreement. \n \n The local management said it was disappointed that Twin Peaks had \u201cmade a sudden decision to cancel our Waco franchise before all of the facts are learned.\u201d \n \n After the shooting, the state-run Texas Joint Crime Information Center issued an advisory that members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks \u201creportedly have been instructed to arm themselves with weapons and travel to north Texas.\u201d The bulletin said officers throughout Texas \u201cshould be aware of the escalating violence between both groups and are to consider all Bandidos and Cossacks members as armed and dangerous.\u201d \n \n The one-page document said the Bandidos were believed to have summoned additional members from Arkansas and New Mexico as \u201creinforcements.\u201d \n \n 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": "\u2013 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\u2014by far the bigger of the two clubs\u2014saw 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\u2014the Cossacks\u2014comes 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.\""}
{"document": "Boaty McBoatface Prepares For First Antarctic Mission \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Department for Business, Innovation & Skills Department for Business, Innovation & Skills \n \n The remotely operated underwater research vessel known as Boaty McBoatface is preparing for its first research mission \u2014 an expedition into \"some of the deepest and coldest abyssal ocean waters on earth.\" \n \n 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. \n \n As a consolation gesture, however, a smaller autonomous underwater vehicle was named Boaty McBoatface. So the name lives on \u2014 albeit in a way that makes less sense, because a submersible vehicle isn't actually a boat. (Subby McSubface, anybody?) \n \n The RRS Sir David Attenborough is still under construction, but Boaty McBoatface is already on the job. \n \n 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. \n \n 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 \u2014 information that could help improve climate change models. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n The BBC notes that there are actually three Boaty McBoatfaces: \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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 \n \n The yellow submarine named Boaty McBoatface is set to leave for Antarctica this week on its first science expedition. \n \n The robot is going to map the movement of deep waters that play a critical role in regulating Earth's climate. \n \n Boaty carries the name that a public poll had suggested be given to the UK's future \u00a3200m polar research vessel. \n \n The government felt this would be inappropriate and directed the humorous moniker go on a submersible instead. \n \n 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). \n \n These machines can all be configured slightly differently depending on the science tasks they are given. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prof Mike Meredith: A quarter of all Antarctic bottom-water is exported through Orkney Passage \n \n 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. \n \n Boaty's mission will be to survey conditions in the passage. \n \n 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. \n \n Image copyright NERC/BAS Image caption The JCR will eventually be replaced by the RRS Sir David Attenborough \n \n 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). \n \n \"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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n Image caption Bottom-water is generated at the margin of the continent and then spills north into the Atlantic \n \n 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. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n Image copyright NERC/NOC Image caption The Autosub LR class of vehicles is beginning full science operations after successful sea trials \n \n 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. \n \n Scientists are queuing up to use them, and to exploit their ability to autonomously patrol the oceans for weeks, even months, on end. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"We're getting lots of proposals and it's great that we can meet that demand,\" he told BBC News. \n \n The Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DynOPO) expedition is a collaboration between BAS, the University of Southampton and NOC. \n \n Image copyright NERC/NOC Image caption Public outreach campaigns will be built around the future work of the subs \n \n Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos", "summary": "\u2013 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."}
{"document": "Charlie Munger: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also bubbles 8:24 PM ET Wed, 10 Jan 2018 | 00:57 \n \n Warren Buffett's right-hand man, Charlie Munger, blasted the frothiness in venture capital funding and bitcoin. \n \n During a phone interview on CNBC's \"Squawk Box\" on Wednesday, Munger was asked if bitcoin was a bubble. \n \n \"Yeah sure [on bitcoin] and venture capital, too,\" Munger replied. \"There are always bubbles ... that are going to end badly.\" \n \n On \"Squawk Box\" on Wednesday, Buffett also said the craze over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies won't end well. \n \n 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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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. \n \n 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\u2019s 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\u2019s police and tax authorities raided local exchanges on alleged tax evasion. \n \n 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. \n \n Justice minister Park Sang-ki said the government was preparing a bill to ban trading of the virtual currency on domestic exchanges. \n \n \u201cThere are great concerns regarding virtual currencies and the justice ministry is basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges,\u201d Park told a news conference, according to the ministry\u2019s press office. \n \n After the market\u2019s sharp reaction to the announcement, the nation\u2019s Presidential office hours later said a ban on the country\u2019s virtual coin exchanges had not yet been finalised while it was one of the measures being considered. \n \n A press official at the justice ministry said the proposed ban on cryptocurrency trading was announced after \u201cenough discussion\u201d with other government agencies, including the nation\u2019s finance ministry and financial regulators. \n \n 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. \n \n The government\u2019s tough stance triggered a selloff of the cryptocurrency on both local and offshore exchanges. \n \n 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\u2019s comments. It still trades at around a 30 percent premium compared to other countries. \n \n 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. \n \n South Korea\u2019s 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. \n \n Once enforced, South Korea\u2019s ban \u201cwill make trading difficult here, but not impossible,\u201d said Mun Chong-hyun, chief analyst at EST Security. \n \n \u201cKeen 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,\u201d Mun said. \n \n Park Nok-sun, a cryptocurrency analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said the herd behavior in South Korea\u2019s virtual coin market has raised concerns. \n \n 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. \n \n \u201cSome officials are pushing for stronger and stronger regulations because they only see more (investors) jumping in, not out,\u201d Park said. \n \n By Thursday afternoon, the Justice Ministry\u2019s 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. \n \n REGULATORY CONUNDRUM \n \n There are more than a dozen cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, according to Korea Blockchain Industry Association. \n \n 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. \n \n The news of South Korea\u2019s proposed ban came as authorities tightened their grip on some cryptocurrency exchanges. \n \n The nation\u2019s 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\u2019s small-cap Kosdaq index in terms of daily trading volume. \n \n Some investors appeared to have taken preemptive action. \n \n \u201cI have already cashed most of mine (virtual coins) as I was aware that something was coming up in a couple of days,\u201d said Eoh Kyung-hoon, a 23-year old investor. \n \n 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\u2019s fourth-largest economy. That created confusion and triggered a broad selloff among investors. \n \n An official at Coinone told Reuters that a few officials from the National Tax Service raided the company\u2019s office this week. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Coinone was cooperating with the investigation. \n \n Bithumb, the second largest virtual currency operator in South Korea, was also raided by the tax authorities on Wednesday. \n \n \u201cWe were asked by the tax officials to disclose paperwork,\u201d an official at Bithumb said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. \n \n FILE PHOTO: A copy of bitcoin standing on PC motherboard is seen in this illustration picture, October 26, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo \n \n The nation\u2019s tax office and police declined to confirm whether they raided the local exchanges. \n \n 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. \n \n ($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. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"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": "\u2013 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\u2014and 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.)"}
{"document": "(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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n But there appear to be several problems with this claim. For starters, neither the birth certificate nor the national identity card is original. \n \n \"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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n \"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.\" \n \n 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.\" \n \n 80 year old becomes oldest to climb Mount Everest \n \n 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. \n \n \"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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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 \u00ae 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. \n \n This week, this story crossed the wires: \n \n 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. \n \n 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. \n \n 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.\" \n \n He listed other red flags: \n \n This gentlemen is illiterate; \n \n There's no proof of birth dating to the original time of birth; \n \n There's no documentation for this man's age until he applied for a pension (giving him a financial incentive for age exaggeration); \n \n There's an alleged Baptismal Record (which, if it exists at all, could be for an entirely different person); \n \n There's no current ID; \n \n He can still walk at age \"123\" yo; \n \n His oldest child is 67 (that's a huge generation gap). \n \n Then, researchers went on the Internet. \n \n \"There was,\" Coles said, \"to our surprise, a baptismal certificate, which I'm holding in my hand right now.\" \n \n I asked, \"Was he born in 1890, like they said?\" \n \n \"Not at all,\" Coles responded. \"Not 1890, but 1906.\" \n \n 107 is nothing to sneeze at, but we'll check back with Carmelo Flores Laura in 16 years. \n \n The oldest person in history remains a Frenchwoman, Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122.", "summary": "\u2013 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\u2014or spoonful\u2014of 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\u2014which 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\u2014that's a pretty significant generation gap. This supercentenarian male, however, has had his impressive age verified."}
{"document": "The word \u201cshithole\u201d was projected onto President Trump Donald John TrumpStone: 'I\u2019ve never had any discussion' with Trump about a pardon White House: Trump will move forward on wall 'with or without' Dems Pelosi after Stone indictment: 'What does Putin have on the president'? MORE\u2019s D.C. hotel Saturday. \n \n Video shows the word, along with the poop emoji, being projected onto the property. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n \u201cPay Trump bribes here,\u201d \u201cemoluments welcome\u201d and \u201cwe are all responsible to stand up and end white supremacy\u201d were also projected onto the building. \n \n Trump has faced intense backlash for calling Haiti, El Salvador and African nations \u201cshithole countries\u201d during an Oval Office meeting on immigration this week. \n \n \u201cWhy are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?\u201d Trump reportedly said, before suggesting that the U.S. bring in more immigrants from countries like Norway. \n \n The White House initially did not deny that Trump made the remarks, but Trump later disputed the reports on Twitter. \n \n Lawmakers, media figures and world leaders have all decried Trump\u2019s comments. The African Union, representing all 55 African countries, demanded Saturday that Trump apologize for the remarks. ||||| The expletive President Trump used last week in a discussion about immigration in the Oval Office and other slogans were projected Saturday night onto an outer wall of the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. \n \n Video footage posted on Twitter shows the word \"SHITHOLE\" and poop emoji projected on the wall of the hotel. An arrow, also apparently projected on the building, points to the arched doorway. \n \n The pictures appear on the Twitter feed of Robin Bell, who has previously projected wording critical of the president onto the hotel. \n \n He has become known as a kind of projectionist provocateur and something of a \"hit-and-run editorial writer,\" as David Montgomery described him last year in The Washington Post. \n \n The president, in a discussion last week on immigration policy, used \"shithole\" to refer to certain countries from which large-scale immigration was undesirable, according to people present at the meeting. \n \n The Washington Post saw the posted photographs but did not actually see the words at the time they were projected. Bell said he had focused his projector onto the building for about 40 minutes. He was interviewed afterward. ||||| A screen grab of video posted on Twitter showing the word \u201cSHITHOLE\u201d projected onto the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on January 14, 2017. Twitter.com/bellvisuals \n \n The word of the week in Washington got a full-blown public display on Saturday night as an artist projected it on the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Video footage shows that an artist projected the word \u201cSHITHOLE\u201d surrounded by a stream of animated poop emojis onto the wall of the hotel. The projection ended a week in which uttering the word \u201cshithole\u201d in public suddenly became common after President Trump reportedly used it in a meeting. \n \n The video posted on Twitter shows the sequence of phrases that were projected onto the front steps of the hotel: \u201cNot a D.C. resident?\u201d / \u201cNeed a place to stay?\u201d / \u201cTry our shithole\u201d / \u201cThis place is a shithole.\u201d And then the one word\u2014\u201cSHITHOLE\u201d\u2014in capital letters was projected surrounded by poop emojis. Later in the projection, the artist issues a stark warning: \u201cThe president is distracting us from politics that are harming us\u201d / \u201cStay vigilant.\u201d The video ends with the projection: \u201cPay Trump bribes here\u201d with an arrow pointing to the entrance of the hotel. \n \n The projection is the work of Robin Bell, who posted it on his Twitter account. This is not the first time Bell has made politically charged projections onto Trump\u2019s hotel in Washington. He had already displayed the \u201cPay Trump bribes here\u201d message before, for example. Bell has also gone beyond the hotel, projecting #SessionsMustGo and \u201cI thought the KKK was OK until I learned that they smoked pot\u201donto the Department of Justice building. \n \n In a long profile of Bell last year, the Washington Post\u2019s David Montgomery described him as a \u201chit-and-run editorial writer.\u201d At the time, Montgomery noted that \u201cBell\u2019s projections now come regularly enough that during especially volatile news cycles, it\u2019s like sensing mayhem in Gotham and looking out for a bat signal.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 President Trump's controversial pet phrase came home to roost in a way on Saturday night, when someone projected \"SHITHOLE\" onto the front of Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. Per Slate, the display went thusly: \"Not a D.C. resident?/Need a place to stay?/Try our shithole/This place is a shithole.\" That was followed by \"SHITHOLE\" over the entrance, combined with poop emojis. The projection appears to be the work of Robin Bell, reports the Washington Post, who has pulled similar anti-Trump stunts in the past. Footage of the projection appeared on Bell's Twitter feed; he told the Post that it was up for about 40 minutes Saturday night. (You can see it here.) In further fallout on Saturday, the Hill notes that the entire 55-nation African Union demanded Trump apologize."}
{"document": "But he suggested that he sees his role in addressing domestic issues as dominant, saying that it would be difficult to get the economy rolling again but that doing so was \u201cour central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president.\u201d \n \n With his party facing the prospect of losing control of Congress in this fall\u2019s elections and his own poll numbers depressed in large part because of the lackluster economy and still-high unemployment, he said the nation\u2019s perseverance in Iraq must be matched by determination to address problems at home. \n \n Over the last decade, \u201cwe have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy and grit and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad.\u201d \n \n Mr. Obama acknowledged a war fatigue among Americans who have called into question his focus on the Afghanistan war, now approaching its 10th year. He said that American forces in Afghanistan \u201cwill be in place for a limited time\u201d to give Afghans the chance to build their government and armed forces. \n \n \u201cBut, as was the case in Iraq, we cannot do for Afghans what they must ultimately do for themselves,\u201d the president said. He reiterated that next July he would begin transferring responsibility for security to Afghans, at a pace to be determined by conditions. \n \n \u201cBut make no mistake: this transition will begin, because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people\u2019s,\u201d he said. \n \n This was no iconic end-of-war moment with photos of soldiers kissing nurses in Times Square or victory parades down America\u2019s Main Streets. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Instead, in the days leading to the Tuesday night deadline for the withdrawal of American combat troops, it has appeared as if administration officials and the American military were the only ones marking the end of this country\u2019s combat foray into Iraq. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are all in Baghdad for the official ceremony on Wednesday. \n \n The very sight of Mr. Obama addressing Americans from the Oval Office \u2014 from the same desk where Mr. Bush announced the beginning of the conflict \u2014 shows the distance traveled since the Iraq war began. On the night of March 20, 2003, when the Army\u2019s Third Infantry Division first rolled over the border from Kuwait into Iraq, Mr. Obama was a state senator in Illinois. \n \n Mr. Bush was at the height of his popularity, and the perception at home and in many places abroad was that America could achieve its national security goals primarily through military power. One of the biggest fears among the American troops in the convoy pouring into Iraq that night \u2014 every one of them suited in gas masks and wearing biohazard suits \u2014 was that the man they came to topple might unleash a chemical weapons attack. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Seven years and five months later, the biggest fears of American soldiers revolve around the primitive, basic, homemade bombs and old explosives in Afghanistan that were left over from the Soviet invasion. In Iraq, what was perceived as a threat from a powerful dictator, Saddam Hussein, has dissolved into the worry that as United States troops pull out they are leaving behind an unstable and weak government that could be influenced by Iran. \n \n On Tuesday, a senior intelligence official said that Iran continues to supply militant groups in Iraq with weapons, training and equipment. \n \n \u201cMuch has changed since that night,\u201d when Mr. Bush announced the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama said. \u201cA war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives; tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested.\u201d \n \n The withdrawal of combat forces represents a significant milestone after the war that toppled Mr. Hussein, touched off waves of sectarian strife and claimed the lives of more than 4,400 American soldiers and more than 70,000 Iraqis, according to United States and Iraqi government figures. \n \n \u201cOperation Iraqi Freedom is over,\u201d Mr. Obama said, using the military name for the mission, \u201cand the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.\u201d \n \n As Mr. Obama prepared to observe the end of one phase of the war, he called Mr. Bush from Air Force One, as he was en route to Fort Bliss in Texas to meet with American troops home from Iraq. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n The two spoke \u201cjust for a few moments,\u201d Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told reporters aboard the plane, declining to give any additional details. \n \n American troops reached Mr. Obama\u2019s goal for the drawdown early \u2014 last week Gen. Ray Odierno, the American commander in Iraq, said that the number of troops had dropped to 49,700, roughly the number that would stay through next summer. \n \n That is less than a third of the number of troops in Iraq during the surge in 2007. Under an agreement between Iraq and the United States, the remaining troops are to leave by the end of 2011, though some Iraqi and American officials say they think that the agreement may be renegotiated to allow for a longer American military presence. \n \n The remaining \u201cadvise and assist\u201d brigades will officially concentrate on supporting and training Iraqi security forces, protecting American personnel and facilities, and mounting counterterrorism operations. \n \n Still, as Mr. Obama himself acknowledged Tuesday, the milestone came with all of the ambiguity and messiness that accompanied the war itself. \n \n A political impasse, in place since March elections, has left Iraq without a permanent government just as the government in Baghdad was supposed to be asserting more control. \n \n Republican critics of the president were quick to point out Tuesday that Mr. Obama opposed the troop surge that they credit for decreased violence in Iraq. \n \n \u201cSome leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results,\u201d Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, told veterans at the national convention of the American Legion in Milwaukee. ||||| The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given. They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people. Together with Iraqis and coalition partners who made huge sacrifices of their own, our troops fought block by block to help Iraq seize the chance for a better future. They shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people; trained Iraqi security forces; and took out terrorist leaders. Because of our troops and civilians \u2014 and because of the resilience of the Iraqi people \u2014 Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny, even though many challenges remain. \n \n So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country. \n \n This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq\u2019s security forces and support its government and people. That is what we have done. We have removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We have closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis. And we have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq. \n \n This completes a transition to Iraqi responsibility for their own security. U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq\u2019s cities last summer, and Iraqi forces have moved into the lead with considerable skill and commitment to their fellow citizens. Even as Iraq continues to suffer terrorist attacks, security incidents have been near the lowest on record since the war began. And Iraqi forces have taken the fight to Al Qaeda, removing much of its leadership in Iraqi-led operations. \n \n This year also saw Iraq hold credible elections that drew a strong turnout. A caretaker administration is in place as Iraqis form a government based on the results of that election. Tonight, I encourage Iraq\u2019s leaders to move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative, and accountable to the Iraqi people. And when that government is in place, there should be no doubt: the Iraqi people will have a strong partner in the United States. Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq\u2019s future is not. \n \n Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq\u2019s security forces; supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counterterrorism missions; and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year. As our military draws down, our dedicated civilians \u2014 diplomats, aid workers, and advisers \u2014 are moving into the lead to support Iraq as it strengthens its government, resolves political disputes, resettles those displaced by war, and builds ties with the region and the world. And that is a message that Vice President Biden is delivering to the Iraqi people through his visit there today. \n \n This new approach reflects our long-term partnership with Iraq \u2014 one based upon mutual interests, and mutual respect. Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission. Extremists will continue to set off bombs, attack Iraqi civilians and try to spark sectarian strife. But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals. Iraqis are a proud people. They have rejected sectarian war, and they have no interest in endless destruction. They understand that, in the end, only Iraqis can resolve their differences and police their streets. Only Iraqis can build a democracy within their borders. What America can do, and will do, is provide support for the Iraqi people as both a friend and a partner. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Ending this war is not only in Iraq\u2019s interest \u2014 it is in our own. The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people. We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home. We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people \u2014 a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page. \n \n As we do, I am mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home. Here, too, it is time to turn the page. This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It\u2019s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush\u2019s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq\u2019s future. \n \n The greatness of our democracy is grounded in our ability to move beyond our differences, and to learn from our experience as we confront the many challenges ahead. And no challenge is more essential to our security than our fight against Al Qaeda. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Americans across the political spectrum supported the use of force against those who attacked us on 9/11. Now, as we approach our 10th year of combat in Afghanistan, there are those who are understandably asking tough questions about our mission there. But we must never lose sight of what\u2019s at stake. As we speak, Al Qaeda continues to plot against us, and its leadership remains anchored in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists. And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense. In fact, over the last 19 months, nearly a dozen Al Qaeda leaders \u2014 and hundreds of Al Qaeda\u2019s extremist allies \u2014 have been killed or captured around the world. \n \n Within Afghanistan, I have ordered the deployment of additional troops who \u2014 under the command of General David Petraeus \u2014 are fighting to break the Taliban\u2019s momentum. As with the surge in Iraq, these forces will be in place for a limited time to provide space for the Afghans to build their capacity and secure their own future. But, as was the case in Iraq, we cannot do for Afghans what they must ultimately do for themselves. That\u2019s why we are training Afghan security forces and supporting a political resolution to Afghanistan\u2019s problems. And, next July, we will begin a transition to Afghan responsibility. The pace of our troop reductions will be determined by conditions on the ground, and our support for Afghanistan will endure. But make no mistake: this transition will begin \u2014 because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people\u2019s. \n \n Indeed, one of the lessons of our effort in Iraq is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone. We must use all elements of our power \u2014 including our diplomacy, our economic strength, and the power of America\u2019s example \u2014 to secure our interests and stand by our allies. And we must project a vision of the future that is based not just on our fears, but also on our hopes \u2014 a vision that recognizes the real dangers that exist around the world, but also the limitless possibility of our time. \n \n Today, old adversaries are at peace, and emerging democracies are potential partners. New markets for our goods stretch from Asia to the Americas. A new push for peace in the Middle East will begin here tomorrow. Billions of young people want to move beyond the shackles of poverty and conflict. As the leader of the free world, America will do more than just defeat on the battlefield those who offer hatred and destruction \u2014 we will also lead among those who are willing to work together to expand freedom and opportunity for all people. \n \n That effort must begin within our own borders. Throughout our history, America has been willing to bear the burden of promoting liberty and human dignity overseas, understanding its link to our own liberty and security. But we have also understood that our nation\u2019s strength and influence abroad must be firmly anchored in our prosperity at home. And the bedrock of that prosperity must be a growing middle class. \n \n Unfortunately, over the last decade, we have not done what is necessary to shore up the foundation of our own prosperity. We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has shortchanged investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation\u2019s long-term competitiveness is put at risk. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n And so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad. They have met every test that they faced. Now, it is our turn. Now, it is our responsibility to honor them by coming together, all of us, and working to secure the dream that so many generations have fought for \u2014 the dream that a better life awaits anyone who is willing to work for it and reach for it. \n \n Our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jump-start industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president. \n \n Part of that responsibility is making sure that we honor our commitments to those who have served our country with such valor. As long as I am president, we will maintain the finest fighting force that the world has ever known, and do whatever it takes to serve our veterans as well as they have served us. This is a sacred trust. That is why we have already made one of the largest increases in funding for veterans in decades. We are treating the signature wounds of today\u2019s wars post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, while providing the health care and benefits that all of our veterans have earned. And we are funding a post-9/11 G.I. bill that helps our veterans and their families pursue the dream of a college education. Just as the G.I. Bill helped those who fought World War II \u2014 including my grandfather \u2014 become the backbone of our middle class, so today\u2019s servicemen and women must have the chance to apply their gifts to expand the American economy. Because part of ending a war responsibly is standing by those who have fought it. \n \n Two weeks ago, America\u2019s final combat brigade in Iraq \u2014 the Army\u2019s Fourth Stryker Brigade \u2014 journeyed home in the predawn darkness. Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles made the trip from Baghdad, the last of them passing into Kuwait in the early morning hours. Over seven years before, American troops and coalition partners had fought their way across similar highways, but this time no shots were fired. It was just a convoy of brave Americans, making their way home. \n \n Of course, the soldiers left much behind. Some were teenagers when the war began. Many have served multiple tours of duty, far from their families who bore a heroic burden of their own, enduring the absence of a husband\u2019s embrace or a mother\u2019s kiss. Most painfully, since the war began 55 members of the Fourth Stryker Brigade made the ultimate sacrifice \u2014 part of over 4,400 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq. As one staff sergeant said, \u201cI know that to my brothers in arms who fought and died, this day would probably mean a lot.\u201d \n \n Those Americans gave their lives for the values that have lived in the hearts of our people for over two centuries. Along with nearly 1.5 million Americans who have served in Iraq, they fought in a faraway place for people they never knew. They stared into the darkest of human creations \u2014 war \u2014 and helped the Iraqi people seek the light of peace. \n \n In an age without surrender ceremonies, we must earn victory through the success of our partners and the strength of our own nation. Every American who serves joins an unbroken line of heroes that stretches from Lexington to Gettysburg; from Iwo Jima to Inchon; from Khe Sanh to Kandahar \u2014 Americans who have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own. Our troops are the steel in our ship of state. And though our nation may be travelling through rough waters, they give us confidence that our course is true, and that beyond the predawn darkness, better days lie ahead. \n \n Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America, and all who serve her.", "summary": "\u2013 President Obama stuck to the script tonight in declaring the end of the 7-year US military operation in Iraq. \"Our combat mission is ending,\" he said. \"Our commitment to Iraq's future is not.\" But Obama also acknowledged George W. Bush's stewardship of the war, along with his own personal opposition to it as an Illinois senator. \"It\u2019s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset,\" he said. \"Yet no one could doubt President Bush\u2019s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.\" (He made no mention of the troop surge ordered by Bush.) Obama said \"there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it, and all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq\u2019s future.\" As expected, he later pivoted from the war to the economy, calling its restoration \"our most urgent task.\" (More details in the New York Times, which also has the full text here. For excerpts, click here. To read about Obama's speech earlier in the day to troops at Fort Bliss, click here.)"}
{"document": "When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page. ||||| Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox.", "summary": "\u2013 Ray Demers has been at the same hobby for half a century: learning all he can about shipwrecks he discovered in New Hampshire waters in the 1960s. The 73-year-old is now coming forward with what he believes to be the story of the ships, and it's a tale of Native Americans battling Colonists\u2014on the water. Demers' own story begins with some dropped air tanks. He accidentally lost them in the water during a dive off Salamander Point in New Castle (it's near Portsmouth, and just south of the Maine border) decades ago, and when he dove to retrieve them some 16 feet below the surface, he came across two cannons. \"I put my hand on one of them and I said, 'Ray, you are going to spend the rest of your life studying this site' ... and, you know what?\" he tells Foster's Daily Democrat. \"I did.\" Though not a trained archaeologist, he tried to approach the scene as a professional would, with great care to avoid contamination. Using the cannons as a starting point, he discovered a shipwreck about 75 feet away, then a second wreck in deeper water. He also found a number of artifacts, including an onion bottle whose seal featured the name of W. Darracott and the date 1723, reports the Union Leader. By relying on a 1959 book, input from Colonial Willamsburg's then-chief archaeologist, and the name Darracott, Demers was led to George Jackson and Sylvester Lakeman, men he believes commanded privateers and attempted to \"engage\" Native Americans who had themselves seized hold of a privateer and were attacking fishing ships in the area. The \"unique naval engagement ... could have resulted in the Salamander Point wrecks,\" notes Foster's. (Another shipwreck was recently uncovered in Upstate New York.)"}
{"document": "SANAA Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told a huge rally of supporters on Friday that he would sacrifice everything for his country, suggesting he has no plans to step down yet. \n \n Weeks of protests across Yemen have brought Saleh's 32-year rule to the verge of collapse but the United States and neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia, an important financial backer, are worried about who might succeed him in a country where al Qaeda militants flourish. \n \n Tens of thousands, both for and against Saleh, took to the streets of the capital Sanaa, as negotiators struggle to revive talks to decide his fate. \n \n \"I swear to you I will sacrifice blood and soul and everything precious for the sake of this great people,\" he told supporters shouting \"the people want Ali Abdullah Saleh.\" \n \n Saleh has lost support from tribal, military and political backers. Protests on Friday reached the thousands in provincial capitals from Taiz, 200 km (125 miles) south of Sanaa, to the southern port city of Aden, once capital of an independent south before Saleh united it with the north. \n \n \"Saleh is going down with the ship,\" said Theodore Karasik, security analyst at the Dubai-based INEGMA group. \"The only way he'll let himself get dislodged is if he loses even more supporters from his inner circle. \n \n \"It seems like he's not ready to go. He's making statements saying he's going to do what's best for Yemen but really this is Saleh trying to do what's best for Saleh.\" \n \n Helicopters buzzed over protests in Sanaa. \n \n \"Out traitor, the Yemeni people are in revolt. We, the army and the police are united under oppression,\" the crowds of anti-Saleh protesters shouted outside Sanaa University. \n \n One cleric said during morning prayers at the rally: \"I say to you, Saleh, while you sit terrified in your palace, that the people are on to your tricks... You (protesters) represent the oppressed, the poor and the imprisoned.\" \n \n Tensions were high as equally large crowds came out in a show of support for Saleh in Sabyeen Square. That protest ended quietly as anti-Saleh protesters continued their sit-in near the university. Hundreds of security forces deployed at checkpoints across the city as tanks rolled through the streets. \n \n Anti-Saleh protesters named the day a \"Friday of enough\" while loyalists branded it a \"Friday of brotherhood.\" \n \n \"We send a message from the Yemeni majority to them (the opposition) and the whole world ... of our support for the nation and for our leader,\" former prime minister Ali Mohammed Megawar said at the pro-Saleh rally. \n \n TALKS STALLED \n \n Some Sanaa residents said they were paid to join protests. Government officials denied the ruling party had given any money to demonstrators, calling it an attempt by the opposition to diminish the significance of the large crowds they had drawn. \n \n Saleh is looking to stay on as president while new parliamentary and presidential elections are organized by the end of the year, an opposition source told Reuters on Tuesday. \n \n Talks over his exit have stalled and Saudi authorities have deflected Yemeni government efforts to involve them in mediation. \n \n Protesters camped outside Sanaa University since early February insist that Saleh, who has said he will not run for re-election when his term ends in 2013, should step down now. \n \n Rallies ended peacefully on Friday, but they could spiral into violence in the turbulent Arabian Peninsula state. Over half the 23 million population own a gun. Some 82 people have been killed so far, including 52 shot by snipers on March 18. \n \n Rows can often turn to bloodshed, from tribal clashes over dwindling water resources to army skirmishes with separatist militants in the south. \n \n On Friday, armed tribesmen kidnapped two soldiers and wounded another in the southern town of Lawdar. Residents said the tribesmen took the hostages to win concessions from the government after the army killed 5 fellow tribesmen and claimed they were from al Qaeda -- charges the tribe said were false. \n \n Washington has long regarded Saleh as a bulwark of stability who can keep al Qaeda from extending its foothold in Yemen, a country which many see as close to disintegration. \n \n Saleh has talked of civil war if he steps down without ensuring power passes to \"safe hands\" and has warned against a coup after senior generals turned against him in the past week. \n \n Opposition parties say they can handle the militant issue better than Saleh, who they say has made deals with militants in the past to avoid provoking Yemen's Islamists. \n \n (Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden, Writing by Erika Solomon and Nick Macfie; Editing by Janet Lawrence) ||||| Many thousands turn out for Yemen protests \n \n Huge rival demonstrations were held in the Yemeni capital \n \n Continue reading the main story Related Stories \n \n Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Yemen again as the country's political crisis deepens. \n \n In the capital, Sanaa, two rival demonstrations are being held - in support of and against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. \n \n Representatives from the government and the opposition are reported to have met and agreed to avoid confrontation. \n \n Protests in recent weeks have brought President Saleh's 32-year rule to the verge of collapse. \n \n He is under increasing pressure both at home and from abroad to resign immediately. \n \n The UK Foreign Office has urged Britons to leave Yemen as soon as possible, and warned of a \"high possibility of violent demonstrations\" on Friday. \n \n Transfer of power \n \n A BBC correspondent in Sanaa says tens of thousands of demonstrators marching in two different directions in the capital this morning. \n \n President Saleh has offered to step down in 2012, but the opposition wants him to go now \n \n The opposition said it would get one million people on to the streets. \n \n Anti-government protesters gathered in the renamed \"Change Square\" near the university. \n \n Supporters of the president congregated in the city's Tahrir Square some 2km (1.2 miles) away. \n \n Mr Saleh addressed supporters, thanking them. \n \n \"I pledge to sacrifice myself for the people, with my blood and with everything I hold dear,\" Mr Saleh said. \n \n Reports say that the crowds started to disperse without incident. \n \n Our correspondent says only a political deal between the government and opposition will resolve this crisis, but for now all talks have stalled and neither side is willing to back down. \n \n President Saleh has agreed to resign by January 2012, but the opposition is calling for his immediate departure. \n \n Western diplomats in Sanaa say they are pushing for a transfer of power, our correspondent reports. \n \n For many years an ally of the West, President Saleh was seen as vital in the war against terror and for tackling al-Qaeda in the country. Mr Saleh says that without him al-Qaeda could still take over Yemen. \n \n But, increasingly, many people both at home and abroad are viewing him as the main source of instability, our correspondent adds.", "summary": "\u2013 A pair of opposing demonstrations\u2014one supporting the president, one calling for his resignation\u2014brought tens of thousands to the streets today in Yemen. The demonstrations took place in squares about a mile apart. Government and opposition leaders reportedly met in advance, agreeing to prevent confrontation. Though the UK Foreign Office warned of a \u201chigh possibility\u201d of violence, crowds have started to disperse peacefully, the BBC reports. In Tahrir Square, President Ali Abdullah Saleh told supporters that he pledged \u201cto sacrifice myself for the people, with my blood and with everything I hold dear.\u201d Saleh had initially offered to step down by 2012, but it now appears he's intent on \"going down with the ship,\" an analyst tells Reuters. \"The only way he'll let himself get dislodged is if he loses even more supporters from his inner circle.\""}
{"document": "Correction appended Sept. 27, 2016 \n \n Dogs don\u2019t wear pants \u2014 and it\u2019s hard to know how things would work out if they tried. But one thing is clear: if dogs did wear pants, they would use either a belt or suspenders, but definitely not both. \n \n That, in some ways, puts them ahead of us. According to a new study, both domesticated dogs and one species of wild dog do a better job than human beings and chimpanzees of ignoring bad instructions and eliminating unnecessary steps when trying to solve a problem. It\u2019s a difference that says a lot about the social order of all of the species. \n \n The study, published in the journal Developmental Science and led by Angie Johnston and Paul Holden of the Yale University Canine Cognition Center, was designed to explore the learning behavior known straightforwardly as overimitation, a feature of our own species far more than any other. When an adult teaches a small child how to, say, solve a puzzle or operate a device like a television, the child will faithfully perform all of the steps nearly all of the time, even when repeated trials plainly show that some of those steps are unnecessary. A landmark 2005 study involving both young chimpanzees and 3- to 4-year-old children revealed that both sets of subjects will go through as many as five steps \u2014 some ultimately proving to be unnecessary \u2014 to retrieve a reward from a box, with the humans actually performing less well than the chimps at eventually skipping the irrelevant ones. \n \n Dogs would need a great deal of training to solve a five-step puzzle, if they ever mastered it at all. For that reason, the Yale researchers decided to keep things simple, presenting both domesticated dogs and wild dingoes with a plastic box that had both a lever on the side and a lid. The box contained a treat and the experimenters first demonstrated to the animals how to move the lever and then lift the lid to get at the reward. The lever, however, was useless and the lid could be opened without it. In some cases the puzzle was made of transparent plastic, revealing both the contents and the box\u2019s internal workings; in other cases it was opaque. \n \n As is the case with all dog studies, not every subject was quite up to completing the experiment. \u201cOne trial was excluded from analysis for puzzle error (the dog flipped the entire puzzle over),\u201d the researchers wrote. Most of them, however, did get all the way to the end, and the results were both impressive and, for humans, a little humbling. After watching the box being demonstrated, up to 75% of the dogs and dingoes correctly learned and imitated the two-step process to get the treat. It took just four trials, however, for a significant number of them to learn to skip the useless lever, with 59% of the dogs and only 42% of the dingoes continuing to use it. \n \n The appearance of the box \u2014 clear or transparent \u2014 made no difference at all to the dogs. The dingoes \u2014 for reasons that were uncertain \u2014 actually did a better job of catching wise to the uselessness of the lever when they couldn\u2019t see through the box than when they could. \n \n If dogs are more efficient learners than humans, it hardly needs to be said that they are not better learners, and for a species with as elaborate a social system as ours, efficiency in learning is not necessarily a good thing. Johnston points out, for example, that children quickly learn that washing their hands before dinner and brushing their teeth after are not necessary to achieving their focal goal \u2014 eating \u2014 but their parents insist on it and so they comply. More subtly, once kids are out in the world there are uncountable social conventions \u2014 shaking hands, saying \u201cplease,\u201d holding a door for the person behind you \u2014 that may be irrelevant to getting immediate needs satisfied but are essential to the maintenance of social order. \n \n \u201cAlthough the tendency to copy irrelevant actions may seem silly at first,\u201d said Johnston in a statement accompanying the paper\u2019s release, \u201cit becomes less silly when you consider all of the important but seemingly irrelevant actions that children are successfully able to learn.\u201d From that kind of learning, a complex culture follows. \n \n Correction: The original version of this story misstated the journal in which the study appeared. It is Developmental Science. ||||| Photo: Li Kim Goh/Getty Images \n \n When my brother and I were younger, one of our favorite winter activities was to go outside with the family dog, make a bunch of snowballs, throw them somewhere in the distance, and then cackle our sadistic little hearts out as the dog ran around trying to find snowballs on the snowy ground. What can I say? Kids are jerks sometimes. To his credit, at least, the dog always got bored of the whole thing pretty quickly. \n \n Which, as a matter of fact, speaks to one of science\u2019s newest findings about our canine pals: They have no patience for your human nonsense. Specifically, a study recently published in the journal Developmental Science found that when you give a dog bad directions, it\u2019ll learn pretty quickly to ignore them. \n \n For the study, which recruited 40 pet dogs of varying breeds, psychologists from Yale\u2019s Canine Cognition Center placed a treat inside a puzzle, then demonstrated to their subjects how to get it out. In reality, the puzzle was just one step \u2014 all the dogs had to do was lift the lid of a box \u2014 but the researchers added an extra, unnecessary action to their demo, pushing a lever attached to the box that didn\u2019t actually do anything. To make sure the dogs were really trying to solve the task in front of them, rather than following a perceived command, the study authors then left the room and left the animals to their own devices. \n \n The dogs, who each went a couple rounds with the puzzle, proved adept at figuring out not only what they needed to do, but also what they didn\u2019t: As the experiment progressed, they began disregarding the lever, going straight for the step that would get them their treat. \n \n The study offers an interesting insight into dog cognition in its own right, but it also has another layer: The authors based their study on a similar one from 2005 that focused on children instead of dogs \u2014 and compared to the dogs, the kids weren\u2019t nearly so savvy. Their puzzle was more complicated, but they tended to repeat the experimenters\u2019 actions step for step each time, without ever pausing to think through or weed out the irrelevant ones. It\u2019s a tendency the authors of this latest study refer to as \u201coverimitation,\u201d writing: \u201cThis pattern of results suggests that overimitation may be a unique feature of human social learning,\u201d possibly because by uncritically copying what they see, \u201cchildren generally limit the amount of time they need to spend learning through repeated trial and error.\u201d \n \n Or, as lead study author Angie Johnston put it in a statement: \u201cConsider all the important, but seemingly irrelevant, actions that children are successfully able to learn, such as washing their hands and brushing their teeth.\u201d To a little kid who doesn\u2019t yet understand hygiene, those things don\u2019t make much sense \u2014 but you learn to do them anyway, and the reasoning comes later. Dogs, on the other hand, don\u2019t stay so trusting. ||||| desc12460-sup-0001-SupInfo.docxWord document, 42.9 KB \n \n Figure S1. Proportion of dogs (Figure a) and dingoes (Figure b) using the lever without solving the puzzle (leftmost bar), using the lever and solving the puzzle (middle bar), solving the puzzle without using the lever (rightmost bar) on each trial. Figure S2. Proportion of dogs and dingoes that used the irrelevant lever across trials in Experiment 1. Error bars indicate standard error. Figure S3. Proportion of dogs and dingoes solving the puzzle on opaque and transparent puzzle trials in Experiment 1. Error bars indicate standard error. Figure S4. Latency to solve the puzzle (in seconds) for dogs and dingoes across trials in Experiment 1. Error bars indicate standard error. Figure S5. Proportion of dingoes solving the puzzle across trials 1 and 2 in Experiments 1 and 3. Error bars indicate standard error. Table S1. List of animals, indicating species, owner\u2010reported breed, sex (Male/Female), age (in years), and the experiment(s) in which each subject's data was included. Dogs listed as \u201cExperiments 1 & 2\u201d only participated in Experiment 1, but their data was used as a comparison for dogs that participated in Experiment 2. Dingoes listed as \u201cExperiments 1 & 3\u201d participated in both experiments, with an 8\u2010month break in between experiments. Table S2. Estimate (\u00b1SE) of fixed effects in generalized linear and linear mixed models predicting subjects\u2019 lever use, solve outcome, and solve latency in Experiments 1\u20103. Baselines were set as follows: species = dingo; experiment = Experiment 1; box style = opaque. Table also shows goodness\u2010of\u2010fit statistics.", "summary": "\u2013 Dogs might be better than humans at ignoring bad advice, suggests a new study out of Yale. In the experiment, researchers trained dogs to get a treat out of a box by moving a lever and then lifting the lid. Then they left the dogs on their own, and a significant number of them soon figured out the truth: There was no need to move that lever; they merely needed to lift the lid and get their treat. That's interesting in and of itself, notes a post at New York, but it's far more interesting when contrasted with a similar experiment conducted several years ago with kids. In that one, the human subjects went right on pulling that lever, because they had been instructed to do so. \u201cHumans often fall prey to the bad advice of others,\u201d says lead author Laurie Santos of Yale's Canine Cognition Center in a release. \u201cChildren tend to copy all of a teacher\u2019s actions, regardless of whether they are necessary or not.\u201d The dogs, however, were all about ruthless efficiency. Don't be too hard on the humans, though: The researchers behind the study in Development Science say it's vital kids follow seemingly useless commands. As Time explains, \"for a species with as elaborate a social system as ours, efficiency in learning is not necessarily a good thing.\" For instance, a child who learns to wash his hands before eating is delaying his meal, but for good reason. (Dogs seem to be clued in to false praise as well.)"}
{"document": "Weekly syndication ratings roundup \n \n The Queen of Court posts an 8.6 in the week ending Feb. 9. Among the talkers, Dr. Phil, Live with Kelly and Michael, Wendy Williams and Trisha show improvement from the previous week. \n \n TVNewsCheck , February 19, 2014 1:18 PM EST \n \n The top two talk shows \u2014 Dr. Phil and Live with Kelly and Michael \u2014 soared to multi-year ratings records in the first full week of the February sweep. \n \n However, only two other talkers were able to improve from the week before, in the session ending Feb. 9: Wendy Williams, which added 6% to a 1.7 and gained 31% from last year, and Trisha, which scored a new series high and surged 40% from last year. \n \n Story continues after the ad \n \n Talk leader Dr. Phil posted its highest in five years, climbing 5% from the previous week and 24% from last year at this time to a first-place 4.1. Phil was also No. 1 among women 25-54 by a significant margin. \n \n Live with Kelly and Michael, which has been the No. 2 talker this season, clocked its best ratings since the week of Nov. 14, 2011, growing 6% week to week and 29% from last year. \n \n On the other hand, 14 talk shows were flat or down from the prior week as PUT levels declined and many viewers began to focus on the Winter Olympics, which began in primetime on Feb. 6. However, Maury hit a new season high among women 25-54 and Steve Harvey improved 31% from last year. \n \n Elsewhere in daytime, court show standout Judge Judy dominated the entire syndicated ratings chart for the 22nd time in the past 24 weeks, zooming to its biggest rating in 11 years, an 8.6, which was a 15% increase over the same week last year. \n \n Brand Connections \n \n In access, almost all the top magazine shows maintained their season-high ratings from the prior session, due in part to viewer interest in the sudden death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. \n \n Shows moving up from last year at this time included leader Entertainment Tonight, which gained 2% from last year; Inside Edition, which rose 3% year to year to a new season high; Access Hollywood, which advanced 11% to a new season high; Extra, which ballooned 19% from last year; and Dish Nation, which grew 10% from a year ago. \n \n In off-net syndication, freshmen sitcom leader Modern Family set a new high in households with a 5.2, jumping 2% from the week before. \n \n Among shows not yet nationally cleared, Access Hollywood Live averaged a 0.9 rating/3 share in 15 metered markets, up 13% from February 2013. \n \n The week\u2019s top nationally rated daytime talk shows in the women 25-54 demo were: \n \n Dr. Phil (2.3, unchanged from the week before) \n \n Ellen (2.0, unchanged) \n \n Live with Kelly and Michael (1.9, unchanged) \n \n Maury (1.6, +7%) \n \n Dr. Oz (1.3, -13%), tied with Wendy Williams (1.3, unchanged) \n \n Steve Harvey (1.2, -14%) \n \n Steve Wilkos (1.1, unchanged) \n \n In the household rating rankings that follow, % change is from the previous week; * indicates a new season high rating; ** indicates a new season low; NC indicates no change from the previous week; NA mean not applicable. \n \n TALK SHOWS \n \n 1. Dr. Phil (CTD) 4.1* +5% \n \n 2. Live with Kelly and Michael (Disney-ABC) 3.6* +6% \n \n 3. Ellen (WBDTD) 3.3 NC \n \n 4. Dr. Oz (Sony) 2.4 NC \n \n 5. Maury (NBCU) 2.3 NC \n \n 6. Steve Harvey (NBCU) 2.1 -5% \n \n 7. Katie (Disney-ABC) 1.8 -5% \n \n 8. Rachael Ray (CTD) 1.7 NC \n \n 8. Wendy Williams (Debmar-Mercury) 1.7 +6% \n \n 10. Steve Wilkos (NBCU) 1.6 NC \n \n 11. Jerry Springer (NBCU) 1.4 NC \n \n 11. The Doctors (CTD) 1.4 NC \n \n 13. Queen Latifah (Sony) 1.2 -8% \n \n 14. Bethenny (WBDTD) 1.0 NC \n \n 15. Arsenio (CTD) 0.7 NC \n \n 15. The Test (CTD) 0.7 NC \n \n 15. Trisha (NBCU) 0.7* +17% \n \n 18. The Better Show (Meredith) 0.2 NC \n \n FRESHMEN TALKERS \n \n 1. Queen Latifah (Sony) 1.2 -8% \n \n 2. Bethenny (WBDTD) 1.0 NC \n \n 3. Arsenio (CTD) 0.7 NC \n \n 3. The Test (CTD) 0.7 NC \n \n COURT SHOWS \n \n 1. Judge Judy (CTD) 8.6* +5% \n \n 2. People\u2019s Court (WBDTD) 2.1 NC \n \n 3. Divorce Court (Twentieth) 1.8 -10% \n \n 3. Judge Alex (Twentieth) 1.8 NC \n \n 5. Judge Mathis (WBDTD) 1.7 -11% \n \n 6. Paternity Court (Orion Television) 1.2 NC \n \n MAGAZINE SHOWS \n \n 1. Entertainment Tonight (CTD) 4.1 NC \n \n 2. Inside Edition (CTD) 3.5* +9% \n \n 3. TMZ (WBDTD) 2.1 -5% \n \n 3. Access Hollywood (NBCU) 2.1* +5% \n \n 5. Extra (WBDTD) 1.8 NC \n \n 6. The Insider (CTD) 1.5 -6% \n \n 7. Right This Minute (MGM) 1.1 -15% \n \n 7. Dish Nation (Twentieth) 1.1 +10% \n \n 9. America Now (Trifecta) 0.4 -20% \n \n 10. OK! TV (Trifecta) 0.3 +50% \n \n GAME SHOWS \n \n 1. Wheel of Fortune (CTD) 7.6 -4% \n \n 2. Jeopardy (CTD) 7.3 +1% \n \n 3. Family Feud (Debmar-Mercury) 6.0 -5% \n \n 4. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Disney-ABC) 2.4 +9% \n \n OFF-NET SITCOMS \n \n 1. Big Bang Theory (WBDTD) 7.0* +1% \n \n 2. Modern Family (Twentieth) 5.2* +2% \n \n 3. Two and a Half Men (WBDTD) 4.0 -2% \n \n 4. Family Guy (Twentieth) 3.1 +3% \n \n 5. How I Met Your Mother (Twentieth) 2.3 NC \n \n 6. Friends (WBDTD) 1.9 -5% \n \n 6. The Cleveland Show (Twentieth) 1.9 NC \n \n 6. Seinfeld (Sony) 1.9 +6% \n \n 9. Rules of Engagement (Sony) 1.7 NC ||||| \u2022 \n \n Forget about Girls, Homeland, New Girl, Scandal, and The Mindy Project. Television has had a strong female lead for decades: Her name is Judith Sheindlin. \n \n Judge Judy premiered in 1996, and just got renewed through 2017. The show dominates daytime television, even edging out Oprah in reruns. While most television shows fight to hang onto viewership, Judge Judy\u2019s grows. President Obama, Anderson Cooper, and Katie Couric all want her audience, and most television actors would kill for her $47 million annual salary. \n \n Who makes up Sheindlin\u2019s much-coveted daytime audience? Older women, African Americans, and Latinos. You might think Judge Judy is most popular with those who feel most disenfranchised by our legal system, but it\u2019s hardly that simple. Part of the appeal is personal: her viewers\u2019 loyalty is rivaled only by her own, and they know it. When a former bailiff who knew Sheindlin from her time as a family court judge in Manhattan wrote to congratulate her on the show, he quipped, \u201cIf you ever need a bailiff, I still look good in uniform.\u201d She called as soon as she got the note, and he\u2019s been by her onscreen side since. But Americans\u2019 love of Judge Judy is more than personal: it\u2019s symbolic. \n \n \u201cConsider yourself having been reasonably humiliated in front of 10 million people. Now, without saying another word, turn around, and find the exit. Goodbye.\u201d \n \n Sheindlin\u2019s audience considers her a real-life kind of superhero: a no-nonsense, sassy arbiter of justice who punishes the guilty, scolds the swindlers, and defends the little guy. She does what we want the justice system to do for us. My grandmother delights in watching Judge Judy lay down the law once a day in a routine that pairs Sheindlin\u2019s acerbic commentary with Splenda-sweetened vanilla ice cream. It isn\u2019t just that the \u201cjudge\u201d delivers snappy one-liners: it\u2019s that she deals them out even-handedly. One cousin, a business professional, has a standing date to watch Judge Judy in the evening with her seven-year-old daughter. She tells me, \u201cWe like watching her figure out who\u2019s telling the truth by asking a lot of seemingly unrelated questions.\u201d I suspect her precocious daughter likes the idea that even adults can get in trouble. \n \n Judge Judy can be showy, but rarely gratuitously so, and she\u2019s smart\u2014and doesn\u2019t let anyone forget it. In a given case, Judge Judy might paraphrase Mark Twain (\u201cIf you tell the truth, you don\u2019t have to have a good memory; if you lie, you\u2019re always tripping over your own tie\u201d) or offer a common-sense connection to her own life (\u201cThe toilet broke while she was using it\u2014that doesn\u2019t mean that she broke it, and it doesn\u2019t mean that she\u2019s responsible for it! Toilets break\u2014I had one just break in my apartment last week!\u201d). Most satisfyingly, she tells it like it is: \u201cConsider yourself having been reasonably humiliated in front of 10 million people. Now, without saying another word, turn around, and find the exit. Goodbye.\u201d \n \n Sheindlin\u2019s persona is key to the show\u2019s success, but so are the cases themselves. Judge Judy chooses cases that resonate with her audience. The most pervasive forms of injustice affecting Americans rarely get investigated, much less prosecuted, by the state; they\u2019re \u201clittle\u201d things: a dented car door, an unreturned security deposit, or an unfair asset split after a bad break-up. Citizens can usually only take action by bringing suit in small claims courts, navigating the complicated court system on their own. These courts hear lawsuits for claims that fall under a certain dollar amount that varies by state, from $10,000 in California to $5,000 in North Carolina; plaintiffs and defendants usually represent themselves. \n \n A small claims court\u2019s decisions relate to daily life, more so than virtually any other court. For most of us, there\u2019s nothing \u201csmall\u201d about the types of problems that end up in such courts: $500 is a lot of money, never mind $5,000. These courts address commonplace questions of fairness: How can I be made whole again after someone has damaged my property or violated an agreement? When does a promise become legally binding? The answers these courts supply reflect upon our justice system writ large and the society behind it. \n \n Judge Judy employs 60 to 65 researchers to visit courthouses around the country, where, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, they can gain access to small claims filings. Promising candidates get sent back to the show\u2019s producers, who assess their appeal. Some of their criteria are drama-based, like one producer\u2019s affinity for disputes involving \u201cprior relationships\u201d (preferably \u201cboyfriend-girlfriend, mother-daughter, father-son, father-brother, sister-sister\u201d), but for the most part the show\u2019s producers look for relatable cases: unfair billing practices, corrupt landlords, petty vandalism, unpaid child support, and family loan sharks. Selected participants sign a waiver to appear on the show, agreeing that Judge Judy\u2019s decision is binding and they will not pursue the case elsewhere, and, in return, they receive a flat fee for making an appearance. \n \n That\u2019s where the fun begins. Defendants are announced by Sheindlin\u2019s trusty bailiff, then appear before her in a mock court room. Judge Judy asks a lot of questions, identifies factual disputes, and parses \u201cthe question of law,\u201d as a law professor would call it, for all to hear. Viewers who will never read a court transcript or slog through the lines of a judicial opinion get to hear a real-time approximation of judicial reasoning. \n \n Many Judge Judy cases, even the most outrageous, speak to the everyday injustices suffered by most Americans. Who hasn\u2019t had an unreasonable landlord they wished to have exposed and penalized? Who wouldn\u2019t want to see an unruly neighbor with a penchant for scratching your car ordered to cover the repairs? By legitimating and rectifying the types of injustices that often make us feel helpless, Sheindlin reaffirms that justice is attainable. Because of shows like hers, we feel there is a way to seek fairness and accountability. \n \n Of course, not everyone adores Judge Judy. The American Bar Association published an essay calling what Judge Judy and her colleagues do \u201csyndi-court justice\u201d (PDF) and accusing them of exploiting arbitration. They worry she\u2019ll corrupt potential jurors and distort the justice system. The argument that Judge Judy is a threat to the jury system seems to forget the First Amendment\u2014and, more importantly, the several amendments that tell us our Founding Fathers trusted juries. As a favorite law school professor, Akhil Reed Amar, wrote, \u201cNo idea was more central \u2026 to America\u2019s distinctive regime of government of the people, by the people, and for the people\u2014than the idea of the jury.\u201d But not only are such criticisms constitutionally questionable, they\u2019re empirically unfounded\u2014like the supposed \u201cCSI Effect,\u201d the since-debunked theory that jurors who watched crime dramas would expect \u201ctoo much scientific evidence.\u201d Then there\u2019s the commonsense protest: there are no juries on Judge Judy. She simulates a bench trial, not a jury trial. \n \n Why do we love Judge Judy? Sheindlin hears and protects the reasonable American\u2019s notion of accountability and justice. It doesn\u2019t matter that she isn\u2019t actually running a small claims court: she\u2019s managing arbitration on the same issues. Judge Judy proves courts can right wrongs and guarantee future protections, perhaps the most basic foundation of an organized society. That means Judith Sheindlin plays a role in shaping and upholding our social contract. Witnessing successful legal proceedings, even in a simulated small claims setting, reassures citizens: offenders will be punished; victims will be compensated. Judge Judy might not be the most powerful judge in America, but she\u2019s surely the most popular and the best paid\u2014for good reason.", "summary": "\u2013 The strongest female lead on television has been there for 19 years: Judith Sheindlin. Judge Judy earned its highest rating in 11 years to begin February sweeps, according to TVNewsCheck, and the show was recently renewed through 2017, with good reason. \"Sheindlin hears and protects the reasonable American's notion of justice,\" Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza writes in Pacific Standard. Sheindlin is beloved especially by older women, African-Americans, and Latinos; it's tempting to think she's \"most popular with those who feel most disenfranchised by our legal system.\" But it's more complicated than that. Viewers connect with Sheindlin personally, considering her \"a real-life kind of superhero.\" The cases she handles\u2014minor small-claims disputes\u2014resonate with Americans' daily lives. \"Who hasn't had an unreasonable landlord they wished to have exposed and penalized?\" On Judge Judy, \"viewers who will never read a court transcript \u2026 get to hear a real-time approximation of judicial reasoning\" and come away believing that courts can right wrongs and protect us, \"perhaps the most basic foundation of an organized society.\" Click for Buckwalter-Poza's full column."}
{"document": "FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2012 file photo, Alissa Parker, left, and her husband, Robbie Parker, leave the firehouse staging after receiving word that their six-year-old daughter Emilie was one of the 20... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2012 file photo, Alissa Parker, left, and her husband, Robbie Parker, leave the firehouse staging after receiving word that their six-year-old daughter Emilie was one of the 20... (Associated Press) \n \n The parents of one of the 20 first-graders killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre met with the gunman's father for more than an hour in an effort to bring some closure to the tragedy, asking him about his son's mental health and other issues. \n \n Alissa Parker told \"CBS This Morning\" in an excerpt of an interview that aired Thursday the meeting with Adam Lanza's father, Peter Lanza, was her idea. Her 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, died in December's shooting rampage. \n \n \"I felt strongly that I needed to tell him something, and I needed to get that out of my system,\" Alissa Parker said. \"I felt very motivated to do it and then I felt really good about it and prayed about it. And it was something that I needed to do.\" \n \n It was unclear what they discussed or when the meeting took place. CBS plans to show the rest of the interview with Alissa and Robbie Parker on Friday morning, revealing more details about their meeting with Peter Lanza. \n \n No one answered the phone at the Parkers' home Thursday morning. A message seeking comment from Peter Lanza was left with a Lanza family spokesman. \n \n The Parkers told CBS they wanted to ask Peter Lanza about his son's medical history, his and his ex-wife's relationships with Adam Lanza and other issues. \n \n Robbie Parker was the first parent of a child killed at the school to speak publicly about the massacre. A day after the Dec. 14 killings, he fought back tears and struggled to catch his breath as he spoke lovingly of Emilie at a wrenching, lengthy news conference. \n \n \"She was beautiful. She was blond. She was always smiling,\" he said, adding that the world was a better place because Emilie was in it. \"I'm so blessed to be her dad.\" \n \n Adam Lanza, 20, shot 20 children and six educators to death at the school and killed himself as police arrived. He also fatally shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their Newtown home before going to the school. \n \n Peter Lanza, who was divorced from Nancy Lanza, said in a statement after the killings that his family also was asking why Adam Lanza would go on a shooting spree. \n \n People close to the investigation have told The Associated Press that Adam Lanza showed interest in other mass killers. ||||| Newtown victim's parents talk about meeting killer Adam Lanza's father \n \n (CBS News) Vice President Biden and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are expected to meet with the families of Newtown school shooting victims on Thursday, over three months after the massacre took place in Connecticut. \n \n Ahead of the meeting, CBS This Morning's Norah O'Donnell spoke with Robbie and Alissa Parker, the parents of six-year-old victim Emilie Parker. \n \n They revealed that they recently met with the father of gunman Adam Lanza as part of their search for understanding and grieving process. \n \n The meeting \"was kind of my doing,\" Alissa Parker explained. \"I guess the reason why I felt strongly that I needed to tell [Peter Lanza] something. And I needed to get that out of my system. I felt very motivated to do it and ... I felt really good about it, I prayed about it, and it was something that I needed to do. \n \n Robbie added their family has experienced \"a little bit of everything,\" as they've dealt with the scope of the tragedy over the past three months. \n \n \"You know, you went from the absolute worst experience that you could ever imagine to have to go through as a parent ... and being overwhelmed with that sense of grief and loss to, on the other end of the spectrum, you're being completely overwhelmed with outpouring of love and support from so many people and everything that kinda falls in between,\" he said. \n \n The Parkers addressed the recent news that Newtown investigators determined that Adam Lanza kept a spreadsheet methodically detailing the death toll of other mass shooters, types of weaponry, and plotted how he would add to the death tolls. \n \n \"Any information ... that you gain in this experience is just that. It's information,\" Robbie said. \"And then you have to choose how you're gonna handle it. And so for us, we've decided that what works best for us is you receive a bit of information, you process it, you feel the emotion that comes along with it, and then you have to let it go.\" \n \n Alissa added, \"It's just like another piece to the puzzle. And it always brings with it a period of, you know, sorrow, pain, and you deal with it and you just move on. The outcome is still the same, regardless if it was planned, not planned. But it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change that our child's gone.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Peter Lanza has remained out of the spotlight since news of the Newtown shooting broke, but one victim's family tells CBS that they have privately met with him. Robbie and Alissa Parker, parents to 6-year-old Emilie, spent more than an hour with Lanza; in CBS' Norah O'Donnell's words, they believe he \"holds the keys\" to understanding Adam Lanza's motivation. The AP notes that it's unclear when the meeting occurred or what was discussed, though O'Donnell says the couple wanted to ask Lanza about his son's medical history and his and Nancy's relationship with him. In a portion of an interview with the Parkers aired today, Alissa explains that the meeting \"was kind of my doing. I guess the reason why I felt strongly that I needed to tell him something. And I needed to get that out of my system. I felt very motivated to do it and ... I felt really good about it, I prayed about it, and it was something that I needed to do.\" CBS will air part two tomorrow. Meanwhile, news broke this week that Adam Lanza kept a \"score sheet.\""}
{"document": "Web wide crawl with initial seedlist and crawler configuration from March 2011. This uses the new HQ software for distributed crawling by Kenji Nagahashi. \n \n What\u2019s in the data set: \n \n \n \n Crawl start date: 09 March, 2011 \n \n Crawl end date: 23 December, 2011 \n \n Number of captures: 2,713,676,341 \n \n Number of unique URLs: 2,273,840,159 \n \n Number of hosts: 29,032,069 \n \n The seed list for this crawl was a list of Alexa\u2019s top 1 million web sites, retrieved close to the crawl start date. We used Heritrix (3.1.1-SNAPSHOT) crawler software and respected robots.txt directives. The scope of the crawl was not limited except for a few manually excluded sites. \n \n However this was a somewhat experimental crawl for us, as we were using newly minted software to feed URLs to the crawlers, and we know there were some operational issues with it. For example, in many cases we may not have crawled all of the embedded and linked objects in a page since the URLs for these resources were added into queues that quickly grew bigger than the intended size of the crawl (and therefore we never got to them). We also included repeated crawls of some Argentinian government sites, so looking at results by country will be somewhat skewed. \n \n We have made many changes to how we do these wide crawls since this particular example, but we wanted to make the data available \u201cwarts and all\u201d for people to experiment with. We have also done some further analysis of the content. \n \n If you would like access to this set of crawl data, please contact us at info at archive dot org and let us know who you are and what you\u2019re hoping to do with it. We may not be able to say \u201cyes\u201d to all requests, since we\u2019re just figuring out whether this is a good idea, but everyone will be considered. ||||| Jennifer Lopez is now in the enviable position of having people not care about her personal life. Lopez began as a dancer on In Living Color, became an actress, then a movie star, then a pop star, then a brand, then a tabloid fixture, first as half of Dilopez and then Bennifer, then a punchline and now as something of a has-been. \n \n The public overdosed on Lopez sometime around the 2003 release of Gigli so she is in the perfect position to reinvent herself as an actress instead of a global corporation the way her former beau Ben Affleck washed away the filth of tabloid infamy and established himself as a promising filmmaker with Gone Baby Gone and a gifted character actor with memorable supporting roles in Hollywoodland and Extract. \n \n Affleck is doing the best work of his often checkered and spotty career; Lopez was on Saturday Night Live last night pimping a terrible-looking romantic comedy pairing her with mega-star Alex O\u2019 Laughlin and what appears to be yet another slick, forgettable pop album. Don\u2019t call it a comeback cause it probably isn\u2019t one. \n \n Lopez hasn\u2019t captured the imagination of the public or the tabloids for a while so references to her personal life were refreshingly few and far between. Lopez\u2019s opening monologue riffed on the gulf between the J. Lo of 2000 and the cut-rate recession version by having Kenan Thompson appear in the audience as a downsized former member of her entourage who had fallen upon hard times since his one skill in life\u2014 holding a glass of orange juice for a superstar\u2014does not prove terribly useful outside life inside the hermetic world of an entourage. \n \n Like the rest of the show, it was both mildly amusing and utterly predictable. Saturday Night Live is all about going after the low-hanging fruit. Last night the venerable comic institution attacked all the most obvious satirical targets from all the most obvious angles. Hey, that \u201cWe Are The World\u201d remake sure is pointless, huh? Saturday Night Live artfully satirized the pointlessness of this newfangled twist on a hoary old chestnut by having the \u201cWe Are The World\u201d gang sing about the pointlessness of remaking a song that was pretty terrible in the first place. \n \n And how about that David Patterson? Is his administration going down in flames or what? And what about that curling? How fucking nutty is that? Is that even a sport? Doesn\u2019t it seem more like some sort of strange performance art piece? And what\u2019s the deal with Youtube? Isn\u2019t it irritating when a friend insists you watch some inane homemade clip of George C. Scott getting hit in the nuts with a football, then it takes forever to get the damned thing to work? And what about those Telenovelas? Are those insane or what? Last and almost certainly least, how goofy is that Undercover Boss show? \n \n All of the above pop-culture ephemera got skewered last night in a manner that suggests no first ideas got rejected in the SNL writer\u2019s room. Throw in a smattering of recurring characters doing their recurring character\u2019s shtick\u2014Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader getting all rubber-faced in shock and mock-horror as hosts of an Entertainment Tonight-like celebrity gossip show, Kenan Thompson crooning up a storm as a loverman who narrates the courtship of a painfully awkward would-be couple, the aforementioned Patterson as a hacky open mic insult comedian and a repeat visit from the round the way girl shilling for a line of perversely casual car horns\u2014and you have an episode almost wholly devoid of originality. \n \n The funniest sketch was also, perhaps not coincidentally, the only one that bordered on original. It revolved around the band Smash Mouth appearing in a little girl\u2019s room the minute her mother steps out and performing their late nineties hit \u201cAll Star\u201d. I\u2019ve been listening to an awful lot of Smash Mouth as of late for my That\u2019s What They Called Music THEN! project and then also because I love the music of the band Smash Mouth so I was a little biased but I liked the idea of a song that was so ubiquitous (during J.Lo\u2019s heyday, incidentally) at one point reappearing in such a bizarre context and the notion of Smash Mouth as magical musical elves. \n \n The sketch got all the details right\u2014the soul patches, someone mistaking Smash Mouth for Third Eye Blind, the little girl using \u201cAll Star\u201d on her soccer video\u2014and had a nice ending where Lopez, as the mother, reminds the little girl of all the positive associations she has with \u201cAll Star\u201d. \n \n A commenter has pointed out that almost all of Fred Armisen\u2019s recurring characters are bad comedians. That\u2019s true but I\u2019m a sucker for his Patterson all the same and \u201cWeekend Update\u201d was pretty sharp tonight. I especially liked the line about Gatorade dropping Tiger Woods as spokesman because his thirst can never be quenched. I was less enamored of the Bobby Moynihan Youtube bit, which was about five years too late and five times too hacky. \n \n Otherwise tonight\u2019s episode was very much adequate. It was an episode of creamy middles; there was nothing too brilliant and nothing too egregiously awful, just a bunch of affable mediocrity. Lopez proved a game host and a predictably forgettable musical guest. She really threw herself into playing a woman whose attractiveness is severely compromised by her unfortunate predilection for ventriloquism and seemed right at home in the doorbell sketch. \n \n Episodes like last night sometimes make me feel like reviewing Saturday Night Live on a weekly basis is a pointless endeavor (almost as pointless as that \"We Are The World\" remake and living in New Jersey, am I right people?) At this point in the season, the show is on autopilot. I don\u2019t know whether that\u2019s a matter of finding a comfortable groove or falling into a rut. It\u2019s not great. It\u2019s not terrible. It just is. ||||| I think we can safely say that nobody really had high expectations for the Jennifer Lopez-hosted episode of SNL last night, which was good, because the show was a bit of a clunker. Still, there were a few highlights: \n \n The show opened with a parody of the \"We Are The World\" remake, which gave the cast an opportunity to do their most ridiculous celebrity impressions. Kristen Wiig's Gwen Stefani was particularly impressive: \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Though the cold open was pretty funny (and, mercifully, a break from the drag-on-forever political openings that have been dominating this season), most of the commenters in our live thread felt it was already pretty dated, what with the Olympics dominating most of the news coverage over the past two weeks of the show's hiatus. The show did cover the Olympics later, however, but we'll get to that in a second. For now, let's talk about J-Lo. \n \n Her monologue was painful, and set up the tone of the rest of the show: whenever she appeared, things got awkward and strained and decidedly unfunny. She spent half of the show playing herself, and the other half playing a Latina stereotype, which seemed to be the only thing the writers knew what to do with her. Her appearance on the show\u2014bizarro Hallmark lyric songs included\u2014was a very obvious attempt at rebranding herself as a down-to-earth, un-diva-like sweetheart, but it just came across as weird and overly acted. It was almost as if she was sitting down with the cast of The View as opposed to performing on a sketch comedy show: \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n One of the highlights of the show came quite early though: a digital short called \"Flags of the World,\" starring Andy Samberg and Abby Elliott and a cast of wacky flags, including the \"Neo-Nazi Potsie Flag.\" The difference in tone between the digital shorts and the rest of the show gets more and more noticeable each week, and one wonders why Lorne Michaels just doesn't give The Lonely Island its own show ala The Kids in the Hall (though I guess the obvious answer is that SNL would be in even more trouble without them): \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Also, in case you missed it, there were two noticeable shout outs during that flag sketch\u2014one to Betty White, who is currently being supported by a Facebook campaign to host the show: \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n And one to John Mayer, who represented the \"jags\" of the world on the \"Jag Flag.\" Ouch! \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Lopez's main skits were all focused around stereotypes; she appeared in this Telemundo Olympics sketch (where her accent was worse than Fred Armisen's, btw): \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n She was also in a telenovela sketch that is apparently not working on either NBC.com or Hulu right now, so I'll keep you posted. \n \n And she also showed up to help Jenny Slate promote car horns in a return of Slate's \"doorbell\" character: \n \n \n \n Weirdly enough, the most shocking parts of the evening were Lopez' musical performances, where she sang what sounded like country songs discarded by Faith Hill and hit about 50% of the notes. The songs haven't been released by NBC or Hulu yet, so either there's a licensing issue or Lopez doesn't want the fairly terrible singing available to the good people of the internet. The best sketch of the evening, wherein a young girl is being haunted by the band Smashmouth (it's kind of hard to explain) isn't available either, and music licenses are probably to blame, as Smashmouth's \"All-Star\" was a centerpiece of the skit. \n \n Overall, it was a pretty craptacular show. You almost felt bad for Lopez, who was clearly there to kickstart her slumping career and, instead, most likely succeeded in killing any chance she had to revive her musical career and didn't do much in the way of proving her comedic talents, either. Of course, the material wasn't great either: it would have been nice if the show had focused on something other than stereotypes and had Lopez do something that didn't involve Telemundo and telenovelas, but maybe that's all she gave the writers room to work with. \n \n Sponsored \n \n In true SNL fashion, however, I expect this dud of a show to be followed by a great one next week. How could it not be, with Zach Galifianakis hosting?", "summary": "\u2013 The Jennifer Lopez image-rehab train pulled into Saturday Night Live station last night, to mixed reviews. \"Her appearance on the show\u2014bizarro Hallmark lyric songs included\u2014was a very obvious attempt at rebranding herself as a down-to-earth, un-diva-like sweetheart, but it just came across as weird and overly acted,\" Hortense writes for Jezebel. Although there were some high points, \"overall, it was a pretty craptacular show.\" Ken Tucker couldn't disagree more. \"Lopez came with the right SNL attitude: Ready to poke fun at herself and to engage enthusiastically with anything the show offered her,\" he writes for Entertainment Weekly. \"Fortunately, much of her material was good stuff.\" Lopez was \"a game host and a predictably forgettable musical guest,\" writes Nathan Rabin of the Onion A.V. Club. Rabin blames the writing staff for a \"mildly amusing and utterly predictable\" effort: \"There was nothing too brilliant and nothing too egregiously awful, just a bunch of affable mediocrity.\""}
{"document": "Image copyright AP Image caption Breivik says his prison conditions have forced him to drop out of a University of Oslo political science course \n \n Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has threatened to starve himself to death in protest at his treatment in prison, according to media reports. \n \n Breivik claims to have been kept in isolation since 2 September, with time outside his cell limited to an hour a day. \n \n Breivik killed 77 people in 2011 when he bombed central Oslo before going on a shooting spree at a youth camp. \n \n He was sentenced to 21 years in 2012. \n \n His claims about deteriorating prison conditions were made in a letter to media outlets in Norway and Sweden. \n \n 'Studying impossible' \n \n In his letter, Breivik, 36, says harsh prison conditions have forced him to drop out of a political science course at the University of Oslo. \n \n \"Studying and corresponding is not humanly possible under such circumstances, and this applies to anyone who is isolated under such conditions,\" he wrote according to English news site The Local. \n \n Breivik said that if conditions remained unchanged he would continue the hunger strike until he died, Norwegian media reported. \n \n No one at Skien prison, where Breivik is held, is currently on hunger strike, prison director Ole Kristoffer Borhaug told the BBC. \n \n He declined to comment on the conditions of individual prisoners. \n \n Norwegian Justice Minister Anders Anundsen also declined to comment on Breivik's claims, according to the Dagbladet newspaper. \n \n The University of Oslo admitted Breivik as a full student in July, explaining that inmates had a right to higher education if they won entry to courses. \n \n Breivik has previously complained of \"inhumane\" prison conditions, including that his coffee was being served cold. ||||| Video \n \n Image Shot survivor wrote in blood 2:43 Norway massacre survivors, including a shot man who wrote in his own blood, speak at the trial of Anders Breivik. \n \n Rohan Smith news.com.au \n \n HE\u2019S been jailed for just 21 years for slaughtering 77 people, but Anders Behring Breivik\u2019s list of jailhouse complaints is long. \n \n Since committing Norway\u2019s worst ever massacre in 2011, the 36-year-old gunman has whined to prison authorities about being unable to finish his university studies, being denied access to \u201ca wider selection of activities\u201d and \u2014 incredibly \u2014 only being allowed to play children\u2019s video games in his cell. Threatening a hunger strike in a written list of 12 demands, Breivik wants a PlayStation 3 console and a comfortable sofa to sit on while playing it. \n \n He\u2019s also demanded the doubling of his weekly prison allowance to $65, citing \u201cexemplary\u201d behaviour. \n \n \u201cOther inmates have access to adult games while I only have the right to play less interesting kids games. One example is Rayman Revolution, a game aimed at three year olds,\u201d the mass killer moans in letters obtained by the media. \n \n \u201cYou\u2019ve put me in hell ... and I won\u2019t manage to survive that long.\u201d \n \n Breivik\u2019s childish tantrum might seem like a joke, but Emma Martinovic, 22, who survived his July 2011 massacre, isn\u2019t laughing. \n \n As Breivik stalked Utoya with a semiautomatic rifle and a twisted sense of justice, Ms Martinovic, then 18, was at the Norwegian island\u2019s summer camp with friends. \n \n She received a text message from friends warning a gunman was nearby when she stripped off her clothes and jumped into the freezing water to escape. \n \n Around her, friends swam for their lives as they were picked off one-by-one. Ms Martinovic was shot, the bullet piercing her left arm. \n \n She remembers \u201cthe laughter of the bastard as he shot\u201d and his taunts from shore: \u201cYou won\u2019t get away,\u201d he told her. \n \n Speaking to news.com.au, Ms Martinovic said she had a message for the man who tried to kill her: \u201cYou don\u2019t know what it means to have a hard time. Shut the f*** up and take your punishment.\u201d \n \n A MASS MURDERER\u2019S DEMANDS NOT MET \n \n Breivik planted a bomb in Oslo before travelling to the tiny island where a Norwegian Labour Party-run youth summer camp was underway. \n \n The car bomb made partly with fertiliser was left outside the office of then-Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. It killed eight people and injured more than 200. \n \n On Utoya, dressed in a homemade police uniform, Breivik aimed to leave no survivors. He killed 69 people and injured 110 more. \n \n It was a massacre on a scale Norway had never seen. \n \n Breivik was arrested on Utoya and faced trial in April 2012. The self-styled extremist with a crusade against Islam and multiculturalism admitted his crimes but argued they were \u201cnecessary\u201d. \n \n He was found to be of sane mind and sentenced to just 21 years in prison. He smiled when Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen read the ruling. \n \n His sentence is the maximum allowed in Norway but it will likely be reviewed and extended. \n \n From a single cell where he is isolated 23 hours a day, Breivik is free to write. He has started a political science course at the University of Oslo. But he says conditions are deteriorating. \n \n In a letter obtained by Norwegian and Swedish media, Breivik said his tiny cell was too small for him to work. \n \n He complained about being given less time with prison staff and only communicating through a hole in the door. \n \n \u201cStudying and corresponding is not humanly possible under such circumstances, and this applies to anyone who is isolated under such conditions,\u201d he wrote in the letter. \n \n \u201cUnless the (situation) is reversed, I will eventually continue the hunger strike until death. I cannot stand any more.\u201d \n \n Breivik demanded a couch to sit on, a weekly allowance and said he wanted his typewriter to be upgraded to a PC. \n \n His victims say he deserves exactly what he\u2019s got. \n \n \u2018I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR HIM\u2019 \n \n In her blog in 2011, Ms Martinovic wrote about her ordeal. \n \n When chaos broke out and Breivik started shooting, she and three others were on the opposite side of the island. First she hid, then she fled, but not before stumbling upon the body of her friend at the water\u2019s edge. \n \n \u201cI dragged the boy\u2019s body back to land and when I pulled back his jacket hood I saw it was a friend of mine, and I saw the wound to his head. There was no time to react. I kissed him on the cheek and returned to my rock face,\u201d she wrote. \n \n She decided the only way to survive way to swim for her life. \n \n \u201cIt was cold, I felt the chill in my bones, but focused on keeping my head above water. Behind me some of the others were starting to panic, so I shouted to them: \u2018Keep your head above water, get away from land.\u201d \n \n It wasn\u2019t long before Breivik spotted those trying to flee. She kept swimming. \n \n \u201cIt looked as if he was aiming at us. One of the other swimmers was shot, I saw the blood stream out, so I started to swim even faster. Then I turned on my back again and saw he was aiming at those who still hadn\u2019t started swimming from land yet. \n \n \u201cI saw one of my friends about to leap into the water, but in a second he was shot. Even at a distance I could see and hear the two shots, straight to the head. \n \n \u201cPanic spread like wildfire among those on land. I wanted to be among them, urging them to get away, by land or water.\u201d \n \n She escaped, but not without a very close call. \n \n \u201cI looked down at my left arm, there was blood pouring from it,\u201d she said. \n \n \u201cI tried to shut it out, focus on swimming. Behind us we could still hear shooting, the screams, the laughter of the bastard as he shot, and his shout to us: \u201cYou won\u2019t get away!\u201d \n \n \u201cI have so many questions. Why? What was he thinking? All these questions which will never be answered.\u201d \n \n Ms Martinovic today told news.com.au she was still haunted by what she experienced that day. \n \n \u201cIt has it\u2019s ups and downs but I can\u2019t give up and let him win,\u201d she said. \n \n \u201cI just have to keep learning how to handle these hard days and take care of the good days that come. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s hard but I am working on it. The nights are often the worst but I hope that some day everything gets a little easier. My psychologist says: \u2018You don\u2019t move on, you just learn to live with it\u2019 and that\u2019s a very good point I think.\u201d \n \n For Anders Behring Breivik, she has absolutely no sympathy, no matter how many letters he writes or how he describes his suffering. \n \n \u201cI really don\u2019t. I try to think that every person is a human and needs to be handled with respect but with him I think it\u2019s very hard. I have no sympathy for him and that\u2019s because he has taken so many people from me and because he has made my life so hard. \n \n \u201cShut the f*** up and take you\u2019re punishment as the coward you are. You killed so many people and acted (like) God for some hours and now you are complaining that you are having a hard time in jail when you don\u2019t even know what it means to have a hard time. Loser.\u201d ||||| Norway killer Anders Breivik makes a fascist salute as he enters the courtroom during his trial in 2012. Photo: H\u00e5kon Mosvold Larsen/Scanpix \n \n Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has threatened to go on hunger strike until he dies of starvation in protest at what he claims has been a dramatic worsening of his prison conditions. \n \n In an open letter sent a Norwegian and Swedish media, Breivik complained that since the second of September, he had been confined in isolation in a single cell, which he was only allowed to leave for one hour a day. \n \n He also complained that he was being given less time with prison staff, and that communication was now limited to a small gap in the door. \n \n \n \n \"Unless the 02/09/15 escalation [sic] is reversed, I will eventually continue the hunger strike until death. I can not stand any more,\" he wrote. \n \n \n \n Breivik is currently serving a 21-year jail sentence at Skien prison for a brutal twin terror attack in 2011, in which he detonated a bomb in the government quarters in Oslo, killing eight people, and then opened fire at a political youth camp, killing 69 more. \n \n In his letter he complained that his conditions meant he could no longer study his political science course at University of Oslo. \n \n \"Studying and corresponding is not humanly possible under such circumstances, and this applies to anyone who is isolated under such conditions,\" he wrote in the letter. \n \n \n \n \"The decision about the drastic deterioration of prison conditions forced me to drop out of my studies, which in turn means that I will lose my place at the University. The studies, which were made possible for only thirteen full days before the Minister of Justice put an end to them, were the only thing I had.\" \n \n \n \n Breivik's lawyer \u00d8ystein Storrvik, who is suing the Norwegian state for human rights violations on behalf of his client, confirms that Breivik's prison conditions have deteriorated. \n \n \n \n \"I can confirm that there is less of the little that was,\" told Norway's Dagbladet. \"Total isolation from other people has been maintained, while his movements are confined to a smaller space. He also has less time with officers.\" \n \n Storvik also confirms that Breivik is preparing to go on hunger strike. \n \n \n \n \"He writes that he is going on hunger strike until death. He writes that he can not bear anymore.\" \n \n \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist serving a 21-year sentence for massacring 77 people, is complaining once again about getting a raw deal. He says he'll continue a hunger strike \"until death\" to protest a \"drastic deterioration of prison conditions\" since early September, the Local reports. The 36-year-old says he is being kept in isolation in a cell that he's allowed to leave for only an hour a day, and that he's been given less time with prison staff. He complains that he has had to drop out of his University of Oslo political science course because \"studying and corresponding is not humanly possible under such circumstances.\" The prison director tells the BBC that he won't comment on individual prisoners but that nobody at the institution is currently on a hunger strike. Breivik has had plenty of complaints about prison in the past, including about the cold coffee and \"sadistic\" limitations on what kind of pen he can use. Last year he threatened a hunger strike unless his PS2 was upgraded to a PS3. Emma Martinovic, who saw her friends killed and swam for her life as Breivik slaughtered dozens of people at a youth summer camp, isn't overflowing with sympathy for him. She was shot in the arm and tells news.com.au that Breivik laughed and taunted her from the shore. She says she has a message for him: \"You don't know what it means to have a hard time. Shut the f--- up and take your punishment.\""}
{"document": "Doral police arrested Christian David Guevara and charged him with strong arm robbery. They say he threw a 17-year-old girl to the ground and took her iPhone when she wasn\u2019t able to produce cash he demanded. ||||| For 17 years, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez served as a bodyguard to Fidel Castro. But when he became disillusioned with the Cuban dictator\u2019s hypocrisy and tried to retire in 1994, Castro had him thrown in prison. Sanchez made 10 attempts to escape the island, finally making it to Mexico by boat, then across the Texas border in 2008. Now he reveals all in his new book, \u201cThe Double Life of Fidel Castro.\u201d In this excerpt, Sanchez explains how he lost faith in the revolution \u2014 and \u201cEl Jefe.\u201d \n \n The end of 1988. A day like any other was coming to a close in Havana. In a few minutes, my life would be overturned. \n \n Fidel had spent his afternoon reading and working in his office when he stuck his head through the door to the anteroom, where I was, to warn me that Abrantes was about to arrive. \n \n Gen. Jos\u00e9 Abrantes, in his 50s, had been minister of the interior since 1985 after having been, notably, the commander in chief\u2019s head of security for 20 years. Utterly loyal, he was one of the people who saw El Jefe daily. \n \n While they met, I went to sit in my office, where the closed-circuit TV screens monitoring the garage, the elevator and the corridors were found, as well as the cupboard housing the three locks that turned on the recording mikes hidden in a false ceiling in Fidel\u2019s office. \n \n A moment later, the Comandante came back, opened the door again, and gave me this instruction: \u201cS\u00e1nchez, \u00a1no grabes!\u201d (\u201cS\u00e1nchez, don\u2019t record!\u201d) \n \n The interview seemed to go on forever . . . one hour went by, then two. And so, as much out of curiosity as to kill the time, I put on the listening headphones and turned Key No. 1 to hear what was being said on the other side of the wall. \n \n Disillusioned \n \n Their conversation centered on a Cuban lanchero (someone who smuggles drugs by boat) living in the United States, apparently conducting business with the government. \n \n And what business! Very simply, a huge drug-trafficking transaction was being carried out at the highest echelons of the state. \n \n Abrantes asked for Fidel\u2019s authorization to bring this trafficker temporarily to Cuba as he wanted to have a week\u2019s vacation in his native land, accompanied by his parents, in Santa Mar\u00eda del Mar \u2014 a beach situated about 12 miles east of Havana where the water is turquoise and the sand as fine as flour. For this trip, explained Abrantes, the lanchero would pay $75,000 \u2014 which, at a time of economic recession, wouldn\u2019t go amiss . . . Fidel was all for it. \n \n But he expressed a concern: How could they ensure that the parents of the lanchero would keep the secret and not go and blab everywhere that they had spent a week near Havana with their son, who was supposed to live in the United States? \n \n The minister had the solution: All they had to do was make them believe their son was a Cuban intelligence officer who had infiltrated the United States and whose life would be gravely endangered if they did not keep his visit to Cuba absolutely secret. \u201cVery well . . .\u201d concluded Fidel, who gave his agreement. \n \n It was as if the sky had fallen in on me. \n \n I realized that the man for whom I had long sacrificed my life, the L\u00edder whom I worshipped like a god and who counted more in my eyes than my own family, was caught up in cocaine trafficking to such an extent that he was directing illegal operations like a real godfather. \n \n The Comandante, with his talent for dissimulation, went back to work as if nothing was amiss. One has to understand his logic. For him, drug trafficking was, above all, a weapon of revolutionary struggle more than a means of making money. \n \n His reasoning was as follows: If the Yanks were stupid enough to use drugs that came from Colombia, not only was that not his problem \u2014 as long as it was not discovered, that is \u2014 but, in addition, it served his revolutionary objectives in the sense that it corrupted and destabilized American society. Icing on the cake: It was a means of bringing in cash to finance subversion. \n \n And so, as cocaine trafficking increased in Latin America, the line between guerrilla war and trafficking drugs gradually blurred. What was true in Colombia was just as true in Cuba. For my part, I never managed to accept this twisted reasoning, in absolute contradiction to my revolutionary ethics. \n \n Sham Trials \n \n In 1986, when economic aid from Moscow was starting to dry up, Castro founded the MC Department (for moneda covertible, or \u201ccovertible currency\u201d), which traded in goods \u2014 illegal and legal \u2014 for hard currency from third parties, principally Panama. \n \n The MC Department soon acquired another nickname, the \u201cMarijuana and Cocaine Department.\u201d \n \n But the Americans became suspicious of Cuba\u2019s drug dealing, and scandal loomed. Fidel decided to take action to nip any possible suspicion about him in the bud. He used the official daily paper, Granma, to inform its readers that an inquiry had been opened. \n \n Among the arrested were the respected revolutionary general Arnaldo Ochoa and the minister I had overheard talking to Castro, Jos\u00e9 Abrantes. \n \n The Machiavellian Fidel, while declaring himself \u201cappalled\u201d by what he pretended to have discovered, claimed that \u201cthe most honest imaginable political and judicial process\u201d was under way. \n \n Obviously, the reality was completely different. Comfortably installed in his brother Ra\u00fal\u2019s office, Fidel Castro and Ra\u00fal followed the live proceedings of Causa No. 1 and Causa No. 2 on the closed-circuit TV screens. Both trials were filmed \u2014 which is why one can today see large sections of it on YouTube \u2014 and broadcast to every Cuban home, though not live: The government wanted to be able to censor anything that might prove embarrassing. \n \n Fidel even had the means to alert the president of the court discreetly, via a warning light, whenever he thought a session should be interrupted. \n \n And during breaks, the president of the court, the public prosecutor and the jury members would swarm out onto the fourth floor of the ministry to take their instructions from Fidel, who, as usual, organized and ordered everything, absolutely everything. \n \n The Videotape \n \n At the end of these parodies of justice, Gen. Ochoa was condemned to death. Jos\u00e9 Abrantes received a sentence of 20 years of imprisonment. \n \n After just two years of detention in 1991, he would suffer a fatal heart attack, despite his perfect state of health, in circumstances that were, to say the least, suspicious. \n \n There followed the most painful episode of my career. Fidel had asked that the execution of Ochoa and the three other condemned men be filmed. \n \n And so, two days later, on a Saturday, a chauffeur arrived at the residence, where I was, to deliver a brown envelope containing a \u00adBetamax cassette video. Castro\u2019s wife, Dalia, told Fidel\u2019s men they should watch it. \n \n The video had no sound, which made the scenes we began to watch even more unreal. First, we saw vehicles arriving in a quarry at night, lit by projectors. \n \n I have often been asked how Ochoa faced death. The answer is clear and unambiguous: with \u00adexceptional dignity. \n \n As he got out of the car, he walked straight. When one of his torturers proposed to put a band over his eyes, he shook his head in sign of refusal. And when he was facing the firing squad, he looked death square in the face. \n \n Despite the absence of sound, the whole excerpt shows his courage. \n \n To his executioners, who could not be seen in the footage, he said something that one could not hear but which one could guess. His chest pushed out and his chin raised, he probably shouted something like, \u201cGo on, you don\u2019t frighten me!\u201d An instant later, he crumpled from beneath the bullets of seven gunmen. \n \n Castro made us watch it. That\u2019s what the Comandante was capable of to keep his power: not just of killing but also of humiliating and reducing to nothing men who had served him devotedly. \n \n His Brother\u2019s Keeper \n \n After Ochoa\u2019s death, Ra\u00fal Castro plunged into the worst bout of alcoholism of his life. He had taken part in the assassination of his friend. \n \n He turned to vodka, which had long been his favorite drink. \n \n There was doubtless another factor involved: having watched the elimination of his counterpart, Abrantes, Ra\u00fal could logically fear that he, too, would be hounded from his position of defense minister. \n \n The government No. 2 was dead drunk so often that the ministers and the generals could not have failed to miss it. The \u00adComandante decided to go and lecture his younger brother. \n \n I heard Fidel admonishing his brother, launching into a long, moralistic tirade. \n \n \u201cHow can you descend so low? You\u2019re giving the worst possible example to your family and your escort,\u201d began the Comandante. \u201cIf what\u2019s worrying you is that what happened to Abrantes will happen to you, let me tell you that Abrantes no es mi hermano [is not my brother]! You and I have been united since we were children, for better and for worse. So, no, you are not going to experience Abrantes\u2019 fate, unless . . . you persist with this deplorable behavior. \n \n \u201cListen, I\u2019m talking to you as a brother. Swear to me that you will come out of this lamentable state and I promise you nothing will happen to you.\u201d \n \n Sure enough, shortly afterward, Fidel spoke out in praise of Ra\u00fal, applauding his integrity and his devotion to the Revolution. Ra\u00fal, for his part, carried on drinking vodka, but in far more reasonable quantities. \n \n From \u201cThe Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Lider Maximo\u201d by Juan Reinaldo Sanchez with Axel Gyld\u00e9n. \n \n Copyright \u00a9 2015 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin\u2019s Press, LLC.", "summary": "\u2013 Fidel Castro, ragtag communist revolutionary? Not according to a new book that chronicles his alleged luxurious lifestyle and drug-smuggling into the United States. A former bodyguard to Castro, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez\u2014who fled Cuba in 2008 and has made similar allegations before\u2014describes them fully in The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Lider Maximo. In a juicy New York Post excerpt, Sanchez claims that he overheard Castro meeting with a loyal general, Jos\u00e9 Abrantes, about drug trafficking: \"What business!\" Sanchez writes, with co-writer Axel Gylden. \"Very simply, a huge drug-trafficking transaction was being carried out at the highest echelons of the state.\" According to the book, Castro and Gen. Abrantes discussed smuggling cocaine into the US. Castro's reasoning: \"If the Yanks were stupid enough to use drugs that came from Colombia, not only was that not his problem ... it served his revolutionary objectives in the sense that it corrupted and destabilized American society,\" the book reads. Sanchez also accuses Castro of covering up his involvement by engineering sham trials that led to the deaths of two devoted officers, including Abrantes; this fueled the alcoholism of brother Raul, who feared he would be next. Imprisoned in Cuba for two years before fleeing, Sanchez has already accused Castro of secretly living a luxurious life that includes an 88-foot yacht and a Caribbean getaway island, the Miami Herald reported last year."}
{"document": "Vintners in the Napa Valley have begun to evaluate the damage to their cellars following Sunday's 6.0-magnitude earthquake, which rocked American Canyon and its immediate environs at 3:20 a.m. Damage is being reported across the valley, and many winery tasting rooms will be closed today and possibly tomorrow. \n \n In downtown Napa, winemaker Alison Crowe of Garnet Vineyards says she and her family were \"literally thrown out of bed\" when the quake hit. \n \n \"It was very violent,\" says Crowe, mother to William, 3, and Bryce, 1. The family lives in an renovated 1898 farmhouse which sustained no structural damage, but they are currently without electricity. \"We're making pancakes on the barbecue outside.\" \n \n NAPA, CA - AUGUST 24: A worker looks at a pile of wine bottles that were thrown from the shelves at Van's Liquors following a reported 6.0 earthquake on August 24, 2014 in Napa, California. A 6.0 earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area shortly after 3:00 am on Sunday morning causing damage to buildings and sending at least 70 people to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) ( Justin Sullivan ) \n \n While Crowe's home collection -- 100 bottles of the winery's premium pinot noir and chardonnay -- were \"undamaged and still resting snug on their sides,\" initial reports from the winery's American Canyon warehouse indicate that \"a lot of bottles\" were lost there, says Crowe, who chose not to disclose the name of the warehouse until the owners make an official statement. \n \n The loss was even bigger at Napa's City Winery, a venue for music, winemaking and the culinary arts, which opened this past spring in the historic Napa Valley Opera House. According to owner Michael Dorf, the winery's restaurant has been flooded with inches of water. Liquor and wine bottles tumbled and crashed to the floor and food fell off shelves throughout the kitchen. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \"Most likely, all the other restaurants along Main Street suffered similar issues,\" Dorf said via e-mail. \n \n In total, Dorf estimates the loss of wine at 300 to 400 bottles, including some rare wines purchased at auction, as well as more than 200 pieces of Riedel stemware. At this time, the venue and main structure appear undamaged, he says, but they are canceling tonight's concert of (NVOH and Lucky Penny) and are unclear when they will reopen. Men Without Hats is supposed to perform on Monday. \n \n When Crowe heads to work on Monday, she will double-check the winery's barrels and tanks for damage but is confident that the quake will not interfere with harvest, which is currently in full swing in parts of the valley. \n \n \"Everyone's going to gear up and get right back to work,\" she says. \"It's a blessing that we've had this recent cool weather because it has actually slowed things down a bit. I took my first load of Carneros pinot noir in (last Friday) and wasn't planning on crushing harvesting more fruit until this Friday. We lives in the lap of Mother Nature here so we know that we're not in control but sometimes it takes something as big as an earthquake to really open your eyes.\" \n \n Check back for futher updates throughout the day. \n \n NAPA, CA - AUGUST 24: Workers clean up piles of bottles that were thrown from the shelves at Van's Liquors following a reported 6.0 earthquake on August 24, 2014 in Napa, California. A 6.0 earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area shortly after 3:00 am on Sunday morning causing damage to buildings and sending at least 70 people to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) ( Justin Sullivan ) \n \n Follow Jessica Yadegaran at Twitter.com/swirlgirl_jy. ||||| Napa damaged, more than 100 hurt in Northern California quake \n \n (08-24) 20:45 PDT NAPA -- A magnitude-6.0 earthquake struck the North Bay early Sunday, injuring more than 100 people, causing extensive damage to dozens of buildings in downtown Napa and Vallejo and sparking a fire that destroyed sixhomes, authorities said. \n \n The quake, the largest in the Bay Area since the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, struck 3 miles northwest of American Canyon at 3:20 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was felt as far away as Chico and Fresno, the USGS said. \n \n Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for California and said state resources would be mustered to areas affected by the quake, including Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. \n \n Hardest-hit was Napa, about 6 miles northwest of the quake's epicenter. Walt Mickens, CEO at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, said 172 people were treated Sunday at the hospital, including a 13-year-old identified by neighbors as Nicholas Dillon. He was hurt inside his family's home on Eva Street when a chimney fell on him during a slumber party, and was airlifted from Napa to the UC Davis Children's Hospital in Sacramento, where hospital spokeswoman Phyllis Brown said he was in serious condition. \n \n In all, Mickens said, 12 people were admitted to Queen of the Valley and treated for injuries related to the quake, the majority with broken bones. By late Sunday, just one person remained in critical condition at the hospital; the others were in serious or stable condition. \n \n The majority of other injuries were cuts and bruises from broken glass and falling objects, he said. \n \n Many residents were unable to return home Sunday evening because of damage sustained in the quake. Napa officials said 33 buildings have been red-tagged, meaning residents cannot return to them until authorities determine they are safe, and they are only one-third of the way through assessing buildings. \n \n Napa Mayor Jill Techel was among the displaced. She returned from a conference in Monterey on Sunday morning, and said when she when she first arrived downtown, she felt, \"scared and sad.\" \n \n \"My neighbors are staying strong but you can see tears right behind their eyes,\" she said. \n \n Throughout the region, said State Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said, about 90 to 100 homes have been red-tagged. Officials won't have a tally of how many people have been displaced until late Sunday, Ghilarducci said, when they begin showing up at emergency shelters. \n \n \"We have a handle on what's happening at this point,\" he said at a late afternoon news conference, adding that state officials do not yet have damage cost estimates and are deciding whether to apply for federal disaster assistance. \n \n State geologist John Parrish said all the region's bridges have been checked and are safe. Measurements taken from the Carquinez Bridge revealed the span took quite a hit during the quake, but sustained no damage. \n \n While officials warned residents to be prepared for aftershocks, Parrish said the biggest risk had passed by Sunday afternoon, as the highest probability of aftershocks is within the first hour after a quake. In all, he said, 50 to 60 aftershocks were recorded, the largest a magnitude 3.6. \n \n \"We feel it unlikely now that there will be a large follow-up earthquake to this one,\" Parrish said Sunday afternoon. \"We do not expect there will be much larger aftershocks, but we expect they will continue for several weeks.\" Parrish said the soft ground in the Napa Valley helped mitigate damage by absorbing some of movement. \n \n Still, said Ghilarducci, \"It took half day to get our hands around the complexity of the event,\" due to power outages. \n \n In all, 70,000 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers lost power in the quake, but by early evening, the utility had restored power to the majority. A PG&E statement said about 7,300 customers in Napa County remained in the dark. Most customers can expect to be back online by the end of Sunday, according to the utility. \n \n Sixty water mains and at least 50 gas lines also broke in the quake. PG&E said 439 people called to report gas leaks Sunday, and by early evening, the vast majority had been investigated. Beginning Monday, the utility plans to fan out across the impacted areas to conduct courtesy gas safety checks. \n \n There were also problems in Vallejo, where officials said 41 buildings were damaged, including businesses, several homes and a church. On one residential block, nearly every brick chimney had collapsed, including two that fell on a car. \n \n \"It's bad any way you look at it, but it could have been a heck of a lot worse,\" said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa. \n \n Napa City Manager Mike Parness said that \"most of the (Napa) Valley is operating as normal\" and that most of the damage was confined to a few locations. But officials said it will be weeks until those areas are cleaned up. \n \n Officials at Queen of the Valley set up a triage tent in the back parking lot of the emergency room. In the first hours after the quake, ambulances were arriving every few minutes dropping off patients. \n \n A fire at a Napa mobile home park on Orchard Avenue destroyed four homes and damaged two others as firefighters improvised to put out the blaze, with a water main broken and unavailable. \n \n In downtown Napa, bricks, concrete chunks and broken glass littered the streets. About 15 buildings were red-tagged, , and numerous other buildings were yellow-tagged and were open only on a limited basis, officials said. Most of the yellow-tagged buildings suffered damage such as broken windows, Parness said. \n \n Most of the windows were blown out of the air traffic control tower at the Napa County Airport. The structure was spared major damage, but it will be unusable for several weeks, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. \n \n Across Napa, dozens of unreinforced chimneys toppled, tilted or leaned precariously from houses. \n \n \"It was just like a train hit the house,\" Cathy Hunt said as she surveyed a pile of bricks that used to make up the chimney of her home on the 500 block of Montgomery Street. \n \n At Napa Barrel Care, a wine warehouse just south of the city, Carole Meredith surveyed an array of tumbled barrels. \n \n \"We're physically fine but we're emotionally shell-shocked,\" Meredith said. Although it is too soon to know the extent of loss, she said, \"there is a lake of wine on the floor.\" \n \n Because wines from the bountiful 2013 vintage are mostly still in barrel, \"there's just going to be huge losses,\" said Meredith, who owns the Lagier Meredith winery on Mount Veeder. \"This is going to be a really expensive earthquake for the wine business.\" \n \n At the Don Perico Mexican restaurant on First Street, there were no outward signs of problems on the exterior of the building. But inside, a pile of bricks stood several feet high. \n \n At the Bounty Hunter restaurant down the street, broken wine bottles littered the floor. But the eatery's \"holy grail\" case, containing prized bottles worth up to $80,000, remained intact. \n \n \"It's a disaster, but we'll clean up,\" said employee Will Wright. \"We'll get through it.\" \n \n Andrea Griego of Napa said the quake knocked over her bedroom dresser, temporarily immobilizing her. \n \n \"It was so scary,\" said Griego, who suffered a large bruise and cut. \n \n Napa's Old County Courthouse and the post office were among the buildings that sustained damage. Emergency workers usually stationed there were moved to the sheriff's office. \n \n Residents and city officials said the toll would have been far greater had the quake struck on Saturday, when thousands of people were downtown enjoying the Napa Blues, Brews and BBQ event in downtown Napa. \n \n Although damage appeared to be worst in Napa, there were also problems elsewhere. \n \n In downtown Vallejo, a large chunk of bricks fell off the First Methodist Church at Sonoma Boulevard and Virginia Street. Several older homes near the church lost their chimneys. \n \n Glass covered buckled sidewalks on a six-block stretch of businesses on the west end of Tennessee Street, the city's primary link to the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Sixteen water mains in the city were broken, city officials said. \n \n On Georgia and Virginia streets on downtown Vallejo, several buildings were evacuated after a 19th-century brick building partially collapsed. The city engineer was on scene investigating, but fire officials said the building, the former City of Paris department store, would likely be demolished. \n \n Building owner Buck Kamphausen, who is also the city mortician, said the building was under renovation. The roof of collapsed into the roof of a neighboring building, falling through to the floor. No one was injured. \n \n Officials were blocking off the sidewalks on both Georgia and Virginia streets. Firemen said the extent of the damage would likely not be known until Monday, as many of the shops on the commercial strip were closed Sunday and owners had not come to survey the damage. \n \n The First Methodist Church on Sonoma and Virgin streets also suffered damage to its bell tower. \n \n On Fern Street, a leafy block in the city's Garden District dotted with 1920's bungalows, residents were surveying the slew of collapsed brick chimneys and starting to clean up. \n \n At the end of the block, a brick building that houses a Real Estate brokerage was red-tagged. Brick mason Marshall Foster was using a jackhammer to take down the top half of a damaged chimney at one home. \n \n \"It was like something exploded,\" said Annette Millhollin, whose chimney, along with her neighbor's, tumbled onto her driveway, crushing her Oldsmobile. \n \n Chris Mariano, who lives next to the brokerage firm, said it \"felt like a bomb went off,\" when the quake struck at 3:20 a.m., knocking down all the dishes in his home. \"It went on forever,\" he said. \"I've never been in a quake that close to the epicenter.\" \n \n There were widespread reports of power outages, gas leaks and flooding in the North Bay. \n \n In addition to the power outages, Napa'stwo water treatment plants were undamaged, but water-main breaks knocked out service to some areas. The water that is available is safe to drink, Napa officials said. \n \n Still, the recovery could take \"a week or so because we have a lot of things to get buttoned up,\" said Napa's director of public works Jacques LaRochelle. \n \n Caltrans checked the Bay Area's toll bridges after the quake and found them to be safe. On Highway 121 in the North Bay, 30 feet of asphalt was cracked, but the road was open. \n \n Scientists said the quake was 6.7 miles deep and may have hit on the West Napa Fault. It was the largest in the Bay Area since the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake killed 62 people on Oct. 17, 1989. \n \n The U.S. Geological Survey initially said the quake measured magnitude 6.0, then upgraded it to 6.1 later in the day. \n \n One of the worst scenes of damage was at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park at 1040 Orchard Ave. near Mark Way, where a fire burned at least four homes. A broken water main hobbled firefighters' efforts to control the blaze. \n \n Water trucks were brought to the scene, enabling firefighters to control the blaze before 6 a.m. There were no injuries. \n \n The cause of the fire was unknown. PG&E said its natural-gas lines were not responsible. \n \n Ray Kauffman, 68, said that as soon as he saw the smoke at one of the mobile homes, \"I went home to get my crescent wrench but I couldn't get to it.\" \n \n \"The flames were too much when I got there,\" Kauffman said as he looked at the remains of his neighbor's home. \n \n A woman who asked to be identified as Theresa said she had trouble getting out of her boyfriend's home because it shifted off the foundation. She went across the street and watched the home burn to the ground. \n \n \"It was really scary,\" she said. \"We were really lucky to get out. We lost a kitten, CoCo.\" \n \n Firefighters extinguished two other residential fires in Napa, officials said. \n \n Throughout the Bay Area, many people were jolted awake by the quake. Others who were already up were similarly jarred. \n \n Erica Gregory, who was brewing coffee while working by herself at the 24-hour Shell gas station on Highway 29 in Vallejo, said items started to fly off the shelves when the quake hit. \n \n \"It was nerve-wracking,\" Gregory said. \"You just have to stand there and take it.\" \n \n Lily Atkinson, 10, said she was playing solitaire when her bed, and then her entire room, began shaking. \n \n \"I grabbed onto my head and held on for dear life,\" she said. \n \n In Benicia, several miles from the epicenter, the quake was strong enough to knock pictures off mantles. \n \n Darryl Sismil, owner of Marin Computer Service in Santa Rosa, described the tremor as \"just a rolling sensation. It felt like I was on a boat in the bay.\" \n \n At the 24-hour Napa Valley Casino off Highway 29 in American Canyon, the quake interrupted a hand of Texas Hold 'Em. \n \n \"I didn't know what to do,\" said Sunshine Hamilton, adding that her \"legs were shaking\" from the experience. \"Everybody ran outside, so I ran outside too. No one grabbed chips or anything like that.\" \n \n They sat outside for about 10 minutes before returning inside to finish the hand. \n \n Les Flynn was asleep with his son on a buddy's couch in Napa when the quake hit. \n \n \"I had my little boy on the couch so I threw myself over him because the there was s- falling on the couch,\" Flynn said. \"It was crazy, everything was shaking off the walls. The whole house was just rolling.\" \n \n San Francisco Chronicle Science Editor David Perlman and staff writers Suzanne Espinosa Solis, Joe Garofoli, Melody Gutierrez, Kristen V. Brown, Greta Kaul, Jill Tucker, Mike Lerseth and David R. Baker contributed to this report. ||||| NAPA, Calif. (AP) \u2014 The San Francisco Bay Area's strongest earthquake in 25 years struck the heart of California's wine country early Sunday, igniting gas-fed fires, damaging some of the region's famed wineries and historic buildings, and sending dozens of people to hospitals. \n \n A Napa firefighter inspects mobile homes that were destroyed Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park, in Napa, Calif. A gas fire destroyed four homes at the park after an earthquake... (Associated Press) \n \n A mailbox is all that remains of one of four mobile homes which were destroyed in a gas fire Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant... (Associated Press) \n \n Steve Brody inspects damage to the interior of his mobile home after an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant damage... (Associated Press) \n \n Nola Rawlins drinks coffee in the office of the at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. Rawlins home was one of 4 destroyed by a gas fire at the mobile home park, the... (Associated Press) \n \n Police cars block the street outside a heavily damaged building following an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant damage in California's northern Bay... (Associated Press) \n \n Jorge Sanchez looks over damage to the main post office following an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant damage in California's northern Bay Area early... (Associated Press) \n \n Jean Meehan looks over the damage to her JHM Stamp and Collectibles store following an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant damage in California's northern... (Associated Press) \n \n Nina Quidit cleans up the Dollar Plus and Party Supplies Store in American Canyon Calif. after an earthquake on Sunday Aug. 24, 2014. Quidit and her husband were woken up in the early morning hours by... (Associated Press) \n \n Nina Quidit cleans up the Dollar Plus and Party Supplies Store in American Canyon Calif., after an earthquake on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014. Quidit and her husband were woken up in the early morning hours... (Associated Press) \n \n Steve Brody inspects damage to the interior of his mobile home after an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant damage... (Associated Press) \n \n Janelle Dahl and her son Austin clean up broken bottles of wine in a tasting room after an earthquake at Dahl Vineyards Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Yountville, Calif. A large earthquake rolled through California's... (Associated Press) \n \n A youngster rides his scooter over a sidewalk buckled by an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. A large earthquake caused significant damage and left at least three critically injured in... (Associated Press) \n \n Winemaker Tom Montgomery stands in wine and reacts to seeing damage following an earthquake at the B.R. Cohn Winery barrel storage facility Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. Winemakers in California\u2019s... (Associated Press) \n \n Part of a brick wall is missing from a building after an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014, in Napa, Calif. Officials say an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 has been reported in California's... (Associated Press) \n \n Grace Hardy cleans up wine bottles at nakedwines.com in Napa, Calif., following an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014. Winemakers in California\u2019s storied Napa Valley woke up to thousands of broken bottles,... (Associated Press) \n \n An awning for Carpe Diem wine bar sits among rubble in Napa, Calif., following an earthquake Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014. A large earthquake caused significant damage and left at least three critically injured... (Associated Press) \n \n The magnitude-6.0 quake, centered near the city of Napa, an oasis of Victorian-era buildings nestled in the vineyard-studded hills of northern California, ruptured water mains and gas lines, hampering firefighters' efforts to extinguish the blazes that broke out after the temblor struck at 3:20 a.m. \n \n Dazed residents who had run out of their homes in the dark and were too fearful of aftershocks to go back to bed wandered through Napa's historic downtown, where boulder-sized chunks of rubble and broken glass littered the streets. Dozens of homes and buildings across the Napa Valley were left unsafe to occupy, including an old county courthouse, where a 10-foot wide hole opened a view of the offices inside. \n \n College student Eduardo Rivera said the home he shares with six relatives shook so violently that he kept getting knocked back into his bed as he tried to flee. \n \n \"When I woke up, my mom was screaming, and the sound from the earthquake was greater than my mom's screams,\" the 20-year-old Rivera said. \n \n Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for southern Napa County, directing state agencies to respond with equipment and personnel. President Barack Obama was briefed on the earthquake, the White House said, and federal officials were in touch with state and local emergency responders. \n \n The temblor struck about six miles south of Napa and lasted 10 to 20 seconds, according to the United States Geological Survey. It was the largest to shake the San Francisco Bay Area since the magnitude-6.9 Loma Prieta quake struck in 1989, collapsing part of the Bay Bridge roadway and killing more than 60 people, most when an Oakland freeway collapsed. \n \n Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, where an outdoor triage tent was set up to handle the influx, reported treating 172 people in the emergency room, although hospital officials could not say how many of them were there for bruises and cuts suffered in the quake and how many for more routine injuries and illnesses. \n \n Twelve people were admitted for broken bones, heart attacks and other problems directly related to the earthquake, including an adult who remained in critical condition on Sunday night and a 13-year-old boy. \n \n The teen was hit by flying debris from a collapsed fireplace and had to be airlifted to the children's hospital at the University of California Davis hospital for a neurological evaluation. He condition was listed as serious, hospital spokeswoman Phyllis Brown said. \n \n Napa Fire Department Operations Chief John Callanan said the city had exhausted its own resources trying to extinguish at least six fires after 60 water mains ruptured, as well as transporting injured residents, searching homes and collapsed carports for anyone trapped and responding to 100 reports of leaking gas. \n \n Two of the fires happened at mobile home parks, including the one where four homes were destroyed and two others damaged, Callanan said. A ruptured water main there delayed efforts to fight the blaze until pumper trucks could be brought in, he said. \n \n Nola Rawlins, 83, was one of the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park residents left homeless by the fire. No one was injured in the blaze, but Rawlins said she lost all her jewelry, papers and other belongings. \n \n \"There were some explosions, and it was burning. Everybody was out in the street,\" she said. \"I couldn't get back in the house because they told everybody to go down to the clubhouse, so I didn't get anything out of the house.\" \n \n U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, who represents Napa, said federal and state officials had conducted an aerial survey of the area, but they wouldn't have a cost estimate for the damage until they can get on the ground and into buildings. He said that while Napa suffered the worst of it, there also was significant damage about 17 miles south on Mare Island in Vallejo, a former naval shipyard where a museum and historic homes were declared uninhabitable. \n \n \"It's bad any way you calculate it. But it could have been a heck of a lot worse,\" Thompson said. \n \n While inspecting the shattered glass at her husband's storefront office in downtown Napa, Chris Malloy described calling for her two children in the dark as the quake rumbled under the family's home, tossing heavy pieces of furniture for several feet. \n \n \"It was shaking, and I was crawling on my hands and knees in the dark, looking for them,\" the 45-year-old woman said, wearing flip flops on feet left bloodied from crawling through broken glass. \n \n Sunday's quake was felt widely throughout the region, with people reporting its effects more than 200 miles south of Napa and as far east as the Nevada border. Amtrak suspended service through the Bay area so tracks could be inspected. \n \n Vintner Richard Ward of Saintsbury Winery south of Napa watched Sunday afternoon as workers righted toppled barrels and rescued a 500-pound grape de-stemmer that the quake had thrown to the ground. \n \n \"That's what happens when you're a mile from the epicenter,\" said Ward, who lost 300 to 400 bottles in the winery's basement. \n \n The grape harvest was supposed to start overnight Monday, but it would now be pushed off a few days, he said. Had the harvest started a day earlier, the quake would have caught the workers among the heavy barrels when it struck, Ward said. \n \n Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, told an afternoon news conference some 90 to 100 homes and buildings were deemed not habitable. \n \n A Red Cross evacuation center was set up at a church, and crews were assessing damage to homes, bridges and roadways. The Napa Unified School District said classes were canceled for students Monday and that students would not be allowed to return to schools until they were checked. \n \n \"There's collapses, fires,\" said Napa Fire Capt. Doug Bridewell, standing in front of large pieces of masonry that broke loose from an early 20th-century office building where a fire had just been extinguished. \"That's the worst shaking I've ever been in.\" \n \n Bridewell said he had to climb over fallen furniture in his own home to check on his family before reporting to duty. \n \n Pacific Gas and Electric spokesman J.D. Guidi said some 30,000 customers lost power after the quake hit, but that number was down to around 7,300 later in the day, most of them in Napa. He said crews were working to make repairs, but it was unclear when electricity would be restored. \n \n The depth of the earthquake was just under seven miles, and it was followed by numerous small aftershocks, the USGS said. \n \n On Sunday night in Southern California, a small, magnitude-3.3 earthquake hit off the region's coast. \n \n The U.S. Geological Survey says the temblor struck at 7:50 p.m. and was centered about 5 miles southwest of San Pedro and 6 miles southeast of Rancho Palos Verdes. There were no initial reports of damages, police said. \n \n ___ \n \n Associated Press writers Juliet Williams in Napa, Tom Verdin in Sacramento, Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco and Courtney Bonnell in Phoenix contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 Northern California is assessing the damage after the region's worst earthquake in 25 years and while no deaths have been reported, at least 100 people have been injured, more than 10,000 are still without power, dozens of buildings have been wrecked\u2014and there is a heck of a lot of broken glass in the Napa Valley wine country. Huge numbers of bottles and barrels of wine were ruined as yesterday's 6.0 magnitude quake caused widespread damage across the valley, the San Jose Mercury-News reports. Wineries say the quake will cause serious losses, but the harvest now under way shouldn't be affected. The US Geological Survey believes total damage could be more than $1 billion. More: Authorities say that across the region, around 100 homes have been red-tagged as unsafe to return to until authorities declare them safe\u2014and they are only a third of the way through the process of tagging buildings, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. There have been more than 50 aftershocks but state officials say that they now consider a major follow-up quake unlikely, reports the Los Angeles Times. Three of the injured are in critical condition, including a 13-year-old boy injured by debris from a falling chimney, according to the AP. Some 172 people were treated in the emergency room of the Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa after the quake, though it's not clear how many of them were there for quake-related injuries. A USGS geophysicist says that despite the damage, the earthquake was \"truly small\" compared to some that California has experienced. \"We owe wine country in part to earthquakes\" that created the terrain, he tells the New York Times. \"We all want to enjoy the fruits of the quakes, so we all have to prepare for the downside, too.\""}
{"document": "August 20, 2011 \n \n Toronto, Ontario \n \n Dear Friends, \n \n Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination. \n \n Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue. \n \n I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected. \n \n I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election. \n \n A few additional thoughts: \n \n To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don\u2019t be discouraged that my own journey hasn\u2019t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer. \n \n To the members of my party: we\u2019ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let\u2019s continue to move forward. Let\u2019s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government. \n \n To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election. \n \n To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada\u2019s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all. \n \n To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future. \n \n And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one \u2013 a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world\u2019s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don\u2019t let them tell you it can\u2019t be done. \n \n My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we\u2019ll change the world. \n \n All my very best, \n \n Jack Layton ||||| Family, friends and colleagues are remembering NDP Leader Jack Layton as news starts to sink in that the politician known for his warmth and personality has died. \n \n Friends and political foes alike praised Layton on Monday for his warmth, optimism and respect for opponents. \n \n People who squared off politically against Layton, including former prime ministers Jean Chr\u00e9tien and Paul Martin, as well as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, all spoke warmly about the NDP leader's commitment to Canadians. \n \n Layton, who led Canada's Official Opposition, died early Monday morning at his Toronto home after a battle with cancer. He was 61. \n \n Layton's wife, Olivia Chow, and his children, Sarah and Michael Layton, issued a statement announcing his death. \n \n \"We deeply regret to inform you that the Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 am today, Monday August 22. He passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by family and loved ones,\" the statement read. \n \n State funeral Saturday \n \n Layton will be honoured with a state funeral Saturday in Toronto, senior NDP officials have told CBC News. \n \n The government protocol office is working with the NDP and family of the NDP leader on exactly what the funeral will be. \n \n Condolence books will be set up in Ottawa on Parliament Hill and in Toronto at city hall. Others will be located in NDP constituency offices across the country. \n \n On Monday, mourners, many bearing flowers and other tributes, arrived at Layton's Toronto constituency office. Friends and areas residents also arrived at his home on the quiet side street where he lived with Chow. \n \n Social media was used to quickly organize public tributes, including gatherings on Parliament Hill, and a rally in Toronto. Later Monday evening, several hundred people came together for a vigil outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. \n \n On Monday evening, hundreds of people were near the Centennial Flame at Parliament Hill, many leaving flowers, cans of Orange Crush that symbolize the NDP's official colour, and notes. The crowd, many bearing candles, sang O Canada as the sun set. \n \n The family released a letter from Layton to Canadians just after noon. \n \n Layton had been battling new cancer \n \n Layton's death comes less than a month after he announced to the country that he was fighting a new form of cancer and was taking time off for treatment. Layton had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in late 2009 and underwent treatment for it. He continued working throughout that time and also battled a broken hip earlier this year. Layton used a cane for much of his time on the campaign trail this spring as he led the NDP to a historic victory on May 2. \n \n His party claimed 103 seats, and was propelled to official Opposition status. Layton and his party were getting used to their new roles in Parliament but he did not appear to be in good health near the end of June. He said he felt pain and stiffness, he underwent tests and they confirmed he had a new form of cancer. He did not disclose what kind of cancer. \n \n Layton's chief of staff, Anne McGrath, said Monday that Layton's condition took a quick turn for the worse Sunday night. \n \n She spent a few hours with him Saturday and had a sense that he was losing a battle, but says his campaign slogan \u2013 don't let them tell you it can't be done \u2013 was also a personal slogan. \n \n \"It is a huge loss. It is a huge loss for me personally, but it's a huge loss also for our party and our country,\" she said. \n \n McGrath worked with Layton for nearly a decade. \n \n \"There's no question that my heart is broken,\" she said. \n \n McGrath said Layton was thinking about what it would mean for the party if he died. When they spoke on Saturday, they talked about upcoming events like the party's annual caucus retreat in September and what Parliament would be like if he weren't there. \n \n Layton always liked to be presented with options, McGrath told Evan Solomon on CBC's Power & Politics, including a plan for what would happen if he died. \n \n \"He was very, very practical and he was very much wanting to know that we were going to be able to continue and we were going to be strong,\" she said. \n \n After the news of Layton's death emerged shortly after 8 a.m. ET, friends, colleagues and Canadians reacted quickly and with shock, sadness and tears. The flag on the Peace Tower was lowered to half-mast. \n \n Harper saddened by news \n \n Layton's last letter \"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world,\" Jack Layton writes just days before his death. Read more \n \n Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Layton will be remembered for the force of his personality and his dedication to public life. \n \n Speaking from the foyer of the House of Commons, Harper said the two leaders had always talked about getting together to jam. \n \n \"I will always regret the jam session that never was. That is a reminder, I think, that we must always make time for friends, family and loved ones, while we still can,\" he said. \n \n In a statement earlier Monday, Harper saluted Layton's contribution to public life and said it would be sorely missed. \n \n \"I know one thing: Jack gave his fight against cancer everything he had. Indeed, Jack never backed down from any fight,\" he said. \n \n Tributes to Layton poured in from across party lines. Rae said the news took his breath away and that Layton's death is not just a loss for the NDP, but for all Canadians. \n \n \"It's a loss for the country because he was a political guy who believed strongly in politics and who had a lot of resilience and a lot of guts,\" Rae told CBC News. \n \n NDP colleagues shocked \n \n Longtime NDP leader and MP Ed Broadbent told CBC News he sensed the end was coming, but was still shocked when he got the call Monday morning. \n \n \"In each and every election, he moved us forward ... he wanted a reason in politics,\" Broadbent said. \n \n \"Canada has lost a great politician. A man who believed in working for the public good. And I've lost a personal friend.\" \n \n Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel spoke of one of Layton's favourite quotes from Tommy Douglas, the founder of the CCF, the NDP's forerunner. Layton included the quote in every email he sent: \u201cCourage my friends, \u2018tis never too late to build a better world.\u201d \n \n \"Jack was a courageous man. It was his leadership that inspired me, and so many others, to run for office,\" Turmel said in her statement. \n \n \"We \u2013 members of Parliament, New Democrats and Canadians \u2013 need to pull together now and carry on his fight to make this country a better place.\" \n \n NDP deputy leader Libby Davies, fighting back tears, said Layton's death is \"an incredible loss.\" \n \n \"Jack was not only a great leader of the NDP, he's someone that Canadians across the country came to love. We feel a tremendous sense of loss and grief,\" she said. \n \n Davies said Layton brought a sense of humanity to Canadian politics and in his career and his life, especially his battle with cancer, \"he gave it his all.\" \n \n \"We have only love and respect for everything that he did and he leaves some really important legacies in Canadian politics,\" she said. \n \n The NDP appointed Turmel to take over for Layton temporarily. Layton wanted to be back at work in time for Parliament's fall session in mid-September. \n \n Jack Layton, speaking at the NDP's 50th anniversary convention in June, led his party past the Liberals to become the Official Opposition during the spring election. Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press Douglas' daughter, Shirley, says Layton was the same whether he was in a crowded room or meeting people one-on-one. \n \n \"Everywhere I've gone, people said 'You know, we've got a leader who cared',\" she told CBC News. \n \n Douglas says she's worried about Chow. \n \n \"That's the one person I keep thinking about all morning,\" she said. \"They were so close and when a marriage that is as close as that one ... it's a terrible thing to see that marriage broken apart by this. I just couldn't say enough to her. She's a tremendous woman on her own.\" \n \n The leader of the Official Opposition announced on July 25 he was stepping away from the job to concentrate on his cancer treatment. He told Canadians he had recently been diagnosed with a new form of cancer, in addition to the prostate cancer he had earlier battled.", "summary": "\u2013 Jack Layton has died of cancer barely three months after leading the New Democratic Party to its strongest-ever result in Canada. The 61-year-old, who shocked the country only a few weeks ago when he announced he was stepping aside as the official opposition leader because of health issues, died yesterday of an undisclosed form of cancer and will receive a state funeral, the CBC reports. Tributes to Layton, who led the social democratic party for nine years, have poured in from across the political spectrum. After his death, Layton's family released a final letter to Canadians in which he addressed his battle with cancer and his vision for a better Canada. \"To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don\u2019t be discouraged that my own journey hasn\u2019t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope,\" he wrote. \"Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.\""}
{"document": "xkcd.com Randall Munroe \n \n Contact: \n \n orders@xkcd.com -- All store-related email. \n \n press@xkcd.com -- Press questions, etc (may take a long time to get to me). \n \n \n \n Note: You are welcome to reprint occasional comics pretty much anywhere (presentations, papers, blogs with ads, etc). If you're not outright merchandizing, you're probably fine. Just be sure to attribute the comic to xkcd.com. \n \n \n \n If you have a question or comment about xkcd, you may want to try sharing it on the forums or the IRC channel. \n \n \n \n IRC: #xkcd on irc.foonetic.net \n \n Wikipedia article: xkcd \n \n \n \n Translations (unofficial): \n \n Spanish, Russian, German. \n \n \n \n xkcd.com updates without fail every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. \n \n Who are you? I'm just this guy, you know? I'm a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. As of June 2007 I live in Massachusetts. In my spare time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat parties I do the same thing, but the other way around. What else do you do? Occasionally produce a few extra comics such as a pair of comics for IBM's A Smarter Planet initiative (also archived here as they are released). \n \n \n \n Encourage people to get out and meet each other in, hopefully, interesting places via geohashing. \n \n \n \n Host a gallery of photos inspired by comic #249. \n \n Who else are you? Server maintenance and most of the coding for these sites is done by my friend davean, who tries hard to remain invisible but can be reached at davean@xkcd.com. Designer Christina Gleason also helps with posters, books, and various side projects. What does XKCD stand for? It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings. Where did all this start? I was going through old math/sketching graph paper notebooks and didn't want to lose some of the work in them, so I started scanning pages. I took the more comic-y ones and put them up on a server I was testing out, and got a bunch of readers when BoingBoing linked to me. I started drawing more seriously, gained a lot more readers, started selling t-shirts on the site, and am currently shipping t-shirts and drawing this comic full-time. It's immensely fun and I really appreciate y'all's support. Why can't I read the whole comic mouseover text in Firefox? They can be read with extensions like Long Titles, or by right-clicking on the images and going to 'properties', then clicking and dragging to read the whole thing. This is a bug in Firefox, Mozilla Bug #45375. It has been outstanding for many years now. \n \n \n \n Note: It looks like it's been fixed in Firefox 3.0. Now, as an added tweak, to keep the tooltips from expiring while you're reading, you can use this. Can we print xkcd in our magazine/newspaper/other publication? If it's a not-for-profit publication, you need no permission -- just print them with attribution to xkcd.com. You can post xkcd in your blog (whether ad-supported or not) with no need to get my permission. How can I find the date a comic was posted? The posting date is in the mouseover text on the archive page. Is there an interface for automated systems to access comics and metadata? Yes. You can get comics through the JSON interface, at URLs like http://xkcd.com/info.0.json (current comic) and http://xkcd.com/614/info.0.json (comic #614). How do I write \"xkcd\"? There's nothing in Strunk and White about this. For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is \"xkcd\", all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn't start a sentence, \"XKCD\" is an okay alternative. \"Xkcd\" is frowned upon. What is your favorite astronomical entity? The Pleiades. Back to main ||||| Invasion of the tiny plastic people! Lego figures set to outnumber HUMANS by 2019 \n \n \n \n A graph produced by a physics graduate in Virginia, compared human population predictions and the forecast production of Lego figures \n \n At the end of 2006, Lego said there were four billion figures in existence, but the number is expected to rise to almost eight billion in 2019 \n \n The first Lego figurine went on sale in 1978 and had no race, sex or specific role, as these would be determined by a child's imagination \n \n Since 1978, millions of tiny plastic people have been populating the Earth. \n \n And now it is predicted that there could be a miniature Lego figure for every person on Earth in 2019. \n \n According to a mathematical online comic, Lego has been making its little people at such a rate that they will outnumber the human population by the end of the decade. \n \n A physics graduate from Massachusetts, who is behind the web comic Xkcd.com has calculated that the predictions for the global population and predictions for the number of Lego Figurines will match up in 2019 and the little plastic people will go on to out-number humans \n \n The first Lego figurine went on sale in 1978 and since then, billions have been produced \n \n At the end of 2006, the company announced there were four billion miniature figures in existence, being played with by children across the planet. \n \n Now, a physics graduate from Massachusetts, who is behind the web comic Xkcd.com has calculated that the predictions for the global population and predictions for the number of Lego Figurines will match up in 2019 and the plastic people will go on to out-number humans. \n \n If the predictions are correct, there will be almost eight billion people and the same amount of Lego figures calling Earth home in 2019. \n \n Lego said in 2008 that it has made 400 billion Lego bricks since the company began, which is enough for 62 each for every person in existence at that time. \n \n According to a mathematical online comic, Lego has been making its little people at such a rate that they will outnumber the human population by the end of the decade. Here, s model maker at Legoland Windsor puts the finishing touches to a wall made up of over 6,000 Lego figures \n \n LEGO MINIFIGURE TIME LINE \n \n 1978: The first minifigures are launched for the themes Town, Space and Castle \n \n \n \n 1978: Two months after the appearance of the first minifigures the first female minifigure arrives on the scene and she's a nurse \n \n \n \n 1989: Minifigures change their facial expressions. Now they can be either good or bad \n \n \n \n 1997: The minifigure comes to life in the computer game PANIC ON LEGO ISLAND as an animated character \n \n \n \n 1998: The minifigure makes its first appearance in a specific role - as Star Wars characters \n \n \n \n 2003: For the first time in the history of the minifigure its yellow facial colouring is replaced by a more authentic skin colour \n \n \n \n 2004: Lego licensed products no longer have yellow faces \u2013 Harry Potter, for example, assumes a more natural skin tone \n \n \n \n 2010: Minifigures are launched as collector\u2019s items \n \n The first Lego figurine went on sale in 1978 and since then, billions have been produced, making them the world's biggest population group, according to the company. \n \n The mini figure has been modelled after celebrities from Stephen Spielberg to Santa Claus and enjoyed various careers, including astronaut, policeman, racing driver, warrior, pirate, skater and scientist as well as taken on the role of fictional characters like Spider-Man, Harry Potter and Yoda. \n \n Lego said that when the mini figure first appeared, it was decided that its face should have only one colour - yellow - and that its facial features should be happy and neutral. \n \n However earlier this year, robot experts at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, studied all 6000 minifigures from 1975 to 2010 and found that from the early Nineties onwards, Lego's mini-figures' facials expressions have been diversifying from consistently happy smiles to expressions reflecting greater conflict. \n \n \n \n The first figures had no sex, race or specific role, as these would be determined by a child's imagination and it was not until the launch of Lego Pirates in the 1980s that the figures were given differing facial expressions.", "summary": "\u2013 Today's oddest factoid: There may be 7 billion humans on the planet, but by 2019 a species of tiny plastic people will outnumber even us: Lego figurines. Randall Munroe, the physics grad behind the webcomic xkcd, has compared Lego production forecasts with human population predictions to determine that by 2019, there will be nearly 8 billion tiny, yellow people around\u2014up from 4 billion in 2006\u2014a number that will outstrip the human population. It's all the more impressive considering Lego figurines have only been on sale since 1978, the Daily Mail reports.(Click to see why some of those Lego people may appear angry.)"}
{"document": "Published on Nov 6, 2017 \n \n Donald Trump and the Japanese prime minister, Shinz\u014d Abe, feed fish on the second day of the US president\u2019s five-nation tour of Asia. Standing beside a pond brimming with colourful koi in the Akasaka palace in Tokyo, the two men upended their wooden containers and dumped the entire contents of fish food into the pond Fishy business: Trump and Abe dump fish food into precious koi pond \n \n \n \n Subscribe to Guardian News \u25ba http://bit.ly/guardianwiressub \n \n Support the Guardian \u25ba https://theguardian.com/supportus \n \n \n \n The Guardian YouTube network: \n \n \n \n The Guardian \u25ba www.youtube.com/theguardian \n \n Owen Jones talks \u25ba http://bit.ly/subsowenjones \n \n Guardian Football \u25ba http://is.gd/guardianfootball \n \n Guardian Science and Tech \u25ba http://is.gd/guardiantech \n \n Guardian Sport \u25ba http://bit.ly/GDNsport \n \n Guardian Culture \u25ba http://is.gd/guardianculture ||||| US president and Japanese host give fish a large feast on second day of former\u2019s five-nation tour of Asia \n \n Donald Trump and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have taken a forceful approach to feeding fish on the second day of the US president\u2019s five-nation tour of Asia. \n \n Standing beside a pond brimming with colourful koi in the Akasaka palace in Tokyo, the two men began spooning out fish food before appearing to lose patience and emptying their wooden containers with a shake. \n \n The palace\u2019s large collection of koi have been viewed by a succession of world leaders, including Margaret Thatcher. It is not known whether the former British prime minister was as aggressive as Trump when it came to feeding the pond\u2019s inhabitants. \n \n White House reporters, keen perhaps to pick up on a Trump gaffe, captured the moment when he upended his box on their smartphones and tweeted evidence of his questionable grasp of fish keeping. However, other footage made clear that Trump was merely following his host\u2019s lead. \n \n \n \n Abe is seen grinning, as is a woman in a kimono standing to one side. Next to her, Rex Tillerson \u2013 perhaps grateful for a moment of comic relief after he was named in the Paradise Papers \u2013 could not suppress a laugh, according to witnesses. \n \n \n \n Some speculated that a poor palace employee would be dispatched to the scene to clean up the mess as soon as the two leaders disappeared inside. \n \n Trump and Abe are not alone in misjudging the fishes\u2019 appetite. According to the Aquascape website, overfeeding is the most common mistake made by keepers of koi. \n \n \u201cThis can make your fish sick, and excessive amounts of waste that strains the limits of what can be biologically reduced, results in a decline of water quality,\ufffd? the site says.", "summary": "\u2013 It's probably one of the most-repeated phrases when teaching kids about how to feed fish: just a pinch. It's a directive President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe most definitely did not follow while the two visited the Akasaka palace's koi carp pond Monday. The Guardian reports that the men began by spooning a bit of food in before \"appearing to lose patience\" and essentially dumping the contents of the boxes they held into the pond. While some in the media were quick to pounce on Trump for the apparent gaffe, the Guardian notes that video footage shows he was simply imitating Abe's approach."}
{"document": "A former executive with Tiffany & Co. stole a little blue box bounty from the jeweler's midtown Manhattan headquarters and resold it for more than $1.3 million, federal authorities said Tuesday. \n \n Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun was arrested Tuesday at her home in Darien, Conn. She was to appear later in the day in federal court in Manhattan to face charges of wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. \n \n As vice president of product development, Lederhaas-Okun had authority to \"check out\" jewelry from Tiffany to provide to potential manufacturers to determine production costs. Authorities allege that after she left Tiffany in February, the company discovered she had checked out 164 items that were never returned. \n \n According to a criminal complaint, the missing jewelry included numerous diamond bracelets in 18-carat gold, diamond drop and hoop earrings in platinum or 18-carat gold, diamond rings in platinum, rings with precious stones in 18-carat gold, and platinum and diamond pendants. \n \n When confronted about the missing jewelry, Lederhaas-Okun claimed that she had left some of it behind at Tiffany and that some had been lost or damaged, the complaint said. But an investigation found that Lederhaas-Okun resold the goods to an unidentified international dealer for more than $1.3 million, it said. \n \n Bank records showed that since January 2011, the dealer wrote 75 checks to her or her husband for amounts of up to $47,400, the complaint said. Investigators also recovered purchase forms signed by Lederhaas-Okun that said the items were her personal property. \n \n Authorities allege Lederhaas-Okun purposely checked out items valued at under $10,000 apiece to avoid detection. The company takes a daily inventory of all checked-out items worth more than $25,000. \n \n If convicted, Lederhaas-Okun faces up to 20 years in prison. The name of her attorney wasn't immediately available. \n \n Tiffany representatives declined to comment Tuesday. ||||| A former Tiffany exec was busted by the feds this morning in the theft of more than $1 million worth of bling from the famed jewelry company. \n \n Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, who oversaw product development for the blue box bauble business, allegedly resold the valuable trinkets to an unidentified Midtown jewelry company and concocted a series of stories to account for the loss. \n \n The loot included more than 165 pieces, including \u201cnumerous diamond bracelets, platinum or gold diamond drop and hoop earrings, platinum diamond rings, and platinum and diamond pendants,\u201d according to the feds. \n \n Lederhaas-Okun, 46, was nabbed by the FBI this morning at her home in ritzy Darien, Conn., and charged with wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. \n \n The charges carry a maximum punishment of 30 years in the slammer. \n \n \u201cAs alleged, Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun went from a vice president at a high-end jewelry company to jewel thief,\u201d Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said. \n \n \u201cHer arrest shows that no matter how privileged their position in a company, employees who steal will face the full consequences of the law.\u201d \n \n According to a profile posted on linkedin.com, Lederhaas-Okun started working at Tiffany as an assistant buyer in 1991 and rose through the ranks over the following years. \n \n She was canned in February \u201cas part of an overall downsizing at the jewelry company,\u201d according to court papers. \n \n A Tiffany spokeswoman said: \u201cIn deference to the US Attorney\u2019s investigation, we are not in a position to comment at this time.\u201d \n \n Lederhaas-Okun is due in court later today.", "summary": "\u2013 It's not the kind of jewelry heist screenwriters dream about, but this alleged plot seems to have gotten the job done: A former executive at Tiffany's is accused of taking 165 pieces of jewelry, pretty much one piece at a time, and then reselling them to an international dealer for about $1.3 million, reports AP. Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun had access to the loot as part of her job as VP in charge of product development. An investigation found that she checked out from storage everything from diamond bracelets to precious stones to gold earrings, items that somehow never found their way back to the company. Her excuses about things getting lost or damaged didn't stand up to scrutiny, especially when authorities found 75 hefty checks written by the unidentified dealer to her or her husband. (The New York Post says the dealer is a company in Midtown Manhattan.) The 46-year-old suspect, who lost her job at Tiffany's during downsizing in February, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted."}
{"document": "CONCORD, N.H.\u2014It was not the news that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham went on TV to make. Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, who like the rest of Washington was exploring every angle of the Hillary Clinton e-mail kerfuffle, asked Graham if he had a private e-mail address. \n \n \"I don't e-mail,\" said Graham. \"No, you can have every e-mail I've ever sent. I've never sent one.\" \n \n That went viral, funny enough, on the weekend of Graham's first trip to New Hampshire as a potential presidential candidate. After a marathon town-hall meeting in Concord's Snow Shoe Lodge, the Republican held a gaggle with reporters, and Fox News lobbed a question about the e-mail. Graham repeated himself: He did not use e-mail. He preferred to talk on the phone. \n \n \"The next president of the United States needs to be good with people, not just technology,\" he said. \n \n http://youtu.be/RoNHHaL2Phs \n \n After that exchange, Graham responded to a question about Clinton with a joke: \"If she could do it again, she'd do the Lindsey Graham thing, and not use e-mail.\" As he headed to his car, I asked Graham to explain his communication methods, a subject that truly baffled a press corps that walks around with smartphones welded to hands. \n \n \"What I do, basically, is that I've got iPads, and I play around,\" Graham explained. \"But I don't e-mail. I've tried not to have a system where I can just say the first dumb thing that comes to my mind. I've always been concerned. I can get texts, and I call you back, if I want. I get a text, and I respond not by sending you a text, but calling you if I think what you asked is worthy enough for me calling you. I'm not being arrogant, but I'm trying to jealously guard myself in terms of being able to think through problems and not engage in chat all day. I've had a chance to kind of carve out some time for myself not responding to every 15-second crisis.\" ||||| University of WisconsinArchive-It Partner Since: Aug, 2007Organization Type: Colleges & UniversitiesOrganization URL: http://archives.library.wisc.edu This collection currently includes two distinct sub-collections: The UW-Madison Collection and The Stem Cell Research Archives Project.The UW-Madison Collection includes University of Wisconsin Web sites that document many aspects of campus life including university administration, colleges, departments, and major campus organizations, student life, research, buildings, and special and ongoing events. We also crawl UW System and Colleges administration and UW Extension Web sites.The Stem Cell Research Archives Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries collects, preserves, and provides access to records of stem cell research at UW-Madison and reactions in Wisconsin to work accomplished or underway at UW-Madison.For more information about these collections or UW campus history, visit http://archives.library.wisc.edu or contact uwarchiv@library.wisc.edu. On Wisconsin! ||||| How does he find out that there\u2019s been a last-minute change to his scheduled meeting? How does he know whether his Amazon.com order has been dispatched? What does he do when he forgets the password for his Spotify account? These questions plagued me upon hearing that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has never sent an email. \n \n Graham, who was a U.S. congressman for eight years before becoming a senator 12 years ago, laughed about his email habits before adding, \u201cI don\u2019t know what that makes me.\u201d \n \n More Politics \n \n We know: It makes Graham part of the 9 percent of American adults who say they have never sent or received an email in their lives. That number comes from a report published by the Pew Research Center in April 2012 that used survey data to analyze the way American adults use the Internet. \n \n It\u2019s not just Graham\u2019s public role that makes his avoidance of email surprising, it\u2019s also his demographic characteristics. Only 3 percent of college-educated respondents said they had never used email (Graham graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1977, the same year the U.S. Postal Service recognized electronic messaging as a threat to its revenue). Graham\u2019s annual salary of $174,000 also makes his non-emailing unusual, since more affluent groups are more likely to have used email: 85 percent of respondents whose household income was less than than $30,000 per year said they had used email compared to 97 percent of those earning $75,000 or more. Being white also increases the probability that an American will have used email at some point in his or her life. \n \n In fact, the only thing that makes Graham\u2019s communication habits less surprising is the fact that he\u2019s approaching 60 years of age. Older Americans are less likely to say they have used email. But still, 90 percent of adults in Graham\u2019s age group have sent or received at least one message, and even among those age 65 and over, that number is 86 percent. \n \n Pew also asked why people emailed or didn\u2019t. About a third of all respondents who didn\u2019t use the Internet or email said it was because they were just not interested, and another 12 percent said it was because they don\u2019t have a computer. Other responses included \u201cit\u2019s a waste of time\u201d (7 percent of respondents), \u201ctoo old to learn\u201d (4 percent) and \u201cworried about viruses/spyware/spam\u201d (only 1 percent). \n \n It\u2019s not yet clear why the senator has chosen to abstain from email. Maybe Graham just really, really cares about the U.S. Postal Service \u2014 after all, he did sponsor a bill in 2003 to rename a branch in his home state the Floyd Spence Post Office Building. I assume he received the good news that the bill passed via a stamped letter. ||||| 15% of American adults do not use the internet at all, and another 9% of adults use the internet but not at home. \n \n As of May 2013, 15% of American adults ages 18 and older do not use the internet or email. Asked why they do not use the internet: \n \n 34% of non-internet users think the internet is just not relevant to them , saying they are not interested, do not want to use it, or have no need for it. \n \n , saying they are not interested, do not want to use it, or have no need for it. 32% of non-internet users cite reasons tied to their sense that the internet is not very easy to use . These non-users say it is difficult or frustrating to go online, they are physically unable, or they are worried about other issues such as spam, spyware, and hackers. This figure is considerably higher than in earlier surveys. \n \n . These non-users say it is difficult or frustrating to go online, they are physically unable, or they are worried about other issues such as spam, spyware, and hackers. This figure is considerably higher than in earlier surveys. 19% of non-internet users cite the expense of owning a computer or paying for an internet connection . \n \n . 7% of non-users cited a physical lack of availability or access to the internet. \n \n As in previous surveys by the Pew Research Center\u2019s Internet Project, internet use remains strongly correlated with age, educational attainment, and household income. One of the strongest patterns in the data on internet use is by age group: 44% of Americans ages 65 and older do not use the internet, and these older Americans make up almost half (49%) of non-internet users overall. \n \n Though they themselves do not go online, these self-described non-internet users often report that the internet touches their lives: \n \n 44% of offline adults have asked a friend or family member to look something up or complete a task on the internet for them . \n \n . 23% of offline adults live in a household where someone else uses the internet at home, a proportion that has remained relatively steady for over a decade. \n \n at home, a proportion that has remained relatively steady for over a decade. 14% of offline adults say that they once used to use the internet, but have since stopped for some reason. \n \n Overall, most adults who do not use the internet or email do not express a strong desire to go online in the future: just 8% of offline adults say they would like to start using the internet or email, while 92% say they are not interested. We also offline adults whether they would need assistance going online if they did wish to do so, and found that only 17% of all non-internet users say they would be able to start using the internet on their own, while 63% say they would need assistance. \n \n Even among the 85% of adults who do go online, experiences connecting to the internet may vary widely. For instance, while 76% of adults use the internet at home, 9% of adults use the internet but lack home access. Groups that are significantly more likely to rely on internet access outside the home include blacks and Hispanics, as well as adults at lower levels of income and education. Finally, while most home internet users have broadband in some form, 3% of all adults go online at home via dial-up connections. \n \n About this survey \n \n The findings in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from April 17 to May 19, 2013, among a sample of 2,252 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline and cell phone. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. More information is available in the Methods section at the end of this report.", "summary": "\u2013 Lindsey Graham, take heart: Up to 15% of Americans don't use email either and may not go online at all. The South Carolina Republican revealed yesterday during a conversation about Hillary Clinton's emails that he had never sent an email before. \"I don't know what that makes me,\" he said on Meet the Press. Well, drawing on a Pew Research Center report from 2012, Five Thirty-Eight says that 9% of American adults haven't sent an email either. And a Pew report from last year says 15% of American adults don't go online for email, surfing, pinging, posting, or whatever. What's really unusual about Graham's email stance is the fact that he doesn't fit into the non-email group's demographic. Per the 2012 report, just 3% of Americans with a college education say they haven't clicked \"send\" before\u2014while Graham left the University of South Carolina in 1977 with a bona fide degree. And his $174,000 salary makes him more affluent than most non-email users; 97% of Americans making at least $75,000 say they've used email compared to 85% of people banking under $30,000. Whites are also more likely to have sent an electronic message. Only Graham's age (he's 59) makes him a closer demographic fit, but even then, 90% of adults in his age range say they've sent email before. So why doesn't he? \"I've tried not to have a system where I can just say the first dumb thing that comes to my mind,\" he tells Bloomberg."}
{"document": "Cleveland Heights, Ohio \u2014 THERE is no song called \u201cI Left My Heart in Cleveland.\u201d Cleveland is the flip side of California and the Golden State Warriors, whom they have met in the last two N.B.A. finals. The former Cleveland Cavaliers basketball coach David Blatt once said: \u201cWe\u2019re in Cleveland. Nothing is easy here.\u201d Then he got fired. \n \n Sunday night Cleveland came back from a three-games-to-one deficit to beat Golden State and win the N.B.A. championship. I was born in Cleveland, my father was born in Cleveland, my children were born in Cleveland, and we\u2019ve all seen many, many losing teams \u2014 52 years\u2019 worth, if you\u2019re counting. And we\u2019re counting here in Cleveland. The last time Cleveland won a championship was the 1964 National Football League Championship. My dad took me. I was in Section 18, Row T, Seat 8 of Municipal Stadium. \n \n Two years ago, when LeBron James announced his return to Cleveland from Miami in Sports Illustrated, some Cleveland men teared up. My middle-aged friend Jimmy and I did. So un-Cleveland \u2014 those tears. The credo here is \u201cCleveland: You\u2019ve Got to Be Tough,\u201d from a T-shirt first printed in the 1970s when the boy-mayor Dennis Kucinich ushered the city into default. \n \n James wrote: \u201cBefore anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It\u2019s where I walked. It\u2019s where I ran. It\u2019s where I cried. It\u2019s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I\u2019m their son.\u201d ||||| 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. ||||| After Cleveland's win in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals, the only Cavaliers player who was anywhere near as emotional as LeBron James was J.R. Smith. Smith cried on the court and this image started making the rounds on social media almost immediately: \n \n But those weren\u2019t the only tears Smith shed on Sunday night. Far from it, actually. After the Cavaliers collected the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy and went back to their locker room, Smith held a post-game press conference, and he was extremely emotional throughout it. His tears continued to flow throughout his presser, as he talked about how much his family means to him and what they've done to help him overcome adversity. It was easily one of the best moments of the entire NBA Playoffs. Watch it, here: \n \n Here\u2019s a transcript of Smith\u2019s speech, which included a portion devoted specifically to his father: \n \n That Smith\u2019s press conference took place on Father\u2019s Day made it all the more special. \n \n Plenty of people had jokes about Smith being an NBA champion on Twitter after the game: \n \n JR Smith bout to throw a hell of a party. \u2014 Twan (@Twan_Priceless) June 20, 2016 I can only wish one day I'll party as hard as JR smith does tonight \u2014 sean brannagan (@seanbraggs36) June 20, 2016 I would pay an unlimited amount of money to be able to party with Jr Smith tonight \u2014 Nick Johnson (@nick_johnson019) June 20, 2016 \n \n But the things he said during his press conference really summed up what being an NBA champion is all about. And all jokes aside (we've made a lot of them, too, over the years), it's nice to see how much winning a title truly means to a player like Smith. ||||| Ezra Shaw/Getty Images \n \n LeBron James was anointed as a transcendent, generational star while he was still in high school. He\u2019s been the best player in basketball for most of the 13 years he\u2019s been in the league\u2014a four-time MVP, a 12-time All-Star, and already the 11th-leading scorer in NBA history by the age of 31. He\u2019s the most physically gifted player of all time, faster and more skilled than anyone with his size and strength. And yet on Sunday night, a few minutes after he led the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first-ever title, James said, \u201cI don\u2019t know why the man above give me the hardest road.\u201d The now three-time NBA champ spoke the truth. \n \n Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals felt like a rock fight staged inside an enormous pothole. Steph Curry, the unanimous MVP, shot 6 for 19 from the field and finished with more turnovers than assists. His fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson shot 6 for 17 from the floor and 2\u201310 from 3-point range. LeBron himself shot just 9 for 24 and led both teams with five turnovers. After he scored six straight points to put the Cavs up 89\u201387 with 4:52 to go, James missed four shots in a row, each of which would\u2019ve given Cleveland back the lead. On the other end, the Warriors missed their last nine shot attempts. The only player on either team who made a field goal in the last 4:39 was Kyrie Irving, whose 3-pointer with 53 seconds left turned out to be the game-winner in Cleveland\u2019s 93\u201389 victory over Golden State. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \n \n This is the thing about the NBA and legacies and greatness: In this series, LeBron was about as dominant as any basketball player can be, and he never came close to controlling his team\u2019s fate. If one of the best offensive teams in history managed to score any points at all in the last few minutes of the fourth quarter \u2026 if Curry didn\u2019t throw a dumb behind-the-back pass out of bounds \u2026 if Kyrie Irving had clanged that long jumper instead of knocking it in, then this story probably wouldn\u2019t include the phrase \u201cthree-time NBA champ.\u201d \n \n James led both teams in the NBA Finals in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. He scored 41 points in Game 5, 41 more in Game 6, and put up a triple-double in Game 7. With a little less than two minutes on the clock, he chased down Andre Iguodala and made the block of the century to keep the game tied. \n \n A couple of minutes later, he nearly destroyed space and time with a game-clinching dunk over Draymond Green. That would've been fitting, for the best player in the world to seal one of the most significant victories in NBA history with one of the greatest dunks ever. \n \n But Green fouled him, hard, sending James to the line. He flicked his jammed right wrist and made one out of two free throws, giving the Cavs the two-possession lead they wouldn't relinquish. This was less spectacular but somehow more appropriate. LeBron soared over everyone, got knocked out of the sky, and had to pull himself off the ground to lock up his franchise's biggest victory. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \n \n But to bring a championship to Cleveland, the best player in the game needed a couple of breaks. This is the reality of professional sports, and it\u2019s because of that reality that I\u2019ve rooted for LeBron James for the past 10 years. Players play to win championships, and fans and writers evaluate them based on whether they succeed. It\u2019s unfair, but it\u2019s what makes the games we watch so thrilling. Since winner-takes-some is never going to be a thing, those of us who want one of the best players we\u2019ve ever seen to get the respect he deserves have no choice but to hope he gets the bounces he needs to make his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 unimpeachable. \n \n LeBron led the first-ever comeback from 3\u20131 down in the NBA Finals. He beat the greatest regular-season team ever. He came back to his home state of Ohio and won a championship for the most star-crossed sports city in the United States. That block on Iguodala isn\u2019t the block that kept the game tied before Steph Curry went off and won his second title in a row. It\u2019s the Block. If he wasn\u2019t before, LeBron James is now, rightfully, a basketball legend. \n \n It\u2019s been a hard road for LeBron James. It was a hard road to get nicknamed \u201cthe Chosen One\u201d as a high school junior, then get criticized even as he exceeded every unrealistic expectation. It was a hard road to get drafted by his home-state team, and be expected to do what no other player in any sport had done for Cleveland since 1964. It was a hard road to leave Ohio for another, better opportunity, and to have his jersey burned by the fans that had claimed to love him. It was a hard road to come back, to forgive Dan \u201cComic Sans\u201d Gilbert, and to say he was \u201cready to accept the challenge\u201d of winning a championship with the Cavaliers. It was a hard road to play without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving in last year\u2019s finals. It was a hard road at times to play with Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving\u2014the star power forward who can\u2019t play defense and the star point guard who sees the game as a 48-minute one-man show with occasional intermissions during which other people are allowed to touch the ball. It was a hard road to lead a team that might not have even made the postseason without him. \n \n Winning a championship in any sport is hard. An NBA championship is harder to win than most. There are no hot goaltenders or dominant starting pitchers. The playoffs aren\u2019t a crapshoot; they\u2019re a gauntlet. You can\u2019t luck your way to an NBA title. You can\u2019t hoist the trophy by relying on grit and guile. You have to be the best, or very, very close to the best, and hope that this is one of the years in which that\u2019s good enough. ||||| Your teams. Your favorite writers. Wherever you want them. Personalize SI with our new App. Install on iOS or Android.\u200b \n \n In the final minutes of Cleveland's Game 7 victory, LeBron James chased down Andre Iguodala for a giant block that helped seal a 93\u201389 win and the Cavs\u2019 first championship. \n \n With the game tied, 89\u201389, James ran back on defense after a Kyrie Irving miss. In transition, Iguodala kicked the ball to Curry, and got it back for a layup try. James sprinted toward the bucket, leaped just outside the restricted area, and pinned Iguodala's shot against the backboard. \n \n James won Finals MVP after finishing the game with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. He hit the game-sealing free throw with an injured wrist. \n \n LeBron with one of the biggest blocks you'll ever see pic.twitter.com/vu3UIUIBiH \u2014 Kenny Ducey (@KennyDucey) June 20, 2016 \n \n \u2022 Get SI\u2019s Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Championship package \n \n The Cavs captured their first NBA title, and the first for the city of Cleveland in any major sport since the Browns won the NFL championship in 1964. ||||| I AM LEGEND \n \n He single-handedly brought his team back from a 3-1 deficit to win one of the most thrilling NBA Finals ever. It\u2019s time to admit that LeBron is on the Mount Rushmore of basketball. \n \n I give up. It is simply too hard to hate LeBron now. It is too much effort, and it makes me feel like a sad person. \n \n Saying this goes against my nature. He was the bad guy for, in hindsight, simultaneously obvious and vituperatively stupid reasons. I will try to enumerate them. \n \n A guy, Scott Raab, wrote a bunch of columns and a book about LeBron in my formative years. The book wound up being called The Whore of Akron. \u201cMay he suffer another decade of strokes and spend an eternity tonguing Satan\u2019s flaming anus,\u201d Raab wrote of LeBron. It felt fresh and perfect. \n \n Eric Risberg/AP \n \n There was a media prescription for LeBron\u2014a big, juggernaut of a teenager who had been lying around, cocooning in televised high school games on ESPN2, and we all had to like him. This was back when ESPN was infallible, and questioning its incessant starfucking was considered weird and wrong. Therefore, questioning why they were showing blowout high school games and lauding a 17-year-old as the next Jesus Christ wasn\u2019t even on the radar. \n \n The bloom is well off the rose on that network now\u2014after three straight, static years of a sports network chasing Johnny Manziel from bar to bar so that two red-faced, middle-aged millionaires could argue about the definition of alcoholism first thing in the morning, every morning. \n \n But back then, it wasn\u2019t part of the deal to think that ESPN might be in it for the wrong reasons. So when Raab wrote a bunch of vicious columns about LeBron, it felt like home. I wanted to live inside it. \n \n All of my skepticism about this restrictive and overall dumb way we talked about sports was able to calcify into pure, easy hate, and it was all seized and appropriated into one big villain: LeBron James. \n \n After his Decision, when traditional sports media was leveling a seesaw over whether LeBron \u201ctaking my talents to South Beach\u201d James was a misunderstood star or a standard antihero and nothing in between, Raab was playing around in the beautiful nuance and verbiage and color of hate. ESPN seemed so binary. These columns, about how LeBron ripped the heart out of his hometown, and then the guts, and then the pancreas, for good measure\u2014they were real, and they were landscapes, and they were gorgeous. \n \n Everybody else wanted to get their heart rate up while watching Hot Take Hell on ESPN7. Scott Raab was making outsider art that people used to reserve for graffiti against oppressive governments. It was the American male way to read big words without shame in the early 2000s: write about sports with a lot of provincialism, covered in blood. \n \n Then LeBron got unbelievably good, winning a couple of titles in Miami before coming home to Cleveland to wonder why people still hated him. \n \n I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t have an answer anymore. \n \n It was an anxious, impractical hate, one that required a lot of logic-leaping, emotional energy, and lighter fluid. And now I\u2019m done with it. \n \n He made five straight NBA Finals? Fine, but he only won a couple of them. \n \n He moved back to godawful Cleveland from gorgeous Miami so he could make good on his word? Yeah, but he wrote a persnickety letter and left a bunch of players off it that wound up getting traded, and now\u2014look here\u2014there\u2019s a conspiracy that he might have gotten those players traded himself. Does he secretly run the team? Does he have more say than the Cavs\u2019 general manager? Is LeBron Machiavellian? Is he not a point forward but actually the Dictator of Cleveland? I mean, he got his coach fired, right? And replaced him with a buddy of his? Who does that? Boy, he\u2019s gonna have it coming to him when some superteam just shellacks him twice and there\u2019s nothing he can do to stop it. He\u2019s gonna get it good. Say goodnight to the bad guy. \n \n And then there was none. He didn\u2019t get it good. He served up a chasedown block from nowhere, like a teenager in an AND1 Mixtape\u2014but at 31 years old. It saved the Finals. He led his team in every conceivable category. In fact, he led all players on both teams in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks, making him, as ESPN noted, \u201cthe first player in NBA history to lead all players in all five categories for an entire playoff series,\u201d averaging 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.3 blocks and 2.6 steals. \n \n It is undeniable. He won the NBA Finals by himself. He came back down 3-1. He brought his native Cleveland its first major sports championship in 50 years. \n \n I\u2019m too tired now to deny it anymore, and a little ashamed. LeBron\u2019s one of the greatest there is. He\u2019s up there with Jordan. Don\u2019t let me tell me otherwise. ||||| Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James answers questions as he holds his daughter Zhuri during a post-game press conference after Game 7 of basketball's NBA Finals Sunday, June 19, 2016, in Oakland, Calif.... (Associated Press) \n \n Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James answers questions as he holds his daughter Zhuri during a post-game press conference after Game 7 of basketball's NBA Finals Sunday, June 19, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. Cleveland won 93-89. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) (Associated Press) \n \n The drought is over for Cleveland, and the debate is over as well. \n \n Best player in basketball? \n \n His name is LeBron James. \n \n This is why he went back to Cleveland, to deliver a title, to end the city's epic championship drought and finally give Northeast Ohio what it craved for nearly 52 years. \n \n It's done. And now he's free. Anything that happens from here is icing atop a three-tiered championship cake for James. \n \n There's absolutely nothing left for James to prove. The only thing he hadn't done on a basketball court was make Cleveland, a city whose sports teams were cursed for so long, a winner. December 27, 1964 was the day Jim Brown last made them one. That is, until June 19, 2016. James was an NBA champion before from his time in Miami, an Olympic champion, an MVP, a Finals MVP ... he had checked every box but one, and now that one is filled as well. \n \n Stephen Curry is the two-time reigning MVP and rightly so, best player on the best regular-season team in league history. Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant will likely be the hottest free agent on the market this summer, coveted by everyone. Kobe Bryant was the highest-paid player in the NBA this season and this year was a celebration of his 20 years of greatness. \n \n But they're all part of LeBron's world. \n \n James is the freight train, the most unstoppable force in the game, and he shows no signs of slowing down after 13 years in the league. He's 31. He rarely if ever misses games. He's been in seven of the last 10 NBA Finals, including each of the last six. He's nowhere near his decline, which has to delight even those Cleveland fans who burned his jerseys in 2010. And while winning cures all, he can be a free agent this summer, which should scare some people as well. \n \n \"I'm true to the game,\" James said, \"and I know what I bring to the table.\" \n \n It bears noting that some of what's on that table now wasn't there six years ago, though. \n \n It's fair to say, this celebration would not be happening without July 8, 2010, the day James headed to Miami. \n \n James needed a change and craved a title. He got all that and more. He learned how to lead, he learned the value of structure, he learned from Dwyane Wade and Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley and Micky Arison, took little bits from each of them, added it all to his already-ridiculous game and made himself better. \n \n James never went to college. But like many college kids, he went away for four years and then returned home with hopes of making his city better. \n \n The result: Cleveland is a city of champions. \n \n \"I knew what I learned in the last couple years that I was gone,\" James said, \"and I knew if I had to \u2014 when I came back, I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint to help this franchise get back to a place that we've never been. That's what it was all about.\" \n \n He'll never win over everyone. He'll never win the argument about who is better, him or Michael Jordan or anyone else who merits mention among the league's greats. \n \n He doesn't care, either. He'll leave those conversations for others to have. But he put an end to the discussion of who is the best right now. \n \n \"There's no denying what he was able to accomplish this series,\" a very classy Curry said after Game 7. \"He played pretty great basketball.\" \n \n James is the quintessential American success story. He bucked overwhelming after odds by rising above his impoverished upbringing in Akron, Ohio. He's a global icon who's earned roughly $175 million in NBA salary, probably that much if not a great deal more from his Nike sponsorship deal alone, has a blossoming entertainment studio and is easily one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. \n \n He's on pace to be a billionaire someday like his good pal Warren Buffett, who James can chat up basically any time he wants. \n \n And now he can do whatever he wants for as long as he wants to play this game. He owes no one anything anymore. Stay in Cleveland, return to Miami, go anywhere else in the NBA; it's all up to him now. \n \n For the first time in 13 years, LeBron James is free of burden. \n \n With that weight lifted, it's scary to think his best might be yet to come. \n \n ___ \n \n Tim Reynolds is a national basketball writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at treynolds@ap.org ||||| Your teams. Your favorite writers. Wherever you want them. Personalize SI with our new App. Install on iOS or Android.\u200b \n \n OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 The cozy basketball locker room at Akron\u2019s St. Vincent-St. Mary High School is loaded with motivation in every corner. There are bible verses in the lockers and along the side walls, a John Wooden quote in the back and blow-up photographs of the program\u2019s most famous alum plastered everywhere. But the first thing visitors see upon entry is a simple, tall poster with Fighting Irish green lettering that reads: \u201cDiscipline: Do what has to be done; when it has to be done; as well as it can be done; do it that way all the time.\u201d \n \n Four virtues are built into the message: Responsibility, timeliness, excellence and consistency. Those same four virtues carried LeBron James, the alum whose photos grace the locker room\u2019s walls, to the greatest achievement of his career: his first NBA championship in his native Ohio, the first title in the Cavaliers\u2019 46-year history, and the first title in 52 years for the cursed city of Cleveland. \n \n The Cavaliers defeated the Warriors 93\u201389 in Game 7 at Oracle Arena on Sunday, pulling off the greatest comeback in Finals history by digging out of a 3\u20131 deficit and spoiling the most successful regular season the league has seen. \n \n \u201cOur fans ride or die, no matter what\u2019s been going on,\u201d said James, who broke into tears on the court after the final buzzer sounded and was named Finals MVP for the third time in his career. \u201cNo matter the Browns, the Indians, the Cavs. They continue to support us. For us to be able to end this drought, our fans deserve it. They deserve it. It was for them.\u201d \n \n \u2022 How Cavs pulled off stunning upset | Frame-by-frame look at The Block \n \n The Cavaliers did it thanks to some resourcefulness from rookie coach Tyronn Lue, a gigantic late-game three-pointer from Kyrie Irving and unexpected contributions from the much-maligned Kevin Love. They had a little help from Draymond Green\u2019s Game 5 suspension and multiple shaky outings from Stephen Curry. \n \n Most of all, though, the Cavaliers shocked the world because James did what had to be done, when it had to be done, as well as it could be done, and he did it that way all the time. \n \n Ben Golliver for Sports Illustrated \n \n James did it in Game 5, pouring in 41 points on the road to spoil Golden State\u2019s party. James did it again in Game 6, scoring 41 points again and dishing 11 assists, while blocking Curry in emphatic fashion. And James did it again in Game 7, posting 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, to notch the seventh triple double in his Finals career and the first triple double in a Finals Game 7 since James Worthy in 1988. \n \n \u201cI watched Beethoven tonight,\u201d Irving said. \u201cLeBron James composed a game. He had a freakin\u2019 triple double in Game 7 of an NBA Finals game.\u201d \n \n \u2022 Get SI\u2019s Cavaliers NBA Championship package | Watch Game 7 highlights \n \n The play that will live for years on the highlight tapes came with just under two minutes left. For nearly three tense minutes, neither team scored, but the Warriors broke out on a two-on-one fast break, threatening to get an easy go-ahead bucket. Andre Iguodala dribbled hard to half-court and then passed to Curry on the left wing, who returned the pass in textbook fashion without dribbling. Iguodala took the ball in full stride, with a crease to the basket past J.R. Smith, and tossed up a double-clutch layup off the glass. \n \n Garrett Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images \n \n As that sequence unfolded, James, who had been in the right corner, found himself trailing the play, caught up briefly by Klay Thompson. When Curry received the ball, near the three-point line, James had only just crossed half-court, and yet he already had a vision for how the play would end. When Curry returned the ball to Iguodala, James gathered in stutter-step fashion, preparing to plant for a swooping block attempt. He leapt from outside the protected circle, floating across the paint to pound the shot against the backcourt and keep it in play. \n \n The Cavaliers needed a block, they needed a block at that exact moment and only a superhuman effort would make it happen. James delivered on all counts, just as he had all series, just as he has throughout his 13-year career. No one else on the Cavaliers could make that play. No one else would even think to make that play. James thought about it, made it and made it look easy. \n \n \u2022 All of LeBron\u2019s Finals, ranked\u200b | LeBron\u2019s letter | A timeline since then ... \n \n James has been a bigger, stronger and faster physical force since his prep school play landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 17, but he\u2019s always been smarter too. A huge part of his basketball intelligence is his vision, which manifests itself in many ways. He saw that it was time to take a backseat to a scorching hot Irving late in Game 5. He saw the impossible passing angles throughout Game 6. He saw the chasedown block opportunity in Game 7. \n \n His vision, unlike any other current athlete, has extended well outside his 94' by 50' office. James saw that he made a mistake with how he executed The Decision in 2010, he saw what it took to win a title in Miami, he saw the possibility of a return to Cleveland when many others didn\u2019t, and he saw that he could use his leverage as a player to build a roster and reshape a coaching staff to his liking. James saw that he had no equal in the Eastern Conference, he saw Irving\u2019s precocious talent, he saw Love\u2019s desire to start fresh outside Minnesota, he saw Tristan Thompson\u2019s undervalued skills and he saw that Dion Waiters and former coach David Blatt weren\u2019t going to be a part of the equation. \n \n \u201cI came back for a reason,\u201d James said, wearing the net around his neck, his Finals MVP trophy in front of him, his daughter in his arms and his two sons by his side. \u201cI came back to bring a championship to our city. I knew what I was capable of doing. I knew what I learned in the last couple years that I was gone, and when I came back, I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint.\u201d \n \n That blueprint and those maneuverings put James and the Cavaliers in position to strike when the Warriors\u2019 dream season fell to pieces with Green\u2019s suspension and Curry\u2019s subpar play. \n \n See classic photos of three-time NBA Finals MVP LeBron James \n \n LeBron James Off the Court Courtesy of the James Family Courtesy of the James Family Michael J. LeBrecht II Michael J. LeBrecht II Michael J. LeBrecht II Michael J. LeBrecht II David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images Johnny Nunez/WireImage Steve Grayson/WireImage Steve Grayson/WireImage David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images Johnny Nunez/WireImage Simon Bruty Chris Polk/FilmMagic Greg Nelson Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images Johnny Nunez/WireImage Gregory Heisler Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Sprite John Parra/WireImage John W. McDonough Ben Pruchnie/WireImage for Budweiser Harry How/Getty Images Bruce Yeung/NBAE/Getty Images Greg Nelson Sands/GC Images Fred Vuich Kevin Mazur/WireImage Todd Rosenberg John W. McDonough Robert Beck Ron Schwane/AP Gene J. Puskar/AP Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Jeff Haynes 1 of 37 Advertisement \n \n Down the stretch, as James blocked Iguodala and Irving broke the long-standing tie with an incredible three-pointer, Golden State missed nine straight shots and didn\u2019t score in the final 4:38. During the regular season, the Warriors had been the league\u2019s most clutch team; here, in a winner-take-all Game 7, they spent crunch time back on their heels, overwhelmed. Curry, who finished with 17 points on 6-of-19 shooting, said he was \u201caggressive, but in the wrong ways,\u201d as he went 1 of 6 in the final period and carelessly flipped a behind-the-back pass out of bounds down the stretch. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re stunned,\u201d Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. \u201cWe thought we were going to win. I was extremely confident coming into tonight. This is why you can\u2019t mess around. \u2026 James is one of the great players of alltime and obviously he was the key to the turnaround. He had a great series.\u201d \n \n This championship is a long time coming: 16 years after his first high school state title, 14 years after the Chosen One\u201d SI cover, 13 years after he was Cleveland\u2019s No. 1 pick, six years after The Decision and three years after his most recent title with the Heat. James has, without hyperbole, spent more than half of his life in direct preparation for this moment. So too has Akron, Cleveland and the rest of Ohio. \n \n There\u2019s no doubt that this is and will be remembered as the high point of his career to date, and nothing that comes afterward will be able to top it. This is the peak, the pinnacle, the ultimate triumph. \n \n \u201cHe deserves it,\u201d Lue said. \u201cHe\u2019s a hard worker. He\u2019s been the face of the NBA for 13 years. To leave Miami to come to Cleveland to give the city of Cleveland a championship, just shows you who he is. He\u2019s a giver. He\u2019s always looking to take care of people. He\u2019s always been nice to everyone. If anyone deserves it, LeBron James definitely deserves it.\u201d \n \n #http://www.120sports.com/video/v185109022/cavaliers-win-the-nba-finals \n \n Back at St. V, James has donated enough money to fund a new gymnasium, dubbed The LeBron James Arena. His No. 23 jersey is everywhere\u2014from the backs of the school\u2019s students, to the student store, to the gym rafters\u2014and his old basketball teammate Willie McGee is the school\u2019s athletic director. \n \n \u201cI can\u2019t wait to get back home,\u201d James said from Oracle, thousands of miles from the Akron high school gym that put him on the map and then on the globe. Halfway across the country and more than a decade later, his play had perfectly embodied the message that can be found next to his old green, metal locker. \n \n James put the Cavaliers on his shoulders. He saved their season from elimination three straight times in unprecedented fashion. He played the best and most complete basketball of his first-ballot Hall of Fame career, earning unanimous Finals MVP honors by leading all players in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. And, on Sunday, he played 46-plus minutes in the 199th postseason game of his career\u2014that\u2019s 199 out of a possible 199 games, because he\u2019s never once missed a playoff game due to injury. \n \n Responsibility, timeliness, excellence, consistency. ||||| This is more than just an NBA finals win for Cleveland. This is the end of the drought. The end of the curse. The end of the heartaches. Fifty-two years - just a blip. \n \n LeBron James, MVP for the finals, put it all on the court, all of it, all in for Cleveland. \n \n So did the team. So did the amazing Tristan Thompson. Kyrie Irving. Kevin Love. \n \n The celebration. The delivery. The tears from LeBron. \n \n He earned it for Cleveland. LeBron promised it, he came home for it, and he brought it. It wipes out The Decision. \n \n What decision? \n \n As LeBron said -- he poured his heart and his blood and his tears into this game, against all odds. \n \n \"Cleveland! This is for you!\" \n \n And it was all heart, all determination, against, on paper, the best team in the NBA. The Golden State Warriors played hard, played smart, but Cleveland just was smarter, just was tougher, just was better. \n \n The moment is magic, unbelievable, transformative. \n \n Thank you, Cleveland Cavaliers. \n \n Thank you, LeBron. \n \n Thank you, Cleveland, for believing. \n \n 93-89. \n \n Fifty-two years. \n \n It was worth it. \n \n And it changes everything. ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. \n \n This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.", "summary": "\u2013 LeBron James led his Cleveland Cavaliers to a Game 7 win Sunday night to cap an epic championship series, one in which the Cavs became the first team to come back from a 3-1 deficit. Some of the next-morning analysis: If there are any LeBron haters left, it's time to let it go, writes Ben Collins in the Daily Beast. (He counts himself as one of those former haters.) He's \"one of the greatest there is. He's up there with Jordan.\" Josh Levin at Slate explains why this is now true: \"If he wasn't before, LeBron James is now, rightfully, a basketball legend.\" Tim Reynolds of the AP weighs in, too. No more debate: LeBron is the \"best player in basketball.\" Sports Illustrated says this play by James late in the game (a \"superhuman\" shot block) will be replayed for years. Cleveland native Bert Stratton writes about what the first sports championship in a half-century means for his city at the New York Times. An editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer has three words for it: \"magic, unbelievable, transformative.\" A post at Complex says an emotional JR Smith of the Cavs gave one of the most memorable post-game news conferences ever. The video is here. Deadspin highlights the moment Cleveland newscasters learned the Cavs had won while on the air."}
{"document": "They flew home from Iraq together on a spring day in 2010 on a C-17 cargo plane, the dog in a metal kennel on the floor at the soldier\u2019s feet. When they reached the United States, the soldier went home to his farm in Fountain, Colo., and the dog was transported to the Army\u2019s military kennels at Fort Carson, about 12 miles north. \n \n Sergeant 1st Class Matthew Bessler and the Belgian Malinois named Mike had been part of a canine tactical team with the 10th Special Forces Group based at Fort Carson. On the ground in Iraq, their work had been phenomenal, earning Bessler two Bronze Stars, among the most coveted commendations in the military. During their second tour as part of an elite Special Operations group in a particularly deadly phase of the war, the pair had spent every day and night together for eight months. \n \n Now back home, the days were never longer than when they were apart. It was as if one\u2019s existence was proof of the other\u2019s survival. \n \n Both the soldier and the dog had come home with symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Mike was retiring as a combat dog, although his PTSD would get worse before it got better. And although Bessler had been in denial about his PTSD for some time, it would soon become clear that it had become too severe for him to return to war. \n \n Bessler had already planned to adopt Mike, but in time he would wind up training him for a new job \u2014 this time as a service dog to help protect Bessler from the unpredictable menace of PTSD. \n \n \u201cMichael is a brother,\u201d said Bessler, who served more than half of his 20-year military career in Special Operations, with an expertise in engineering and intelligence gathering. \u201cHe needs me just as much as I need him.\u201d \n \n [MORE: After the earthquakes: Here\u2019s what the Nepal rescue dogs do when they\u2019re not working] \n \n For his service, including the detection of thousands of pounds of explosives and bomb-making materials that likely no human or machine could have located, Mike had been promoted to the rank of Major. That was part of the Army\u2019s long tradition of bestowing ranks upon war dogs; the dog\u2019s rank was usually at least one above the soldier\u2019s to encourage respect and discourage abuse. \n \n To Bessler, Mike was a soldier, and their bond was as strong or stronger than the love that can grow between soldiers during combat. Bessler would lose touch with many of his battle brothers over time, but Mike would become a constant in a world spinning with chaos. \n \n Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, was not a new diagnosis for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at that time. But PTSD, traumatic brain injury and the physical and mental needs of the 2.1 million veterans of those long wars would soon become part of an all-out crisis for America. \n \n It was no surprise that Bessler, a highly decorated Army Ranger who fought for long stretches in some of the most violent of America\u2019s recent wars and conflicts \u2014 Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq \u2014 could return home damaged. \n \n But Canine PTSD was a new diagnosis, only then emerging as a possible explanation for some of the troubling behaviors some veteran combat dogs exhibit. \n \n A key to diagnosing a war dog with post-traumatic stress is noting whether the dog\u2019s behavior has changed in the same setting, according to Dr. Walter F. Burghardt Jr., the chief of Behavioral Medicine at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dogs Hospital at Lackland Airforce Base in Texas. \n \n So if a dog consistently searches for bombs, for example, and suddenly stops in the midst of working, with no change in his environment, that would be a clear sign of trauma. \u201cIt usually involves a situation where the dog is not working as we expect it to,\u201d Dr. Burghardt said. An estimated 5 to 10 percent of the 650 military working dogs who served in combat are expected to show symptoms of Canine PTSD, he said. \n \n Looking back, Bessler believes he can pinpoint the exact moment that pushed Mike over the edge. \n \n [MORE: Meet the Belgian Malinois, the highly-trained military dogs that guard the White House] \n \n After Bessler and Mike returned home from Iraq, Bessler put in the papers to adopt his wartime companion, whose official military name was K-9 Mike 5 #07-257. While the adoption was pending, Bessler would get up at dawn and drive to Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs, to see Mike at the kennel, inside a shabby beige structure called Building 6001. \n \n The dog was refusing to eat unless Bessler was there with him. So first Mike would eat from a bowl of dry food, and then Bessler would let the 52-pound Belgian Malinois out of his barren steel cage. \n \n Mike would be elated as soon as he spied Bessler. The dog\u2019s lean and muscular body would shake with anticipation \u2014 his ears perking up, his long tail wagging furiously, his giant pink tongue hanging out. \n \n And Mike would know what was coming next: chasing and chewing on his cherished tennis balls. The Belgian Malinois, nicknamed \u201cthe malligator,\u201d is known for its propensity to chew and the incredible strength of its bite. Mike was trained with the \u201cball reward system,\u201d and tennis balls were his prize for doing his duty in Iraq. \n \n During Bessler\u2019s early morning visits to the kennel in Ft. Carson, the two would go around the side of the building to an old basketball court where Mike could chase the ball. Bessler would return to the kennels in the middle of the day to play ball, come back at night, and think of Mike during the hours in between. \n \n One day a trainer called Bessler. Mike was refusing to work with any other handler. In effect, the dog was insisting that he stay with his human brother. \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s waiting for you to come back,\u201d he told Bessler. \u201cCome pick up your dog.\u201d \n \n The adoption was official, three weeks after Mike and Bessler had arrived home from Iraq. \n \n [MORE: Finding hope in a trash can: How a North Korean boy saved himself from starving and made it to America] \n \n On Bessler\u2019s farm, Mike was surrounded by other dogs, cats, horses, chickens, a billy goat \u2014 and all the tennis balls he wanted. He was out of that grim cage at Fort Carson and enveloped by love. \n \n But soon after Mike settled in, the dog began anxiously chewing on rocks instead of tennis balls, crushing his teeth and destroying his gums and a chunk of his lip. He was hyper and hypervigilant, unable to focus and easily spooked by loud noises. He was having accidents in the house. \n \n Mike\u2019s gum and lip injuries got so bad that Bessler and his ex-wife took him to the emergency room several times. A veterinarian in Colorado helped perform a series of successful surgeries to essentially reconstruct his nose and mouth. \n \n Mike\u2019s veterinarian in Colorado, Carin Ramsel, said that Mike\u2019s condition met the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis, and she prescribed 20 milligrams of Prozac a day for anxiety. \n \n Although his symptoms had become horrifyingly worse, Mike had first starting show signs of PTSD about six months into his last tour with Bessler. \n \n Bessler and Mike had been posted at a small, makeshift base in the swamplands of Basra Province, in southeastern Iraq. Bessler recalled that he had received intel about a pocket of insurgent activity within about two miles of the post. But in order to get there, he and Mike, along with an Iraqi Intelligence officer and two other members of the 10th Special Forces Group, had to cross a river in a small inflatable boat at night. \n \n The soldiers loaded up all their gear into the boat and made their way about halfway across the river when the boat started taking on water. It was near the point of capsizing when Bessler and the other soldiers began throwing their rucksacks, rifles, ammo and other gear overboard. \n \n The Iraqi intelligence officer shouted to the other soldiers that he couldn\u2019t swim. Bessler told him not to panic. He grabbed Mike\u2019s 15-foot leash and both he and the dog went overboard, sinking down into the river, which was filled with muck and kelp. \n \n Bessler jumped into the water and swam toward them. He got hold of Mike first and then tried to grip the intelligence officer\u2019s right arm and pull him along with the dog toward the shore. But the arm slipped through Bessler\u2019s hand and the man went under. \n \n He realized then that Mike, who was trained to rappel from an airplane and had mastered other highly advanced tasks, had no training in the water and was on the verge of drowning. But Bessler was holding onto Mike for dear life, gasping for air and pushing his way upward through the morass of kelp. \n \n The boat was floating away. The two other soldiers had made it to shore and the intelligence officer was dead under the water as Bessler and Mike made their way to the riverbank. Bessler followed the faint glare of a light that was flashing friendly code. \n \n The feeling of the Iraqi intelligence officer\u2019s arm slipping from his fingers was as haunting as any of the bad deaths Bessler had witnessed or tried to stop. But this time Mike\u2019s life had been at stake. It had felt beyond terrifying. \n \n Soon after that Mike stopped searching for bombs. Instead he was jumpy, on high alert, looking around to try and keep Bessler safe but no longer sniffing for explosives, a key requirement of his job. \n \n So Bessler took Mike to the 10th Group\u2019s lead dog trainer in Baghdad, who spent some time with the dog and then told Bessler: \u201cHe\u2019s done working.\u201d \n \n [MORE: After her husband\u2019s Parkinson\u2019s diagnosis, she created a product to help millions] \n \n Back in Colorado, once Mike had been on Prozac for six months or so, he became calmer, more focused, more trusting, Dr. Ramsel said. Still, like many returning veterans, Mike needed a purpose. He was a rock star in Iraq until he stopped searching for bombs. Now he was an unemployed Type A dog. \n \n At that point Bessler was slowly coming to terms with his own disabling trauma and the fact that he would not be able to return to war. He knew what service dogs could do for struggling veterans and decided to learn everything he could about training one. Mike has been his service dog for three years now. \n \n Facing a recent painful and legally messy divorce, Bessler moved from Colorado back to his hometown of Powell, Wyo., where he was a star wrestler in high school and where his father and other relatives live. The connection began so long ago, it\u2019s no stretch to say that Mike can read Bessler\u2019s mind \u2013only he does it with his nose, picking up on the scents of his moods. \n \n Now when Bessler goes to Wal-Mart, where it can feel like a minefield of overstimulation is waiting for him in every aisle, if he starts to panic he\u2019ll walk with Mike into a corner. And Mike will stand on his feet. The physical pressure is recognized as one of many ways service dogs can help reduce anxiety. \n \n There is also a science to Mike\u2019s ability to help Bessler with his anxiety and fear: the hormone oxytocin, which creates feelings of safety and calm, and is stimulated in both dogs and humans when they interact with each other. \n \n Besides PTSD, Bessler also lives with chronic headaches and migraines, shoulder and back pain \u2014 most likely from years of carrying a 60-to-70 pound rucksack \u2014 and tinnitus, a continuous, distracting and often painful ringing in the ears. He also suffers from memory and speech problems and blurred vision. \n \n You wouldn\u2019t know Bessler had so many medical and mental health issues from looking at him. That\u2019s why experts say the signature wounds of these wars are mostly invisible. \n \n Thick with muscle, heavily tattooed but with a low-key manner, Bessler could simply be the likable guy in a baseball cap riding around in his pickup truck with a cool dog and a really cute puppy in the front seat. The puppy, Ziva (a Hebrew name that means brilliance and splendor ) is a black lab that was a present from a neighbor for Valentine\u2019s Day. \n \n But Bessler\u2019s moods change day-to-day and sometimes hour-by-hour. Sometimes medications work, sometimes they don\u2019t. Out of nowhere, he\u2019ll be overcome by a flashback. He\u2019ll get so fed up with the nightmares and sleepless nights \u2014 \u201cWhy even bother to nap or sleep?\u201d he said by telephone the other night \u2014 he\u2019ll think the only thing that can stop all the physical and psychic pain is death. \n \n Then Mike will pick up on Bessler\u2019s depressive state, and as well-trained service dogs do, interrupt him, stop the demons from taking over. The dog will climb on top of Bessler as if to make sure his master can not go anywhere and hurt himself. Or, he\u2019ll drop a tennis ball or a stuffed toy in Bessler\u2019s lap and refuse to leave until he gets to chase one of them. \n \n And Bessler will consider that taking his own life would mean leaving Mike behind. A credo in the military is to leave no soldier behind. \n \n \u201cThat\u2019s not being fair to the dog, not being fair to that partner who\u2019s stood beside me forever,\u201d he said, crying. \u201cWhen you can escape yourself for a minute, and stop being selfish and think about the things you have, in my world it\u2019s that dog.\u201d \n \n Want more inspiring news and stories to improve your life? Sign up for the Inspired Life Saturday newsletter here\u200b.\u200b ||||| In this file photo, Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Bessler of Powell is pictured in Iraq with Mike, the dog he adopted after the pair served together in the U.S. Army. The dog was killed on Saturday by a bicyclist who said he was attacked, but Bessler is disputing that claim. \n \n A retired military dog was shot and killed outside of Powell on Saturday by a bicyclist who says the dog attacked him. The dog, named Mike, also was a service dog for Army veteran Matthew Bessler of Powell, who raised the 10-year-old Belgian Malinois since he was a puppy. Bessler, who was out of town at the time, disputes the bicyclist\u2019s account. \n \n \u201cAs a dog and a companion, he was probably one of the most loyal animals to anyone he came across,\u201d Bessler said of Mike in a Wednesday interview. \u201cIf he knew you and you were in my house, he was by your side, leaning up against you.\u201d \n \n Bessler hopes Mike can have a burial with military honors. \n \n \u201cMike was a retired major in the Army that saved a number of lives because of his work in bomb detection and everything he had done,\u201d Bessler said. \n \n Mike served alongside Bessler in Iraq in the U.S. Army, and both came home with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Mike then became a service dog for Bessler. That transition \u2014 from a combat dog to a service dog \u2014 made the canine especially unique and led to a profile in the Washington Post in July. \n \n \u201cAs far as we know, this is the first and only case that they have,\u201d Bessler told the Tribune in July. \n \n An online fundraising campaign to help pay for Mike\u2019s funeral costs was launched on Tuesday by Jess Campbell. \n \n \u201cWe are a community coming together to mourn the loss of a brave military service dog, who deserves the honor to be laid to rest with a military funeral and burial,\u201d the page reads. \u201cMajor Mike is a former military combat dog that had served two tours of duty in Iraq. Please help us fund a funeral that will do this military war veteran the respect he deserves.\u201d \n \n Extra donations will go toward a program that honors and supports war veterans, Campbell said. \n \n For more information about the campaign, visit www.gofundme.com/ew6cjw7k. \n \n The 59-year-old Powell man who shot Mike has not been cited for any wrongdoing. \n \n \u201cEssentially, if you feel your life is in danger or threatened by an animal, you can act against it,\u201d Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said Wednesday. Steward said that, according to the man\u2019s statements and his actions, he felt threatened. \n \n The man was not injured in the incident. \n \n According to the account the bicyclist gave to the Sheriff\u2019s Office, he was turning north onto Road 5 from Lane 9 when he was \u201cattacked\u201d by a \u201cGerman shepherd-looking dog.\u201d \n \n The Powell man got off of his bike and began using it as a shield, circling back and forth and keeping the bike between him and the dog, he told the Sheriff\u2019s Office. Eventually, he was able to grab a revolver from his bicycle-mounted holster, and he shot the dog. The dog ran away and the man called 911, the Sheriff\u2019s Office said. \n \n \u201c(The man) said he was genuinely in fear of his life and well-being, and the dog was \u2018definitely in full attack mode and not backing down at all,\u2019\u201d Park County Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesman Lance Mathess summarized of the report later compiled by a deputy. \n \n When he shot the animal, it was about 5-10 feet away, the man said. He had not thought the single round of bird shot had killed the dog, Mathess said of the man\u2019s account. \n \n No other people witnessed the incident, though a neighbor heard the shot and came outside to see the dog limping away. \n \n Bessler had been hunting in the Big Horn Mountains at the time. The friend who was caring for Mike told the Sheriff\u2019s Office they had no idea how the dog had escaped from Bessler\u2019s residence, Mathess said. \n \n Bessler questions many parts of the bicyclist\u2019s account. \n \n \u201cHe has his story,\u201d Bessler said. \u201cI know my dog. I have my story.\u201d \n \n The man told the Sheriff\u2019s Office, and the dog\u2019s wounds show, that he shot the dog in the rear. \n \n \u201cIn my mind, it\u2019s inconsistent with a dog that\u2019s attacking somebody,\u201d Bessler said, saying that two pellet marks went directly toward Mike\u2019s heart. \n \n Bessler described Mike as a nice dog who was gentle with children, enjoyed being petted and always wanted to play ball. \n \n \u201cHe would never attack someone,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only time he ever protected property was when somebody stepped on to my property and looked into the back of my truck.\u201d \n \n Bessler added that Mike effectively had no teeth from years of chewing rocks out of anxiety. \n \n Bessler said Mike \u201cnever gets out on the road\u201d and would only briefly run alongside people passing by. \n \n \u201cI believe the gentleman just shot the dog on my property,\u201d Bessler said, adding, \u201cI don\u2019t buy his story.\u201d \n \n The man said the encounter took place in the road, and Steward said that\u2019s consistent with what the neighbor told the deputy. \n \n \u201cShe comes out, and laying in the intersection was this guy\u2019s bike and him standing there,\u201d Steward said. \n \n The man initially reported he\u2019d been attacked by a \u201cpack of dogs,\u201d but he later admitted that \u2014 while several other dogs came near him \u2014 only Mike threatened him, Mathess said. \n \n Bessler said the three other dogs with Mike when the incident occurred were smaller than Mike, including a puppy, and that none of them are aggressive. \n \n \u201cIf it went down the way the guy said it did, then so be it,\u201d Bessler said. \u201cBut I\u2019m disgusted with the fact that the guy hasn\u2019t even shown his face to say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry this happened.\u2019\u201d \n \n Steward said the Sheriff\u2019s Office plans to follow up on a few inconsistencies, such as whether bird or buck shot was used, but he said \u201ceverything\u2019s pretty consistent with what the victim\u2019s telling us.\u201d \n \n Bessler said his next step will be having an autopsy performed and \u201cmemorializing, remembering Mike and taking care of services.\u201d \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still so flabbergasted over the whole thing of why a person would be carrying the types of things he (the bicyclist) was carrying.\u201d \n \n Steward doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s that unusual for someone to be carrying a weapon. \n \n \u201cA lot of people, when they walk or ride bikes around here, they\u2019ve got pepper spray, a gun or a stick,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s because dogs come out and chase bikes (and) people.\u201d \n \n The sheriff called it \u201ctragic all the way around.\u201d ||||| We are a community coming together to mourn the loss of a brave military service dog, who deserves the honor to be laid to rest with a military funeral and burial. This soldier was found fatally wounded by his owner and friend Matt Bessler (also a military war veteran) after Matt returned home from a hunting trip. Major Mike is a former military combat dog that had served two tours of duty in Iraq. Please help us fund a funeral that will do this military war veteran the respect he deserves.Any extra donations will be distributed to a military based program that honors and supports military war veterans.I have been contacted by gofundme for validation purposes and to make sure that the donors are not being taken advantage of due to the size of this campaign and the national attention of the story. Which is absolutey fine and helps to reassure the purpose of this account.Here are the questions asked with my answers:1. Who you are: my name is Jessica Campbell2. Where you're from: I was born and raised in Frannie, WY. I now reside in Cowley Wy and own and operate a business in Powell,WY. Now these towns are about only 15 minutes apart.3. Your relationship to the parties you're raising funds for: Matt and Major Mike (more Matt then Mike but Mike was always welcome) both attended and trained at my gym on and off for the the past 1.5-2 years.4. How the funds will be spent (be specific as possible): the funding will be spent on funeral services, necropsy (animal autopsy), an other support and any other costs that Matt may have in association with the shooting incident and the funeral for Major Mike (military honors, etc.). Any and all left over funds will be donated to an organization for war veterans that Matt works with and will be of his choosing. I will update every one every time there is a change or where the funds are spent.5. How you intend to get the funds to those in need: I do not have access to the funds. That is why I chose gofundme, these funds will go directly to Matt as needed for use and then to the organizations of Matt's choosing.Please follow the link below to read a recent article written in the Washington Post telling the story of two amazing soldiers who went through hell together both in Iraq and back home here in the U.S. ||||| Stock image of a Belgian Malinois. (Photo: Milan Maksic, Getty Images/iStockphoto) \n \n POWELL, Wyo. \u2014 An Army veteran is asking for a burial with military honors for his dog that was shot and killed outside Powell. \n \n Matthew Bessler's 10-year-old Belgian Malinois named Mike was shot and killed last Saturday by a bicyclist who says the dog attacked him. \n \n Mike served with Bessler in Iraq in the U.S. Army acting as a combat dog and in bomb detection. When the pair returned from their deployment, Bessler adopted Mike. The dog helped Bessler transition from combat to normal life as he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. \n \n \u201cI raised him and trained him as a puppy, and the ability he has to sense some of the issues that I have with seizures, with my PTSD, my TBI (traumatic brain injury) and severe anxiety disorders, how he can calm me down just by him being in my presence ... He can help take the focus and help change the focus of what\u2019s going on with me and help me calm down or relax me,\u201d Bessler told the Billings Gazette. \n \n According to the Powell Tribune, the bicyclist who shot Mike told the sheriff's office that he felt threatened by a pack of dogs that he encountered while on the road. The man said he first used a bicycle as a defense but then grabbed a revolver from his bicycle-mounted holster and shot the dog. \n \n However, Bessler \u2014 who was out of town at the time of the shooting \u2014 disputes the cyclist's account. \n \n \u201cIf the guy was actually fending the dogs off with a bicycle, (Mike) would have really been barking, and there was no barking,\" Bessler said. \"All there was was just a shot. The guests who were at the house, they said the same thing. There was no barking. It was just a gunshot.\u201d \n \n The 59-year-old Powell man who shot Mike has not been cited for any wrongdoing. \n \n Iraq Bronze Star combat dog is shot and killed by bicyclist in Wyoming http://t.co/yGvBCf3g0o \u2014 Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) October 17, 2015 \n \n The Associated Press contributed to this report. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ROoR3t", "summary": "\u2013 A US military veteran wants his service dog to receive burial with military honors after it was shot dead by a cyclist in Powell, Wyoming, USA Today reports. Matthew Bessler says Mike, his 10-year-old Belgian Malinois, was a combat dog who did bomb detection in Iraq before transitioning to civilian life, albeit with canine PTSD. \"I raised him and trained him as a puppy, and the ability he has to sense some of the issues that I have with seizures, with my PTSD, my TBI [traumatic brain injury] and severe anxiety disorders, how he can calm me down just by him being in my presence,\" the Army veteran tells the Billings Gazette. \"He can help take the focus and help change the focus of what\u2019s going on with me and help me calm down or relax me.\" (The unique pair were featured in a Washington Post story this summer.) Now Bessler is questioning the official story that a passing cyclist killed Mike when the dog tried to attack him, the Powell Tribune reports. Bessler was away on a hunting trip when the cyclist passed the veteran's house, drew a bike-mounted revolver, and opened fire (with birdshot, the cyclist says). The cyclist \"said he was genuinely in fear of his life and well-being, and the dog was 'definitely in full attack mode and not backing down at all,'\" says a sheriff's spokesman. Yet Mike was shot in the backside from 5 to 10 feet away, per the sheriff's office. Bessler says he's considering taking civil action, and is \"flabbergasted\" that \"a person would be carrying the types of things [the bicyclist] was carrying.\" Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page has reached its $10,000 goal to get Mike an animal autopsy and have him \"laid to rest with a military funeral and burial.\""}
{"document": "The family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath may have succeeded in transferring the brain-dead teen from an Oakland hospital to undisclosed care facility, but medical experts say it's only a matter of time before not even machines can keep her blood flowing. \n \n Bodies of the brain-dead have been maintained on respirators for months or in rare cases even years \u2014 and in a few other cases released to families. \n \n But once cessation of all brain activity is confirmed, there is no recovery, said Rebecca S. Dresser, professor of law and ethics in medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, who served on a presidential bioethics council that in 2008 reaffirmed \"whole-brain death\" as legal death. \n \n Brain cells die without blood flow and autopsies in such cases have shown that the brain liquefies. \n \n \n \n After marathon negotiations with a federal magistrate, Jahi's family members received approval to remove her body, while attached to a ventilator, from Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland on Sunday. \n \n The brain-dead girl was released first to the Alameda County coroner and then to the family, and is now the responsibility of her mother, who has moved her to an unnamed facility. \n \n The courts have so far agreed that Jahi is dead. The coroner on Friday issued a death certificate listing Dec. 12 as the date of death. \n \n But bioethics experts say news media coverage that often repeated family assertions that Jahi McMath was alive \u2014 even responding to touch \u2014 clouded an issue the public already has difficulty grasping. \n \n The Oakland girl underwent surgery Dec. 9 to remove her tonsils, adenoids and uvula. She was declared brain-dead after she went into cardiac arrest and suffered extensive brain hemorrhaging. \n \n At least three neurologists confirmed that Jahi was unable to breathe on her own, had no blood flow to her brain and had no sign of electrical activity. \n \n What followed was a court's order \u2014 extended once \u2014 that the hospital keep the ventilator on, first while an independent neurologist confirmed Jahi was brain-dead, then as the family scrambled to find a facility that would accept a patient declared deceased. \n \n All the while, the breathing machine kept Jahi's lungs and heart working. \n \n Jahi's family \u2014 and their attorney, Christopher Dolan of San Francisco \u2014 have maintained that brain death is not death, that the girl might get better, and that the rights of Jahi's mother, Latasha Winkfield, to determine the medical course of action were violated. \n \n But California law says the family had no right to make decisions about the ventilator, only a right to a \"reasonably brief period of accommodation\" after the declaration of brain death to \"gather family or next of kin at the patient's bedside.\" \n \n To experts, the case has raised no novel legal issues, but it has created a painful spectacle. \n \n Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, said the Jahi case could compel other families to \"ultimately say, 'I'd like to take this body home and wait for a miracle.' That would be a public policy of disrespect for dead bodies.\" \n \n \"The ability to get clear about brain death has been a real obstacle,\" he said. \"This hasn't helped at all.\" \n \n \n \n ALSO: \n \n Man found standing over dead mother with knife, police say \n \n Suspect in salon death offered 'vampire face lifts,' police say \n \n CHP: 17 callers saw wrong-way driver on 2 freeways before fatal crash \n \n lee.romney@latimes.com \n \n Twitter: @LeeRomney ||||| Chris Dolan, the attorney for the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, answers questions at a press conference at Dolan's San Francisco offices, Jan. 5, 2014. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group) ( D. ROSS CAMERON ) \n \n SAN FRANCISCO -- The mantel over a fireplace in Christopher Dolan's law office is lined with photos of his family, notably pictures of his two young children. \n \n Advertisement \n \n And as far as he's concerned, those photos -- not money, fame or a lawyer's hubris -- explain why he took on an Oakland family's heart-wrenching public battle over 13-year-old Jahi McMath when she was declared brain dead more than a month ago. \n \n And it hasn't made him popular. Dolan has received death threats, been called a liar, unethical and accused of exploiting a family's grief. But the tough-talking Connecticut native, who sprinkles his narrative with a healthy dose of profanity, makes no apologies for his very public role in helping Jahi's family get her out of Children's Hospital Oakland and preserve some form of medical treatment. \n \n \"If it was my daughter, I'd do everything I'm doing for this family,\" Dolan said Tuesday during a two-hour interview with this newspaper. \"The one thing the family was going to know at the end of the day is that the family had somebody who fought for them.\" \n \n In Dolan, Jahi's family found a 50-year-old trial lawyer who has sparred in court against a host of powerful adversaries, from Stanford University's hospital to companies such as Federal Express. The delivery giant found out just how tough Dolan can be when he persuaded a federal jury a decade ago to award $61 million to two Lebanese drivers harassed by a manager with racial slurs in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. \n \n Dolan even took on the Ladies Professional Golf Association on behalf of Lana Lawless, a transgender golfer who won the right to play on the tour and forced the organization to change its rules to enable transgender golfers to participate. \n \n Dolan was drawn into the maelstrom over Jahi's fate on Dec. 16, when he got a phone call at his San Rafael home from her uncle, Omari Sealey. He knew nothing of the controversy, having been immersed in a federal court trial, but Sealey pleaded for help, urging him to turn on the television to watch the latest coverage of the drama. Dolan flipped on the TV, and could see Sealey in the background of the newscast, holding his phone, as their conversation unfolded. \n \n After discussions with his wife, Dolan decided to take on the family's cause, convinced they should have a choice in the decision over whether Jahi should be taken off a ventilator. Describing himself as a \"cafeteria Catholic,\" Dolan admits he did a lot of soul-searching on his views about end-of-life treatment, but kept coming back to the conclusion that a family, rather than just doctors and hospital administrators, should have a voice when they still believe a child can be saved. \n \n But critics have questioned Dolan's altruism. After Dolan and Sealey appeared on CNN's Piers Morgan show Monday night, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin decried the role of a lawyer in the case, saying he was \"preying on the false hope of the family.\" Children's Hospital spokesman Sam Singer, Dolan's chief antagonist in the Jahi saga, calls the lawyer \"heartless,\" adding: \"I've never seen such reckless disregard for the truth.\" \n \n Dolan is particularly dismissive of Singer and the hospital, claiming that they've libeled him. He points to a wall full of lawyer awards in the entryway of his Market Street office, some singling out his ethics, and merely jokes that Singer needs \"to get some decent clothes.\" \n \n \"The whole thing about me giving them false hope is a construction of public relations because they needed a villain,\" Dolan said. \"It's OK if I take the heat. You can still have sympathy for the family.\" \n \n Describing himself as \"about as pro-choice as you can get,\" Dolan is not an avenger for groups devoted to the end-of-life treatment issue. \"I didn't know (expletive) about it when I took this on,\" he said. \"I knew nothing about it.\" \n \n And Dolan stresses that he's representing the family for free, and will not handle the inevitable medical negligence lawsuit sure to come against Children's Hospital, where Jahi developed complications and suffered cardiac arrest after a three-part surgery to remove tonsils and clear tissue from her nose and throat on Dec. 9. Multiple doctors have declared Jahi brain dead, but the family has rejected that diagnosis, hoping she can live. She has been moved to an undisclosed location, where Dolan concedes the medical outlook is grim. \n \n Dolan insists it would be unethical for him to handle any negligence or wrongful death case, which could expose the hospital to millions of dollars in damages, although he will continue to press a separate federal constitutional case he hopes might define family rights in such situations in the future -- if Jahi's family wants to pursue it. Dolan matter-of-factly states he's already made a \"boatload of money,\" so he can afford to subsidize such causes. \n \n Dolan has no shortage of adjectives for himself, at once describing himself as a \"scalpel\" and \"hard-ass\" to a \"highly educated juvenile delinquent (he graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law School).\" \n \n He shows a visitor texts he's received in recent days from Jahi's family, one from her mother saying she was \"forever grateful\" for his help. He insists he won't do another case like this one, but has no regrets about spending all those days trying to help the motionless Jahi and her family. \n \n \"I'll go down swinging,\" Dolan said, tearing up at one point when he recalled the day they got the right to move Jahi. \"I don't care. I'll lose the money. Maybe that's why people are having such a hard time understanding what's my angle. This lady asked me to save her kid from being killed.\" \n \n Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 or follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz ||||| Photo: Uncredited, Associated Press Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close \n \n Image 1 of 8 This undated file photo provided by the McMath family and Omari Sealey shows Jahi McMath. This undated file photo provided by the McMath family and Omari Sealey shows Jahi McMath. Photo: Uncredited, Associated Press \n \n Image 2 of 8 Attorney Christopher Dolan (left) and Omari Sealey smiled as reporters tried to find out where Jahi McMath had been moved Monday January 6, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif. Attorney Christopher Dolan and uncle Omari Sealey announced that Jahi McMath has been moved to another medical facility and is receiving antibiotics and nutrients. Attorney Christopher Dolan (left) and Omari Sealey smiled as reporters tried to find out where Jahi McMath had been moved Monday January 6, 2014 in San Francisco, Calif. Attorney Christopher Dolan and uncle ... more Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle \n \n Image 3 of 8 Jahi's Uncle Omari Sealey, (left) listens as Sandra Chatman talks about her grandaughter Jahi McMath while being joined by the family attorney Christopher Dolan, as they speak to the news media about the court ordered extension in front of Children's Hospital in Oakland, Ca., on Monday Dec. 30, 2013. 13-year-old Jahi McMath was slated to be removed from a ventilator at 5pm this afternoon but a court order has extended the deadline for the removal of the ventilator until 5pm January 7, 2014. Jahi's Uncle Omari Sealey, (left) listens as Sandra Chatman talks about her grandaughter Jahi McMath while being joined by the family attorney Christopher Dolan, as they speak to the news media about the court ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle \n \n Image 4 of 8 Nailah Winkfield, the mother of brain-dead girl Jahi McMath, embraces her brother Omari Sealey, after they stated that the court order to remove Jahi from a ventilator has been extended to January 7th 2014. The statement was made by the family to the news media in front of Children's Hospital in Oakland, Ca. , on Monday Dec. 30, 2013. 13-year-old Jahi McMath is slated to be removed from a ventilator at 5pm this afternoon, after being declared brain-dead by the hospital. Nailah Winkfield, the mother of brain-dead girl Jahi McMath, embraces her brother Omari Sealey, after they stated that the court order to remove Jahi from a ventilator has been extended to January 7th 2014. The ... more Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle \n \n Image 5 of 8 Christopher Dolan, attorney representing the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, speaks to member of the media after a court hearing on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. McMath remains on life support at the Children's Hospital Oakland after doctors declared her brain dead following a routine tonsillectomy procedure. A judge on Monday appoints Dr. Paul Fisher, Chief of Pediatric Neurology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, to determine whether Jahi is legally dead as the family members continue to fight to keep McMath on life support. Christopher Dolan, attorney representing the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, speaks to member of the media after a court hearing on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. McMath remains on life support at ... more Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle \n \n Image 6 of 8 Nailah Winkfield, mother of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, cries before a court hearing on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. McMath remains on life support at the Children's Hospital Oakland after doctors declared her brain dead following a routine tonsillectomy procedure. A judge on Monday appoints Dr. Paul Fisher, Chief of Pediatric Neurology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, to determine whether Jahi is legally dead as the family members continue to fight to keep McMath on life support. Nailah Winkfield, mother of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, cries before a court hearing on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. McMath remains on life support at the Children's Hospital Oakland after doctors ... more Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle \n \n Image 7 of 8 Family members of 13-year-old Oakland teen Jahi McMath are holding out hope for a miracle recovery after a routine procedure has left the girl brain dead. Family members of 13-year-old Oakland teen Jahi McMath are holding out hope for a miracle recovery after a routine procedure has left the girl brain dead. Photo: CBS San Francisco", "summary": "\u2013 The California 13-year-old declared dead after tonsil surgery is getting better at the undisclosed facility where she was moved earlier this week, family lawyer Christopher Dolan claims. Jahi McMath has had feeding and tracheostomy tubes inserted and \"doctors are optimistic that her condition has stabilized and that her health is improving from when she was taken from\" the hospital, Dolan tweeted. He says she is now \"doing very well\" and is getting the treatment she should have had weeks ago, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Dolan's opinion aside, the Los Angeles Times points out that recovery is not possible, and that machines can only keep her blood flowing for a finite amount of time; in only rare cases have the bodies of the brain-dead been \"maintained\" longer than months. In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, the veteran trial lawyer defends his role in the case and says he has been receiving death threats. He describes himself as a pro-choice, \"cafeteria Catholic\" who had to do plenty of soul-searching before getting involved, but will \"go down swinging\" in his efforts to help the family. \"If it was my daughter, I'd do everything I'm doing for this family,\" he says. \"The one thing the family was going to know at the end of the day is that the family had somebody who fought for them.\" He stresses that he is helping the family for free and will not get involved in any negligence lawsuits."}
{"document": "A federal judge in Hawaii on Wednesday issued a sweeping freeze of President Trump\u2019s new executive order hours before it would have temporarily barred the issuance of new visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries and suspended the admission of new refugees. \n \n In a blistering 43-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson pointed to Trump\u2019s own comments and those of his close advisers as evidence that his order was meant to discriminate against Muslims and declared there was a \u201cstrong likelihood of success\u201d that those suing would prove the directive violated the Constitution. \n \n Watson declared that \u201ca reasonable, objective observer \u2014 enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance \u2014 would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion.\u201d \n \n He lambasted the government, in particular, for asserting that because the ban did not apply to all Muslims in the world, it could not be construed as discriminating against Muslims. \n \n \u201cThe illogic of the Government\u2019s contentions is palpable,\u201d Watson wrote. \u201cThe notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed.\u201d \n \n Early Thursday, a federal judge in Maryland issued a second, narrower injunction against the measure \u2014 suspending only the portion that stopped the issuance of visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries. In that case, U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang also pointed to statements by Trump and his advisers made that, in Chuang\u2019s opinion, indicated the executive order was \u201cthe realization of the long-envisioned Muslim ban.\u201d \n \n \u201cThese statements, which include explicit, direct statements of President Trump\u2019s animus toward Muslims and intention to impose a ban on Muslims entering the United States, present a convincing case that the First Executive Order was issued to accomplish, as nearly as possible, President Trump\u2019s promised Muslim ban,\u201d Chuang wrote. \n \n At a rally in Nashville on Wednesday, Trump called the Hawaii court ruling \u201cterrible\u201d and asked a cheering crowd whether the ruling was \u201cdone by a judge for political reasons.\u201d He said the administration would fight the case \u201cas far as it needs to go,\u201d including up to the Supreme Court, and rued that he had been persuaded to sign a \u201cwatered-down version\u201d of his first travel ban. \n \n \u201cLet me tell you something, I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe danger is clear, the law is clear, the need for my executive order is clear.\u201d \n \n Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said in a statement: \u201cThe Department of Justice strongly disagrees with the federal district court\u2019s ruling, which is flawed both in reasoning and in scope. The President\u2019s Executive Order falls squarely within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our Nation\u2019s security, and the Department will continue to defend this Executive Order in the courts.\u201d \n \n (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post) \n \n Watson was one of three federal judges to hear arguments Wednesday about the ban, though he was the first to issue an opinion. \n \n A ruling was also expected from a federal judge in Washington. \n \n As the ruling in Hawaii was being handed down, James L. \u00adRobart, the federal judge in Washington state who froze Trump\u2019s first travel ban, was hearing arguments about whether he should freeze the second. He said he did not think his first freeze was still in effect, though he did not immediately rule on whether he should issue a new one. \n \n Watson\u2019s decision might not be the last word. He was considering only a request for a temporary restraining order, and while that required him to assess whether challengers of the ban would ultimately succeed, his ruling is not final on that question. The Justice Department could appeal the ruling or wage a longer-term court battle before the judge in Hawaii. \n \n Watson\u2019s decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by Hawaii. Lawyers for the state alleged that the new entry ban, much like the old, violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it was essentially a Muslim ban, hurt the ability of state businesses and universities to recruit top talent, and damaged the state\u2019s robust tourism industry. \n \n They pointed to the case of \u00adIsmail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, whose mother-in-law\u2019s application for an immigrant visa was still being processed. Under the new executive order, attorneys for Hawaii said, Elshikh feared that his mother-in-law, a Syrian national, would ultimately be banned from entering the United States. \n \n [Why Hawaii says Trump\u2019s new travel ban is still unconstitutional] \n \n \u201cDr. Elshikh certainly has standing in this case. He, along with all of the Muslim residents in Hawaii, face higher hurdles to see family because of religious faith,\u201d lawyer Colleen Roh Sinzdak said at a hearing Wednesday. \u201cIt is not merely a harm to the Muslim residents of the state of Hawaii, but also is a harm to the United States as a whole and is against the First Amendment itself.\u201d \n \n Elshikh is a U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent who has been a resident of Hawaii for over a decade. His wife is of Syrian descent and is also a resident of Hawaii. \n \n Justice Department lawyers argued that Trump was well within his authority to impose the ban, which was necessary for national security, and that those challenging it had raised only speculative harms. \u201cThey bear the burden of showing irreparable harm \u2026 and there is no harm at all,\u201d said the acting U.S. solicitor general, Jeffrey Wall, who argued on behalf of the government in Greenbelt, Md., in the morning and by phone in Hawaii in the afternoon. \n \n Watson agreed with the state on virtually all the points. He ruled that the state had preliminarily demonstrated its universities and tourism industry would be hurt, and that harm could be traced to the executive order. He wrote that Elshikh had alleged \u201cdirect, concrete injuries to both himself and his immediate family.\u201d \n \n And Watson declared that the government\u2019s assertion of the national security need for the order was \u201cat the very least, \u2018secondary to a religious objective\u2019 of temporarily suspending the entry of Muslims.\u201d He pointed to Trump\u2019s own campaign trail comments and public statements by advisers as evidence. \n \n \u201cFor instance, there is nothing \u2018veiled\u2019 about this press release: \u2018Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,\u2019 \u201d Watson wrote. \u201cNor is there anything \u2018secret\u2019 about the Executive\u2019s motive specific to the issuance of the Executive Order. Rudolph Giuliani explained on television how the Executive Order came to be. He said: \u2018When [Mr. Trump] first announced it, he said, \u2018Muslim ban.\u2019 He called me up. He said, \u2018Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.\u2019 \u201d \n \n Watson also pointed to a recent Fox News appearance by Stephen Miller, in which the president\u2019s senior policy adviser said the new ban would have \u201cmostly minor technical differences\u201d from the previous iteration frozen by the courts, and Americans would see \u201cthe same basic policy outcome for the country.\u201d \n \n \u201cThese plainly-worded statements, made in the months leading up to and contemporaneous with the signing of the Executive Order, and, in many cases, made by the Executive himself, betray the Executive Order\u2019s stated secular purpose,\u201d Watson wrote. \n \n Opponents of the ban across the country \u2014 including those who had argued against it in different cases on Wednesday \u2014 hailed Watson\u2019s ruling. \n \n Bob Ferguson, the Washington state attorney general who asked Robart to block the measure, called the Hawaii ruling \u201cfantastic news.\u201d Justin Cox, a staff attorney for the National Immigration Law Center who argued for a restraining order in the case in Maryland, said, \u201cThis is absolutely a victory and should be celebrated as such, especially because the court held that the plaintiffs, that Hawaii was likely to succeed on its establishment clause claim which essentially is that the primary purpose of the executive order is to discriminate against Muslims.\u201d \n \n Cox said while the judge did not halt the order entirely, he blocked the crucial sections \u2014 those halting the issuance of new visas and suspending the refu\u00adgee program. Left intact, Cox said, were lesser-known provisions, including one that orders Homeland Security and the U.S. attorney general to publicize information about foreign nationals charged with \u00adterrorism-related offenses and other crimes. He said the provision seems designed to whip up fear of Muslims. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a shaming device that it\u2019s really a dehumanizing device,\u201d he said. \u201cIt perpetuates this myth, this damaging stereotype of Muslims as terrorists.\u201d \n \n Trump\u2019s new entry ban had suspended the U.S. refugee program for 120 days and halted for 90 days the issuance of new visas to people from six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Syria. It was different from the first entry ban in that it omitted Iraq from the list of affected countries, did not affect current visa or green-card holders and spelled out a robust list of people who might be able to apply for exceptions. \n \n The administration could have defended the first ban in court \u2014 though it chose instead to rewrite the president\u2019s executive order in such a way that it might be more defensible. The next step might have been to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to rehear the case en banc, after a three-judge panel with the court upheld the freeze on Trump\u2019s ban. \n \n Hawaii is a part of the 9th Circuit, so the legal road could pass through the appeals court there again. Perhaps previewing the contentious fight ahead, five of the circuit\u2019s judges on Wednesday signed a dissenting opinion in the case over the original travel ban, declaring Trump\u2019s decision to issue the executive order was \u201cwell within the powers of the presidency.\u201d The judges wanted to wipe out a ruling by a three-judge panel declaring otherwise. \n \n \u201cAbove all, in a democracy, we have the duty to preserve the liberty of the people by keeping the enormous powers of the national government separated,\u201d Judge Jay S. Bybee wrote for the dissenters. \u201cWe are judges, not Platonic Guardians. It is our duty to say what the law is, and the meta-source of our law, the U.S. Constitution, commits the power to make foreign policy, including the decisions to permit or forbid entry into the United States, to the President and Congress.\u201d \n \n The dissent was signed by Judges Bybee, Sandra S. Ikuta, Consuelo M. Callahan and Carlos T. Bea, who all were appointed by President George W. Bush; and Judge Alex Kozinski, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. It seemed to represent a minority view. The circuit has 25 active judges, and the court said a majority had not voted in favor of reconsidering the three-judge panel\u2019s published opinion to keep Trump\u2019s first ban frozen. \n \n That opinion was signed by Judges Michelle T. Friedland, who was appointed by President Obama; Richard R. Clifton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush; and Judge William C. Canby Jr., who was appointed by President Carter. \n \n Judge Stephen Reinhardt, also a Carter appointee, formally joined their opinion Wednesday and remarked that only a \u201csmall number\u201d of 9th Circuit judges wanted to overturn it. \n \n Takase reported from Honolulu. Lornet Turnbull in Seattle contributed to this report. ||||| poster=\"http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201703/2151/1155968404_5361762127001_5361759951001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404\" true Judges use Trump\u2019s own words in ruling against revised travel ban Two federal judges halt the president\u2019s second attempt at his executive order, citing Trump\u2019s prior vows to seek a Muslim ban. \n \n A federal judge in Hawaii issued a worldwide restraining order against enforcement of key parts of President Donald Trump\u2019s revised travel ban executive order just hours before the directive was set to kick in, backed up by a second federal judge in Maryland who put out his own ruling blocking parts of the order. \n \n U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled Wednesday that the state of Hawaii and a local Muslim leader had \u201ca strong likelihood of success on their claim\u201d that Trump\u2019s order intentionally targets Muslims and therefore violates the Constitution\u2019s guarantee against establishment of religion. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Watson bluntly rejected the federal government's claims that the new directive does not target Islam because it is focused on six countries that account for less than 9 percent of the world's Muslims. \n \n \"The illogic of the Government\u2019s contentions is palpable,\" wrote Watson, an appointee of President Barack Obama. \"The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed. The Court declines to relegate its Establishment Clause analysis to a purely mathematical exercise.\" \n \n Hours after that opinion emerged, a federal judge in Maryland, U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Chuang \u2014 also an Obama appointee and a former Department of Homeland Security deputy counsel \u2014 held that Trump's order appeared to violate a specific provision in federal law by blocking the issuance of immigrant visas from the six targeted countries. \n \n The rulings are another serious blow to Trump\u2019s attempt to limit immigration as part of what he claims is an effort to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks in the U.S. \n \n Trump slammed the decision during a speech to a campaign rally in Nashville on Wednesday a short time after the new restraining order was issued. \n \n \"This is, in the opinion of many, an unprecedented judicial overreach. ... This ruling makes us look weak,\" the president declared before appearing to vow to take the issue to the Supreme Court. \"This is a watered-down version of the first one. ... I think we should go back to the first one and go all the way which is what I wanted to do in the first place.\" \n \n \u201cTrump\u2019s statements tonight? He should just continue talking, because he\u2019s making our arguments for us,\u201d said Marielena Hincapi\u00e9, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. \n \n A spokewoman for the Department of Justice called the ruling \"flawed both in reasoning and in scope,\" adding that the administration will \"continue to defend this Executive Order in the courts.\" \n \n Trump effectively abandoned the earlier, broader version of his travel ban order after the bulk of it was blocked by another federal judge and a three-judge appeals court panel declined to allow Trump to restore it. \n \n As the White House mulled the possibility of an appeal of the latest ruling, there was one piece of good news for Trump's team: Roughly two hours after Watson issued the new restraining order, five 9th Circuit judges formally declared that the original appeals panel made a \"fundamental error\" by refusing to let Trump proceed with his first order. \n \n The dissenters' move does not alter that earlier ruling but could be seen as a signal to other judges or even the Supreme Court that Trump's travel orders are legally valid. \n \n \"The President\u2019s actions might have been more aggressive than those of his predecessors, but that was his prerogative,\" Judge Jay Bybee and four other Republican-appointed appeals judges wrote in a dissent from the decision not to reconsider the appeals court's earlier ruling. \"Even if we have questions about the basis for the President\u2019s ultimate findings \u2014 whether it was a 'Muslim ban' or something else \u2014 we do not get to peek behind the curtain. So long as there is one 'facially legitimate and bona fide' reason for the President\u2019s actions, our inquiry is at an end.\" \n \n However, Chuang soundly rejected that approach in his ruling from Maryland early Thursday, using Trump's campaign comments and pledges to conclude that the primary purpose of Trump's travel ban order was to advance religious bias. \n \n \"These statements, which include explicit, direct statements of President Trump's animus towards Muslims and intention to impose a ban on Muslims entering the United States, present a convincing case that the First Executive Order was issued to accomplish, as nearly as possible, President Trump's promised Muslim ban,\" Chuang wrote. \n \n Chuang's decision flatly dismissed the federal government's arguments that Trump's comments before he took office should not be considered in assessing the executive order's purpose. \n \n \"Simply because a decisionmaker made the statements during a campaign does not wipe them from the 'reasonable memory' of a 'reasonable observer,'\" the judge wrote, pointing to a federal appeals court decision that considered \"billboards and campaign commercials\" for Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in concluding that he was motivated by religion when he had a Ten Commandments display installed at a state courthouse. \n \n Breaking News Alerts Get breaking news when it happens \u2014 in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. \n \n Chuang said the conclusion that anti-Muslim sentiment was the primarily reason behind the travel ban was supported by the fact that it seemed to be a poor fit for known terrorist threats. \n \n \"In this highly unique case, the record provides strong indications that the national security purpose is not the primary purpose for the travel ban,\" the judge wrote. \"While the travel ban bears no resemblance to any response to a national security risk in recent history, it bears a clear resemblance to the precise action that President Trump described as effectuating his Muslim ban.\" \n \n Watson's order took a similar tack, citing campaign trail statements by Trump that the judge said amounted to \"significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus driving the promulgation of the Executive Order and its related predecessor.\" \n \n Watson's ruling \u2014 applicable \"in all places, including the United States\" \u2014 blocked two core provisions of Trump's redrafted order: a 90-day halt in issuance of visas to citizens of six majority-Muslim countries and a 120-day halt of refugee admissions from around the globe. The judge's 43-page decision was issued about two hours after a court session in Honolulu during which he heard arguments over the legality of the revised order, which Trump signed last week. \n \n Chuang's decision was narrower in effect, halting only the ban on newly issued visas for citizens of the six countries and not interfereing with the interruption in refugee admissions. \n \n The rulings followed a series of four court hearings on Trump's revised travel ban held in the hours before it was set to take effect. \n \n In addition to the court sessions in Honolulu and Greenbelt, Maryland, two hearings took place in \n \n Seattle, where U.S. District Court Judge James Robart listened to arguments on a suit filed by individuals in Washington state and their family members abroad. In addition, a group of about half a dozen states asked Robart, the same judge who issued the injunction last month blocking Trump's first travel ban, to declare that his initial ruling covers the president's replacement order. \n \n Citing differences in the two orders, the George W. Bush appointee turned down that request, according to reporters in the courtroom. However, Robart left unclear whether he would grant separate motions to block the new order. \n \n At the Maryland hearing, refugee aid organizations pleaded with Chuang not to ignore Trump's numerous vows to cut off travel to the U.S. by adherents of Islam. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s asking the court to turn a blind eye to all of the evidence that\u2019s apparent to everybody,\" said Omar Jadwat of the American Civil Liberties Union. \"It doesn\u2019t make sense to blind the court.\u201d \n \n However, acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall warned the judge against taking into account statements Trump made before he took office. The Justice Department lawyer said the revised order doesn't even mention religion. \n \n \"This is an order that draws no religious distinctions at all,\" Wall insisted. \n \n The Maryland suit was filed last month by two refugee aid groups, the International Refugee Assistance Project and HIAS, a Jewish charity that facilitates refugee resettlement in the U.S. for the federal government. Several individuals who claim to be directly affected by Trump's orders are also plaintiffs. \n \n The Maryland suit is the only one that includes a challenge to a specific aspect of Trump's orders: a provision lowering the cap on annual refugee admissions for the current fiscal year to 50,000 from 110,000. In addition to the broader argument about the order as a whole being tainted by religious bias, the suit argues that Trump had no authority to lower that cap since federal law says it must be established before the fiscal year begins. \n \n Justice Department attorneys also argued that the case should wait to see whether individual immigrants receive waivers that allow them to get visas despite the six-country ban. \n \n Washington state Attorney General attempts to block Trump's revised travel ban poster=\"http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201703/1795/1155968404_5353862488001_5353850248001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404\" \n \n However, National Immigration Law Center lawyer Justin Cox said that suggestion was bizarre given the claim that the process itself amounts to illegal religious discrimination. \n \n \"If there were a special process for black folks to live in a certain neighborhood, you wouldn't say their claims are not ripe until they're denied\" permission, Cox said. \n \n After the Maryland hearing, refugee advocates used bleak language to describe the scramble underway to protect their clients in case the revised travel's bans directives kicked in. \n \n \"We're trying to find emergency shelter and places for people to hide so they don't get killed while the U.S. is in the process of implementing this executive order,\" said Rebecca Heller of the International Refugee Assistance Project. \n \n Josh Dawsey contributed to this report from Nashville. Nahal Toosi also contributed to this report. ||||| Justin Cox of the National Immigration Law Center, representing all the plaintiffs, right, accompanied by Omar Jadwat of the ACLU, speaks to reporters outside the court in Greenbelt, Md., Wednesday, March... (Associated Press) \n \n Justin Cox of the National Immigration Law Center, representing all the plaintiffs, right, accompanied by Omar Jadwat of the ACLU, speaks to reporters outside the court in Greenbelt, Md., Wednesday, March 15, 2017. A federal judge in Maryland says he will issue a ruling in a lawsuit challenging President... (Associated Press) \n \n The Latest on legal challenges to the Trump administration's revised travel ban (all times Pacific unless noted): \n \n 12:50 p.m. \n \n A federal judge in Hawaii has put President Donald Trump's revised travel ban on hold. \n \n U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued his ruling Wednesday after hearing arguments on Hawaii's request for a temporary restraining order involving the ban. \n \n His ruling prevents the executive order from going into effect Thursday. \n \n More than half a dozen states are trying to stop the ban, and federal courts in Maryland, Washington state and Hawaii heard arguments Wednesday about whether it should be put into practice. \n \n Hawaii argued that the ban discriminates on the basis of nationality and would prevent Hawaii residents from receiving visits from relatives in the six mostly Muslim countries covered by the ban. \n \n The state also says the ban would harm its tourism industry and the ability to recruit foreign students and workers. \n \n ___ \n \n 3:30 p.m. \n \n A federal judge in Seattle said after a hearing that he will issue a written order about whether to block President Donald Trump's revised travel ban but didn't say when he would make his decision. \n \n Judge James Robart told lawyers for an immigrant rights group and for the Justice Department that he's most interested in whether the ban violates federal immigration law, and whether affected immigrants would be irreparably harmed should the ban go into effect. \n \n The judge spent much of the Wednesday hearing grilling the lawyers about two seemingly conflicting federal laws on immigration \u2014 one which gives the president the authority to keep any class of aliens out of the country, and another that forbids the government from discriminating on the basis of nationality when it comes to issuing immigrant visas. \n \n ___ \n \n 2:55 p.m. \n \n Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin says he's cautiously optimistic that a federal judge will rule in the state's favor and issue an injunction against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban before it goes into effect. \n \n Chin spoke at a news conference Wednesday after U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson heard arguments regarding the injunction request. \n \n The judge said he would issue a ruling before the ban is scheduled to go into effect at 9:01 p.m. PDT Wednesday. \n \n Chin wasn't the only state attorney general at the hearing. \n \n Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is in Honolulu for a conference, and sat in to hear the case. Oregon filed a brief supporting Hawaii's lawsuit. \n \n Rosenblum says it's helpful that challenges to the travel ban are being held in so many jurisdictions, with the hope that at least one judge will issue a temporary restraining order. \n \n Other hearings were held Wednesday in federal courts in Maryland and Washington state challenging the ban. \n \n ___ \n \n 2:15 p.m. \n \n A hearing on President Donald Trump's revised travel ban is underway in federal court in Seattle. \n \n Judge James Robart began the session Wednesday by questioning a lawyer for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project about two seemingly conflicting federal laws on immigration. \n \n One gives the president the authority to keep any class of aliens out of the country, and another forbids the government from discriminating on the basis of nationality when it comes to issuing visas. \n \n Attorney Matt Adams responded that while the law does give the president broad authority, Congress later clarified the law to say the government can't discriminate on the basis of nationality any more than it could bar people based on their race. \n \n ___ \n \n 2 p.m. \n \n A federal judge in Hawaii is considering a request to issue a temporary restraining order against the revised travel ban ordered by President Donald Trump. \n \n U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson says he will issue a written order by 9:01 p.m. PDT, when Trump's executive order is set to take effect. \n \n Watson made the statement Wednesday after hearing arguments by both sides in the case. \n \n The ban blocks new visas for people from six predominantly Muslim countries and temporarily halts the U.S. refugee program. \n \n Hawaii was the first state to file a lawsuit challenging the revised ban. \n \n Its motion for a restraining order contends the ban discriminates on the basis of national origin. \n \n The state also argues that the ban would prevent Hawaii residents from receiving visits from relatives in the six mostly Muslim countries covered by the ban. \n \n The government says Hawaii's concerns are speculation. \n \n More than half a dozen states are trying to stop the ban. \n \n ___ \n \n 4:45 p.m. \n \n A Justice Department attorney is arguing that there's no need for a judge in Hawaii to issue an emergency restraining order against the revised travel ban issued by President Donald Trump. \n \n Jeffrey Wall of the Office of the Solicitor General said during a hearing Wednesday that plaintiffs have said little about harm from the ban that was not speculative. \n \n He said Hawaii is making generalized allegations. \n \n Wall said if the judge is inclined to issue an injunction, it shouldn't be nationwide and should be tailored to the claims raised by Hawaii. \n \n ___ \n \n 1:25 p.m. \n \n Washington state has filed a backup motion in an effort to keep President Donald Trump's revised travel ban from taking effect as scheduled Thursday. \n \n In a new court filing Wednesday, Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the state supports the arguments made in a related case filed by an immigrant rights group based in Seattle that alleges the ban discriminates against Muslims and violates federal immigration law. \n \n U.S. District Judge James Robart is hearing arguments in that case later in the day. \n \n Ferguson said Robart should consider Washington state's new emergency motion for a temporary restraining order if he doesn't see fit to issue an order in the case by the rights group or to rule immediately on a prior motion by Washington state. \n \n The Justice Department says Trump's action is a lawful exercise of presidential authority. \n \n ___ \n \n 1:15 p.m. \n \n The state of Hawaii says an imam from Honolulu has legal standing to assert the First Amendment claim of religious discrimination when challenging President Donald Trump's revised travel ban. \n \n Hawaii's case for a temporary restraining order to block the ban is being heard Wednesday in federal court in Honolulu. \n \n The judge told lawyers that he is more interested in constitutional claims and wanted to know who had such standing in the lawsuit. \n \n Attorney Colleen Roh Sinzdak says a Muslim plaintiff in the lawsuit, Ismail Elshikh, has such standing to challenge the ban. Elshikh says the ban prevents his mother-in-law, who lives in Syria, from visiting family in Hawaii. \n \n Sinzdak says Elshikh and all Muslim residents in Hawaii face higher hurdles in reuniting with family members because of their faith. \n \n She says that harm applies to all residents, not just Muslims. \n \n ___ \n \n 3:15 p.m. EDT \n \n Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin has arrived in a Honolulu federal courtroom, ready to challenge President Donald Trump's revised travel ban. \n \n Chin arrived about 30 minutes before the start of Wednesday's hearing as legal efforts to overturn the ban now shift to Honolulu. \n \n Chin's lawsuit claims the ban harms Hawaii by highlighting the state's dependence on international travelers, its ethnic diversity and its welcoming reputation as the Aloha State. \n \n Hawaii's lawsuit includes a Muslim plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of a Honolulu mosque. He says the ban prevents his mother-in-law, who lives in Syria, from visiting family in Hawaii. \n \n In response, the Justice Department says Hawaii's claims are mere speculation. \n \n It's not clear when U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson will rule on the state's request for a temporary restraining order. \n \n Attorneys from the Washington, D.C., law firm Hawaii has hired will participate by phone. Justice Department attorneys are also phoning in for the hearing. \n \n ___ \n \n 12:30 p.m. EDT \n \n Legal efforts to overturn President Donald Trump's travel ban now shift to Honolulu, where a hearing will be held later Wednesday. \n \n The lawsuit claims the ban harms Hawaii by highlighting the state's dependence on international travelers, its ethnic diversity and its welcoming reputation as the Aloha State. \n \n Hawaii's lawsuit includes a Muslim plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of a Honolulu mosque. He says the ban prevents his mother-in-law, who lives in Syria, from visiting family in Hawaii. \n \n In response, the Justice Department says Hawaii's claims are mere speculation. \n \n It's not clear when U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson will rule on the state's request for a temporary restraining order. \n \n Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin plans to argue before the court, but attorneys from the Washington, D.C., law firm Hawaii has hired will participate by phone. Justice Department attorneys are also expected to phone in for the hearing. \n \n ___ \n \n 11:50 a.m. EDT \n \n A federal judge in Maryland says he will issue a ruling in a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's revised travel ban. \n \n However, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang did not promise that he would rule before the ban takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. He also said Wednesday he may issue a narrow ruling that does not address the ban nationwide. \n \n The lawsuit in Maryland was filed by the ACLU and other groups representing immigrants and refugees, as well as some individual plaintiffs. They argue banning travel from six majority-Muslim countries is unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of religion. They also say it's illegal for Trump to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year by more than half. \n \n Government lawyers argued the ban was revised significantly to address legal concerns and no longer singles out Muslims. \n \n ___ \n \n 11:20 a.m. EDT \n \n The Seattle federal judge who blocked President Donald Trump's original travel ban will hear a challenge to the new order by an immigrant rights group. \n \n U.S. District Judge James Robart will hear arguments Wednesday in the lawsuit brought by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The group says the new version of the travel ban discriminates against Muslims and raises the same legal issues as the original. \n \n Robart also is overseeing the legal challenge brought by Washington state. He also issued the order halting nationwide implementation of the first ban. Among the plaintiffs in the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project case is a legal permanent resident who has been trying to bring her 16-year-old son from war-torn Syria. \n \n The Trump administration says it believes its revised order is legal. The travel ban is scheduled to go into effect next Thursday. \n \n ___ \n \n 10:50 a.m. EDT \n \n Airbnb, Lyft and Wikimedia are among 58 technology companies backing a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration's revised travel ban from taking effect. \n \n The tech companies signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief filed in federal court on Tuesday claiming the White House's planned travel restrictions \"would inflict significant and irreparable harm on U.S. businesses and their employees, stifling the growth of the United States' most prominent industries.\" \n \n The filing supported a legal challenge from the state of Hawaii, which is trying to derail Trump's executive order affecting travelers from six Muslim-majority nations. \n \n The tech companies signed onto the new brief also include Kickstarter, Dropbox Inc., Electronic Arts, Meetup, Pintrest, Square and TripAdvisor. Last month, nearly 100 tech companies signed a similar amicus brief opposing Trump's first proposed travel ban. \n \n ___ \n \n 9:30 a.m. EDT \n \n Virginia's attorney general is supporting Hawaii's lawsuit against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban. \n \n Attorney General Mark Herring said in a statement Tuesday that he joined 13 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief Monday in the District Court for Hawaii. Hawaii has asked for a temporary restraining order blocking the enforcement of the revised travel ban. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday. \n \n The attorneys general argue that the revised ban retains the unconstitutional components of the original order, including a broad ban on entry by nationals from several predominantly Muslim countries and a suspension of the refugee program. \n \n ___ \n \n 2:15 a.m. EDT \n \n A Maryland judge is scheduled to hold a hearing on a lawsuit stemming from President Donald Trump's travel ban. \n \n Several individuals and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union originally filed the lawsuit in February over the initial ban, which was blocked in court and later revised. On Wednesday, the groups will be asking a Maryland judge to issue an order that would keep the revised ban from taking effect. It's scheduled to take effect Thursday. \n \n A federal judge in Hawaii has also scheduled a hearing Wednesday on the revised ban. \n \n In Maryland, the groups are arguing that the revised ban has the same legal flaws as Trump's first executive order.", "summary": "\u2013 A federal judge in Hawaii blocked President Trump's revised travel ban just hours before it was set to go into effect across the country, the Washington Post reports. Hawaii had filed a lawsuit over the new executive order, which halted visas for citizens from six Muslim-majority nations for 90 days and stopped new refugees for 120 days, claiming it hurts tourism, business, and universities and would keep people from those six countries from visiting family in Hawaii. The state alleged the order, which also cuts the number of refugees allowed in the US next year in half, was essentially a Muslim ban. US District Judge Derrick Watson froze the order Wednesday, saying Hawaii has a \"strong likelihood of success on their claim,\" according to Politico. More than six states are currently trying to halt the new travel ban, the AP reports. Arguments against it were also scheduled to be heard in Maryland and Washington state on Wednesday. Trump issued the revised travel ban after his first attempt was blocked by a federal judge in Washington state. Justice Department lawyers defending the new executive order said the ban was well within the president's power and claimed its potential harms were only speculation."}
{"document": "The United Kingdom is a highly developed nation that exerts considerable international economic, political, scientific and cultural influence. Located off the northwest corner of Europe, the country includes the island of Great Britain \u2013 which contains England, Scotland and Wales \u2013 and the northern portion of the island of Ireland. The year 2017 ushered in anxiety about the country\u2019s role on the global stage, due to the public voting in the summer of 2016 to leave the European Union. The vote raises questions about the European Union , as well as the policies supporting the eurozone . ||||| (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images) \n \n The mood on the international conference call at the beginning of this month was somber as Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group, prepared to list off top global dangers in the coming year. Bremmer began with a show-stopping line: \n \n \"If we had to pick one year for a big unexpected crisis \u2014 the geopolitical equivalent of the 2008 financial meltdown \u2014 it feels like 2018.\" The reasons are many, Bremmer cited, but the most prominent causes for global insecurity stem from U.S. President Donald Trump's move away from global leadership, and China's eagerness to fill the perceived vacuum. \n \n Bremmer isn't alone. Donald Trump pledged to \"Make America Great Again.\" The world thinks he is doing the opposite. \n \n The United States slips in this year's U.S. News Best Countries ranking, dropping to the No. 8 spot after falling one position from its 2017 ranking. Switzerland, an island of stable prosperity in a world of turmoil, remains the Best Country, according to a global survey of more than 21,000 persons. \n \n The reasons for America's drop \u2013 the second straight year its ranking dipped \u2013 are fueled by the world's perceptions of the country becoming less progressive and trustworthy, more politically unstable and a president who after just a year in office is far more unpopular than any other head of state or company CEO. \n \n As in 2017, Canada remains the No. 2 in the survey. Germany, as it was in 2016, is perceived as the most powerful country in Europe \u2013 surpassing the U.K. to place at No. 3 overall, while the U.K. drops to No. 4. Japan rounds out the top five, the highest finish for a nation in Asia, a region which survey respondents increasingly believe holds many of the keys to the world's future. At No. 6 is Sweden and Australia moves up to the No. 7 position, surpassing the U.S. \n \n The 2018 Best Countries rankings, formed in partnership with global marketing communications company Y&R's brand strategy firm, BAV Group, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, are based on a study that surveyed global citizens from four regions to assess perceptions of 80 countries on 75 different metrics. \n \n Trump Shocks, Divides the World \n \n The Best Countries rankings come just days after Trump celebrates his first year as U.S. president. The U.S. is still seen as the most powerful nation. In many ways, however, the results reflect 12 months of ongoing signs of the decline of America's standing in the world. In this sense, a noticeable \"Trump Effect\" is taking hold of the U.S. \n \n Just days after taking office, Trump fulfilled a campaign promise by pulling the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. Weeks later a poll showed just 15 percent of Germans believed the new U.S. president to be competent. By last spring's NATO summit, European leaders had begun believing that the U.S. had abdicated its leadership role in the military alliance, as Trump shifted support for both NATO and the European Union. \n \n As summer unfolded, Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Days later, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center released a poll showing the unpopularity of Trump and his policies was sharply dragging down global opinion of the U.S. \n \n Meanwhile, Trump's statements further rattled world opinion. The president engaged in a war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. By November, Trump had begun accumulating a sizeable trail of verbal gaffes to world leaders. \n \n By early January, the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom House warned that democracy was \"in crisis\" around the world, in no small part because of Trump's repeated attacks on the judiciary system and news media in the U.S., lack of seeking \"meaningful input\" from relevant agencies and \"violations of basic ethical standards.\" \n \n In the Best Countries survey, the greatest drop by the U.S. in the rankings came in the perceptions of survey respondents for countries having open travel policies. The backlash against Trump's travel ban order in February 2017 and subsequent media attention are having a lasting impact on America's image, and challenging long-held perceptions of the country's reputation for openness. \n \n One piece of good news for the U.S.: The country is seen as the No. 2 country overall for education. Even so, U.S. higher education industry experts worry the country is becoming a less attractive destination for international students, partly because of U.S. immigration policies. \n \n Opportunities for Many Countries \n \n Among other key findings in the 2018 Best Countries survey: \n \n America's perceived retreat from its traditional global leadership role is creating opportunities for other countries, particularly in the areas of \"soft power,\" arenas where economic and cultural influence drive opinions and policy-making. \n \n Switzerland's position as the No. 1 overall country is driven by its reputation for citizenship and being open for business. For the third year in a row, Canada is seen as offering the best quality of life, driven by high ratings for education, health care and public safety. \n \n In Asia, the U.S. withdrawal from the TPP hasn't slowed the advancing economic might of the region, particularly in China. Authorities in Beijing now see the U.S. foreign policy signals as mixed and an opportunity to work more closely with other countries, including American allies. \n \n \"Trump's neo-isolationist and unilateralist inclinations have given China a golden opportunity to enhance its prestige, status, and international leadership,\" says Zhang Baohui, a professor of political science and director of the Centre for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. \n \n The Best Countries survey findings on leadership and trust in governments and companies are particularly revealing. Approximately 82 percent of survey respondents believe there is a leadership crisis, and 61 percent say they trust private companies more than the government to take care of their needs. \n \n Additionally, corporate CEOs are more supported than government leaders. Only Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have approval ratings to rival the top ratings by CEOs such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. \n \n And the people with the highest disapproval ratings? By far, Trump, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. \n \n For 10 interesting facts on the Best Countries survey, click here. \n \n For top 25 countries in the Best Countries ranking, click here. \n \n Data Editor Deidre McPhillips and BAV's Anna Blender contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 US News ranks everything from hospitals to diets\u2014and now also countries. In a first, the publication has come out with a list of the best 10 countries in the world, based on the perceptions of more than 16,000 people, who were asked to score countries on things like leadership, military, economic strength, culture, and transparency. The US doesn't make the top three: Germany Canada United Kingdom United States Sweden Australia Japan France Netherlands Denmark At least the US fares better when it comes to the most popular leaders, according to Facebook."}
{"document": "Newly available CIA records obtained by Judicial Watch, the conservative watchdog group, reveal that New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti forwarded an advance copy of a Maureen Dowd column to a CIA spokesperson \u2014 a practice that is widely frowned upon within the industry. \n \n Mazzetti's correspondence with CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf, on Aug. 5, 2011, pertained to the Kathryn Bigelow-Mark Boal film \"Zero Dark Thirty,\" about the killing of Osama bin Laden, and a Times op-ed column by Dowd set to be published two days later that criticized the White House for having \"outsourced the job of manning up the president\u2019s image to Hollywood.\" \n \n According to Judicial Watch, Mazzetti sent Harf an advance copy of Dowd's column, and wrote: \u201cthis didn\u2019t come from me\u2026 and please delete after you read. See, nothing to worry about!\u201d \n \n POLITICO has just reached out to the Times for comment, as it was unable to do so prior to Judicial Watch's decision to lift the embargo on the files. (See update). \n \n Judicial Watch obtained the files through a formal Freedom of Information Act request. The full email can be viewed here. \n \n UPDATE (12:41 p.m.): New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter. \n \n \"I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing,\" Baquet said. \"I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing.\" \n \n \"The optics aren't what they look like,\" he went on. \"I've talked to Mark, I know the cirucmstance, and given what I know, it's much ado about nothing.\" \n \n Baquet would not provide further details, which means his statements amount to a plea to readers to take it on faith that Mazzetti's leak was ethically sound. \n \n (h/t Byron Tau) \n \n UPDATE (4:15 p.m.): Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy emails to explain that Mazzetti made a mistake: \n \n Last August, Maureen Dowd asked Mark Mazzetti to help check a fact for her column. In the course of doing so, he sent the entire column to a CIA spokeswoman shortly before her deadline. He did this without the knowledge of Ms. Dowd. This action was a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards. \n \n Read more about: CIA, Maureen Dowd ||||| Obama Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications: \n \n Obama White House \u2018trying to have visibility into the UBL (Usama bin Laden) projects.\u2019 \n \n (Washington, DC) \u2013 Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of Defense (DOD) regarding meetings and communications between government agencies and Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and screenwriter Mark Boal in preparation for their film Zero Dark Thirty, which details the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. According to the records, the Obama administration granted Boal and Bigelow unusual access to agency information in preparation for their film, which was reportedly scheduled for an October 2012 release, just before the presidential election, but the trailers are running now until the rescheduled release in December. \n \n If you would like to receive weekly emails updating you about all of our efforts to fight corruption, please sign up here. * Email * State: AL AK AS AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FL GA GU HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MH MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NM NH NJ NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY Judicial Watch Weekly Update \n \n The records \u2013 which should have been produced months ago pursuant to a court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on January 21, 2012 \u2013 include records from a \u201cstack\u201d of \u201coverlooked\u201d documents discovered by the CIA in July 2012. The following are highlights from the records, which include internal DOD, White House and CIA email correspondence with the filmmakers: \n \n According to a June 15, 2011, email from Benjamin Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, to then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Doug Wilson, then-CIA Director of Public Affairs George Little, and Deputy White House Press Secretary Jaime Smith, the Obama White House was intent on \u201ctrying to have visibility into the UBL (Usama bin Laden) projects.\u201d \n \n \u201c\u2026we are trying to have visibility into the UBL projects and this is likely the most high profile one. Would like to have whatever group is going around in here at the WH [White House] to get a sense of what they\u2019re doing / what cooperation they\u2019re seeking. Jamie will be POC [point of contact].\u201d \n \n According to e-mail exchange on June 7, 2011, CIA spokesperson Marie E. Harf openly discussed providing preferential treatment to the Boal/Bigelow project over others related to the bin Laden killing: \u201cI know we don\u2019t pick favorites but it makes sense to get behind a winning horse\u2026Mark and Kathryn\u2019s movie is going to be the first and the biggest. It\u2019s got the most money behind it, and two Oscar winners on board\u2026\u201d \n \n In a July 20, 2011, e-mail, Mark Boal writes to thank then-CIA Director of Public Affairs George Little for \u201cpulling for him\u201d with the agency, noting that it made, \u201call the difference.\u201d Little responds: \u201c\u2026I can\u2019t tell you how excited we all are (at DOD and CIA) about the project\u2026PS \u2013 I want you to know how good I\u2019ve been not mentioning the premiere tickets. :)\u201d \n \n On July 13, 2011, Mark Boal\u2019s assistant, Jonathan Leven, sent CIA spokesperson Marie Harf a copy of the floor plan of the bin Laden compound and asked him to verify its accuracy: \u201cPer your conversation with Mark, can you verify whether this floor plan is accurate?\u201d The next day Harf responds: \u201cOk, I checked with our folks, and that floor plan matches with what we have. It looks legit to us.\u201d \n \n On July 14, 2011, Mark Boal asks CIA spokesperson Marie Harf to provide detailed information regarding the third floor of the compound that were not present on the open-source floor plan: \u201cWould you mind looking into getting us some of the third floor specs\u2026as the open source plan is missing those: height of wall, etc..? We will be building a full scale replica of the house. Including the inhabitants of the animal pen!\u201d Harf responds minutes later: \u201cHa! Of course I don\u2019t mind! I\u2019ll work on that tomorrow\u2026 \n \n In an internal CIA memo regarding Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s visit to agency headquarters dated July 14, 2011, CIA spokesperson Marie Harf describes Boal\u2019s contact with the agency as a \u201cdeep dive.\u201d (The memo was originally classified Secret.): \u201cKathryn is not interested in doing the deep dives that Mark did; she simply wants to meet the people Mark has been talking to.\u201d \n \n On August 5, 2011, CIA Spokesperson Marie Harf exchanges several e-mails with New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti about the Boal/Bigelow project and, specifically, about a column by Maureen Dowd to be published August 7, 2011, making critical reference to the access the filmmakers were given. Mazzetti gave Harf an advance copy of the article, with the caveat, \u201cthis didn\u2019t come from me\u2026 and please delete after you read. See, nothing to worry about!\u201d \n \n In a June 15, 2011, e-mail, to Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Benjamin Rhodes, Doug Wilson notes that the cooperation that Boal and Bigelow had been getting from the CIA was with the \u201cfull knowledge and full approval/support\u201d of Director Panetta. \u201cBoal has been working with us and with the CIA (via George Little) for initial context briefings \u2013 at DoD this has been provided by Mike Vickers, and at CIA by relevant officials with the full knowledge and full approval/support of Director Panetta.\u201d \n \n In a July 17, 2011, e-mail, CIA spokesperson Marie Harf advises then CIA Director of Public Affairs Greg Little that Boal and Bigelow would be \u201cmeeting individually with both [name redacted] and the translator who was on the raid\u2026\u201d \n \n Judicial Watch launched its investigation of Bigelow\u2019s meetings with the Obama administration following press reports suggesting that the Obama administration may have leaked classified information to the director as source material for Bigelow\u2019s film. \n \n New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that the information leak was designed to help the Obama 2012 presidential reelection campaign: \u201cThe White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of Bin Laden to counter Obama\u2019s growing reputation as ineffectual. The Sony film [sic] by the Oscar-winning pair who made \u2018The Hurt Locker\u2019 will no doubt reflect the president\u2019s cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 \u2014 perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.\u201d \n \n In addition to Judicial Watch\u2019s pursuit of the bin Laden film records, the organization continues to fight in court for the release of post-mortem images of bin Laden and the alleged burial at sea. The Obama administration continues to withhold these records citing national security concerns. \n \n \u201cThese new documents provide more backing to the serious charge that the Obama administration played fast and loose with national security information to help Hollywood filmmakers,\u201d said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. \u201cNo wonder we\u2019ve had to fight one year of stonewalling from the administration. These new documents show there is no doubt that Obama White House was intensely interested in this film that was set to portray President Obama as \u2018gutsy.\u2019\u201d \n \n Read about the search for bin Laden documents and more in Tom Fitton\u2019s New York Times best-seller The Corruption Chronicles, on sale now. ||||| New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti e-mailed an advance, unpublished copy of a Maureen Dowd column dealing with the CIA to an Agency spokeswoman last year, according to newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. Depending on whom at the Times you ask, that was either \"much ado about nothing\" or a \"mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards.\" \n \n The emails were released to Judicial Watch as part of a FOIA lawsuit the group brought seeking information about the Agency's cooperation with filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, who are working on a film about the assassination of Osama bin Laden. They show that last August, Mazzetti, who covers national security for the Times, sent CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf a Maureen Dowd column the paper was about to publish critiquing the White House's attempt to spin the raid with the admonition, \"this didn't come from me...and please delete after you read.\" Earlier, Harf had emailed Mazzetti asking \"any word?\" Mazzetti had replied, \"Going to see a version before it gets filed. My sense is there is a very brief mention at the very bottom of column about CIA ceremony, but that Boal also got high level access at the Pentagon.\" \n \n Indeed, the column reported that Boal had been invited to a CIA ceremony honoring the SEALs. The exchange was obviously an effort on Harf's part to gather intelligence about what the Times was going to report. And if Mazzetti did indeed send Harf a version he saw \"before it [got] filed,\" that means the CIA read Dowd's column before her own editors did. Mazzetti declined to comment for the record. \n \n As far as Times managing editor Dean Baquet is concerned, this sort of cozy information-sharing (for which Wall Street Journal reporter and elephant-fucker Gina Chon was nominally fired in June) is no big deal at all. \"I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing,\" Baquet told Politico's Dylan Byers. \"I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing. The optics aren't what they look like.\" \n \n But Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy, issuing a statement to Gawker on behalf of the paper, had a slightly less sanguine take. \n \n Last August, Maureen Dowd asked Mark Mazzetti to help check a fact for her column. In the course of doing so, he sent the entire column to a CIA spokeswoman shortlly before her deadline. He did this without the knowledge of Ms. Dowd. This action was a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards. \n \n It's not really clear what's behind the cognitive dissonance, though the statement's insistence that Mazzetti acted without Dowd's knowledge might explain it. Perhaps she found more to be \"ado\" about than Baquet did with the notion of her colleague sharing a critical column with a flack for the spooks, and asked that it be made known. \n \n The Judicial Watch emails, by the way\u2014which are supplementary to another batch released in May\u2014offer a wealth of new information on the extent to which the White House invited Boal and Bigelow into the highly classified world of the bin Laden raid, including letting them speak to a translator who joined the raid and the fact that then-CIA director Leon Panetta was fully aware of the project and offered his \"full knowledge and full approval/support.\" \n \n [Image via Getty]", "summary": "\u2013 The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has brought to light a media flap that could prove embarrassing to the New York Times. National security reporter Mark Mazzettii of the Times emailed an advance copy of a Maureen Dowd column to the CIA last year, complete with the plea, \u201cthis didn\u2019t come from me\u2026 and please delete after you read. See, nothing to worry about!\u201d report Gawker and Politico. After Times managing editor Dean Baquet initially called it \"much ado about nothing,\" a Times spokesperson followed up by calling Mazzetti's move a \"mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards.\" She explained: \u201cLast August, Maureen Dowd asked Mark Mazzetti to help check a fact for her column. In the course of doing so, he sent the entire column to a CIA spokeswoman shortly before her deadline. He did this without the knowledge of Ms. Dowd.\u201d Judicial Watch got the emails as part of an FOIA lawsuit to obtain information about the CIA's cooperation with filmmakers making a documentary about the Osama bin Laden raid. Dowd was writing a column critical of the White House, accusing it of trying to spin the raid to Hollywood."}
{"document": "Here are the key moments from the debate that brought Republican presidential candidates head-to-head in North Charleston, S.C. on Jan. 14. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) \n \n Seven candidates participated in Thursday's 2016 presidential debate in North Charleston, S.C.: Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie. \n \n The complete transcript is posted below. Washington Post reporters and readers using Genius have annotated it, and will continue to do so following the debate. \n \n To see an annotation, click or tap the highlighted part of the transcript; if you would like to leave your own annotations, make sure you have a Genius account. Post staff annotations will appear by default; others are in a menu that you can see in the upper right when you click or tap on an annotation. \n \n The debate began after moderators Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo introduced the candidates. \n \n BARTIROMO: So let's get started. Candidates, jobs and growth -- two of the biggest issues facing the country right now. In his State of the Union address earlier this week, the president said, quote, \"we have the strongest, most durable economy in the world.\" \n \n And according to our Facebook research, jobs is one of the biggest issues resonating across the country, including here in South Carolina. The president is touting 14 million new jobs and an unemployment rate cut in half. \n \n The president said that anyone who claims America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction. Senator Cruz, what do you see that he doesn't? \n \n CRUZ: Well, Maria, thank you for that question, and let me say thank you to the state of South Carolina for welcoming us. \n \n Let me start -- I want to get to the substance of the question on jobs, but I want to start with something. Today, many of us picked up our newspapers, and we were horrified to see the sight of 10 American sailors on their knees, with their hands on their heads. \n \n In that State of the Union, President Obama didn't so much as mention the 10 sailors that had been captured by Iran. President Obama's preparing to send $100 billion or more to the Ayatollah Khamenei. And I'll tell you, it was heartbreaking. \n \n But the good news is the next commander-in-chief is standing on this stage. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CRUZ: And I give you my word, if I am elected president, no service man or service woman will be forced to be on their knees, and any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Now, on to your substantive question. The president tried to paint a rosy picture of jobs. And you know, he's right. If you're a Washington lobbyist, if you make your money in and around Washington, things are doing great. The millionaires and billionaires are doing great under Obama. But we have the lowest percentage of Americans working today of any year since 1977. Median wages have stagnated. And the Obama-Clinton economy has left behind the working men and women of this country. \n \n The reason all of us are here is we believe we should be fighting for the working men and women of this country, and not Washington, D.C. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Governor Kasich, we are not even two weeks into this stock trading year, but (inaudible) investors already lost $1.6 trillion in market value. That makes it the worst start to a new year ever. Many worry that things will get even worse, and that banks and financial stocks are particularly vulnerable. \n \n Now, if this escalates, like it did back when Barack Obama first assumed the presidency, what actions would you take if this same thing happens all over again just as, in this example, you are taking over the presidency? \n \n KASICH: Look, it takes three things basically to grow jobs. And I've done it when I was in Washington when we had a balanced budget; had four years of balanced budgets; paid down a half-trillion of debt. And our economy was growing like crazy. It's the same thing that I did in Ohio. It's a simple formula: common sense regulations, which is why I think we should freeze all federal regulations for one year, except for health and safety. It requires tax cuts, because that sends a message to the job creators that things are headed the right way. And if you tax cuts -- if you cut taxes for corporations, and you cut taxes for individuals, you're going to make things move, particularly the corporate tax, which is the highest, of course, in the -- in the world. \n \n But in addition to that, we have to have fiscal discipline. We have to show that we can march to a balanced budget. And when you do that, when you're in a position of managing regulations; when you reduce taxes; and when you have fiscal discipline, you see the job creators begin to get very comfortable with the fact that they can invest. \n \n Right now, you don't have the -- you have taxes that are too high. You have regulations -- I mean, come on, they're affecting everybody here, particularly our small businesses. They are -- they're in a position where they're smothering people. And I mean, are you kidding me? We're nowhere close to a balanced budget or fiscal discipline. \n \n Those three things put together are going to give confidence to job creators and you will begin to see wages rise. You will begin to see jobs created in a robust economy. And how do I know it? Because I've done it. I did it as the chairman of the Budget Committee, working with Senator Domenici. And I've done it in the state of Ohio as the chief executive. \n \n Our wages are growing faster than the national average. We're running surpluses. And we can take that message and that formula to Washington to lift every single American to a better life. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: We know that recent global events have many people worried -- Iran detaining American sailors, forcing them to apologize; North Korea and its nuclear ambitions; an aggressive China; and a Middle East that continues to deteriorate, not to mention ISIS is getting stronger. \n \n Governor Christie, sometimes it seems the world is on fire. Where and when should a president use military action to restore order? \n \n CHRISTIE: Well, Maria, I'm glad to have heard from you in the summary of that question about what's going on in the world. Because Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama. And I've got to tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing, you know? \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n The fact is, there's a number of things that the next president is going to have to do to clean up this mess. The first thing is we have to strengthen our alliances around the world. And the best way to do that is to start talking to our allies again and having them be able to count on our word. \n \n CHRISTIE: Lots of people will say lots of different things about me in this campaign and others, but the one thing they've never said about me is that I'm misunderstood. And so when we talk to our allies and we give them our word, in a Christie administration, they know we're going to keep it. \n \n Next, we have to talk to our adversaries, and we have to make sure they understand the limits of our patience. And this president, given what Ted said right at the beginning, he's absolutely right. It's a -- it's absolutely disgraceful that Secretary Kerry and others said in their response to what's going on in Iran that this was a good thing; it showed how the relationship was getting better. \n \n The president doesn't understand -- and by the way, neither does Secretary Clinton -- and here's my warning to everybody out in the audience tonight. If you're worried about the world being on fire, you're worried about how we're going to use our military, you're worried about strengthening our military and you're worried most of all about keeping your homes and your families safe and secure, you cannot give Hillary Clinton a third term of Barack Obama's leadership. \n \n I will not do that. If I'm the nominee, she won't get within 10 miles of the White House. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Just to be clear Governor, where and when would you use military action? \n \n CHRISTIE: Military action, Maria, would be used when it was absolutely necessary to protect American lives and protect American interests around the world. We are not the world's policeman, but we need to stand up and be ready. \n \n And the problem, Maria, is that the military is not ready, either. We need to rebuild our military, and this president has let it diminish to a point where tinpot dictators like the mullahs in Iran are taking our Navy ships. It is disgraceful, and in a Christie administration, they would know much, much better than to do that. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Governor Bush, the president just told the nation two nights ago that America is back and that the idea that our enemies are getting stronger or that this country is getting weaker, well, it's just rhetoric and hot air. Now other Democrats go even further, sir, saying Republicans even suggesting such comments actually embolden our enemies. I guess they would include you. What do you say? \n \n BUSH: Well first of all, the idea that somehow we're better off today than the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States is totally an alternative universe. The simple fact is that the world has been torn asunder. \n \n Think about it. With grandiose language, the president talks about red lines and nothing to follow it up; talks about ISIS being the JV team, they form a caliphate the size of Indiana with 35 (thousand) to 40,000 battle-tested terrorists. He's missing the whole point, that America's leadership in the world is required for peace and stability. \n \n In the crowd today is Major General James Livingston, who's the co-chairman of my campaign here in South Carolina, a Medal of Honor recipient. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n I've learned from him that what we need to achieve is peace through strength, which means we need to rebuild the military. In this administration, every weapon system has been gutted, in this administration, the force levels are going down to a level where we can't even project force. Our friends no longer think we have their back and our enemies no longer fear us, and we're in a much difficult -- we're in a much different position than we should be. \n \n And for the life of me, I have no understanding why the president thinks that everything is going well. Terrorism is on the run, China, Russia is advancing their agenda at warp speed, and we pull back. \n \n As president of the United States, I will be a commander in chief that will have the back of the military. We will rebuild the military to make sure that it is a solid force, not to be the world's policeman, but to make sure that in a peaceful world, people know that the United States is there to take care of our own national interests and take care of our allies. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: So I take it from that you do not agree with the president. \n \n BUSH: No. And worse -- worse yet, to be honest with you, Hillary Clinton would be a national security disaster. \n \n Think about it. She wants to continue down the path of Iran, Benghazi, the Russian reset, Dodd-Frank, all the things that have -- that have gone wrong in this country, she would be a national security mess. And that is wrong. \n \n And you know what? Here's the problem. If she gets elected, she's under investigation with the FBI right now. If she gets elected, her first 100 days, instead of setting an agenda, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse. We need to stop that. (LAUGHTER) \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Senator Rubio, the president says that ISIS doesn't threaten our national existence like a Germany or a Japan back in World War II, that the terror group is nothing more than twisted souls plotting attacks in their garages. \n \n But House Homeland Security Committee recently said that over 1,000 ongoing investigations of homegrown extremism in 50 states. So how do you define the threat? Germany then or dangerous nut cases now? \n \n RUBIO: Yeah, I would go, first of all, one step further in this description of Hillary Clinton. She wouldn't just be a disaster, Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander in chief of the United States. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander in chief and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be president of the United States. Ever. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n On the issue of Barack Obama, Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size. And that's how you get a foreign policy where we cut deals with our enemies like Iran and we betray our allies like Israel and we gut our military and we go around the world like he has done on 10 separate occasions and apologized for America. \n \n He doesn't understand the threat in ISIS. He consistently underestimates it but I do not. There is a war against ISIS, not just against ISIS but against radical jihadists terrorists, and it is a war that they win or we win. \n \n When I'm president of the United States, we are going to win this war on ISIS. The most powerful intelligence agency in the world is going to tell us where we are, the most powerful military in the world is going to destroy them. And if we capture any of them alive, they are getting a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and we are going to find out everything they know. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Thank you, Senator. \n \n BARTIROMO: Dr. Carson, the president says he does not want to treat ISIS as a foreign army, but ISIS is neither a country nor a government. How do you attack a network that does not respect national borders? \n \n CARSON: Well, I'm very happy to get a question this early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up when that time came. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n You know, I find it really quite fascinating some of the president's proclamations. The fact of the matter is he doesn't realize that we now live in the 21st century, and that war is very different than it used to be before. Not armies massively marching on each other and air forces, but now we have dirty bombs and we have cyber attacks and we have people who will be attacking our electrical grid. And, you know, we have a whole variety of things that they can do and they can do these things simultaneously. And we have enemies who are obtaining nuclear weapons that they can explode in our exoatmosphere and destroy our electric grid. \n \n I mean, just think about a scenario like that. They explode the bomb, we have an electromagnetic pulse. They hit us with a cyberattack simultaneously and dirty bombs. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue at that point? He needs to recognize that those kinds of things are in fact an existential threat to us. \n \n But here's the real key. We have the world's best military, even though he's done everything he can to diminish it. And the fact of the matter is if we give them a mission and we don't tie their hands behind their back, they can get it accomplished. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Mr. Trump, at the State of the Union, the president pointed to a guest who was a Syrian refugee you might recall whose wife and daughter and other family members were killed in an air attack. Now he fled that country seeking asylum here, ultimately ended up in Detroit where he's now trying to start a new life. \n \n The president says that that doctor is the real face of these refugees and not the one that you and some of your colleagues on this stage are painting; that you prefer the face of fear and terror and that you would refuse to let in anyone into this country seeking legitimate asylum. How do you answer that? \n \n TRUMP: It's not fear and terror, it's reality. You just have to look today at Indonesia, bombings all over. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n You look at California, you look, frankly, at Paris where there's a -- the strictest no-gun policy of any city anywhere in the world, and you see what happens: 130 people dead with many to follow. They're very, very badly wounded. They will -- some will follow. And you look around, and you see what's happening, and this is not the case when he introduced the doctor -- very nice, everything perfect but that is not representative of what you have in that line of migration. \n \n That could be the great Trojan Horse. It could be people that are going to do great, great destruction. When I look at the migration, I looked at the line, I said it actually on your show recently, where are the women? It looked like very few women. Very few children. Strong, powerful men, young and people are looking at that and they're saying what's going on? \n \n TRUMP: You look at the kind of damage that two people that two people that got married, they were radicalized -- they got married, they killed 15 people in actually 15 -- going to be probably 16 but you look at that and you take a look -- a good strong look and that's what we have. We are nineteen trillion dollars -- our country's a mess and we can't let all these people come into our country and break our borders. We can't do it. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator Cruz, the New York Times is reporting that you failed to properly disclose a million dollars in loans from Goldman Sachs and CitiBank. During your senate race, your campaign said, \"it was inadvertent.\" A million dollars is inadvertent? \n \n CRUZ: Well Maria, thank you for passing on that hit piece in the front page of the New York Times. You know the nice thing about the mainstream media, they don't hide their views. The New York Times a few weeks back had a columnist who wrote a column saying, \"Anybody But Cruz.\" Had that actually -- that same columnist wrote a column comparing me to an evil demonic spirit from the move, \"It Follows\" that jumps apparently from body to body possessing people. \n \n So you know the New York Times and I don't have exactly have the warmest of relationships. Now in terms of their really stunning hit piece, what they mentioned is when I was running for senate -- unlike Hillary Clinton, I don't have masses of money in the bank, hundreds of millions of dollars. When I was running for senate just about every lobbyist, just about all of the establishment opposed me in the senate race in Texas and my opponent in that race was worth over 200 million dollars. He put a 25 million dollar check up from his own pocket to fund that campaign and my wife Heidi and I, we ended up investing everything we owned. \n \n We took a loan against our assets to invest it in that campaign to defend ourselves against those attacks. And the entire New York times attack -- is that I disclosed that loan on one filing with the United States Senate, that was a public filing. But it was not on a second filing with FDIC and yes, I made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other. But if that's the best the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you. \n \n (COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n CAVUTO: All right. Welcome back to the Republican presidential debate, right here in North Charleston, South Carolina. Let's get right back to the questions. And I'll start with you, Senator Cruz. \n \n Now you are, of course, a strict constitutionalist -- no one would doubt that. And as you know, the U.S. Constitution says only natural-born citizens are eligible for the office of president of the United States. Stop me if you've heard this before. Now, you were born... \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n ... you were born in Canada to an American mother. So you were and are considered an American citizen. But that fellow next to you, Donald Trump -- and others -- have said that being born in Canada means you are not natural-born, and that has raised questions about your eligibility. \n \n Do you want to try to close this topic once and for all tonight? \n \n CRUZ: Well, Neil, I'm glad we're focusing on the important topics of the evening. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n Now, since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n But the poll numbers have. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n And I recognize -- I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. But the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under longstanding U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. \n \n If a soldier has a child abroad, that child is a natural-born citizen. That's why John McCain, even though he was born in Panama, was eligible to run for president. \n \n If an American missionary has a child abroad, that child is a natural-born citizen. That's why George Romney, Mitt's dad, was eligible to run for president, even though he was born in Mexico. \n \n At the end of the day, the legal issue is quite straightforward, but I would note that the birther theories that Donald has been relying on -- some of the more extreme ones insist that you must not only be born on U.S. soil, but have two parents born on U.S. soil. \n \n Under that theory, not only would I be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be disqualified, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified and, interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n (UNKNOWN): Not me. \n \n CRUZ: Because -- because Donald's mother was born in Scotland. She was naturalized. Now, Donald... \n \n TRUMP: But I was born here. \n \n CRUZ: ... on the issue -- on the issue of citizenship, Donald... \n \n TRUMP: (inaudible). Big difference. \n \n CRUZ: ... on the issue of citizenship, Donald, I'm not going to use your mother's birth against you. \n \n TRUMP: OK, good. Because it wouldn't work. \n \n CRUZ: You're an American, as is everybody else on this stage, and I would suggest we focus on who's best prepared to be commander- in-chief, because that's the most important question facing the country. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Mr. Trump... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CAVUTO: ... that you raised it because of his rising poll numbers. \n \n TRUMP: ... first of all, let me just tell you something -- and you know, because you just saw the numbers yourself -- NBC Wall Street Journal just came out with a poll -- headline: Trump way up, Cruz going down. I mean, so don't -- so you can't -- you can't... \n \n (BOOING) \n \n ... they don't like the Wall Street Journal. They don't like NBC, but I like the poll. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n And frankly, it just came out, and in Iowa now, as you know, Ted, in the last three polls, I'm beating you. So -- you know, you shouldn't misrepresent how well you're doing with the polls. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n You don't have to say that. In fact, I was all for you until you started doing that, because that's a misrepresentation, number one. \n \n TRUMP: Number two, this isn't me saying it. I don't care. I think I'm going to win fair and square (inaudible) to win this way. Thank you. \n \n Lawrence Tribe and (inaudible) from Harvard -- of Harvard, said that there is a serious question as to whether or not Ted can do this. OK? There are other attorneys that feel, and very, very fine constitutional attorneys, that feel that because he was not born on the land, he cannot run for office. \n \n Here's the problem. We're running. We're running. He does great. I win. I choose him as my vice presidential candidate, and the Democrats sue because we can't take him along for the ride. I don't like that. OK? \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n The fact is -- and if for some reason he beats the rest of the field, he beats the rest of the field (inaudible). See, they don't like that. They don't like that. \n \n (AUDIENCE BOOING) \n \n No, they don't like he beats the rest of the field, because they want me. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n But -- if for some reason, Neil, he beats the rest of the field, I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit. You have a big lawsuit over your head while you're running. And if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? So you should go out, get a declaratory judgment, let the courts decide. And you shouldn't have mentioned the polls because I would have been much... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CAVUTO: Why are you saying this now -- right now? Why are you raising this issue now? \n \n TRUMP: Because now he's going a little bit better. No, I didn't care (inaudible). It's true. No, it's true. Hey look, he never had a chance. Now, he's doing better. He's got probably a four or five percent chance. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CRUZ: Neil... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n TRUMP: The fact is, there is a big overhang. There's a big question mark on your head. And you can't do that to the party. You really can't. You can't do that to the party. You have to have certainty. Even if it was a one percent chance, and it's far greater than one percent because (inaudible). \n \n I mean, you have great constitutional lawyers that say you can't run. If there was a -- and you know I'm not bringing a suit. I promise. But the Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit, and you have to have certainty. You can't have a question. I can agree with you or not, but you can't have a question over your head. \n \n CAVUTO: Senator, do you want to respond? \n \n CRUZ: Well, listen, I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the U.S. Supreme Court. And I'll tell you, I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump. \n \n TRUMP: You don't have to. Take it from Lawrence Tribe. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n TRUMP: Take it from your professors... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CRUZ: The chances of any litigation proceeding and succeeding on this are zero. And Mr. Trump is very focused... \n \n TRUMP: He's wrong. He's wrong. \n \n CRUZ: ... on Larry Tribe. Let me tell you who Larry Tribe is. He's a left-wing judicial activist, Harvard Law professor who was Al Gore's lawyer in Bush versus Gore. He's a major Hillary Clinton supporter. And there's a reason why Hillary's supporters are echoing Donald's attacks on me, because Hillary... \n \n TRUMP: He is not the only one. \n \n CRUZ: ... wants to face Donald Trump in the general election. \n \n TRUMP: There are many lawyers. \n \n CRUZ: And I'll tell you what, Donald, you -- you very kindly just a moment ago offered me the V.P. slot. \n \n (LAUGHTER) I'll tell you what. If this all works out, I'm happy to consider naming you as V.P. So if you happen to be right, you could get the top job at the end of the day. \n \n TRUMP: No -- no... \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n ... I think if it doesn't... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n I like that. I like it. I'd consider it. But I think I'll go back to building buildings if it doesn't work out. \n \n CRUZ: Actually, I'd love to get you to build a wall. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n TRUMP: I have a feeling it's going to work out, actually. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n RUBIO: Let me (inaudible). I was invoked in that question, so let me just say -- in that answer -- let me say, the real question here, I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n But the real -- but I think we have to get back to what this election has to be about. OK? Listen, we -- this is the greatest country in the history of mankind. But in 2008, we elected a president that didn't want to fix America. He wants to change America. We elected a president that doesn't believe in the Constitution. He undermines it. We elected a president that is weakening America on the global stage. We elected a president that doesn't believe in the free enterprise system. \n \n This election has to be about reversing all of that damage. That's why I'm running for office because when I become president of the United States, on my first day in office we are going to repeal every single one of his unconstitutional executive orders. When I'm president of the United States we are getting rid of Obamacare and we are rebuilding our military. And when I'm president, we're not just going to have a president that gives a State of the Union and says America is the greatest country in the world. When I'm president, we're going to have a president that acts like it. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, senator. \n \n BARTIROMO: Mr. Trump, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in her response to the State of the Union address \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARITROMO: appeared to choose sides within the party, saying Republicans should resist, quote, \"the siren call of the angriest voices\". She confirmed, she was referring to you among others. Was she out of line? And, how would a President Trump unite the party? \n \n TRUMP: Okay. First of all, Nikki this afternoon said I'm a friend of hers. Actually a close friend. And wherever you are sitting Nikki, I'm a friend. We're friends. That's good. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n But she did say there was anger. And I could say, oh, I'm not angry. I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Our military is a disaster. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n TRUMP: Our healthcare is a horror show. Obamacare, we're going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n TRUMP: And I won't be angry when we fix it, but until we fix it, I'm very, very angry. And I say that to Nikki. So when Nikki said that, I wasn't offended. She said the truth. \n \n One of your colleagues interviewed me. And said, well, she said you were angry and I said to myself, huh, she's right. I'm not fighting that. I didn't find it offensive at all. I'm angry because our country is a mess. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARITROMO: But what are you going to do about it? \n \n CAVUTO: Marco Rubio. I'm sorry, it's the time constraints. You and Governor Christie have been exchanging some fairly nasty words of late, and I will allow the governor to respond as well. \n \n The governor went so far to say, you won't be able to slime your way to the White House. He's referring to a series of ads done by a PAC, speaking on your behalf, that say quote,\"One high tax, Common Core, liberal, energy-loving, Obamacare, Medicaid-expanding president is enough. You think you went too far on that and do you want to apologize to the governor? \n \n RUBIO: You know, as I said already twice in this debate, we have a very serious problem in this country. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n RUBIO: We have a president of the United States that is undermining this country's security and expanding the role of... \n \n CAVUTO: That is not my question. \n \n RUBIO: Well, I am going to answer your question, Neil. He is -- this president is undermining the constitutional basis of this government. This president is undermining our military. He is undermining our standing in the world. I like Chris Christie, but we can not afford to have a president of the United States that supports Common Core. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n RUBIO: We can not afford to have a president of the United States that supports gun control. This president, this president is more interested in funding -- less interested in funding the military, than he is in funding planned -- he's more interested in funding Planned Parenthood than he is in funding the military. \n \n Chris Christie wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. All I'm saying is our next president has to be someone that undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country. It can not be someone that agrees with his agenda. \n \n Because the damage he has done to America is extraordinary. Let me tell you, if we don't get this election right, there may be no turning back for America. We're on the verge of being the first generation of Americans that leave our children worse off than ourselves. \n \n So I just truly, with all my heart belief, I like everybody on the stage. No one is a socialist. No one here is under FBI investigation. So we have a good group of people. \n \n CAVUTO: Is he a liberal? \n \n RUBIO: Our next president... \n \n CAVUTO: Is he a liberal? \n \n RUBIO: Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether it is Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Our next president, and our Republican nominee can not be someone who supports those positions. \n \n CAVUTO: Governor? \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CHRISTIE: I stood on the stage and watched Marco in rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office. \n \n It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marco's ear too. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n So the indignation that you carry on, some of the stuff, you have to also own then. So let's set the facts straight. First of all, I didn't support Sonia Sotomayor. Secondly, I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. \n \n Third, if you look at my record as governor of New Jersey, I have vetoed a 50-caliber rifle ban. I have vetoed a reduction this clip size. I vetoed a statewide I.D. system for gun owners and I pardoned, six out-of-state folks who came through our state and were arrested for owning a gun legally in another state so they never have to face charges. \n \n And on Common Core, Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey. So listen, this is the difference between being a governor and a senator. See when you're a senator, what you get to do is just talk and talk and talk. And you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with what you're saying is accurate or not. \n \n When you're a governor, you're held accountable for everything you do. And the people of New Jersey, I've seen it. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CHRISTIE: And the last piece is this. I like Marco too, and two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. That was before he was running against me. Now that he is, he's changed his tune. \n \n I'm never going to change my tune. I like Marco Rubio. He's a good guy, a smart guy, and he would be a heck of a lot better president than Hillary Rodham Clinton would ever be. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: Neil, my name was mentioned here. Neil, my name was mentioned as well. \n \n Here's the deal, Chris is totally right. He's been a good governor, and he's a heck of a lot better than his predecessor that would have bankrupted New Jersey. \n \n Everybody on this stage is better than Hillary Clinton. And I think the focus ought to be on making sure that we leave this nomination process, as wild and woolly as it's going to be -- this is not being bad. \n \n These attack ads are going to be part of life. Everybody just needs to get used to it. Everybody's record's going to be scrutinized, and at the end of the day we need to unite behind the winner so we can defeat Hillary Clinton, because she is a disaster. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Our country rise up again, but we need to have a compelling conservative agenda that we present to the American people in a way that doesn't disparage people, that unites us around our common purpose. \n \n And so everybody needs to discount some of the things you're going to hear in these ads, and discount the -- the back-and-forth here, because every person here is better than Hillary Clinton. \n \n CARSON: Neil, I was mentioned too. \n \n CAVUTO: You were? \n \n CARSON: Yeah, he said everybody. (LAUGHTER) \n \n And -- and I just want to take this opportunity to say, you know, in the 2012 election, you know, we -- and when I say we, Republicans -- tore themselves apart. \n \n You know, we have to stop this because, you know, if we manage to damage ourselves, and we lose the next election, and a progressive gets in there and they get two or three Supreme Court picks, this nation is over as we know it. And we got to look at the big picture here. \n \n BARTIROMO: Governor Kasich... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... Governor Kasich, Hillary Clinton is getting some serious competition from Senator Bernie Sanders. He's now at 41 percent in the latest CBS/New York Times poll. Vice President Biden sang his praises, saying Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real, and he has credibility on it. \n \n So what does it say about our country that a candidate who is a self-avowed socialist and who doesn't think a 90 percent tax rate is too high could be the Democratic nominee? \n \n KASICH: Well, if that's the case, we're going to win every state, if Bernie Sanders is the nominee. That's not even an issue. But look... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... and I know Bernie, and I can promise you he's not going to be president of the United States. So here's this -- the situation, I think, Maria. \n \n And this is what we have to -- I -- I've got to tell you, when wages don't rise -- and they haven't for a lot of families for a number of years -- it's very, very difficult for them. \n \n Part of the reason why it hasn't risen because sometimes we're not giving people the skills they need. Sometimes it's because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates so low that the wealthy were able to invest in -- in strong assets like the stock market when everybody else was left behind. \n \n People are upset about it. I'll tell you what else they're upset about: you're 50 or 51 years old, and some kid walks in and tells you you're out of work, and you don't know where to go and where to turn. Do we have answer for that? We do. There are ways to retrain the 50 and 51-year-olds, because they've got great value. \n \n I'll tell you what else people are concerned about. Their kids come out of college, they have high debt and they can't get a good job. We got to do a lot about the high cost of high -- higher education, but we've got to make sure we're training people for jobs that exist, that are good jobs that can pay. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Let me tell you that, in this country -- in this country, people are concerned about their economic future. They're very concerned about it. And they wonder whether somebody is getting something to -- keeping them from getting it. \n \n That's not the America that I've ever known. My father used to say, \"Johnny, we never -- we don't hate the rich. We just want to be the rich.\" And we just got to make sure that every American has the tools, in K-through-12 and in vocational education, in higher education. \n \n And we got to fight like crazy so people can think the American dream still exists, because it does, with rising wages, with full employment and with everybody in America -- and I mean everybody in America -- having an opportunity to realize the American dream of having a better life than their mother and their father. \n \n I'm president -- look, I've done it once. I've done it once in Washington, with great jobs and lower taxes. The economy was really booming. \n \n And now in Ohio, with the same formula, wages higher than the -- than the national average. A growth of 385,000 jobs. \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n It's not that hard. Just know where you want to go, stick to your guts. Get it done, because our -- our children and grandchildren are counting on us to get it done. And, folks, we will. You count on it. \n \n BARTIROMO: Dr. Carson, one of the other candidates on this stage has brought Bill Clinton's past indiscretions. Is that a legitimate topic in this election? And what do you think of the notion that Hillary Clinton is an enabler of sexual misconduct? \n \n CARSON: Well, there's not question that we should be able to look at past president whether they're married to somebody who's running for president or not in terms of their past behavior and what it means. But you know, here's the real issue, is this America anymore? Do we still have standards? Do we still have values and principles? \n \n You know, you look at what's going on, you see all the divisiveness and the hatred that goes on in our society. You know, we have a war on virtual everything -- race wars, gender wars, income wars, religious wars, age wars. Every war you can imaging, we have people at each other's throat and our strength is actually in our unity. \n \n You know, you go to the internet, you start reading an article and you go to the comments section -- you cannot go five comments down before people are calling each all manner of names. Where did that spirit come from in America? It did not come from our Judeo-Christian roots, I can tell you that. And wherever it came from we need to start once again recognizing that there is such a thing as right and wrong. And let's not let the secular progressives drive that out of us. \n \n The majority of people in American actually have values and principles and they believe in the very things that made America great. They've been beaten into submission. It's time for us to stand up for what we believe in. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Well, we are not done. Coming up, one of the top things people are talking about on Facebook, guns. And you can join us live us on this stage in the conversation during this commercial break right from home. You can go to Facebook.com/(inaudible). We will be streaming live and talking about how we think the debate is going so far. \n \n CAVUTO: We're back in a moment in Charleston, South Carolina. \n \n (COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Welcome back to the Republican presidential debates, right here in North Charleston. Let's get right back to the questions. \n \n Governor Bush, gun rights, one of the top issues seen on Facebook with close to 3 million people talking about it in the past month. Right here in Charleston, Dylann Roof, who has been accused of killing nine people in a nearby church, reportedly had not passed his background check when he got his gun. What is the harm in tightening standards for not only who buys guns, but those who sell them? \n \n BUSH: First of all, I'd like to recognize Governor Haley for her incredible leadership in the aftermath of the -- \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: The Emanuel AME church killings. And I also want to recognize the people in that church that showed the grace of God and the grace of forgiveness and the mercy that they showed. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: I don't know if any of us could have done what they did, one after another, within 48 hours of that tragedy taking place. Look, here's the deal, in this particular case, the FBI made a mistake. The law itself requires a background check, but that didn't fulfill their part of the bargain within the time that they were supposed to do. \n \n We don't need to add new rules, we need to make sure the FBI does its job. Because that person should not have gotten a gun, should not -- would not have passed a background check. The first impulse of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is to take rights away from law- abiding citizens. \n \n That's what they do, whether it's the San Bernardino attack or if it's these tragedies that take place, I think we need to focus on what the bigger issue is. It isn't law-abiding gun owners. \n \n Look, I have an A plus rating in the NRA and we also have a reduction in gun violence because in Florida, if you commit a crime with a gun, you're going away. You're going away for a long, long while. \n \n And that's what we should focus on is the violence in our communities. Target the efforts for people that are committing crimes with guns, and if you do that, and get it right, you're going to be much better off than creating a political argument where there's a big divide. \n \n The other issue is mental health. That's a serious issue that we could work on. Republicans and Democrats alike believe this. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: The president's first impulse is do this by executive order, power he doesn't have. Why not go to Congress and in a bipartisan way, begin to deal with the process of mental health issues so that people that are spiraling out of control because of mental health challenges don't have access to guns. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. \n \n Mr. Trump, are there any circumstances that you think we should be limiting gun sales of any kind in America? \n \n TRUMP: No. I am a 2nd amendment person. If we had guns in California on the other side where the bullets went in the different direction, you wouldn't have 14 or 15 people dead right now. \n \n If even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side, going in the opposite direction, you wouldn't have 130 people plus dead. So the answer is no and what Jeb said is absolutely correct. \n \n We have a huge mental health problem in this country. We're closing hospitals, we're closing wards, we're closing so many because the states want to save money. We have to get back into looking at what's causing it. The guns don't pull the trigger. It's the people that pull the trigger and we have to find out what is going on. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n TRUMP: We have to protect our 2nd amendment and you cannot do this and certainly what Barack Obama was doing with the executive order. He doesn't want to get people together, the old-fashioned way, where you get Congress. You get the Congress, you get the Senate, you get together, you do legislation. He just writes out an executive order. Not supposed to happen that way. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you sir. \n \n XXX where you get Congress. \n \n TRUMP: You get the Congress. You get the Senate. You get together. You do legislation. He just writes out an order, executive order. It's not supposed to happen that way. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Senator Rubio, you said that President Obama wants to take people's guns away. Yet under his presidency, gun sales have more than doubled. That doesn't sound like a White House unfriendly to gun owners. \n \n RUBIO: That sounds like people are afraid the president's going to take their guns away. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Look, the Second Amendment is not an option. It is not a suggestion. It is a constitutional right of every American to be able to protect themselves and their families. I am convinced that if this president could confiscate every gun in America, he would. I am convinced that this president, if he could get rid of the Second Amendment, he would. I am convinced because I see how he works with his attorney general, not to defend the Second Amendment, but to figure out ways to undermine it. \n \n I have seen him appoint people to our courts not to defend the Second Amendment, but to figure out ways to undermine it. \n \n Here's my second problem. None of these instances that the president points to as the reason why he's doing these things would have been preventive. You know why? Because criminals don't buy their guns from a gun show. They don't buy their guns from a collector. And they don't buy their guns from a gun store. They get -- they steal them. They get them on the black market. \n \n And let me tell you, ISIS and terrorists do not get their guns from a gun show. These... \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... his answer -- you name it. If there's an act of violence in America, his immediate answer before he even knows the facts is gun control. Here's a fact. We are in a war against ISIS. They are trying to attack us here in America. They attacked us in Philadelphia last week. They attacked us in San Bernardino two weeks ago. And the last line standing between them and our families might be us and a gun. \n \n When I'm president of the United States, we are defending the Second Amendment, not undermining it the way Barack Obama does. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: But what fact can you point to, Senator -- what fact can you point to that the president would take away everyone's gun? You don't think that's (inaudible)? \n \n RUBIO: About every two weeks, he holds a press conference talking about how he can't wait to restrict people's access to guns. He has never defended... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n RUBIO: I'll give you a fact. Well, let me tell you this. Do you remember when he ran for president of the United States, and he was a candidate, and he went and said, \"These Americans with traditional values, they are bitter people, and they cling to their guns and to their religion.\" That tells you right away where he was headed on all of this. \n \n This president every chance he has ever gotten has tried to undermine the Second Amendment. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n He doesn't meet -- here's the difference. When he meets with the attorney general in the White House, it's not \"how can we protect the Second Amendment rights of Americans.\" It's \"give me options on how I can make it harder for law-abiding people to buy guns.\" That will never happen when I am president of the United States. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Governor Christie, you, too, have criticized the president's recent executive action on gun control, saying it's unconstitutional, another step to bypass Congress. But hasn't your own position on guns evolved, sir? The New Jersey Star-Ledger reports that you signed several laws to regulate the possession of firearms, and that you argued back in August 2013, and I quote, \"These common sense measures will strengthen New Jersey's already tough gun laws.\" \n \n So isn't that kind of what the president wants to do now? \n \n CHRISTIE: No, absolutely not. The president wants to do things without working with his Congress, without working with the legislature, and without getting the consent of the American people. And the fact is that that's not a democracy. That's a dictatorship. And we need to very, very concerned about that. \n \n See, here's the thing. I don't think the founders put the Second Amendment as number two by accident. I don't think they dropped all the amendments into a hat and picked them out of a hat. I think they made the Second Amendment the second amendment because they thought it was just that important. \n \n The fact is in New Jersey, what we have done is to make it easier now to get a conceal and carry permit. We have made it easier to do that, not harder. And the way we've done it properly through regulatory action, not buy signing unconstitutional executive orders. This guy is a petulant child. That's what he is. I mean, you know... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... the fact is, Neil, let's think about -- let's think about -- and I want to maybe -- I hope the president is watching tonight, because here's what I'd like to tell him. \n \n Mr. President, we're not against you. We're against your policies. When you became president, you had a Democratic Congress and a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate. You had only 21 Republican governors in this country. And now after seven years of your policies, we have the biggest majority we've had since the 1920s in the House; a Republican majority in the Senate; and 31 out of 50 Republican governors. \n \n The American people have rejected your agenda and now you're trying to go around it. That's not right. It's not constitutional. And we are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: So what is the answer, Senator Cruz, to stop mass shootings and violent crime, up in 30 cities across the country? \n \n CRUZ: The answer is simple. Your prosecute criminals. You target the bad guys. You know, a minute ago, Neil asked: What has President Obama do -- done to illustrate that he wants to go after guns? \n \n Well, he appointed Eric Holder as attorney general. Eric Holder said he viewed his mission as brainwashing the American people against guns. He appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, someone who has been a radical against the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. \n \n He launched Fast and Furious, illegally selling guns to Mexican drug lords that were then used to shoot law enforcement officials. And I'll tell you what Hillary Clinton has said: Hillary Clinton says she agrees with the dissenters -- the Supreme Court dissenters in the Heller case. \n \n There were four dissenters, and they said that they believe the Second Amendment protects no individual right to keep and bear arms whatsoever, which means, if their view prevailed and the next president's going to get one, two, three, maybe four Supreme Court justices, the court will rule that not a single person in this room has any right under the Second Amendment and the government could confiscate your guns. \n \n And I'll note that California senator -- Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said, if she could say to Mr. America and Mrs. America, \"give me your guns, I'm rounding them up,\" she would. \n \n And let me make a final point on this. Listen, in any Republican primary, everyone is going to say they support the Second Amendment. Unless you are clinically insane... \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n ... that's what you say in a primary. But the voters are savvier than that. They recognize that people's actions don't always match their words. I've got a proven record fighting to defend the Second Amendment. \n \n There's a reason Gun Owners of America has endorsed me in this race. There's a reason the NRA gave me their Carter Knight Freedom Fund award... \n \n (BELL RINGS) ... and there's a reason, when Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer came after our right to keep and bear arms, that I led the opposition, along with millions of Americans -- we defeated that gun control legislation. \n \n And I would note the other individuals on this stage were nowhere to be found in that fight. \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... let me follow up and switch gears. \n \n Senator Cruz, you suggested Mr. Trump, quote, \"embodies New York values.\" Could you explain what you mean by that? \n \n CRUZ: You know, I think most people know exactly what New York values are. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n BARTIROMO: I am from New York. I don't. \n \n CRUZ: What -- what -- you're from New York? So you might not. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n But I promise you, in the state of South Carolina, they do. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n And listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media. \n \n And -- and I would note indeed, the reason I said that is I was asked -- my friend Donald has taken to it as (ph) advance playing Bruce Springsteen's \"Born in the USA\", and I was asked what I thought of that. \n \n And I said, \"well, if he wanted to play a song, maybe he could play, 'New York, New York'?\" And -- and -- you know, the concept of New York values is not that complicated to figure out. \n \n Not too many years ago, Donald did a long interview with Tim Russert. And in that interview, he explained his views on a whole host of issues that were very, very different from the views he's describing now. \n \n And his explanation -- he said, \"look, I'm from New York, that's what we believe in New York. Those aren't Iowa values, but this is what we believe in New York.\" And so that was his explanation. \n \n And -- and I guess I can -- can frame it another way. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n BARTIROMO: Are you sure about that? \n \n CAVUTO: Maria... \n \n TRUMP: So conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan, including William F. Buckley and others, just so you understand. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n And just so -- if I could, because he insulted a lot of people. I've had more calls on that statement that Ted made -- New York is a great place. It's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people. \n \n When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. You had two one hundred... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... you had two 110-story buildings come crashing down. I saw them come down. Thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there, and I've never seen anything like it. \n \n And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death -- nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. \n \n TRUMP: And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Governor bush, for the third time in as many months, the Iranians have provoked us, detaining us, as we've been discussing, with these 10 Navy sailors Tehran had said strayed into their waters. The sailors were released, but only after shown on video apologizing for the incident. This occurring only weeks after Iran fired multiple rockets within 1,500 yards of a U.S. aircraft carrier and then continued to test medium range missiles. \n \n Now you've claimed that such actions indicate Tehran has little to fear from a President Obama. I wonder, sir, what would change if they continued doing this sort of thing under a President Jeb Bush? \n \n BUSH: Well, first of all, under President Jeb Bush, we would restore the strength of the military. Last week, Secretary Carter announced that the Navy's going to be cut again. It's now half the size of what it was prior to Operation Desert Storm. \n \n The deployments are too high for the military personnel. We don't have procurement being done for refreshing the equipment. The B-52 is still operational as the long range bomber; it was inaugurated in the age of Harry Truman. The planes are older than the pilots. We're gutting our military, and so the Iranians and the Chinese and the Russians and many other countries look at the United States not as serious as we once were. \n \n We have to eliminate the sequester, rebuild our military in a way that makes it clear that we're back in the game. \n \n Secondly, as it relates to Iran, we need to confront their ambitions across the board. We should reimpose sanctions, they've already violated sanctions after this agreement was signed by testing medium-range missiles. \n \n Thirdly, we need to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to send a serious signal that we're back in the game with Israel -- \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... and sign an agreement that makes sure that the world knows that they will have technological superiority. \n \n We need to get back in the game as it relates to our Arab nations. The rest of the world is moving away from us towards other alliances because we are weak. This president and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton all have made it harder for the next president to act, but he must act to confront the ambitions of Iran. We can get back in the game to restore order and security for our own country. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Thank you, Governor. Governor Kasich, while everyone has been focusing on Iran's provocations, I'm wondering what you make of what Saudi Arabia has been doing and its recent moves in the region, including its execution of a well-known Shi'ite cleric and its move to dramatically increase oil production, some say in an effort to drive down oil prices and force a lot of U.S. oil producers out of business. \n \n Sure enough, oil prices have tumbled. One brokerage house is predicting a third or more of American oil producers and those heavily invested in fracking will go bankrupt, and soon Saudi Arabia and OPEC will be back in the driver's seat. \n \n U.S. energy player Harold Hamrie similarly told me with friends like these, who needs enemies? Do you agree? \n \n KASICH: Well, let me -- let me first of all talk a little bit about my experience. I served on the Defense Committee for 18 years, and by the way, one of the members of that committee was Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina. Let em also tell you... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... that after the 9/11 attacks, Secretary Rumsfeld invited me to the Pentagon with a meeting of the former secretaries of Defense. And in that meeting, I suggested we had a problem with technology, and that I wanted to take people from Silicon Valley into the Pentagon to solve our most significant problems. So I not only had the opportunity to go through the Cold War struggles in Central America, and even after 9/11 to be involved. \n \n With Saudi Arabia and oil production, first of all, it's so critical for us to be energy independent, and we're getting there because of fracking and we ought to explore because, see, energy independence gives us leverage and flexibility, and secondly, if you want to bring jobs back to the United States of America in industry, low prices make the difference. \n \n We're seeing it in my state and we'll see it in this country. And that's why we must make sure we continue to frack. \n \n In terms of Saudi Arabia, look, my biggest problem with them is they're funding radical clerics through their madrasses. That is a bad deal and an evil situation, and presidents have looked the other way. And I was going to tell you, whether I'm president or not, we better make it clear to the Saudis that we're going to support you, we're in relation with you just like we were in the first Gulf War, but you've got to knock off the funding and teaching of radical clerics who are the very people who try to destroy us and will turn around and destroy them. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n KASICH: So look, in foreign policy -- in foreign policy, it's strength, but you've got to be cool. You've got to have a clear vision of where you want to go. And I'm going to tell you, that it -- I'm going to suggest to you here tonight, that you can't do on the job training. \n \n I've seen so much of it - a Soviet Union, the coming down of a wall, the issues that we saw around the world in Central America, the potential spread of communism, and 9/11 and Gulf War. You see what the Saudi's -- deliver them a strong message but at the end of the day we have to keep our cool because most of the time they're going right with us. And they must be part of our coalition to destroy ISIS and I believe we can get that done. \n \n Thank you. \n \n CAVUTO: Thank you John. \n \n BARTIROMO: There's much more ahead including the fight against ISIS. More from Charleston, South Carolina when we come right back. \n \n (COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n BARTIROMO: We welcome back to the Republican Presidential Debate, right back to the questions. \n \n Candidates, the man who made fighting ISIS the cornerstone of his campaign, South Carolina Senator, Lindsey Graham is out the race but he joins us tonight in the audience. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n He says, \"the air-strike now in their 16th month have been ineffective.\" Dr. Carson ... \n \n CARSON: Wait a minute, who in their 16th month? \n \n BARTIROMO: The air-strikes. \n \n CARSON: OK. \n \n BARTIROMO: Now in their 16th month are ineffective. Dr. Carson, do you think Senator Graham is right in wanting to send 20,000 troops -- ground troops to Iraq and Syria to take out ISIS? \n \n CARSON: Well, there's no question that ISIS is a very serious problem, and I don't believe that this administration recognizes how serious it is. \n \n I think we need to do a lot more than we're doing. Recognize that the caliphate is what gives them the legitimacy to go out on a jihadist mission, so we need to take that away from them. \n \n The way to take that away from them is to talk to our military officials and ask them, \"what do you need in order to accomplish this goal?\" \n \n Our decision is, then, do we give them what we need. I say, yes, not only do we give them what they need, but we don't tie their hands behind their backs so that they can go ahead and get the job done. \n \n In addition to that... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... in addition to that, we go ahead and we take the oil from them, their source of revenue. You know, some of these -- these engagement rules that the administration has -- \"we're not going to bomb a tanker that's coming out of there because there might be a person in it\" -- give me a break. \n \n Just tell them that, you put people in there, we're going to bomb them. So don't put people in there if you don't want them bombed. You know, that's so simple. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n And then we need to shut down -- we need to shut down their mechanisms of funding and attack their command-and-control centers. Why should we let their people be sitting there smoking their cigars, sitting in their comfortable chairs in Raqqa? \n \n We know (ph) to go ahead and shut off the supply routes, and send in our special ops at 2:00 a.m. and attack them everywhere they go. They should be running all the time, then they won't have time to plan attacks against us. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. Senator Graham has also said that the U.S. will find Arab support for its coalition if it removes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And I quote, \"The now king of Saudi Arabia told us, 'you can have our army, you just got to deal with Assad.' \n \n \"The emir of Qatar said, 'I'll pay for the operation, but they are not going to fight ISIS and let Damascus fall into the hands of the Iranians. Assad has to go.'\" \n \n Governor Christie, how important is it to remove Assad from power and how would you do it? \n \n CHRISTIE: Maria, you look at what this president and his secretary of state, Secretary of State Clinton, has done to get us in this spot. You think about it -- this is the president who said, along with his secretary of state -- drew a red line in Syria, said, if Assad uses chemical weapons against his people, that we're going to attack. \n \n He used chemical weapons, he's killed, now, over a quarter of a million of his own people, and this president has done nothing. In fact, he's done worse than nothing. \n \n This president -- and, by the way, Secretary Clinton, who called Assad a reformer -- she called Assad a reformer. Now, the fact is, what this president has done is invited Russia to play an even bigger role, bring in Vladimir Putin to negotiate getting those chemical weapons back from Assad, yet what do we have today? \n \n We have the Russians and the Iranians working together, not to fight ISIS, but to prop up Assad. The fact of the matter is we're not going to have peace -- we are not going to have peace in Syria. We're not going to be able to rebuild it unless we put a no-fly zone there, make it safe for those folks so we don't have to be talking about Syrian refugees anymore. \n \n The Syrians should stay in Syria. They shouldn't be going to Europe. And here's the last piece... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... you're not going to have peace in Syria with Assad in charge. You're simply not. And so Senator Graham is right about this. \n \n And if we want to try to rebuild the coalition, as Governor Kasich was saying before, then what we better do is to get to the Arab countries that believe that ISIS is a threat, not only to them, but to us and to world peace, and bring them together. \n \n And believe me, Assad is not worth it. And if you're going to leave this to Hillary Clinton, the person who gave us this foreign policy, the architect of it, and you're going to give her another four years, that's why I'm speaking out as strongly as I am about that. \n \n Hillary Clinton cannot be president. It will lead to even greater war in this world. And remember this, after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had nearly 8 years, we have fewer democracies in the world than we had when they started. \n \n That makes the world less peaceful, less safe. In my administration, we will help to make sure we bring people together in the Middle East, and we will fight ISIS and defeat them. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Mr. Trump -- Mr. Trump, your comments about banning Muslims from entering the country created a firestorm. According to Facebook, it was the most-talked-about moment online of your entire campaign, with more than 10 million people talking about the issue. \n \n Is there anything you've heard that makes you want to rethink this position? \n \n TRUMP: No. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n No. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Look, we have to stop with political correctness. We have to get down to creating a country that's not going to have the kind of problems that we've had with people flying planes into the World Trade Centers, with the -- with the shootings in California, with all the problems all over the world. \n \n TRUMP: I just left Indonesia -- bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. \n \n We have to find out what's going on. I said temporarily. I didn't say permanently. I said temporarily. And I have many great Muslim friends. And some of them, I will say, not all, have called me and said, \"Donald, thank you very much; you're exposing an unbelievable problem and we have to get to the bottom of it.\" \n \n And unlike President Obama, where he refuses even to use the term of what's going on, he can't use the term for whatever reason. And if you can't use the term, you're never going to solve the problem. My Muslim friends, some, said, \"thank you very much; we'll get to the bottom of it.\" \n \n But we have a serious problem. And we can't be the stupid country any more. We're laughed at all over the world. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: Donald, Donald -- can I -- I hope you reconsider this, because this policy is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS. The Kurds are our strongest allies. They're Muslim. You're not going to even allow them to come to our country? \n \n The other Arab countries have a role to play in this. We cannot be the world's policeman. We can't do this unilaterally. We have to do this in unison with the Arab world. And sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and restoring democracy in Syria. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n So I hope you'll reconsider. I hope you'll reconsider. The better way of dealing with this -- the better way of dealing with this is recognizing that there are people in, you know, the -- Islamic terrorists inside, embedded in refugee populations. \n \n What we ought to do is tighten up our efforts to deal with the entry visa program so that a citizen from Europe, it's harder if they've been traveling to Syria or traveling to these other places where there is Islamic terrorism, make it harder -- make the screening take place. \n \n We don't have to have refugees come to our country, but all Muslims, seriously? What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world that the United States is a serious player in creating peace and security? \n \n CAVUTO: But you said -- you said that he made those comments and they represented him being unhinged after he made them. \n \n BUSH: Yeah, they are unhinged. \n \n CAVUTO: Well -- well, after he made them... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... his poll numbers went up eight points in South Carolina. Now -- now, wait... \n \n TRUMP: Eleven points, to be exact. \n \n CAVUTO: Are you -- are you saying -- are you saying that all those people who agree with Mr. Trump are unhinged? \n \n BUSH: No, not at all, absolutely not. I can see why people are angry and scared, because this president has created a condition where our national security has weakened dramatically. I totally get that. But we're running for the presidency of the United States here. This isn't -- this isn't, you know, a different kind of job. You have to lead. You cannot make rash statements and expect the rest of the world to respond as though, well, it's just politics. \n \n Every time we send signals like this, we send a signal of weakness, not strength. And so it was (inaudible) his statement, which is why I'm asking him to consider changing his views. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n TRUMP: I want security for this country. OK? \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n I want security. I'm tired of seeing what's going on, between the border where the people flow over; people come in; they live; they shoot. I want security for this country. We have a serious problem with, as you know, with radical Islam. We have a tremendous problem. It's not only a problem here. It's a problem all over the world. \n \n I want to find out why those two young people -- those two horrible young people in California when they shot the 14 people, killed them -- people they knew, people that held the wedding reception for them. I want to find out -- many people saw pipe bombs and all sorts of things all over their apartment. Why weren't they vigilant? Why didn't they call? Why didn't they call the police? \n \n And by the way, the police are the most mistreated people in this country. I will tell you that. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n The most mistreated people. In fact, we need to -- wait a minute -- we need vigilance. We have to find out -- many people knew about what was going on. Why didn't they turn those two people in so that you wouldn't have had all the death? \n \n There's something going on and it's bad. And I'm saying we have to get to the bottom of it. That's all I'm saying. We need security. \n \n BARTIROMO: We -- we want to hear from all of you on this. According to Pew Research, the U.S. admits more than 100,000 Muslim immigrants every single year on a permanent lifetime basis. I want to ask the rest of you to comment on this. Do you agree that we should pause Muslim immigration until we get a better handle on our homeland security situation, as Mr. Trump has said? \n \n Beginning with you, Governor Kasich. \n \n KASICH: I -- I've been for pausing on admitting the Syrian refugees. And the reasons why I've done is I don't believe we have a good process of being able to vet them. But you know, we don't want to put everybody in the same category. \n \n KASICH: And I'll go back to something that had been mentioned just a few minutes ago. If we're going to have a coalition, we're going to have to have a coalition not just of people in the western part of the world, our European allies, but we need the Saudis, we need the Egyptians, we need the Jordanians, we need the Gulf states. We need Jordan. \n \n We need all of them to be part of exactly what the first George Bush put together in the first Gulf War. \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n It was a coalition made up of Arabs and Americans and westerners and we're going to need it again. And if we try to put everybody in the same -- call everybody the same thing, we can't do it. And that's just not acceptable. \n \n But I think a pause on Syrian refugees has been exactly right for all the governors that have called for it, and also, of course, for me as the governor of Ohio. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir, we want to hear from the rest of you, \n \n Governor Christie, your take. \n \n CHRISTIE: Now Maria, listen. I said right from the beginning that we should take no Syrian refugees of any kind. And the reason I said that is because the FBI director told the American people, told Congress, that he could not guarantee he could vet them and it would be safe. That's the end of the conversation. \n \n I can tell you, after spending seven years as a former federal prosecutor, right after 9/11, dealing with this issue. Here's the way you need to deal with it. You can't just ban all Muslims. You have to ban radical Islamic jihadists. You have to ban the people who are trying to hurt us. \n \n The only way to figure that out is to go back to getting the intelligence community the funding and the tools that it needs to be able to keep America safe. \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n And this summer, we didn't do that. We took it away from the NSA, it was a bad decision by the president. Bad by those in the Senate who voted for it and if I'm president, we'll make our intelligence community strong, and won't have to keep everybody out, we're just going to keep the bad folk out and make sure they don't harm us. \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator Rubio, where do you stand? \n \n RUBIO: Well, first of all, let's understand why we are even having this debate and why Donald tapped in to some of that anger that's out there about this whole issue. Because this president has consistently underestimated the threat of ISIS. \n \n If you listen to the State of the Union the other night, he described them as a bunch of guys with long beards on the back of a pickup truck. They are much more than that. This is a group of people that enslaves women and sells them, sells them as brides. \n \n This is a group of people that burns people in cages, that is conducting genocide against Christians and Yazidis and others in the region. This is not some small scale group. \n \n They are radicalizing people in the United States, they are conducting attacks around the world. So you know what needs to happen, it's a very simple equation, and it's going to happen when I'm president. If we do not know who you are, and we do not know why you are coming when I am president, you are not getting into the United States of America. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator Cruz, where do you stand? Senator Cruz? \n \n CRUZ: You know I understand why Donald made the comments he did and I understand why Americans are feeling frustrated and scared and angry when we have a president who refuses to acknowledge the threat we face and even worse, who acts as an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism. \n \n I think what we need is a commander in chief who is focused like a laser on keeping this country safe and on defeating radical Islamic terrorism. What should we do? First, we should pass the Expatriate Terrorist Act, legislation I've introduced that says if an American goes and joins ISIS and wages jihad against America, that you forfeit your citizenship and you can not come in on a passport. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CRUZ: And secondly, we should pass the legislation that I've introduced... \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n ... that suspends all refugees from nations that ISIS or Al Qaida controls significant territory. Just last week, we see saw two Iraqi refugees vetted using the same process the president says will work, that were arrested for being alleged ISIS terrorists. \n \n If I'm elected president, we will not let in refugees from countries controlled by ISIS or Al Qaida. When it comes to ISIS, we will not weaken them, we will not degrade them, we will utterly and completely destroy ISIS \n \n (APPLAUSE). \n \n BARTIROMO: Dr. Carson, where do you stand? Do you agree with Mr. Trump? \n \n CARSON: Well, first of all, recognize it is a substantial problem. But like all of our problems, there isn't a single one that can't be solved with common sense if you remove the ego and the politics. And clearly, what we need to do is get a group of experts together, including people from other countries, some of our friends from Israel, who have had experience screening these people and come up with new guidelines for immigration, and for visas, for people who are coming into this country. \n \n That is the thing that obviously makes sense, we can do that. And as far as the Syrians are concerned, Al-Hasakah province, perfect place. They have infrastructure. All we need to do is protect them, they will be in their own country. \n \n And that is what they told me when I was in Jordan in November. Let's listen to them and let's not listen to our politicians. \n \n BARTIROMO: So, to be clear, the both of you do not agree with Mr. Trump? \n \n BUSH: So, are we going to ban Muslims from India, from Indonesia, from countries that are strong allies -- that we need to build better relationships with? Of course not. What we need to do is destroy ISIS. \n \n I laid out a plan at the Citadel to do just that and it starts with creating a \"No Fly Zone\" and \"Safe Zones\" to make sure refugees are there. We need to lead a force, a Sunni led force inside of Syria. We need to embed with -- with the Iraqi military. We need to arm the Kurds the directly. We need to re-establish the relationships with the Sunnis. \n \n We need the lawyers(ph) off the back of the war fighters. That's how you solve the problem. You don't solve it by big talk where you're banning all Muslims and making it harder for us to build the kind of coalition for us to be successful. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you governor. \n \n CAVUTO: Mr. Trump, sometimes maybe in the heat of the campaign, you say things and you have to dial them back. Last week, the New York Times editorial board quoted as saying that you would oppose, \"up to 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods.\" \n \n TRUMP: That's wrong. They were wrong. It's the New York Times, they are always wrong. \n \n CAVUTO: Well... \n \n TRUMP: They were wrong. \n \n CAVUTO: You never said because they provided that... \n \n TRUMP: No, I said, \" I would use -- \" they were asking me what to do about North Korea. China, they don't like to tell us but they have total control -- just about, of North Korea. They can solve the problem of North Korea if they wanted to but they taunt us. \n \n They say, \" well, we don't really have control.\" Without China, North Korea doesn't even eat. China is ripping us on trade. They're devaluing their currency and they're killing our companies. Thousands of thousands -- you look at the number of companies and the number in terms of manufacturing of plans that we've lost -- 50,000 because of China. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CAVUTO: So they've never said to put a tariff on their... TRUMP: We've lost anywhere between four and seven million jobs because of China. What I said then was, \"we have very unfair trade with China. We're going to have a trade deficit of 505 billion dollars this year with China.\" A lot of that is because they devalue their currency. \n \n What I said to the New York Times, is that, \"we have great power, economic power over China and if we wanted to use that and the amount -- where the 45 percent comes in, that would be the amount they saw their devaluations that we should get.\" That we should get. \n \n What I'm saying is this, I'm saying that we do it but if they don't start treating us fairly and stop devaluing and let their currency rise so that our companies can compete and we don't lose all of these millions of jobs that we're losing, I would certainly start taxing goods that come in from China. Who the hell has to lose 505 billion dollars a year? \n \n CAVUTO: I'm sorry, you lost me. \n \n TRUMP: It's not that complicated actually. \n \n CAVUTO: Then I apologize. Then I want to understand, if you don't want a 45 percent tariff, say that wasn't the figure, would you be open -- are you open to slapping a higher tariff on Chinese goods of any sort to go back at them? \n \n TRUMP: OK, just so you understand -- I know so much about trading about with China. Carl Icon today as you know endorsed. Many businessmen want to endorse me. \n \n CAVUTO: I know... \n \n TRUMP: Carl said, \"no, no -- \" but he's somebody -- these are the kind of people that we should use to negotiate and not the China people that we have who are political hacks who don't know what they're doing and we have problems like this. If these are the kinds of people -- we should use our best and our finest. \n \n Now, on that tariff -- here's what I'm saying, China -- they send their goods and we don't tax it -- they do whatever they want to do. They do whatever what they do, OK. When we do business with China, they tax us. You don't know it, they tax us. \n \n I have many friends that deal with China. They can't -- when they order the product and when they finally get the product it is taxed. If you looking at what happened with Boeing and if you look at what happened with so many companies that deal -- so we don't have an equal playing field. I'm saying, absolutely, we don't have to continue to lose 505 billion dollars as a trade deficit for the privilege of dealing with China. \n \n I'm a free trader. I believe in it but we have to be smart and we have to use smart people to negotiate. I have the largest bank in the world as a tenant of mine. I sell tens' of millions of (inaudible). \n \n I love China. I love the Chinese people but they laugh themselves, they can't believe how stupid the American leadership is. \n \n CAVUTO: So you're open to a tariff? \n \n TRUMP: I'm totally open to a tariff. If they don't treat us fairly, hey, their whole trade is tariffed. You can't deal in China without tariffs. They do it to us, we don't it. It's not fair trade. \n \n KASICH: Neil, Neil -- can I say one thing about this. I'm a free trader. I support NAFTA. I believe in the PTT because it's important those countries in Asia are interfacing against China. And we do need China -- Donald's right about North Korea. \n \n I mean the fact is, is that they need to put the pressure on and frankly we need to intercepts ships coming out of North Korea so they don't proliferate all these dangerous materials. But what he's touching -- talking about, I think has got merit. And I'll allow putting that tariff or whatever he's saying here... \n \n TRUMP: I'm happy to have him tonight... \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n KASICH: For too long -- no, for too long, what happens is somebody dumps their product in our country and take our people's jobs, and then we go to an international court and it takes them like a year or two to figure out whether they were cheating us. And guess what? The worker's out of a job. \n \n So when they -- be found against that country that's selling products in here lower than the cost of what it takes to produce them, then what do we tell the worker? Oh, well, you know, it just didn't work out for you. \n \n I think we should be for free trade but I think fair trade. And when countries violate trade agreements or dump product in this country, we need -- we need to stand up against those countries that do that without making them into an enemy. \n \n And I want to just suggest to you. How do I know this? Because so many people in my family worked in steel mills, and they didn't work with a white collar, they worked in a blue collar. And the fact is those jobs are critical, they're hard working members of the middle class and they need to be paid attention to because they're Americans and they carry the load. So let's demand open trade but fair trade in this country. That's what I think we need to do. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: All right. \n \n RUBIO: But on this point, if I may add something on this point. We are all frustrated with what China is doing. I think we need to be very careful with tariffs, and here's why. \n \n China doesn't pay the tariff, the buyer pays the tariff. If you send a tie or a shirt made in China into the United States and an American goes to buy it at the store and there's a tariff on it, it gets passed on in the price to price to the consumer. \n \n So I think the better approach, the best thing we can do to protect ourselves against China economically is to make our economy stronger, which means reversing course from all the damage Barack Obama is doing to this economy. \n \n It begins with tax reform. Let's not have the most expensive business tax rate in the world. Let's allow companies to immediately expense. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n It continues with regulatory reform. Regulations in this country are out of control, especially the Employment Prevention Agency, the EPA, and all of the rules they continue to impose on our economy and hurting us. \n \n How about Obamacare, a certified job killer? It needs to be repealed and replaced. And we need to bring our debt under control, make our economy stronger. That is the way to deal with China at the end of the day. \n \n TRUMP: Neil, the problem... \n \n BARTIROMO: We're getting... \n \n TRUMP: ... with what Marco is saying is that it takes too long, they're sucking us dry and it takes too long. It would just -- you absolutely have to get involved with China, they are taking so much of what we have in terms of jobs in terms of money. We just can't do it any longer. \n \n CAVUTO: He is right. If you put a tariff on a good, it's Americans who pay. \n \n BUSH: Absolutely. \n \n TRUMP: You looking at me? \n \n BUSH: Yeah. \n \n BARTIROMO: Prices go higher for... \n \n TRUMP: Can I tell you what? It will never happen because they'll let their currency go up. They're never going to let it happen. \n \n Japan, the same thing. They are devaluing -- it's so impossible for -- you look at Caterpillar Tractor and what's happening with Caterpillar and Kamatsu (ph). Kamatsu (ph) is a tractor company in Japan. Friends of mine are ordering Kamatsu (ph) tractors now because they've de-valued the yen to such an extent that you can't buy a Caterpillar tractor. And we're letting them get away with it and we can't let them get away with it. \n \n And that's why we have to use Carl (ph) and we have to use our great businesspeople and not political hacks to negotiate with these guys. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: Here's -- apart from the -- apart from the higher prices on consumers and people are living paycheck to paycheck, apart from that, there will be retaliation. \n \n BARTIROMO: Yeah. \n \n BUSH: So they soybean sales from Iowa, entire soybean production goes -- the equivalent of it goes to China. Or how about Boeing right here within a mile? Do you think that the Chinese, if they had a 45 percent tariff imposed on all their imports wouldn't retaliate and start buying Airbus? Of course, they would. This would be devastating for the economy. We need someone with a steady hand being president of the United States. \n \n BARTIROMO: Real quick, Senator -- go ahead, Senator Cruz. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n And then we have to get to tax reform. \n \n TRUMP: And we don't need a weak person being president of the United State, OK? Because that's what we'd get if it were Jeb -- I tell you what, we don't need that. \n \n AUDIENCE: Boo. \n \n TRUMP: We don't need that. That's essentially what we have now, and we don't need that. And that's why we're in the trouble that we're in now. And by the way, Jeb you mentioned Boeing, take a look. They order planes, they make Boeing build their plant in China. They don't want them made here. They want those planes made in China. \n \n BUSH: They're a mile away from here. \n \n TRUMP: That's not the way the game is supposed to be played. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Governor Bush. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Very briefly. \n \n BUSH: My name was mentioned. My name was mentioned here. The simple fact is that the plane that's being build here is being sold to China. You can -- if you -- you flew in with your 767, didn't you? Right there, right next to the plant. \n \n TRUMP: No, the new planes. I'm not talking about now, I'm talking about in the future they're building massive plants in China because China does not want Boeing building their planes here, they want them built in China, because China happens to be smart the way they do it, not the way we do it. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Mr. Trump. \n \n BUSH: When you head back to airport tonight, go check and see what the... \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Mr. Trmup. Thank you, Governor. \n \n TRUMP: I'll check for you. \n \n BUSH: Check it out. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator briefly. \n \n CRUZ: Thanks for coming back to me, Maria. Both Donald and Jeb have good points, and there is a middle ground. Donald is right that China is running over President Obama like he is a child, President Obama is not protecting American workers and we are getting hammered. \n \n CRUZ: You know, I sat down with the senior leadership of John Deere. They discussed how -- how hard it is to sell tractors in China, because all the regulatory barriers. They're protectionist. \n \n But Jeb is also right that, if we just impose a tariff, they'll put reciprocal tariffs, which will hurt Iowa farmers and South Carolina producers and 20 percent of the American jobs that depend on exports. \n \n So the way you do it is you pass a tax plan like the tax plan I've introduced: a simple flat tax, 10 percent for individuals, and a 16 percent business flat tax, you abolish the IRS... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... and here's the critical point, Maria -- the business flat tax enables us to abolish the corporate income tax, the death tax, the Obamacare taxes, the payroll taxes, and they're border-adjustable, so every export pays no taxes whatsoever. \n \n It's tax-free -- a huge advantage for our farmers and ranchers and manufacturers -- and every import pays the 16 percent business flat tax. It's like a tariff, but here's the difference: if we impose a tariff, China responds. \n \n The business flat tax, they already impose their taxes on us, so there's no reciprocal... \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n ... tariffs that come against us. It puts us on a level, even playing field, which brings jobs here at home... \n \n (UNKNOWN): Maria... \n \n CRUZ: ... and as president, I'm going to fight for the working men and women. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n BARTIROMO: We've got to get to tax reform, gentlemen. We've got to get to tax reform, and we've got to get to the... \n \n (UNKNOWN): Yeah, but I want to talk about taxes. \n \n BARTIROMO: ... we've got to get to the national debt as well. Coming up next, the growing national debt, the war on crime, tax reform. More from North Charleston, South Carolina, when we come right back. \n \n COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n BARTIROMO: Welcome back to the Republican presidential debate here in North Charleston. Right back to the questions. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Governor Christie, we have spoken much about cutting spending, given the $19 trillion debt. But according to one report, America needs $3.6 trillion in infrastructure spending by 2020. \n \n Here in South Carolina, 11 percent of bridges are considered structurally deficient, costing drivers a billion dollars a year in auto repairs. What is your plan to fix the ailing roads and bridges without breaking the bank? \n \n CHRISTIE: Well, I'm glad you asked that, Maria. Here's -- here's our plan. We've all been talking about tax reforms tonight, and paying for infrastructure is caught right up in tax reform. \n \n If you reform the corporate tax system in this country, which, as was mentioned before, is the highest rate in the world -- and we double tax, as you know. \n \n And what that's led to over $2 trillion of American companies' monies that are being kept offshore, because they don't want to pay the second tax. And who can blame them? They pay tax once overseas. They don't want to pay 35 percent tax on the way back. \n \n So beside reforming that tax code, bringing it down to 25 percent and eliminating those special-interest loopholes that the lobbyists and the lawyers and the accountants have given -- bring that rate down to 25 percent, but also, a one-time repatriation of that money. \n \n Bring the money -- the $2 trillion -- back to the United States. We'll tax it, that one time, at 8.75 percent, because 35 percent of zero is zero, but 8.75 percent of $2 trillion is a lot of money. And I would then dedicate that money to rebuilding infrastructure here in this country. \n \n It would not necessitate us raising any taxes. It would bring the money back into the United States to help build jobs by American companies and get our economy moving again, and growing as a higher rate, and it would rebuild those roads and bridges and tunnels that you were talking about. And -- and -- and the last piece of this, Maria, is this. You know, the fact is that this president has penalized corporations in America. He's penalized -- and doesn't understand. In fact, what that hurts is hurt hardworking taxpayers. \n \n You've seen middle-class wages go backwards $3,700 during the Obama administration. That's wrong for hardworking taxpayers in this country. We'd rebuild infrastructure that would also create jobs in this country, and we'd work with the states to do it the right way, to do it more efficiently and more effectively. \n \n And remember this -- I'm credible on this for this reason: Americans for Tax Reform says that I've vetoed more tax increases than any governor in American history. We don't need to raise taxes to get this done. \n \n We need to make the government run smarter and better, and reform this corporate tax system, bring that money back to the United States to build jobs and rebuild our infrastructure, and we need to use it also to protect our grid from terrorists. \n \n All of those things are important, and all those things would happen in a Christie administration. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. Dr. Carson... \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n ... it is true U.S. companies have $2 trillion in cash sitting overseas right now. That could be used for investment and jobs in America. \n \n Also, several companies right now are pursuing mergers to move their corporate headquarters abroad, and take advantage of much lower taxes. What will you do to stop the flow of companies building cash away from America, and those leaving America altogether? \n \n CARSON: Well, I would suggest a fair tax system, and that's what we have proposed. A flat tax for everybody -- no exemptions, no deductions, no shelters, because some people have a better capability of taking advantage of those than others. \n \n You know, and then the other thing we have to do is stop spending so much money. You know, I -- my -- my mother taught me this. You know, she only had a third-grade education, but -- you know, she knew how to stretch a dollar. \n \n I mean, she would drive a car until it wouldn't make a sound, and then gather up all her coins and buy a new car. In fact, if my mother were secretary of treasury, we would not be in a deficit situation. But... \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n ... you know, the -- the -- the fact of the matter is -- you know, if we fix the taxation system, make it absolutely fair, and get rid of the incredible regulations -- because every regulation is a tax, it's a -- on goods and services. And it's the most regressive tax there is. \n \n You know, when you go into the store and buy a box of laundry detergent, and the price has up -- you know, 50 cents because of regulations, a poor person notices that. A rich person does not. Middle class may notice it when they get to the cash register. \n \n And everything is costing more money, and we are killing our -- our -- our people like this. And Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will say it's those evil rich people. \n \n It's not the evil rich people. It's the evil government that is -- that is putting all these regulations on us so that we can't survive. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, sir. \n \n Senator Rubio... \n \n TRUMP: Maria -- Maria, what you were talking about just now is called corporate inversion. It's one of the biggest problems our country has. Right now, corporations, by the thousands, are thinking of leaving our country with the jobs -- leave them behind. \n \n TRUMP: They're leaving because of taxes, but they are also leaving because they can't get their money back and everybody agrees, Democrats and Republicans, that is should come back in. But they can't get along. They can't even make a deal. \n \n Here is the case, they both agree, they can't make a deal. We have to do something. Corporate inversion is one of the biggest problems we have. So many companies are going to leave our country. \n \n BARTIROMO: Which is why we raised it. \n \n Senator Rubio? \n \n Thank you, Mr. Trump. \n \n TRUMP: Thank you. \n \n BARTIROMO: One of the biggest fiscal challenges is our entitlement programs, particularly Social Security and Medicare. What policies will you put forward to make sure these programs are more financially secure? \n \n RUBIO: Well, first let me address the tax issue because it's related to the entitlement issue and I want to thank you for holding a substantive debates where we can have debates about these key issues on taxes. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n RUBIO: Here is the one thing I'm not going to do. I'm not going to have something that Ted described in his tax plan. It's called the value added tax. And it's a tax you find in many companies in Europe. \n \n Where basically, businesses now will have to pay a tax, both on the money they make, but they also have to pay taxes on the money that they pay their employees. \n \n And that's why they have it in Europe, because it is a way to blindfolded the people, that's what Ronald Reagan said. Ronald Regan opposed the value tax because he said it was a way to blindfold the people, so the true cost of government was not there there for them. \n \n Now, you can support one now that's very low. But what is to prevent a future liberal president or a liberal Congress from coming back and not just raising the income tax, but also raising that VAT tax, and that vat tax is really bad for seniors. Because seniors, if they are retired, are no longer earning an income from a job. And therefore, they don't get the income tax break, but their prices are going to be higher, because the vat tax is embedded in both the prices that business that are charging and in the wages they pay their employees. \n \n When I am president of the United States, I'm going to side with Ronald Regan on this and not Nancy Pelosi and we are not having a vat tax. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you senator. \n \n CRUZ: Maria, I assume that I can respond to that. \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator Cruz, yes. You were meant to. Yes, of course. \n \n CRUZ: Well, Marco has been floating this attack for a few weeks now, but the problem is, the business flat tax in my proposal is not a vat. A vat is imposed as a sales tax when you buy a good. \n \n This is a business flat tax. It is imposed on business and a critical piece that Marco seems to be missing is that this 16 percent business flat tax enables us to eliminate the corporate income tax. It goes away. It enables us to eliminate the death tax. \n \n If you're a farmer, if you're a rancher, if you are small business owner, the death tax is gone. We eliminate the payroll tax, we eliminate the Obamacare taxes. And listen, there is a real difference between Marco's tax plan and mine. \n \n Mine gives every American a simple, flat tax of 10 percent. Marco's top tax rate is 35 percent. My tax plan enables you to fill out your taxes on a postcard so we can abolish the IRS. Marco leaves the IRS code in with all of the complexity. We need to break the Washington cartel, and the only way to do it is to end all the subsidies and all... \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n ... the mandates and have a simple flat tax. The final observation, invoked Ronald Reagan. I would note that Art Laffer, Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser, has written publicly, that my simple flat tax is the best tax plan of any of the individuals on this stage cause it produces economic growth, it raises wages and it helps everyone from the very poorest to the very richest. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you senator. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n RUBIO: But that's not an accurate description of the plan. Because, first of all, you may rename the IRS but you are not going to abolishes the IRS, because there has to be some agency that's going to collect your vat tax. Someone's going to be collecting this tax. \n \n In fact, Ronald Reagan's treasury, when Ronald Reagan's treasury looked at the vat tax, you know what they found? That they were going to have to hire 20,000 new IRS agencies to collect it. \n \n The second point, it does not eliminate the corporate tax or the payroll tax. Businesses will now have to pay 16 percent on the money they make. They will also have to pay 16 percent on the money they pay their employees. \n \n So there are people watching tonight in business. If you are now hit on a 60 percent tax on both your income and on the wages you pay your employees, where are you going to get that money from? You're going to get it by paying your employees less and charging your customers more, that is a tax, the difference is, you don't see it on the bill. \n \n And that's why Ronald Reagan said that it was a blindfold. You blindfold the American people so that they cannot see the true cost of government. Now 16 percent is what the rate Ted wants it at. But what happens if, God forbid, the next Barack Obama takes over, and the next Nancy Pelosi, and the next Harry Reid... \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n and they decide, we're going to raise it to 30 percent, plus we're going to raise the income tax to 30 percent. Now, you've got Europe. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you senator. I have to get to a question for Mr. Trump. \n \n CRUZ: Maria... \n \n BARTIROMO: Yes. \n \n CRUZ: Maria, I'd just like to say... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CHRISTIE: Maria, I'd like to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate to actually answer the question you asked, which was on entitlements. Do you remember that, everybody? This was a question on entitlements. \n \n And the reason -- and the reason... \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CHRISTIE: ... no, you already had your chance, Marco, and you blew it. Here's the thing. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n CHRISTIE: The fact is, the reason why... \n \n RUBIO: If you'll answer the (inaudible) core question. \n \n CHRISTIE: ... the fact is -- the fact is the reason why that no one wants to answer entitlements up here is because it's hard. It's a hard problem. And I'm the only one up on this stage who back in April put forward a detailed entitlement reform plan that will save over $1 trillion, save Social Security, save Medicare, and avoid this -- avoid what Hillary Rodham Clinton will do to you. \n \n Because what she will do is come in and she will raise Social Security taxes. Bernie Sanders has already said it. And she is just one or two more poll drops down from even moving further left than she's moved already to get to the left of Bernie on this. \n \n We have seniors out there who are scared to death because this Congress -- this one that we have right now, just stole $150 billion from the Social Security retirement fund to give it to the Social Security disability fund. A Republican Congress did that. \n \n And the fact is it was wrong. And they consorted with Barack Obama to steal from Social Security. We need to reform Social Security. Mine is the only plan that saves over $1 trillion and that's why I'm answering your question. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Governor. Thank you, Governor. \n \n (APPLAUSE) CARSON: Can I just add one very quick thing? And I just want to say, you know, last week we released our tax plan. And multiple reputable journals, including The Wall Street Journal, said ours is the best. Just want to get that out there, just saying. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Dr. Carson. \n \n Coming up, how would the candidates protect America, and another terror attack, if we were to see it. But first, you can join us live on stage during the commercial break right from home. Go to facebook.com/foxbusiness. We'll be streaming live and answering your questions during this break next. \n \n More from South Carolina coming up. Stay with us. \n \n (COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n BARTIROMO: Mr. Trump, your net worth is in the multi-billions of dollars and have an ongoing thriving hotel and real estate business. Are you planning on putting your assets in a blind trust should you become president? With such vast wealth, how difficult will it be for you to disentangle yourself from your business and your money and prioritize America's interest first? \n \n TRUMP: Well, it's an interesting question because I'm very proud of my company. As you too know, I know I built a very great company. But if I become president, I couldn't care less about my company. It's peanuts. \n \n I want to use that same up here, whatever it may be to make America rich again and to make America great again. I have Ivanka, and Eric and Don sitting there. Run the company kids, have a good time. I'm going to do it for America. \n \n So I would -- I would be willing to do that. \n \n BARTIROMO: So you'll put your assets in a blind trust? \n \n TRUMP: I would put it in a blind trust. Well, I don't know if it's a blind trust if Ivanka, Don and Eric run it. If that's a blind trust, I don't know. But I would probably have my children run it with my executives and I wouldn't ever be involved because I wouldn't care about anything but our country, anything. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you sir. \n \n TRUMP: Thank you. \n \n CAVUTO: Governor Christie, going back to your U.S. Attorney days, you had been praised by both parties as certainly a tough law and order guy. So I wonder what you make of recent statistics that showed violent crimes that have been spiking sometimes by double digit ratings in 30 cities across the country. Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said, \"most local law enforcement officials feel abandoned by Washington.\" Former NYC Police Chief Ray Kelly, says that, \"police are being less proactive because they're being overly scrutinized and second guessed and they're afraid of being sued or thrown in jail.\" \n \n What would you do as president to address this? \n \n CHRISTIE: Well, first off, let's face it, the FBI director James Comey was a friend of mine who I worked with as U.S. Attorney of New Jersey. He was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. He said, \"there's a chill wind blowing through law enforcement in this country.\" Here's why, the president of the United States and both his attorney's general, they give the benefit of the doubt to the criminal, not to the police officers. \n \n That's the truth of the matter and you see it every time with this president. Every time he's got a chance, going all the way back to -- remember that Great Beer Summit he had after he messed up that time. This is a guy who just believes that law enforcement are the bad guys. \n \n Now, I for seven years was the U.S. Attorney of New Jersey. I worked hard with not only federal agents but with police officers and here's the problem, sanctuary cities is part of the problem in this country. That's where crime is happening in these cities where they don't enforce the immigration laws. And this president turns his back -- this president doesn't enforce the marijuana laws in this country because he doesn't agree with them. \n \n And he allows states to go ahead and do whatever they want on a substance that's illegal. This president allows lawlessness throughout this country. Here's what I would do Neil, I would appoint an Attorney General and I would have one very brief conversation with that Attorney General. I'd say, \"General, enforce the law against everyone justly, fairly, and aggressively. Make our streets safe again. Make our police officers proud of what they do but more important than that, let them know how proud we are of them.\" \n \n We do that, this country would be safe and secure again not only from criminals but from the terrorist who threaten us as well. I'm the only person on this stage who's done that and we will get it done as President of the United States. \n \n CAVUTO: Thank you governor. \n \n Governor Kasich, as someone has to deal with controversial police shootings in your own state, what do you make of Chicago's move recently to sort of retrain police? Maybe make them not so quick to use their guns? \n \n KASICH: Well, I created a task force well over a year ago and the purpose was to bring law enforcement, community people, clergy and the person that I named as one of the co-chair was a lady by the name of Nina Turner, a former State Senator, a liberal Democrat. She actually ran against one of my friends and our head of public safety. \n \n KASICH: And they say down as a group trying to make sure that we can begin to heal some of these problems that we see between community and police. \n \n KASICH: And they came back with 23 recommendations. One of them is a statewide use of deadly force. And it is now being put into place everyplace across the state of Ohio. Secondly, a policy on recruiting and hiring, and then more resources for -- for training. \n \n But let me also tell you, one of the issues has got to be the integration of both community and police. Community has to understand that that police officer wants to get home at night, and not -- not to lose their life. Their family is waiting for them. \n \n At the same time, law enforcement understands there are people in the community who not only think that the system doesn't work for them, but works against them. \n \n See, in Ohio, we've had some controversial decisions. But the leaders have come forward to realize that protest is fine, but violence is wrong. And it has been a remarkable situation in our state. And as president of the United States, it's all about communication, folks. It's all about getting people to listen to one another's problems. \n \n And when you do that, you will be amazed at how much progress you can make, and how much healing we can have. Because, folks, at the end of the day, the country needs healed. I've heard a lot of hot rhetoric here tonight, but I've got to tell you, as somebody that actually passed a budget; that paid down a half-a-trillion dollars of our national debt, you can't do it alone. You've got to bring people together. You've got to give people hope. \n \n And together, we can solve these problems that hurt us and heal America. And that is what's so critical for our neighborhoods, our families, our children, and our grandchildren. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Thank you, Governor. \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator Rubio? \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Under current law, the U.S. is on track to issue more new permanent immigrants on green cards over the next five years than the entire population of South Carolina. The CBO says your 2013 immigration bill would have increased green cardholders by another 10 million over 10 years. \n \n Why are you so interested in opening up borders to foreigners when American workers have a hard enough time finding work? \n \n RUBIO: Well, first of all, this is an issue that's been debated now for 30 years. And for 30 years, the issue of immigration has been about someone who's in this country, maybe they're here illegally, but they're looking for a job. This issue is not about that anymore. \n \n First and foremost, this issue has to be now more than anything else about keeping America safe. And here's why. There is a radical jihadist group that is manipulating our immigration system. And not just green cards. They're looking -- they're recruiting people that enter this country as doctors and engineers and even fiances. They understand the vulnerabilities we have on the southern border. \n \n They're looking -- they're looking to manipulate our -- the visa waiver countries to get people into the United States. So our number one priority must now become ensuring that ISIS cannot get killers into the United States. So whether it's green cards or any other form of entry into America, when I'm president if we do not know who you are or why you are coming, you are not going to get into the United States of America. \n \n BARTIROMO: So your thinking has changed? \n \n RUBIO: The issue is a dramatically different issue than it was 24 months ago. Twenty-four months ago, 36 months ago, you did not have a group of radical crazies named ISIS who were burning people in cages and recruiting people to enter our country legally. They have a sophisticated understanding of our legal immigration system and we now have an obligation to ensure that they are not able to use that system against us. \n \n The entire system of legal immigration must now be reexamined for security first and foremost, with an eye on ISIS. Because they're recruiting people to enter this country as engineers, posing as doctors, posing as refugees. We know this for a fact. They've contacted the trafficking networks in the Western Hemisphere to get people in through the southern border. And they got a killer in San Bernardino in posing as a fiance. \n \n This issue now has to be about stopping ISIS entering the United States, and when I'm president we will. \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Senator. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CRUZ: But Maria, radical Islamic terrorism was not invented 24 months ago; 24 months ago, we had Al Qaida. We had Boko Haram. We had Hamas. We had Hezbollah. We had Iran putting operatives in South America and Central America. It's the reason why I stood with Jeff Sessions and Steve King and led the fight to stop the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, because it was clear then, like it's clear now, that border security is national security. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Thank you, Senator. \n \n CRUZ: It is also the case that that Rubio-Schumer amnesty bill, one of the things it did is it expanded Barack Obama's power to let in Syrian refugees. It enabled him -- the president to certify them en masse without mandating meaningful background checks. \n \n I think that's a mistake. That's why I've been leading the fight to stop it. And I would note the Senate just a few weeks ago voted to suspend refugees from Middle Eastern countries. I voted yes to suspend that. Marco voted on the other side. So you don't get to say we need to secure the borders, and at the same time try to give Barack Obama more authority to allow Middle Eastern refugees coming in, when the head of the FBI tells us they cannot vet them to determine if they are ISIS terrorists. \n \n RUBIO: Maria, let me clear something up here. This is an interesting point when you talk about immigration. \n \n RUBIO: Ted Cruz, you used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards, now you say that you're against it. You used to support a 500 percent increase in the number of guest workers, now you say that you're against it. You used to support legalizing people that were here illegally, now you say you're against it. You used to say that you were in favor of birthright citizenship, now you say that you are against it. \n \n And by the way, it's not just on immigration, you used to support TPA, now you say you're against it. I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance because they told you it would help you in Iowa, and last week, we all saw you flip your vote on ethanol in Iowa for the same reason. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n That is not consistent conservatism, that is political calculation. When I am president, I will work consistently every single day to keep this country safe, not call Edward Snowden, as you did, a great public servant. Edward Snowden is a traitor. And if I am president and we get our hands on him, he is standing trial for treason. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n And one more point, one more point. Every single time that there has been a Defense bill in the Senate, three people team up to vote against it. Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. In fact, the only budget you have ever voted for, Ted, in your entire time in the Senate is a budget from Rand Paul that brags about how it cuts defense. \n \n Here's the bottom line, and I'll close with this. If I'm president of the United States and Congress tries to cut the military, I will veto that in a millisecond. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BUSH: There's -- look, there's -- \n \n CAVUTO: Gentlemen, gentlemen -- \n \n CRUZ: I'm going to get a response to that, Neil. There's no way he launches 11 attack -- \n \n CAVUTO: Very quick, very quick. CRUZ: I'm going to -- he had no fewer than 11 attacks there. I appreciate your dumping your (inaudible) research folder on the debate stage. \n \n RUBIO: No, it's your record. \n \n CRUZL But I will say -- \n \n CAVUTO: Do you think they like each other? \n \n CRUZ: -- at least half of the things Marco said are flat-out false. They're absolutely false. \n \n AUDIENCE: Boo. \n \n CRUZ: So let's start -- let's start with immigration. Let's start with immigration and have a little bit of clarity. Marco stood with Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama on amnesty. I stood with Jeff Sessions and Steve King. Marco stood today, standing on this stage Marco supports legalization and citizenship for 12 million illegals. I opposed and oppose legalization and citizenship. \n \n And by the way, the attack he keeps throwing out on the military budget, Marco knows full well I voted for his amendment to increase military spending to $697 billion. What he said, and he said it in the last debate, it's simply not true. And as president, I will rebuild the military and keep this country safe. \n \n CAVUTO: All right, gentlemen, we've got to stop. I know you are very passionate about that. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n Governor Bush, fears have gripped this country obviously, and you touched on it earlier since the San Bernardino attacks. Since our last debate, the national conversation has changed, according to Facebook data as well. \n \n Now this first graphic shows the issues that were most talked about right before those attacks and now after: the issues of Islam, homeland security and ISIS now loom very large. The FBI says Islamic radicals are using social media to communicate and that it needs better access to communication. Now the CEO of Apple, Governor, Tim Cook said unless served with a warrant private communication is private, period. Do you agree, or would you try to convince him otherwise? \n \n BUSH: I would try to convince him otherwise, but this last back and forth between two senators -- back bench senators, you know, explains why we have the mess in Washington, D.C. We need a president that will fix our immigration laws and stick with it, not bend with the wind. \n \n The simple fact is one of the ways, Maria, to solve the problem you described is narrow the number of people coming by family petitioning to what every other country has so that we have the best and the brightest that come to our country. We need to control the border, we need to do all of this in a comprehensive way, not just going back and forth and talking about stuff -- \n \n CAVUTO: Would you answer this question? \n \n BUSH: Oh, I'll talk about that, too. But you haven't asked me a question in a while, Neil, so I thought I'd get that off my chest if you don't mind. \n \n (LAUGHTER) \n \n CAVUTO: Fair enough. So Tim Cook -- so Tim Cook says he's going to keep it private. \n \n BUSH: I got that. And the problem today is there's no confidence in Washington, D.C. There needs to be more than one meeting, there needs to complete dialogue with the large technology companies. They understand that there's a national security risk. We ought to give them a little bit of a liability release so that they share data amongst themselves and share data with the federal government, they're not fearful of a lawsuit. \n \n We need to make sure that we keep the country safe. This is the first priority. The cybersecurity challenges that we face, this administration failed us completely, completely. Not just the hacking of OPM, but that is -- that is just shameful. 23 million files in the hands of the Chinese? So it's not just the government -- the private sector companies, it's also our own government that needs to raise the level of our game. \n \n We should put the NSA in charge of the civilian side of this as well. That expertise needs to spread all across the government and there needs to be much more cooperation with our private sector. \n \n CAVUTO: But if Tim cook is telling you no, Mr. President. \n \n BUSH: You've got to keep asking. You've got to keep asking because this is a hugely important issue. If you can encrypt messages, ISIS can, over these platforms, and we have no ability to have a cooperative relationship -- \n \n CAVUTO: Do you ask or do you order? \n \n BUSH: Well, if the law would change, yeah. But I think there has to be recognition that if we -- if we are too punitive, then you'll go to other -- other technology companies outside the United States. And what we want to do is to control this. \n \n We also want to dominate this from a commercial side. So there's a lot of balanced interests. But the president leads in this regard. That's what we need. We need leadership, someone who has a backbone and sticks with things, rather than just talks about them as though anything matters when you're talking about amendments that don't even actually are part of a bill that ever passed. \n \n CAVUTO: Governor, thank you. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: When we come right back, closing statements. Stay with us. \n \n (COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n BARTIROMO: Welcome back. \n \n Candidates, it is time for your closing statements. You get 60 seconds each. \n \n Governor John Kasich, we begin with you. \n \n KASICH: You know, in our country, there are a lot of people who feel as though they just don't have the power. You know, they feel like if they don't have a lobbyist, if they're not wealthy, that somehow they don't get to play. \n \n But all of my career, you know, having been raised in -- by a mailman father whose father was a coal miner, who died of black lung and was losing his eyesight; or a mother whose mother could barely speak English. You see, all of my career, I've fought about giving voice to the people that I grew up with and voice to the people that elected me. \n \n Whether it's welfare reform and getting something back for the hard-earned taxpayers; whether it's engaging in Pentagon reform and taking on the big contractors that were charging thousands of dollars for hammers and screw drivers and ripping us off; or whether it's taking on the special interests in the nursing home industry in Ohio, so that mom and dad can have the ability to stay in their own home, rather than being forced into a nursing home. \n \n KASICH: Look, that's who I stand up for. That's who's in my mind \n \n (BELL RINGS) \n \n And if you really want to believe that you can get your voice back, I will tell you, as I have all my career, I will continue to fight for you, because you're the ones that built this country, and will carry it into the future. Thank you. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Governor Bush? \n \n BUSH: Who can you count on to keep us safer, stronger and freer? Results count, and as governor, I pushed Florida up to the top in terms of jobs, income and small business growth. \n \n Detailed plans count, and I believe that the plan I've laid out to destroy ISIS before the tragedies of San Bernardino and Paris are the right ones. \n \n Credibility counts. There'll be people here that will talk about what they're going to do. I've done it. I ask for your support to build, together, a safer and stronger America. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Governor Chris Christie? \n \n CHRISTIE: Maria, Neil, thank you for a great debate tonight. \n \n When I think about the folks who are out there at home tonight watching, and I think about what they had to watch this week -- the spectacle they had to watch on the floor of the House of Representatives, with the president of the United States, who talked a fantasy land about the way they're feeling. \n \n They know that this country is not respected around the world anymore. They know that this country is pushing the middle class, the hardworking taxpayers, backwards, and they saw a president who doesn't understand their pain, and doesn't have any plan for getting away from it. \n \n I love this country. It's the most exceptional country the world has ever known. We need someone to fight for the people. We need a fighter for this country again. \n \n I've lived my whole life fighting -- fighting for things that I believe in, fighting for justice and to protect people from crime and terrorism, fighting to stand up for folks who have not had enough and need an opportunity to get more, and to stand up and fight against the special interests. \n \n But here's the best way that we're going to make America much more exceptional: it is to make sure we put someone on that stage in September who will fight Hillary Clinton and make sure she never, ever gets in the White House again. \n \n I am the man who can bring us together to do that, and I ask for your vote. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Dr. Ben Carson? \n \n CARSON: You know, in recent travels around this country, I've encountered so many Americans who are discouraged and angry as they watch our freedom, our security and the American dream slipping away under an unresponsive government that is populated by bureaucrats and special interest groups. \n \n We're not going to solve this problem with traditional politics. The only way we're going to solve this problem is with we, the people. And I ask you to join me in truth and honesty and integrity. Bencarson.com -- we will heal, inspire and revive America for our children. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Senator Marco Rubio? \n \n RUBIO: You know, 200 years ago, America was founded on this powerful principle that our rights don't come from government. Our rights come from God. \n \n That's why we embraced free enterprise, and it made us the most prosperous people in the history of the world. That's why we embraced individual liberty, and we became the freest people ever, and the result was the American miracle. \n \n But now as I travel the country, people say what I feel. This country is changing. It feels different. We feel like we're being left behind and left out. \n \n And the reason is simple: because in 2008, we elected as president someone who wasn't interested in fixing America. We elected someone as president who wants to change America, who wants to make it more like the rest of the world. \n \n And so he undermines the Constitution, and he undermines free enterprise by expanding government, and he betrays our allies and cuts deals with our enemies and guts our military. And that's why 2016 is a turning point in our history. If we elect Hillary Clinton, the next four years will be worse than the last eight, and our children will be the first Americans ever to inherit a diminished country. \n \n But if we elect the right person -- if you elect me -- we will turn this country around, we will reclaim the American dream and this nation will be stronger and greater than it has ever been. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n CAVUTO: Senator Ted Cruz? \n \n CRUZ: \"13 Hours\" -- tomorrow morning, a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of the men fighting for their lives in Benghazi and the politicians that abandoned them. I want to speak to all our fighting men and women. \n \n I want to speak to all the moms and dads whose sons and daughters are fighting for this country, and the incredible sense of betrayal when you have a commander-in-chief who will not even speak the name of our enemy, radical Islamic terrorism, when you have a commander-in- chief who sends $150 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei, who's responsible for murdering hundreds of our servicemen and women. \n \n I want to speak to all of those maddened by political correctness, where Hillary Clinton apologizes for saying all lives matter. This will end. It will end on January 2017. \n \n CRUZ: And if I am elected president, to every soldier and sailor and airman and marine, and to every police officer and firefighter and first responder who risk their lives to keep us safe, I will have your back. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Mr. Donald Trump? \n \n TRUMP: I stood yesterday with 75 construction workers. They're tough, they're strong, they're great people. Half of them had tears pouring down their face. They were watching the humiliation of our young ten sailors, sitting on the floor with their knees in a begging position, their hands up. \n \n And Iranian wise guys having guns to their heads. It was a terrible sight. A terrible sight. And the only reason we got them back is because we owed them with a stupid deal, $150 billion. If I'm president, there won't be stupid deals anymore. \n \n We will make America great again. We will win on everything we do. Thank you. \n \n (APPLAUSE) \n \n BARTIROMO: Candidates, thank you. \n \n CAVUTO: Gentlemen, thank you all. All of you. That wraps up our debate. We went a little bit over here. But we wanted to make sure everyone was able to say their due. He's upset. All right. Thank you for joining us. Much more to come in the Spin Room ahead. ||||| The 12 biggest moments of the GOP debate \n \n A smaller cast featured harder hits Thursday, as seven top-polling Republican presidential candidates sought to leave a lasting impression with 18 days until voting begins in Iowa. Here are the most memorable moments: \n \n 1. Citizenship melee \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Ted Cruz unloaded on Donald Trump with his most forceful salvo yet, rejecting any suggestion that he's ineligible to be president because he was born on Canadian soil to an American mother. Cruz noted that many people supporting Trump's theory also believe that citizenship requires two American parents born on American soil. \n \n \"Since September the constitution hasn\u2019t changed, but the poll numbers have,\" Cruz said. \"I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling \u2026 but the facts of the law here are clear.\" \n \n He added that if Trump's backers are right, Trump himself wouldn't be eligible because his mother was born in Scotland. \"On the issue of citizenship, Donald, I\u2019m not going to use your mother\u2019s birth against you,\" he said. \n \n 2. New York values \n \n Cruz elaborated on his recent Trump dig, accusing the mogul of having \"New York values.\" He said he meant that New Yorkers tend to value \"money and media\" and are socially liberal on issues from abortion to same-sex marriage. Riffing on Trump's dig at him -- that not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba -- he charged, \"Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan.\" \n \n Trump delivered a somber and indignant reply, reminding the audience that New York was watched by the world as it responded to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. \n \n \"We rebuilt downtown Manhattan ... everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers,\" he said. \"And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement Ted made.\" \n \n 3.Trump-Cruz or Cruz-Trump \n \n The brawl over citizenship also led to an unusual exchange in which Trump and Cruz each appeared, sarcastically, to offer each other the vice presidential slot on their ticket. Trump, playing out a hypothetical, said that he might consider choosing Cruz as his running mate but that Cruz might be sued by Democrats over his citizenship. \n \n \"I choose him as my vice presidential candidate, and the Democrats sue because we can\u2019t take him along for the ride,\" he said. \"I don\u2019t like that.\" \n \n Cruz replied with a joke \u2014 when he's the nominee, Trump can be his vice presidential pick, and if his citizenship theory is right, Trump will become president. \n \n \"Donald, you \u2014 you very kindly just a moment ago offered me the V.P. slot,\" he said. \"I'll tell you what. If this all works out, I'm happy to consider naming you as V.P. So if you happen to be right, you could get the top job at the end of the day.\" \n \n 4. Cruz takes on the Times \n \n Ted Cruz was practically salivating when moderator Maria Bartiromo asked him to respond to The New York Times report that nicked him for failing to disclose a $1 million loan from Goldman Sachs while running for Senate in 2012. Cruz quickly labeled the story a \"hit piece\" and thrashed the paper -- already a low-hanging conservative foil. \n \n Cruz pointed out that he's been the subject of Times columnist Frank Bruni's ire. \n \n \"That same columnist wrote a column comparing me to an evil demonic spirit from the movie 'It Follows,'\" Cruz said. \"The New York Times and I don\u2019t really have the warmest of relationships.\" \n \n Cruz said the undisclosed loan was a \"paperwork error.\" \"If that's the best hit the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well,\" he said. \n \n 5. Senate squabble \n \n Sen. Marco Rubio and Cruz locked horns late in the debate over immigration, with Rubio accusing Cruz of repeatedly changing positions for political expedience, and he didn't stop at immigration issues. \n \n \"I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance,\" he said. \"That is not consistent conservatism\" \n \n Cruz retorted, \"I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder,\" to which Rubio shot back, \"No, it\u2019s your record.\" \n \n 6. \"I hope you'll reconsider\" \n \n Jeb Bush jumped in after Trump defended his plan to ban Muslim immigration into the United States, pleading with the GOP poll leader to change his views. \n \n \"I hope you reconsider this because this policy is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS,\" Bush said. \"The Kurds are our strongest ally, they\u2019re Muslim.\" \n \n \"All Muslims? Seriously?\" he asked. \n \n Trump countered that he's simply seeking security. \n \n \"I want security for this country,\" he said. \"We have a serious problem with, as you know, radical Islam.\" \n \n 7. Christie intervenes in Rubio-Cruz tussle \n \n Rubio and Cruz criticized each other in harsh terms over their competing tax plans, a wonky clash that centered on their interpretation of value-added taxes on business. \n \n \"I\u2019m going to side with Ronald Reagan on this and not Nancy Pelosi,\" Rubio charged. \n \n Cruz countered that Reagan economist Art Laffer backed his plan. After Rubio countered again, suggesting Cruz's plan to abolish the IRS would fail, Chris Christie jumped in to remind viewers that the two senators were initially asked to talk about entitlement programs. Rubio said he'd get to entitlements, but Christie cut him off. \n \n \"You already had your chance, Marco, you blew it,\" he said. \n \n 8. Trump talks trade and tariffs \n \n Donald Trump, facing questions for telling The New York Times that he'd consider a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, lashed out at the paper, following Ted Cruz's smackdown of the Times earlier. \n \n \"It\u2019s the New York Times, they\u2019re always wrong,\" he said. \n \n Trump said he's \"open to a tariff\" but only mentioned 45 percent to suggest what the rate would have to be to offset China's currency devaluation. \n \n \"If they don\u2019t start treating us fairly and stop devaluing and let their currency rise so our companies can compete,\" he said, \"I would certainly start taxing goods coming in from China.\" \n \n 9. Christie hurls insults at Obama \n \n New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has long aimed memorably nasty barbs at the president, and he continued Thursday, calling him a \"petulant child\" for pursuing executive actions to implement his favored policies. But he ratcheted up the schoolyard language in the debate. \n \n \"We are going to kick your rear end out of the white house come this fall,\" Christie said after pointing out that Democrats have been routed from governorships and lost their majorities in Congress throughout Obama's tenure. \n \n 10. Trump: My kids will run my company \n \n Trump talked logistics for transferring control of his company to his kids if he takes the White House. \n \n \"If I'm elected president, I couldn't care less about my company, \" he said. \n \n \u201cI have Ivanka and Eric and Don sitting there,\u201d he said, gesturing toward his kids in the debate audience. \u201cRun the company kids. Have a good time. I\u2019m gonna do it for America.\u201d \n \n Trump initially suggested the arrangement would constitute a \"blind trust,\" but then noted that might not be the case because they're his children. \n \n 11. Carson gets apocalyptic \n \n Ben Carson criticized Barack Obama for being naive on foreign policy, but in doing so outlined a terrifying scenario in which a nuclear blast takes out America's electric grid while they're also using dirty bombs to attack and using cyber attacks to take down American computer systems. \n \n \"I mean, just think about a scenario like that. They explode the bomb, we have an electromagnetic pulse. They hit us with a cyberattack simultaneously and dirty bombs,\" he said. \"Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue at that point? He needs to recognize that those kinds of things are in fact an existential threat to us.\" \n \n 12. One-way ticket to Guantanamo \n \n Marco Rubio hinted that he'd get pretty aggressive with terrorists caught by the United States. Describing a muscular approach to taking on \"radical jihadist terrorists,\" Rubio said he had a plan for those caught on the battlefield: \"A one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and we are going to find out anything they know.\" \n \n \"It is a war that either they win or we win,\" he said. \n \n \n \n Authors:", "summary": "\u2013 A look at some of the lines generating buzz from each of the seven candidates in the prime-time Republican debate, via the Washington Post: Ted Cruz: \"Since September the constitution hasn\u2019t changed, but the poll numbers have. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling \u2026 but the facts of the law here are clear.\" (On his eligibility to be president.) Cruz also said, \u201cWell, Maria, thank you for passing on that hit piece on the front page of the New York Times,\" when asked about this loan story. \"You know the nice thing about the mainstream media, they don\u2019t hide their views.\" Donald Trump: \"We rebuilt downtown Manhattan ... everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement Ted made.\" After Cruz slammed \"New York values\" and said, \"Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan.\" Jeb Bush: \"If she gets elected, her first 100 days, instead of setting an agenda, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse. We need to stop that.\" Referring to Hillary Clinton. Chris Christie: \"You already had your chance, Marco, you blew it.\" (After Rubio talked of other things when asked about entitlements.) Rubio responded, \"I'll answer the entitlement question if you'll answer the Common Core question.\" Christie also said, \u201cI watched story time with Barack Obama [at the State of the Union], and I got to tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing.\u201d Marco Rubio: He said any \"radical jihadist terrorists\" captured alive would get \"a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and we are going to find out everything they know.\" Ben Carson: \"If my mother were secretary of the Treasury, we would not be in a deficit situation.\" John Kasich: \"So look, in foreign policy\u2014in foreign policy, it's strength, but you've got to be cool. You've got to have a clear vision of where you want to go. And I'm going to tell you, that it\u2014I'm going to suggest to you here tonight, that you can't do on the job training.\" Rubio vs. Cruz: \"I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance,\" Rubio said of Cruz, per Politico. \"That is not consistent conservatism.\" Cruz responded, \"I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder,\" and Rubio said, \"No, it\u2019s your record.\""}
{"document": "BARNSTABLE (CBS) \u2014 A skydiving instructor and student were killed in a training jump on Cape Cod Sunday afternoon, officials said. \n \n The skydivers, jumping in tandem, crashed into a garage on Race Lane in Marstons Mills beyond the intended landing area of the Cape Cod airfield authorities said. The victims were both adults males, according to Massachusetts State Police. \n \n \u201cWe responded to the scene and we observed two people \u2013 the instructor and the student \u2013 laying on the ground beside the garage,\u201d Barnstable Police Sgt. Ben Baxter said. \u201cIt appears they did hit the garage.\u201d \n \n Both of the skydivers were rushed to Cape Cod Hospital, but did not survive. \n \n The Federal Aviation Administration and the district attorney\u2019s office are also investigating. The identities of the victims have not yet been released. \n \n It was not clear if an equipment malfunction was to blame. \n \n Neighbors tell WBZ-TV that skydivers are a fairly common site at the airfield, but this time something went wrong. One person living close by said she saw the two men parachuting, but then heard a frightening sound. \n \n \u201cUnfortunately I don\u2019t know what happened, but I heard a thud,\u201d the neighbor said. \u201cThe parachute looked deployed.\u201d \n \n MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON ||||| Authorities in Barnstable, Massachusetts, confirm an instructor and a student are dead after attempting to land at Cape Cod Airfield. (Published Monday, Sep 29, 2014) \n \n UPDATE: Officials identified the victims on Sept. 29. \n \n A skydiving instructor and a student are dead after a skydiving accident on Cape Cod, officials confirm. \n \n Police in Barnstable, Massachusetts, found the victims next to a garage at 885 Race Lane in the Barnstable village of Marston Mills, across the street from Cape Cod Airfield. \n \n \"It appears they did hit the garage,\" said Barnstable Police Sgt. Ben Baxter. \"The Mass. State Police will be investigating, along with our detective division.\" \n \n The two male victims jumped in tandem, attached together. They were both transported by ambulance to Cape Cod Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. \n \n A Boston MedFlight helicopter had been asked to stand by in case either patient needed to be taken to a trauma center. \n \n Officials are working to determine what went wrong. There is a skydiving school at Cape Cod Airfield, but it is not yet known whether the victims were from there. \n \n NECN will have more as this story develops.", "summary": "\u2013 The Federal Aviation Administration and local authorities are probing the deaths of two skydivers yesterday evening. The instructor and student, both adult males, were found next to a garage across the street from the Cape Cod Airfield, reports NECN. \"We responded to the scene and we observed two people\u2014the instructor and the student\u2014 laying on the ground beside the garage,\" a police spokesman tells CBS. \"It appears they did hit the garage.\" The pair were jumping in tandem, and it's not clear whether there was an equipment malfunction."}
{"document": "Move over salt. Step aside, saturated fat. There\u2019s a new public enemy in the pantry, and it\u2019s \u2026 sugar.In a provocative commentary coming out in Thursday\u2019s edition of the journal Nature, Dr. Robert Lustig and two colleagues from UC San Francisco argue that the added sugars in processed foods and drinks are responsible for so many cases of chronic disease and premature deaths that their use ought to be regulated, just like alcohol and tobacco.To those who view sugar as more of a treat than a poison \u2013 and especially to libertarian-minded people who oppose government regulation in general \u2013 Lustig\u2019s proposal is certainly a nonstarter. Public health advocates have spent years trying to enact a soda tax to discourage consumption of added sugar, and none of their efforts is close to succeeding.But if you set aside both political reality and your sweet tooth, you have to admit that Lustig makes some good points.For starters, he and coauthors Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF aren\u2019t claiming that sugar should be illegal or removed from the diet completely. They are focused on added sugars, which they define as \u201cany sweetener containing the molecule fructose that is added to food in processing.\u201dIn this country, the average American consumes 222 calories worth of sugar from sugar cane and sugar beets each day, along with 165 calories with of sugar from high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture . But the proposed regulations wouldn't make any distinction between these sweeteners -- any caloric sweetener that contains fructose would be subject to scrutiny.Why? Because even the United Nations recognizes that the greatest threat to public health now comes from non- communicable diseases , including diabetes heart disease and cancer . Together, these play a role in more than 35 million deaths each year. And they get a big boost from the choices people make about tobacco, alcohol and diet.Of these three \u201crisk factors,\u201d only tobacco and alcohol are currently subject to regulation, the authors write. Of course, these differ from food in that they are not necessary for survival. But added sugars \u2013 and the items made with them \u2013 aren\u2019t necessary either.When it comes to alcohol, there are four criteria that justify government regulation, according to the 2003 book \u201cAlcohol: No Ordinary Commodity\u201d:* It\u2019s unavoidable in society.* It\u2019s toxic.* It can be abused.* It\u2019s bad for society.\u201cSugar meets the same criteria,\u201d Lustig and colleagues write, \u201cand we believe that it similarly warrants some form of societal intervention.\u201dThe U.N.\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization says that in 2007, Americans consumed more than 600 calories' worth of added sugar each day. And the damage it does goes beyond supplying empty calories. In fact, it may not be excess fat that causes diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other manifestations of metabolic syndrome \u2013 there\u2019s scientific evidence that suggests sugar itself is to blame. After all, 20% of obese people don\u2019t have these diseases, but 40% of normal-weight people do.\u201cFor both alcohol and tobacco, there is robust evidence that gentle \u2018supply side\u2019 control strategies which stop far short of all-out prohibition \u2013 taxation, distrbution controls, age limits \u2013 lower both consumption of the product and the accompanying health harms,\u201d the UCSF trio writes. \u201cConsequently, we propose adding taxes to processed foods that contain any form of added sugars.\u201dThough this is a pipe dream in the U.S. (despite the authors\u2019 attempt to call their proposal \u201cthe possible dream\u201d), they do note that Canada and some countries in Europe already impose small taxes on some artificially sweetened foods. Denmark, the country that imposed a \u201cfat tax\u201d last year, is now eyeing a sugar tax as well.Short of taxes, there are other things regulators can do to discourage consumption of added sugar. \u201cStates could apply zoning ordinances to control the number of fast-food outlets and convenience stores in low-income communities, and especially around schools,\u201d the authors argue.States could also impose a \u201cdrinking age\u201d for buying soda, sports drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages. (The authors suggest age 17.)And how about \u201ca limit \u2013 or, ideally, ban \u2013 on television commercials for products with added sugars\u201d?At a minimum, the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationcould remove fructose from its list of items Generally Recognized as Safe . That would force food makers to seek an FDA review of products with added sugars.\u201cThe food industry knows that it has a problem,\u201d the authors write. \u201cWith enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become powerful.\u201dA link to the commentary (which is behind a paywall) is online here An earlier version of this post said that most added sugar consumed in the U.S. is in the form of high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS. It should have said that Americans consume more HFCS than people in other countries. In 2010, the average American consumed 34.8 pounds of HFCS and 47 pounds of cane and beet sugar, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Return to the Booster Shots blog ||||| SUMMARY \n \n Sugar consumption is linked to a rise in non-communicable disease \n \n Sugar's effects on the body can be similar to those of alcohol \n \n Regulation could include tax, limiting sales during school hours and placing age limits on purchase \n \n Last September, the United Nations declared that, for the first time in human history, chronic non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes pose a greater health burden worldwide than do infectious diseases, contributing to 35 million deaths annually. \n \n This is not just a problem of the developed world. Every country that has adopted the Western diet \u2014 one dominated by low-cost, highly processed food \u2014 has witnessed rising rates of obesity and related diseases. There are now 30% more people who are obese than who are undernourished. Economic development means that the populations of low- and middle-income countries are living longer, and therefore are more susceptible to non-communicable diseases; 80% of deaths attributable to them occur in these countries. \n \n ILLUSTRATION BY MARK SMITH \n \n Many people think that obesity is the root cause of these diseases. But 20% of obese people have normal metabolism and will have a normal lifespan. Conversely, up to 40% of normal-weight people develop the diseases that constitute the metabolic syndrome: diabetes, hypertension, lipid problems, cardiovascular disease andnon-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Obesity is not the cause; rather, it is a marker for metabolic dysfunction, which is even more prevalent. \n \n The UN announcement targets tobacco, alcohol and diet as the central risk factors in non-communicable disease. Two of these three \u2014 tobacco and alcohol \u2014 are regulated by governments to protect public health, leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked. Of course, regulating food is more complicated \u2014 food is required, whereas tobacco and alcohol are non-essential consumables. The key question is: what aspects of the Western diet should be the focus of intervention? \n \n In October 2011, Denmark chose to tax foods high in saturated fat, despite the fact that most medical professionals no longer believe that fat is the primary culprit. But now, the country is considering taxing sugar as well \u2014 a more plausible and defensible step. Indeed, rather than focusing on fat and salt \u2014 the current dietary 'bogeymen' of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the European Food Safety Authority \u2014 we believe that attention should be turned to 'added sugar', defined as any sweetener containing the molecule fructose that is added to food in processing. \n \n Over the past 50 years, consumption of sugar has tripled worldwide. In the United States, there is fierce controversy over the pervasive use of one particular added sugar \u2014 high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is manufactured from corn syrup (glucose), processed to yield a roughly equal mixture of glucose and fructose. Most other developed countries eschew HFCS, relying on naturally occurring sucrose as an added sugar, which also consists of equal parts glucose and fructose. \n \n Authorities consider sugar as 'empty calories' \u2014 but there is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases1. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills \u2014 slowly (see 'Deadly effect'). If international bodies are truly concerned about public health, they must consider limiting fructose \u2014 and its main delivery vehicles, the added sugars HFCS and sucrose \u2014 which pose dangers to individuals and to society as a whole. \n \n Table 1: Deadly effect \n \n Excessive consumption of fructose can cause many of the same health problems as alcohol. Full table \n \n No ordinary commodity \n \n In 2003, social psychologist Thomas Babor and his colleagues published a landmark book called Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity, in which they established four criteria, now largely accepted by the public-health community, that justify the regulation of alcohol \u2014 unavoidability (or pervasiveness throughout society), toxicity, potential for abuse and negative impact on society2. Sugar meets the same criteria, and we believe that it similarly warrants some form of societal intervention. \n \n First, consider unavoidability. Evolutionarily, sugar was available to our ancestors as fruit for only a few months a year (at harvest time), or as honey, which was guarded by bees. But in recent years, sugar has been added to nearly all processed foods, limiting consumer choice3. Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy. In many parts of the world, people are consuming an average of more than 500 calories per day from added sugar alone (see 'The global sugar glut'). \n \n SOURCE: FAO \n \n Now, let's consider toxicity. A growing body of epidemiological and mechanistic evidence argues that excessive sugar consumption affects human health beyond simply adding calories4. Importantly, sugar induces all of the diseases associated with metabolic syndrome1, 5. This includes: hypertension (fructose increases uric acid, which raises blood pressure); high triglycerides and insulin resistance through synthesis of fat in the liver; diabetes from increased liver glucose production combined with insulin resistance; and the ageing process, caused by damage to lipids, proteins and DNA through non-enzymatic binding of fructose to these molecules. It can also be argued that fructose exerts toxic effects on the liver that are similar to those of alcohol1. This is no surprise, because alcohol is derived from the fermentation of sugar. Some early studies have also linked sugar consumption to human cancer and cognitive decline. \n \n Sugar also has clear potential for abuse. Like tobacco and alcohol, it acts on the brain to encourage subsequent intake. There are now numerous studies examining the dependence-producing properties of sugar in humans6. Specifically, sugar dampens the suppression of the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger to the brain. It also interferes with the normal transport and signalling of the hormone leptin, which helps to produce the feeling of satiety. And it reduces dopamine signalling in the brain's reward centre, thereby decreasing the pleasure derived from food and compelling the individual to consume more1, 6. \n \n Finally, consider the negative effects of sugar on society. Passive smoking and drink-driving fatalities provided strong arguments for tobacco and alcohol control, respectively. The long-term economic, health-care and human costs of metabolic syndrome place sugar overconsumption in the same category7. The United States spends $65 billion in lost productivity and $150 billion on health-care resources annually for morbidities associated with metabolic syndrome. Seventy-five per cent of all US health-care dollars are now spent on treating these diseases and their resultant disabilities. Because about 25% of military applicants are now rejected for obesity-related reasons, the past three US surgeons general and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff have declared obesity a \u201cthreat to national security\u201d. \n \n How to intervene \n \n How can we reduce sugar consumption? After all, sugar is natural. Sugar is a nutrient. Sugar is pleasure. So too is alcohol, but in both cases, too much of a good thing is toxic. It may be helpful to look to the many generations of international experience with alcohol and tobacco to find models that work8, 9. So far, evidence shows that individually focused approaches, such as school-based interventions that teach children about diet and exercise, demonstrate little efficacy. Conversely, for both alcohol and tobacco, there is robust evidence that gentle 'supply side' control strategies which stop far short of all-out prohibition \u2014 taxation, distribution controls, age limits \u2014 lower both consumption of the product and the accompanying health harms. Successful interventions share a common end-point: curbing availability2, 8, 9. \n \n Taxing alcohol and tobacco products \u2014 in the form of special excise duties, value-added taxes and sales taxes \u2014 are the most popular and effective ways to reduce smoking and drinking, and in turn, substance abuse and related harms2. Consequently, we propose adding taxes to processed foods that contain any form of added sugars. This would include sweetened fizzy drinks (soda), other sugar-sweetened beverages (for example, juice, sports drinks and chocolate milk) and sugared cereal. Already, Canada and some European countries impose small additional taxes on some sweetened foods. The United States is currently considering a penny-per-ounce soda tax (about 34 cents per litre), which would raise the price of a can by 10\u201312 cents. Currently, a US citizen consumes an average of 216 litres of soda per year, of which 58% contains sugar. Taxing at a penny an ounce could provide annual revenue in excess of $45 per capita (roughly $14 billion per year); however, this would be unlikely to reduce total consumption. Statistical modelling suggests that the price would have to double to significantly reduce soda consumption \u2014 so a $1 can should cost $2 (ref. 10). \n \n Other successful tobacco- and alcohol-control strategies limit availability, such as reducing the hours that retailers are open, controlling the location and density of retail markets and limiting who can legally purchase the products2, 9. A reasonable parallel for sugar would tighten licensing requirements on vending machines and snack bars that sell sugary products in schools and workplaces. Many schools have removed unhealthy fizzy drinks and candy from vending machines, but often replaced them with juice and sports drinks, which also contain added sugar. States could apply zoning ordinances to control the number of fast-food outlets and convenience stores in low-income communities, and especially around schools, while providing incentives for the establishment of grocery stores and farmer's markets. \n \n Another option would be to limit sales during school operation, or to designate an age limit (such as 17) for the purchase of drinks with added sugar, particularly soda. Indeed, parents in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently took this upon themselves by lining up outside convenience stores and blocking children from entering them after school. Why couldn't a public-health directive do the same? \n \n The possible dream \n \n Government-imposed regulations on the marketing of alcohol to young people have been quite effective, but there is no such approach to sugar-laden products. Even so, the city of San Francisco, California, recently banned the inclusion of toys with unhealthy meals such as some types of fast food. A limit \u2014 or, ideally, ban \u2014 on television commercials for products with added sugars could further protect children's health. \n \n Reduced fructose consumption could also be fostered through changes in subsidization. Promotion of healthy foods in US low-income programmes, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (also known as the food-stamps programme) is an obvious place to start. Unfortunately, the petition by New York City to remove soft drinks from the food-stamp programme was denied by the USDA. \n \n \u201cSugar is cheap, sugar tastes good and sugar sells, so companies have little incentive to change.\u201d \n \n Ultimately, food producers and distributors must reduce the amount of sugar added to foods. But sugar is cheap, sugar tastes good and sugar sells, so companies have little incentive to change. Although one institution alone can't turn this juggernaut around, the US Food and Drug Administration could \u201cset the table\u201d for change8. To start, it should consider removing fructose from the Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) list, which allows food manufacturers to add unlimited amounts to any food. Opponents will argue that other nutrients on the GRAS list, such as iron and vitamins A and D, can also be toxic when over-consumed. However, unlike sugar, these substances have no abuse potential. Removal from the GRAS list would send a powerful signal to the European Food Safety Authority and the rest of the world. \n \n Regulating sugar will not be easy \u2014 particularly in the 'emerging markets' of developing countries where soft drinks are often cheaper than potable water or milk. We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby, and will require active engagement from all stakeholders. Still, the food industry knows that it has a problem \u2014 even vigorous lobbying by fast-food companies couldn't defeat the toy ban in San Francisco. With enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become possible. Take, for instance, bans on smoking in public places and the use of designated drivers, not to mention airbags in cars and condom dispensers in public bathrooms. These simple measures \u2014 which have all been on the battleground of American politics \u2014 are now taken for granted as essential tools for our public health and well-being. It's time to turn our attention to sugar. ||||| Contains Nonbinding Recommendations \n \n December 2004 \n \n Additional copies are available from: \n \n Office of Food Additive Safety, HFS-200 \n \n Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition \n \n Food and Drug Administration \n \n 5100 Paint Branch Parkway \n \n College Park, MD 20740 \n \n (Tel) 301-436-1200 (Updated phone: 240-402-1200) \n \n http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/guidance.html \n \n U.S. Department of Health and Human Services \n \n Food and Drug Administration \n \n Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) \n \n December 2004 \n \n \n \n Contains Nonbinding Recommendations \n \n This guidance represents the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) current thinking on this topic. It does not create or confer any rights for or on any person and does not operate to bind FDA or the public. An alternative approach can be used if such approach satisfies the requirements of the applicable statutes and regulations. If you want to discuss an alternative approach, please contact the FDA staff responsible for implementing this guidance. If you cannot identify the appropriate FDA staff, contact the appropriate number listed on the title page of this document. \n \n This list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) is intended to be a convenient place to find answers to common questions about the food ingredient classification known as \"generally recognized as safe\" or \"GRAS.\" This FAQ addresses common questions about the regulatory process and regulatory considerations regarding whether the use of a food substance is GRAS. For more information about the GRAS program, please contact Dr. Paulette Gaynor (301-436-1192)(Updated phone: 240-402-1192) in the Office of Food Additive Safety, or email questions to premarkt@fda.hhs.gov. See additional contact information at the bottom of this page. \n \n What does \"GRAS\" mean? \"GRAS\" is an acronym for the phrase Generally Recognized As Safe. Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act), any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food additive, that is subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use, or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition of a food additive. For example, substances whose use meets the definition of a pesticide, a dietary ingredient of a dietary supplement, a color additive, a new animal drug, or a substance approved for such use prior to September 6, 1958, are excluded from the definition of food additive. Sections 201(s) and 409 were enacted in 1958 as part of the Food Additives Amendment to the Act. While it is impracticable to list all ingredients whose use is generally recognized as safe, FDA published a partial list of food ingredients whose use is generally recognized as safe to aid the industry's understanding of what did not require approval. \n \n What are the criteria for GRAS status? Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Act, and FDA's implementing regulations in 21 CFR 170.3 and 21 CFR 170.30, the use of a food substance may be GRAS either through scientific procedures or, for a substance used in food before 1958, through experience based on common use in food. Under 21 CFR 170.30(b), general recognition of safety through scientific procedures requires the same quantity and quality of scientific evidence as is required to obtain approval of the substance as a food additive and ordinarily is based upon published studies, which may be corroborated by unpublished studies and other data and information. \n \n Under 21 CFR 170.30(c) and 170.3(f), general recognition of safety through experience based on common use in foods requires a substantial history of consumption for food use by a significant number of consumers. \n \n In what way are the criteria for the use of a substance to be GRAS similar to that for the approved use of a food additive? Regardless of whether the use of a substance is a food additive use or is GRAS, there must be evidence that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use. FDA has defined \"safe\" (21 CFR 170.3(i)) as a reasonable certainty in the minds of competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under its intended conditions of use. The specific data and information that demonstrate safety depend on the characteristics of the substance, the estimated dietary intake, and the population that will consume the substance. \n \n In what way are the criteria for the use of a substance to be GRAS different from that for the approved use of a food additive? A GRAS substance is distinguished from a food additive on the basis of the common knowledge about the safety of the substance for its intended use. As FDA discussed in a proposed rule to establish a voluntary notification program for GRAS substances (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997), the data and information relied on to establish the safety of the use of a GRAS substance must be generally available (e.g., through publication in the scientific literature) and there must be a basis to conclude that there is consensus among qualified experts about the safety of the substance for its intended use. Thus, the difference between use of a food additive and use of a GRAS substance relates to the widespread awareness of the data and information about the substance, i.e., who has access to the data and information and who has reviewed those data and information. For a food additive, privately held data and information about the use of the substance are sent by the sponsor to FDA and FDA evaluates those data and information to determine whether they establish that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use (21 CFR 171.1). \n \n For a GRAS substance, generally available data and information about the use of the substance are known and accepted widely by qualified experts, and there is a basis to conclude that there is consensus among qualified experts that those data and information establish that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use. (proposed 170.36 (c)(4)(i)(C)) \n \n If an ingredient is GRAS for one use, is it GRAS for all uses? Not necessarily. Under section 201(s) of the Act, it is the use of a substance, rather than the substance itself, that is eligible for the GRAS exemption (62 Fed. Reg. 18939; April 17, 1997). A determination of the safety of the use of an ingredient includes information about the characteristics of the substance, the estimated dietary intake under the intended conditions of use, and the population that will consume the substance (proposed 21 CFR 170.36 (c)(1)(iii)). Dietary intake of a substance depends on the food categories in which it will be used and the level of use in each of those food categories. For information about how FDA estimates dietary intake of a food substance, see FDA's document entitled \"Estimating Exposure to Direct Food Additives And Chemical Contaminants in the Diet\" Some uses of a food substance are intended for a narrowly defined population, such as newborn infants who consume infant formula as the sole item of the diet; in such a circumstance, there may be special considerations associated with that population but not with general use of the food substance. \n \n Is a substance that is used to impart color eligible for classification as GRAS? The short answer is \"No.\" Under section 201(s) of the Act, the GRAS provision applies to the definition of a food additive. There is no corresponding provision in the definition (in section 201(t) of the Act) of a color additive. However, under section 201(t)(1) and 21 CFR 70.3(f), the term color additive means a material that is a dye, pigment, or other substance made by a process of synthesis or similar artifice, or extracted, isolated, or otherwise derived from a vegetable, animal, mineral, or other source, and that is capable (alone or through reaction with another substance) of imparting color when added or applied to a food; except that such term does not include any material which FDA, by regulation, determines is used (or intended to be used) solely for a purpose or purposes other than coloring. Under 21 CFR 70.3(g), a material that otherwise meets the definition of color additive can be exempt from that definition on the basis that it is used or intended to be used solely for a purpose or purposes other than coloring, as long as the material is used in a way that any color imparted is clearly unimportant insofar as the appearance, value, marketability, or consumer acceptability is concerned. Given the construct of section 201(t)(1) of the Act and 21 CFR 70.3(f) and (g), the use of a substance that is capable of imparting color may constitute use as both a color additive and as a food additive or GRAS substance. For example, beta-carotene is both approved for use as a color additive (21 CFR 73.95) and affirmed as GRAS for use as a nutrient (21 CFR 184.1245); in some food products, beta-carotene may be used for both purposes. \n \n Is a substance that is used as a dietary ingredient of a dietary supplement eligible for classification as GRAS? Under section 201(s) of the Act, the ingredients whose use is GRAS are excluded from the definition of a food additive. That definition of food additive also specifies that the term \"food additive\" does not include a dietary ingredient of a dietary supplement described in section 201(ff) of the Act or intended for use in a dietary supplement. Thus, it is meaningless to refer to a GRAS exclusion from the food additive definition for dietary ingredients that are already excluded from that definition. However, some dietary ingredients that may be used in a dietary supplement may also be GRAS for use in a conventional food (e.g., vitamin C; calcium carbonate). \n \n Must FDA approve GRAS substances? No. If the use of a food substance is GRAS, it is not subject to the premarket review and approval requirement by FDA. \n \n What is GRAS affirmation? GRAS affirmation is a process that FDA developed in the 1970s. In response to concerns raised by new information on cyclamate salts, then-President Nixon directed FDA to re-examine the safety of substances considered to be GRAS. FDA announced that the agency would evaluate, by contemporary standards of the time, the available safety information regarding substances considered to be GRAS. If the revaluation of current data confirmed that use was GRAS, FDA would promulgate a new GRAS regulation, affirming that finding. FDA also established procedures whereby an individual could petition FDA to review the GRAS status of substances that would not have been considered as part of the agency's GRAS review. \n \n Does FDA currently have a program to affirm that one or more uses of a food substance are GRAS? In a proposed rule that FDA published in 1997 (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997), FDA explained why the agency could no longer devote resources to the voluntary GRAS affirmation petition process that is described in 21 CFR 170.35(c) and proposed to abolish that process and replace it with a notification procedure. The agency has not yet issued a final rule however, and the petition procedure remains in the agency's regulations. However, at this time FDA is not committing resources to the review of GRAS affirmation petitions. \n \n What is the GRAS notification program? The GRAS notification program is a voluntary procedure that is operating under a proposed rule issued in 1997 (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997). The notification program is intended to replace the GRAS affirmation process by providing a mechanism whereby a person may inform FDA of a determination that the use of a substance is GRAS, rather than petition FDA to affirm that the use of a substance is GRAS. The submitted notice includes a \"GRAS exemption claim\" that includes a succinct description of the substance, the applicable conditions of use, and the statutory basis for the GRAS determination (i.e., through scientific procedures or through experience based on common use in food). A GRAS notice also includes information about the identity and properties of the notified substance and a discussion of the notifier's reasons for concluding that the substance is GRAS for its intended use. \n \n If I choose to notify FDA of my GRAS determination, how do I do so? FDA described the procedure for submitting a GRAS notice in the proposed rule to establish the notification procedure (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997). Because the proposed rule is a lengthy document, our Internet site has a specific link to the part of the proposed rule that describes the procedure. You can find both the complete proposed rule and the link to the procedure on the main page of the GRAS notification program. \n \n Where do I send my GRAS notice? You should send your GRAS notice to the Office of Food Additive Safety (HFS-255), Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, 5100 Paint Branch Parkway, College Park, MD 20740. [Note that our office moved since we issued the proposed rule to establish a GRAS notification procedure and, thus, the address where you should send your GRAS notice is different from the address that we published in the proposed rule that describes the procedure]. \n \n If I submit a GRAS notice, how long will it take for me to receive a response from FDA? Our goal is to respond to most GRAS notices within 180 days. \n \n If I submit a GRAS notice about a food substance, must I wait until I receive a response from FDA before I market that substance? No. If one is correct in determining that the intended use of an ingredient is GRAS, use of the ingredient is not subject to any legal requirement for FDA review and approval. Your decision to submit a GRAS notice is voluntary, and FDA's response to a GRAS notice is not an approval. You may market a substance that you determine to be GRAS for a particular use without informing FDA or, if FDA is so informed, while FDA is reviewing that information (62 Fed. Reg. 18951; April 17, 1997). We recognize, however, that some firms prefer to know that FDA has reviewed its notice of a GRAS determination, without raising safety or legal issues, before marketing. \n \n Does FDA have a list of substances that are used in food on the basis of the GRAS provision? FDA has several lists of GRAS substances. Importantly, these lists are not all-inclusive. Because the use of a GRAS substance is not subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, it is impracticable to list all substances that are used in food on the basis of the GRAS provision. 21 CFR Part 182 contains the remnants of a list, which FDA established in its regulations shortly after passage of the 1958 Food Additives Amendment. The list is organized according to the intended use of these substances. As part of the agency's comprehensive review of GRAS substances in the 1970s, FDA affirmed that the use of some of the ingredients on this original GRAS list is GRAS, and moved the affirmed uses of the substance to 21 CFR Part 184. \n \n 21 CFR Part 184 contains a list of substances that FDA affirmed as GRAS as direct food ingredients for general or specific uses. This list derives from the agency's 1970s comprehensive review of GRAS substances and from petitions that FDA received to affirm the GRAS status of particular uses of some food ingredients. \n \n 21 CFR Part 186 contains a list of substances that FDA affirmed as GRAS for certain indirect food uses. \n \n FDA's Internet site also contains a list of substances that have been the subject of a notice to FDA - i.e., when a firm has notified FDA about its view that a particular use of a substance is GRAS. You can access this summary of GRAS notices, along with FDA's response, from the GRAS Notification Program page.", "summary": "\u2013 Tobacco, alcohol, and ... sugar? Yes, according to professors at UC San Francisco, sugar should be regulated like tobacco and alcohol in order to cut down on ailments like heart disease, high blood pressure, and fatty liver disease, the Los Angeles Times reports. \u201cFor both alcohol and tobacco, there is robust evidence that gentle \u2018supply side\u2019 control strategies\" such as \"taxation, distribution controls, [and] age limits\" are beneficial to society, they write in the journal Nature. Sugar also \"meets the same criteria\" as alcohol for government regulation, they say: It's unavoidable, it's toxic, it can be abused, and it's bad for you. Canada and a few European countries are already taxing certain artificially sweetened foods, and Denmark is considering a sugar tax. So the USDA should at least stop listing fructose on its \"Generally Recognized as Safe\" list, they argue: \u201cThe food industry knows that it has a problem. With enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become powerful.\u201d"}
{"document": "Germany's Deutsche Boerse AG, the company that runs the stock exchange in Europe's largest economy, could soon take over the New York Stock Exchange. \n \n Specialist Evan Solomon, left, resumes trading in shares of NYSE Euronext on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in \"advanced... (Associated Press) \n \n Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in \"advanced discussions\" about a potential business combination with... (Associated Press) \n \n Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in \"advanced discussions\" about a potential business combination with... (Associated Press) \n \n NYSE signage adorns the top of trading posts on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in \"advanced discussions\" about a potential... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Feb. 2, 2011 file picture, traders work in the Frankfurt stock exchange , Deutsche Boerse. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in \"advance discussions\" about a potential... (Associated Press) \n \n Traders gather at the post that handles shares of NYSE Euronext as they wait for trading to resume, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext... (Associated Press) \n \n Traders gather at the post that handles shares of NYSE Euronext as they wait for trading to resume, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext... (Associated Press) \n \n NYSE Euronext Inc., which also operates exchanges in Europe, said Wednesday it is in \"advanced discussions\" about a possible merger with Deutsche Boerse, owner of the Frankfurt stock exchange. \n \n The new company would have dual headquarters in New York and Frankfurt. The announcement came hours after news of a $2.9 billion merger between the London Stock Exchange and TMX Group Inc., parent company of the Toronto Stock Exchange. \n \n Deutsche Boerse shareholders would hold 59 to 60 percent of the combined company. NYSE Euronext said it expected the two market operators to combine their businesses under a new legal entity incorporated in the Netherlands. \n \n NYSE Euronext's shares jumped 14 percent to close at $38.10 in New York. \n \n The New York Stock Exchange is already the world's largest stock market. But its parent, the $9.9 billion NYSE Euronext, isn't even the largest exchange company in the U.S. That title belongs to the $20 billion CME Group Inc. CME runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where wheat, corn and pork belly futures are traded, as well as a number of other exchanges. \n \n \"The real motivation here is really about competing with the CME Group,\" said Larry Tabb, founder and CEO of the Tabb Group. Increased competition has made stock trading less profitable. So the answer is to get bigger, he said. \n \n But the thought of a German company taking over the NYSE could run into trouble with Congress, Tabb said. \"It's going to get interesting,\" he said. \n \n The NYSE Group, operator of the New York Stock Exchange, bought Euronext for $10.2 billion in 2007. The combined company handles stock and derivative markets in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris as well as the NYSE Liffe derivatives market. \n \n Deutsche Boerse, whose predecessor was founded in 1585, operates the stock market in Europe's largest economy. It also runs Europe's largest derivative exchange, the Eurex. \n \n Aite Group analyst Simmy Grewal said more mergers may be on the way. Shares in other exchanges jumped on the news. The Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., the IntercontinentalExchange and CBOE Holdings Inc. all gained more than 4 percent. CME Group rose 1 percent. \n \n Deutsche Boerse AG chief executive Reto Francioni would become the new group's chairman, and NYSE's CEO Duncan Niederauer, based in New York, its CEO. \n \n The new company's executive committee would be drawn equally from the current leadership of both companies. \n \n For Deutsche Boerse, the deal would represent a breakthrough in its aim to strengthen its international profile. Deutsche Boerse had been in merger talks with NYSE Euronext three years ago, but no deal was reached. \n \n In 2006, the company tried to buy Euronext NV in a bid to build a pan-European stock exchange, but it eventually gave up, clearing the way for NYSE to merge with Euronext, which then formed the world's first trans-Atlantic stock exchange. \n \n In 2005, a Deutsche Boerse takeover bid for Britain's London Stock Exchange Group PLC did not succeed. \n \n ___ \n \n Craft reported from New York. Greg Keller contributed from Paris. ||||| (See Corrections and Amplifications item below.) \n \n After 219 years as the citadel of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange was near an agreement to be acquired by Deutsche B\u00f6rse AG in a deal that would create the world's largest financial exchange. \n \n With the parent of the New York Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Borse in advanced talks to merge, Aaron Lucchetti and Dennis Berman look at the likely impact on Wall Street as the financial capital of the world. \n \n If a deal is reached and regulators approve, the combined company would trade more stocks and futures than any rival in the world and more options than any U.S. exchange. The takeover would culminate a decade of tie-ups by exchanges around the world eager to find new sources of growth and catch up with smaller rivals that have been quicker to embrace new and lucrative kinds of trading. \n \n For New York, the move is symbolic of the city's fading dominance on the world stage as other countries are drawing investors directly to their markets. The move also is a recognition that securities trading today goes on at all hours and in all time zones, making the actual bricks and mortar of Wall Street far less important than before. \n \n \"New York is going to be important, but it's not the financial center. Capital markets are everywhere now,\" said Michael LaBranche, CEO of LaBranche & Co, the family-run firm that traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for 87 years before it sold that part of its business to Britain's Barclays Capital in 2010. \n \n Antitrust experts cautioned that the proposed deal could face tough regulatory scrutiny in Europe, as the new behemoth would dominate share and derivatives trading in the European Union\u2014and in Washington, where tempers may rise over a crown jewel of the economy falling into foreign hands. \n \n The exchanges, which are presenting the deal as a merger of equals, said the combination would leave 60% of the company in the hands of Deutsche B\u00f6rse shareholders, with NYSE Euronext shareholders holding the remaining 40%. The combined company, with a putative market capitalization of some $25 billion as of Wednesday, would be incorporated in the Netherlands and split its headquarters between Frankfurt and New York. \n \n Deutsche B\u00f6rse Chief Executive Reto Francioni would become chairman, and NYSE Euronext chief Duncan Niederauer would be the new company's CEO under a board drawn equally from both companies. \n \n The proposed all-stock deal is driven by growing competition from purely electronic exchanges, not only in stock trading but also in more-profitable derivative contracts such as options and futures. It lets NYSE and Deutsche B\u00f6rse fight back against rising competitors such as CME Group Inc. and private exchanges known as \"dark pools\" run by big securities firms. \n \n A deal would extend NYSE's lead as the largest share-trading venue in the world, adding the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange and the four European exchanges owned by NYSE. \n \n The new entity would supplant CME Group as the world's largest futures exchange and create the biggest U.S. options group, as measured by contract volume. NYSE Euronext's two options platforms, combined with Deutsche B\u00f6rse's International Securities Exchange market, amounted to about 40.5% of the U.S. options market last month. \n \n NYSE Euronext and Deutsche B\u00f6rse are in advanced merger talks, a combination that would create one of the world's largest share- and derivatives-trading platforms. Aaron Lucchetti has details. \n \n Interest over a merger between Singapore and Australia's exchanges has been reignited after Deutsche B\u00f6rse neared an agreement to buy the NYSE. WSJ's Jake Lee talks to Hong Kong Bureau Chief Peter Stein on possible tie-ups between Asian exchanges. \n \n Global stock listing and U.S. stock trading would be based in New York, people familiar with the situation said. The global derivatives business would be led from Frankfurt, and Paris would host the technology arm and European stock trading. \n \n The merger marks the NYSE's second European deal in just five years. In 2006, the NYSE beat out Deutsche B\u00f6rse to buy Paris-based Euronext, which boasts exchanges in Amsterdam, Paris and elsewhere. \n \n In 2008 and again in 2009, following their bidding war for Euronext, the German exchange and NYSE discussed a possible merger. But talks foundered because of internal management disputes at Deutsche B\u00f6rse and disagreements about where a merged company would be based. \n \n The two sides had been planning to announce a deal next week, but put out a statement Wednesday disclosing the talks after word leaked out on a German online financial site, said people familiar with the matter. The companies are in advanced talks, though no terms have been set. Directors will need to sign off on the deal\u2014and a host of regulatory challenges awaits on both sides of the Atlantic. \n \n The plan is likely to trigger an in-depth probe at the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said Simon Holmes, partner and head of the EU and Competition department in the London office of international law firm SJ Berwin. \"It would be a very complicated deal likely to require a detailed \u2026 investigation by the European antitrust regulator,\" Mr. Holmes said. \n \n The plan drew a cautious, low-key response from American politicians and regulators faced with control of an iconic U.S. institution. The Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment all would have a role in signing off on any deal. \n \n Shareholders and those concerned about the Big Board's competitive status applauded the news. NYSE rose 14% to $38.10, while shares of Deutsche B\u00f6rse were halted in Frankfurt after rising 1.7% to \u20ac58.42. \n \n But for those who remember the glory days, when the New York Stock Exchange was the unchallenged center of world finance, there was trouble containing the dismay. \n \n The NYSE \"is not the same iconic place that it was in its heyday,\" said William Higgins, a 74-year-old retired NYSE trader, who still owns about 70,000 shares of the company. He recalls when the NYSE was a private club and traders gained entry by buying a \"seat\" that entitled them to do business there. \"It doesn't mean life won't go on, but to those of us who have been called New Yorkers, to not have that air of sophistication, the sense that 'this is where things get done,' it's sad.\" \n \n According to lore, New York stock trading can be traced to 1792, when traders signed an agreement under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Since then, the exchange has grown into a symbol of American capitalism where thousands of global companies are listed. \n \n For two centuries, trading was face-to-face, conducted between individuals on the exchange floor. When the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001, the exchange unveiled a huge Stars and Stripes on the front of its building, and a symbol of American resilience was born. \n \n Today, the great majority of NYSE trading is done electronically. Actual floor trading tends to be so quiet that some traders began spending time in a lounge where they could watch movies during the day. The lounge was closed after a Wall Street Journal article mentioned it. In Frankfurt, the German exchange voted in November to end face-to-face trading entirely in May of this year. \n \n According to a person familiar with plans, several hundred jobs would likely be cut over time, but most of the cost cutting would be in technology, and fewer than 100 jobs would be cut in New York. Deutsche B\u00f6rse and NYSE Euronext said a combination could generate \u20ac300 million in annualized savings, some 10% of their cost base. \n \n To avoid nationalistic concerns over the name, one idea is to avoid using the word Deutsche or the acronym NYSE, said one person familiar with the plans, who stressed that no decision has been made. \n \n \"I wish them luck. I hope they know what they are doing,\" said veteran stock trader Alan \"Ace\" Greenberg, a former Bear Stearns Cos. chairman who now is vice-chairman emeritus at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. \n \n Corrections & Amplifications \n \n The potential purchaseof NYSE Euronext by Deutsche B\u00f6rse AG could generate \u20ac300 million ($408 million) in annual cost savings, the companies said. In addition, the American Stock Exchange was acquired by NYSE Euronext in 2008. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the cost-savings target was $300 million, and a graphic accompanying the continuation of the article incorrectly said the American Stock Exchange had been acquired by Nasdaq OMX Group \n \n Write to E.S. Browning at jim.browning@wsj.com, Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@dowjones.com and Aaron Lucchetti at aaron.lucchetti@dowjones.com", "summary": "\u2013 The raucous cathedral of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange, is about to be bought by the Germans. If regulators approve the deal, the acquisition of NYSE Euronext (which owns the NYSE) by Deutsche B\u00f6rse AG (which owns the Frankfurt stock exchange) would create the world's largest financial exchange. The move is bound to face intense scrutiny from regulators in Europe, where the new operation would dominate trade, and in Washington, where acquisition by a foreign company will pique nationalist sentiment, reports the Wall Street Journal. Deutsche B\u00f6rse would own 60% of the combined company, estimated to be worth some $25 billion, while NYSE Euronext shareholders would hold 40%. The operation's incorporation papers would be filed in the Netherlands, and its headquarters would be split between New York and Frankfurt. The AP notes that while the NYSE is already the world's largest stock market, NYSE Euronext isn't the largest exchange company in the US. That title belongs to the $20 billion CME Group, which runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. \"The real motivation here is really about competing with the CME Group,\" said the head of a financial markets' research and strategic advisory firm. Increased competition has made stock trading less profitable. So the answer is to get bigger, he said."}
{"document": "\u201cSelfies at Funerals! A page on Tumblr has been creating quite an uproar,\" says a man on Good Morning America while reading a script, clearly not uproar\u2019d himself. But this scary man seems quite upset indeed: \n \n Terrifying, right? Perhaps you have some questions. \n \n Why is all this text here in blue? \n \n It\u2019s the Tumblr template and I don\u2019t know how to change it. I hate it too. \n \n Why did you\u2014 \n \n Sorry to I interrupt but I see where you\u2019re going. Please check out the press page, and in particular, listen to the interviews on \"Q\u201d and \u201cThe List,\u201d which should provide plenty of context. \n \n Will you keep updating this Tumblr? \n \n Probably not. I like to think of it as a standing statement: Everyone who\u2019s ever visited will have seen the exact same thing (except for this post, which came a few weeks after launch.) But if someone wants to offer me a lot of money to keep it going\u2014or to do anything else, I suppose\u2014you have my full attention. \n \n So what now? \n \n Follow me on Twitter. Or, take a selfie at a funeral and be mocked globally. Those are your only two options. ||||| 5 years ago \n \n Updated 11:06 a.m. ET, 12/11/2013 \n \n (CNN) \u2013 Nelson Mandela's memorial service Tuesday was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event where dozens of world leaders join thousands of South Africans in a massive stadium, all to honor the anti-apartheid icon. \n \n Instead, it turned into a media sensation...about a selfie. \n \n Follow @politicalticker Follow @KilloughCNN \n \n Halfway through the ceremony, President Barack Obama could be seen helping Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt as the two squeezed in with British Prime Minister David Cameron to take a smiling photo of themselves with a camera-phone \n \n Sitting next to them was first lady Michelle Obama, who was clearly not taking part in the photo-op. \n \n AFP Photographer Roberto Schmidt, from about 150 meters away, caught the moment. And as soon his photo went public, it went viral. \n \n Twitter and Facebook feeds lit up with the photo. News outlets quickly blasted it out online and on television. It all sparked a surging debate: Was the selfie a cute moment, or a tasteless act? \n \n The reaction \n \n \"Did the President really take a selfie at a funeral? It appears the First Lady did not approve,\" Republican strategist and conservative firebrand Erick Erickson tweeted early Tuesday. \n \n Did the President really take a selfie at a funeral? It appears the First Lady did not approve. \u2014 Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 10, 2013 \n \n Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh spent a portion of show hammering the President for taking part in the selfie and shaking Cuban President Raul Castro's hand at the same event. Obama, Limbaugh argued, was trying to make the memorial service all about himself. \n \n \"He doesn't care, folks,\" Limbaugh said. \"This is his stage. I mean, this whole week is about Barack Obama. You understand, that's really what this all means. That's what this soap opera script is. It's not the death of Mandela anymore. This is about Barack Obama assuming Mandela's place as a great whatever on the world stage.\" \n \n Some tabloids in Britain, Denmark and the U.S. were afire with speculation, as more photos came out and showed the three world leaders playfully interacting, with the first lady still sitting idly by. \n \n \"UK papers making hay with Obama selfie & FLOTUS's face. Daily Mail calls PM Helle Thorning-Schmitt \"the flirty Dane,\" Jon Williams tweeted. \n \n UK papers making hay with Obama selfie & FLOTUS's face. Daily Mail calls PM Helle Thorning-Schmitt \"the flirty Dane\" pic.twitter.com/dckRYIb1MS \u2014 Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) December 10, 2013 \n \n Karl Erik Stougaard, online managing editor at the Danish newspaper Politiken, told BBC on Wednesday that the Danish press consider the now-famous selfie \"humorous\" and a \"very fun story.\" \n \n \"I don't see anyone complaining or criticizing the Danish prime minister for taking a selfie at the memorial,' he said, joking that the Danish don't have their own word for \"selfie\" and stole the English version. \n \n In fact the word \"selfie\" didn't become a household name until just the last couple of years, as camera phones\u2013combined with photo sharing sites like Instagram\u2013made it easier to instantly spread the photos far and wide. \n \n This year the phenomenon also became a fun pastime for celebrities, who are more used to being photographed from a distance than an arms-length away. Selfies by people like Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and Beyonc\u00e9\u2013 even the Pope - further amplified the selfie movement. \n \n Nearly a year ago Obama's own daughters, Sasha and Malia, stole the show at their father's inauguration parade when they were seen taking selfies. The First Lady herself snapped a photo of her and the family dog at the White House. \n \n And in August of this year, Oxford Dictionaries cemented the word in the English language, giving it a spot in the dictionary after finding that usage of the term had increased by 17,000% within the previous year. \n \n 'Simply acting like human beings' \n \n Schmidt, the AFP photographer, said he was flummoxed at the reaction to the selfie and found nothing distasteful about posing for a self-photo at this particular memorial service. \n \n \"All around me in the stadium, South Africans were dancing, singing and laughing to honour their departed leader,\" Schmidt wrote in a blog post. \"It was more like a carnival atmosphere, not at all morbid. The ceremony had already gone on for two hours and would last another two. The atmosphere was totally relaxed \u2013 I didn't see anything shocking in my viewfinder, president of the US or not. We are in Africa.\" \n \n Responding to interpretations that Michelle Obama was peeved at her husband for lightheartedly engaging with his European counterparts\u2013even perhaps flirting with the Danish prime minister\u2013Schmidt cautioned that \"photos can lie.\" \n \n \"In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included,\" he continued. \"Her stern look was captured by chance.\" \n \n In what's become the year of the selfie, Schmidt also questioned the new social media whirlwind in which photos that show such levity become the center of heated debate. \n \n \"At the time, I thought the world leaders were simply acting like human beings, like me and you,\" he said. \"For me, the behaviour of these leaders in snapping a selfie seems perfectly natural. I see nothing to complain about, and probably would have done the same in their place.\" ||||| In politics, image is king, and every politician knows it. President Obama knows it more than most, having been caught in one or two pictures that hand his opponents, rightly or wrongly, a gift of a story. You may recall a small controversy over candidate Obama not putting his hand on his heart during the playing of the national anthem. The moment he bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia also became a conservative cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre. \n \n So it's surprising to see the president caught in a three-way selfie at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in South Africa, even if the other two people in the picture are the British and Danish Prime Ministers. The now iconic picture above, snapped by an AFP photographer, speaks more than its thousand-word allotment \u2014 largely because Michelle Obama appears to be the only one showing any decorum. \n \n It doesn't take a David Axelrod to look at that and say, \"Ouch. Not good.\" Especially not in the context of Selfies at Funerals, a Tumblr designed to shame the hundreds of (mostly) teenagers who liven up their sad days with egotistical snapshots. In the wake of the Obama funeral selfie, the Tumblr declared it could not top that, and promptly shut down at the height of its fame. \n \n But this is the Internet age, where you don't just get a few lines of caption underneath a damning picture on your front page. You get the whole story whether you like it or not. So here's an object lesson in mitigating circumstances, suitable for sharing with anyone who decided to spin their own story on the basis of this picture. \n \n First of all, this wasn't strictly a funeral; certainly not the solemn dressed-in-black occasion we often associate with the term. It was a four-hour stadium-sized memorial celebrating the life and works of the beloved Madiba, a riot of colorful dancing and singing. Think New Orleans meets the World Cup. \n \n Secondly, it seems to have been a day for presidents and VIPs to take snaps of themselves. Witness Bush and Bono on Instagram (which wasn't technically a selfie, unless the former president has extraordinarily long arms): \n \n Funeral selfie: George W. Bush posted this Instagram picture of him with Bono at the #MandelaMemorial pic.twitter.com/Sfu3LAPA6K \u2014 Kety Shapazian (@KetyDC) December 10, 2013 \n \n Thirdly, consider the context of the shot itself. In other photos, we can see the leaders joking around, switching seats, looking bored \u2014 all the things you might find it hard to avoid doing if you were stuck in a stadium for four hours. Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt appears to have been the first one to crack and pull out her smartphone. We can relate. \n \n Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly in this case, it was Thorning-Schmidt taking the picture. If a major European leader asked you to get in on a quick snapshot, it would be churlish (and diplomatically inept) to refuse \u2014 especially if the sober British Prime Minister David Cameron was already in on the fun. \n \n For the picture to be truly complete, you'd need to add speech balloons. Perhaps Thorning-Schmidt is saying, \"Let's commemorate this amazing moment and the life of an incredible man with a joyous group photo.\" Maybe Michelle is thinking, \"Man, I wish there were room for me in that picture.\" \n \n The point is, we don't know the full context of what would be, for almost any other three people in the world, a private moment. Without that knowledge, a rush to judgment dishonors the memory of a man who spent decades fighting a society that systematically rushed to judgment. \n \n Image may be king in politics, but it's high time that king was dethroned. \n \n Nelson Mandela Memorial \n \n Image: Roberto Schmidt AFP Getty ||||| President Obama was caught taking a selfie with the prime ministers of Britain and Denmark at the Nelson Mandela memorial in South Africa, creating a small uproar online. \n \n President Obama took a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt while seated in the audience at Nelson Mandela\u2019s memorial service in South Africa on Tuesday. \n \n Yes, you\u2019re right, that\u2019s a lead sentence that we did not really envision writing when we got up this morning, but we go where the news flows, and there you are. \n \n Photos of the smiling trio taking their self-portrait are all over the Internet at the moment. Many of them show Michelle Obama looking off to one side, as if she can\u2019t believe the misbehavior of her seatmates. \n \n Some critics thought that the world leader photo-op was in poor taste given the context. \u201cSo Obama & Cameron & Danish PM displaying similar levels of gravitas today as 14 yr olds on the school bus,\u201d was a typical Twitter comment. \n \n Some journalists thought the mass coverage of the photo event was worse than the event itself. \n \n \u201cYou guys know this makes the media look bad, right?\u201d tweeted Politico\u2019s media columnist Dylan Byers. \n \n At the risk of looking bad, though, we\u2019ve got these thoughts. \n \n It was a memorial, not a funeral. The massive event was meant to celebrate the great life of Mr. Mandela. There was singing, dancing, jumping throughout the crowd. When Mr. Obama spoke, spectators swayed and clapped behind him. The atmosphere was anything but stiff and funereal. \n \n Leave Michelle out of it. Look, it\u2019s impossible to really tell if she\u2019s peeved, not paying attention, or (most likely) just got snapped at the micro-second she was looking in another direction. We\u2019ve seen enough photo meetings to know it\u2019s easy to construct a narrative where none exists. We don\u2019t really have any idea what the first lady is thinking at the moment. \n \n The president is always on stage. For those who think the shot irrelevant, we\u2019d say the US president is always in the public eye. His every public move is captured on film, his every public action surveyed for possible meaning. Look no further than Obama\u2019s handshake with Raul Castro at the memorial; was he too friendly to a repressive Cuban leader? Was he just he trying to put Mr. Castro off-balance? Was it just a handshake? Inquiring minds want to know. \n \n Most presidential moments are predictable, preplanned. The selfie moment was not. It was a bit of genuine ad hoc get-togetherness among world leaders. It\u2019s interesting to see that such powerful people can act like three friends at a sporting event. The media\u2019s not going to cover that? Right. \n \n It's all about us. However, we will note that the US media is (unsurprisingly) US-centric, so wherever the president goes, the story is framed through their experience. At Mandela\u2019s memorial that means Obama\u2019s speech and action will be the central aspect of many American stories. \n \n This provincialism can be seen in the fact that some US broadcasters at first said the woman in the selfie shot was unidentified. Then some expressed surprise the Danish PM was a woman. \n \n Ms. Thorning-Schmidt has in fact been the head of government of Denmark, a NATO ally, since 2011. Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg is also a woman, by the way. Then there\u2019s Angela Merkel, German chancellor. \n \n So perhaps a northern European leader who is a women shouldn\u2019t be, you know, a shock? ||||| We knew \u201cfuneral selfies\u201d were all the rage for the young, dumb and impressionable \u2026 but President Obama took one, too? Here\u2019s the president, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Danish Prime Minister Helle-Thorning-Schmidt taking a selfie at Nelson Mandela\u2019s memorial service. How very gauche of them at a solemn occasion. I know funerals are boring, but this is not a good look. See, even Michelle is pretending she doesn\u2019t know you. [Mediaite] [Image via Mediaite]", "summary": "\u2013 One of the stranger stories out of today's memorial service for Nelson Mandela was the Internet furor that erupted when Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt took a selfie with President Obama and Britain's David Cameron. Lot of commenters, of course, picked up on the fact that a somber-looking Michelle Obama isn't in on the fun. (She looks \"mortified,\" says the Stir.) Or they pounced on Obama for acting inappropriately given the circumstances. Ease up, writes Chris Taylor at Mashable. This was a celebratory memorial service, remember, not a funeral. \"In other photos, we can see the leaders joking around, switching seats, looking bored\u2014all the things you might find it hard to avoid doing if you were stuck in a stadium for four hours.\" The upshot is that we don't know the full context, and \"without that knowledge, a rush to judgment dishonors the memory of a man who spent decades fighting a society that systematically rushed to judgment.\" As for Michelle's reaction, don't read too much into it, adds Peter Grier at the Christian Science Monitor. \"It\u2019s impossible to really tell if she\u2019s peeved, not paying attention, or (most likely) just got snapped at the micro-second she was looking in another direction,\" he writes. \"We\u2019ve seen enough photo meetings to know it\u2019s easy to construct a narrative where none exists.\" (Yeah, but her reaction in other shots looks \"dare we say disapproving,\" observes Caitlin Dewey at the Washington Post.) All that said, the creator of the \"Selfies at Funerals\" Tumblr may have gotten the last word. He quickly posted the image, then declared the Tumblr finished. \"Our work here is done.\""}
{"document": "The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine \n \n This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds) \n \n The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| Have you heard the one about the kid who got his mom to call his boss and ask for a raise? Or about the college student who quit her summer internship because it forbade Facebook in the office? \n \n Yep, we\u2019re talking about Generation Y \u2014 loosely defined as those born between 1982 and 1999 \u2014 also known as millennials. Perhaps you know them by their other media-generated nicknames: teacup kids,for their supposed emotional fragility; boomerang kids, who always wind up back home; trophy kids \u2014 everyone\u2019s a winner!; the Peter Pan generation, who\u2019ll never grow up. \n \n Now this pampered, over-praised, relentlessly self-confident generation (at age 30, I consider myself a sort of older sister to them) is flooding the workplace. They\u2019ll make up 75 percent of the American workforce by 2025 \u2014 and they\u2019re trying to change everything. \n \n These are the kids, after all, who text their dads from meetings. They think \u201cbusiness casual\u201d includes skinny jeans. And they expect the company president to listen to their \u201cbrilliant idea.\u201d \n \n When will they adapt? \n \n (Michael Byers for The Washington Post) \n \n They won\u2019t. Ever. Instead, through their sense of entitlement and inflated self-esteem, they\u2019ll make the modern workplace adapt to them. And we should thank them for it. Because the modern workplace frankly stinks, and the changes wrought by Gen Y will be good for everybody. \n \n Few developed countries demand as much from their workers as the United States. Americans spend more time at the office than citizens of most other developed nations. Annually, we work 408 hours more than the Dutch, 374 hours more than the Germans and 311 hours more than the French. We even work 59 hours more than the stereotypically nose-to-the-grindstone Japanese. Though women make up half of the American workforce, the United States is the only country in the developed world without guaranteed paid maternity leave. \n \n All this hard work is done for less and less reward. Wages have been stagnant for years, benefits shorn, opportunities for advancement blocked. While the richest Americans get richer, middle-class workers are left to do more with less. Because jobs are scarce and we\u2019re used to a hierarchical workforce, we accept things the way they are. Worse, we\u2019ve taken our overwork as a badge of pride. Who hasn\u2019t flushed with a touch of self-importance when turning down social plans because we\u2019re \u201ctoo busy with work\u201d? \n \n Into this sorry situation strolls the self-esteem generation, printer-fresh diplomas in hand. And they\u2019re not interested in business as usual. \n \n The current corporate culture simply doesn\u2019t make sense to much of middle-class Gen Y. Since the cradle, these privileged kids have been offered autonomy, control and choices (\u201cGreen pants or blue pants today, sweetie?\u201d). They\u2019ve been encouraged to show their creativity and to take their extracurricular interests seriously. Raised by parents who wanted to be friends with their kids, they\u2019re used to seeing their elders as peers rather than authority figures. When they want something, they\u2019re not afraid to say so. \n \n And what the college-educated Gen Y-ers entering the workforce want is engaging, meaningful, flexible work that doesn\u2019t take over their lives. The grim economy and lack of job opportunities don\u2019t seem to be adjusting their expectations downward much, either. According to a recent AP analysis, more than 53 percent of recent college grads are unemployed or underemployed, but such numbers don\u2019t appear to keep these new grads from thinking their job owes them something. \n \n In a MarchMTV survey of about 500 millennials, called \u201cNo Collar Workers,\u201d 81 percent of respondents said they should be able to set their own hours, and 70 percent said they need \u201cme time\u201d on the job (compared with 39 percent of baby boomers). Ninety percent think they deserve their \u201cdream job.\u201d They expect to be listened to when they have an idea, even when they\u2019re the youngest person in the room. \n \n \u201cWhy do we have to meet in an office cross-country when we can call in remotely via Skype?\u201d asks Megan Broussard, a 25-year-old New Yorker who worked at a large PR firm for three years before quitting to become a freelance writer and career adviser. \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t my opinion matter as much as someone else\u2019s who only has a few more years of experience than I do?\u201d \n \n These desires are not exactly radical. Who wouldn\u2019t want flexibility, autonomy and respect? \n \n What\u2019s different, says Lindsey Pollak, the author of \u201cGetting From College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World,\u201d is how Gen Y-ers are asking for those things. Pollak, a consultant who advises companies on how to deal with Gen Y, says these workers \u2014 at least, the well-educated ones who can afford to make demands \u2014 want what everyone wants out of a job, they\u2019re just asking for it in a more aggressive way. \u201cAnd they\u2019re the first ones to leave when they don\u2019t get it,\u201d Pollak says. \n \n According to surveys, 50 percent of Gen Y-ers would rather be unemployed than stay in a job they hate. Unlike their child- and mortgage-saddled elders, many can afford to be choosy about their jobs, given their notorious reliance on their parents. After all, they can always move back in with Mom and Dad (40 percent of young people will move home at least once, per Pew research), who are likely to be giving them financial help well into their 20s (41 percent of Gen Y-ers receive financial support from their parents after college, according to research from Ameritrade). \n \n In fact, it\u2019s possible that a bad economy can make being choosy even easier \u2014 if more people are struggling to find work and living at home, there\u2019s no stigma to it. \n \n Nancy Sai, a 25-year-old who works at a nonprofit in Manhattan, spent a year living with her parents and working at a gas station while trying to snag her dream job. Her mom kept bugging her to look for something different \u2014 teaching! government! anything! \u2014 but Sai held firm. While it took her a year to find the ideal gig, she\u2019s glad she waited. Her job is meaningful, the office environment friendly and welcoming, her bosses forthcoming with feedback. Some of her friends have not been so lucky \u2014 one quit her job in politics when her boss refused to give her any time off. \n \n \u201cShe couldn\u2019t separate her work life from her personal life at all,\u201d Sai says. \u201cShe quit without another job lined up. She said she felt the most liberated she had in two years.\u201d \n \n Despite the recession, or perhaps because of it, corporations are eager to hire and retain the best, most talented Gen Y workers. \u201cIn this risky economic environment, the energy, insight and high-tech know-how of Gen Yers will be essential for all high-performing organizations,\u201d said a 2009 study on Gen Y from Deloitte, the professional services giant. \n \n Companies are beginning to heed Gen Y\u2019s demands. Though flextime and job-sharing have been staples of the workforce for a few decades, they are becoming more accepted, even in rigid corporate culture, says Laura Schildkraut, a career counselor specializing in the needs of Gen Y. There has also been a rise in new work policies, such as ROWE, or \u201cresults only work environment,\u201d a system in which employees are evaluated on their productivity, not the hours they keep. In a ROWE office, the whole team can take off for a 4 p.m. \u201cSpider-Man\u201d showing if they\u2019ve gotten enough done that day. \n \n Radical-sounding perks such as unlimited paid vacation \u2014 assuming you\u2019ve finished your pressing projects \u2014 are more common among companies concerned with attracting and retaining young talent. By 2010, 1 percent of U.S. companies had adopted this previously unheard-of policy, largely in response to the demands of Generation Y. \n \n The Deloitte study warns that, to retain Gen Y-ers, companies \u201cmust foster a culture of respect that extends to all employees, regardless of age or level in the organization.\u201d In other words: Treat your Gen Y workers nicely. But we should be treating everyone nicely already, shouldn\u2019t we? \n \n Beyond that, Gen Y\u2019s demands may eventually help bring about the family-friendly policies for which working mothers have been leading the fight. Though the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 afforded some protections for working parents, genuine flexibility is still a privilege of the lucky few, and parents who try to leave the office at 5:30 p.m. are often accused of not pulling their weight. Well, guess what? Now everybody wants to leave the office at 5:30. Because they\u2019ve got band practice. Or dinner with their grandma. Or they need to walk their rescue puppy. \n \n The American workplace has been transformed during economic upswings and downturns. The weekend was a product of labor union demands during the relative boom of the early 20th century. The Great Depression led to the New Deal\u2019s Fair Labor Standards Act, which introduced the 40-hour workweekand overtime pay to most Americans. But now, workplace change is coming from unadulterated, unorganized worker pushiness. \n \n So we could continue to roll our eyes at Gen Y, accuse them of being spoiled and entitled and clueless little brats. We could wish that they\u2019d get taken down a peg by the \u201cschool of hard knocks\u201d and learn to accept that this is just the way things are. \n \n But if we\u2019re smart, we\u2019ll cheer them on. Be selfish, Gen Y! Be entitled! Demand what you want. Because we want it, too. \n \n Emily Matchar is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Gourmet and Outside, among other publications. She is the author of an upcoming book about \u201cnew domesticity.\u201d \n \n Read more from Outlook: \n \n The new domesticity: Fun, empowering or a step back for American women? \n \n Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.", "summary": "\u2013 Gen Y millennials have begun arriving in force in the workplace, and given their reputation as self-centered, spoiled brats, this can only be a bad thing, right? Exactly the opposite, writes Emily Matchar in the Washington Post, who at 30 thinks of herself as an \"older sister\" to millennials. These younger workers are not going to adapt to the workplace as we know it. \"Instead, through their sense of entitlement and inflated self-esteem, they\u2019ll make the modern workplace adapt to them,\" writes Matchar. \"And we should thank them for it,\" because everybody is going to benefit. Go ahead and roll your eyes at them, but it's the rest of us who are the suckers, content to put in too-long hours without complaint and to sacrifice much of our personal lives for the office. Gen Y ain't having it. And considering that they'll make up 75% of the workforce come 2025, business-as-usual is about to change fast. \"If we\u2019re smart, we\u2019ll cheer them on,\" writes Matchar. \"Be selfish, Gen Y! Be entitled! Demand what you want. Because we want it, too.\" Read her full piece here."}
{"document": "Hedge fund operator Robert Mercer almost never talks about himself, and neither do the people who know him. Yet Mercer's money is sure making a lot of noise on the campaign trail. \n \n The third most generous Republican donor this cycle, Mercer has cut checks for a total of $37 million in the past six years, supporting pro-life candidates, those who deny man-made global warming, as well as helping fund the effort to block construction of a mosque near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York. In fact, this year he gave more to the Koch brothers' organization, $2.5 million, than the Kansas founders, David and Charles, who each chipped in just $2 million to Freedom Partners Action Fund. \n \n Bloomberg Visual Data \n \n Yet the man who first made his mark by upending the field of computer linguistics and is now seeking to bend the national political debate in his conservative direction, is a stranger to the electorate he seeks to sway and the public that would be affected should he succeed. He is the ultimate behind-the-scenes kingmaker in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate who almost never talks\u2014publicly or otherwise. An address to computer scientists at an awards ceremony in Baltimore this summer was a rare exception, and he admitted to finding it daunting. \n \n It was only after he agreed to accept a lifetime achievement award that it dawned on him that he'd have to address attendees for about an hour. \"Which, by the way, is more than I typically talk in a month,\" he said. About 10 minutes into the lecture, he paused, and took a sip of water. \"I've just reached one week of speaking,\" he said, \"so I have to take a little drink.\" \n \n Asked to share their impressions about Mercer, people who have met him at conservative gatherings said they could recall little about about the man behind the checkbook. \"I've only talked to him one time,\" said James Bopp, a normally outspoken campaign finance attorney who runs the USA Super PAC, a boutique political group backing Republican Pete Ricketts' gubernatorial bid in Nebraska. Bopp's super-PAC has just seven donors, including Mercer. Senator Rob Portman, the National Republican Senatorial Committee's finance chair and a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate simply said, \"I don't have any insights\" about the man who is one of two people who've donated to the Portman Victory Committee. The other contributor is Mercer's wife of more than 40 years, Diana. \"The conversation I had with him was about the direction of the country. His focus with me was on the economic issues and the fiscal issues,\" Portman said. \n \n Mercer declined to comment for this story via his a spokesman, Jonathan Gasthalter. Mercer's daughter Rebekah, who runs the $37.6 million Mercer Family Foundation and sits on the board of at least one conservative non-profit that the family funds, didn't respond to messages seeking comment. Along with her two sisters Jenji and Heather Sue, she operates a pastry store in mid-town Manhattan. (The business, unlike the vast majority of Mercer's projects, has bipartisan support. The shop's website includes rave reviews from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.) Rebekah Mercer is also a budding political donor, and among the recipients of her largess is Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican. \n \n In addition to a broader desire to shape national policy, Mercer has business interests in the midterms. His company, Renaissance Technologies, which runs the Medallion fund and has produced 35 percent returns annualized over two decades, was hauled before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in July and quizzed over how the firm calculates its taxes. According to the committee, RenTech has used sophisticated financial maneuvers to lower the amount it's investors paid to the Internal Revenue Service by $6 billion over 14 years. \n \n \u201cIt meant enormous profit for both the banks and the hedge funds,\u201d said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat who chairs the panel. \u201cOrdinary Americans had to shoulder a tax burden of billions of dollars, a burden that was shrugged off by those hedge funds.\u201d \n \n Gasthalter, also a spokesman for RenTech, said in a statement at the time that the IRS has been reviewing the hedge funds transactions for the past six years. \u201cWe believe that the tax treatment for the option transactions being reviewed by the [Senate committee] is appropriate under current law,\" he said. \n \n With RenTech's outsized profits, Mercer is earning more than enough to fund political campaigns, and so far this cycle, he's contributed $8.8 million. \n \n The beneficiaries of that money have been, across the board, Republicans\u2014House candidates, Senate candidates, institutional super-PACs that give to lots of candidates and smaller super-PACs focused on individual candidates and conservative non-profits. Mercer has dipped into state races, including Ken Cuccinelli's 2013 gubernatorial contest in Virginia to which he gave a $600,000 contribution to an outside group. Cuccinelli recalled asking Mercer for support just after Mitt Romney had lost his 2012 presidential bid, when Republican money people were in what he referred to as deep donor depression. \"He's very solid and understated,\" said Cuccinelli, who met with him on a fundraising trip to New York. \"You wouldn't know you were talking to someone with that kind of force.\" Pet causes such as gun rights and charter schools don't seem to be the primary motivator for Mercer, unlike some donors, Cuccinelli said. \"He just thinks our country is off track and he's in a position to do something to get it back on track,\" he said. \n \n Only once during Mercer's talk in Baltimore did his conservative politics show. He recounted how he worked at a military base during college and he'd re-written an unwieldy computer program to make it faster. The bosses, to his surprise, added more to the program, slowing the computer back down. \"The point of government-funded research was not to get answers but to consume the computer budget,\" he quipped to the crowd. \"Which has left me with a jaundiced view of government research.\" \n \n Mercer was born in July 1946 and grew up in New Mexico. He was obsessed with computers\u2014writing code in high school even though he didn't have a machine to run it on. In graduate school he studied computer science. \"I loved the solitude of the computer lab late at night,\" he said, during a 2013 talk to computer scientists. \"I loved the air conditioned smell of the place. I loved the sound of the disks whirring and the printers clacking.\" \n \n Later, he joined IBM and worked at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, focusing on the then-vexing problem of programming computers to recognize speech. He and his IBM colleague Peter Brown both joined RenTech in 1993, where the two men are now co-CEOs. The company's founder, James Simons, is the 54th richest man in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He's also a hefty political donor\u2014to Democrats. In March he wrote a $2 million check to the Senate Majority PAC, dedicated to keeping Democrats in power in the Senate. \n \n The company was profiled in one chapter of Sebastian Mallaby's book \"More Money Than God,\" which details the world's most successful hedge funds. In it, Mallaby shared only a few observations about Mercer. \"He was an icy cold poker player; he never recalled having a nightmare; his IBM boss jokingly called him an automaton.\" Mallaby wrote. Last year, Mercer's household staff sued him, claiming their wages were improperly docked for failing to replacing shampoo bottles, closing doors improperly and not straightening pictures. \n \n Get the latest on global politics in your inbox, every day. Get our newsletter daily. \n \n Despite Mercer's material success, he political record is mixed. In 2010, he poured money into an Oregon House race to support a man\u2014Republican Arthur Robinson, who was challenging incumbent Representative Peter DeFazio\u2014who's skeptical work on climate change Mercer had funded. DeFazio's campaign put Mercer front and center that year, running radio ads saying Robinson was funded by a secretive donor with Wall Street ties. \n \n \"Oregon isn't a state that likes outside interference,\" DeFazio said. \"Once we focused on who Mercer was we began to move our poll numbers.\" DeFazio won. This year, Robinson is running again to oust DeFazio, but Mercer hasn't dropped mega-dollars into the race. Robinson declined comment for this story. ||||| Ted Cruz\u2019s presidential effort is getting into the shock-and-awe fundraising business. \n \n An associate of the Texas senator, a recently announced presidential candidate, tells Bloomberg that a cluster of affiliated super-political action committees was formed only this week, and among them they are expected to have $31 million in the bank by Friday. \n \n Even in the context of a presidential campaign cycle in which the major party nominees are expected to raise more than $1.5 billion, Cruz\u2019s haul is eye-popping, one that instantly raises the stakes in the Republican fundraising contest. \n \n \u201cOur goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate. \u201d Dathan Voelter \n \n Although super-PACs have radically changed the pace at which committees backing presidential candidates can raise money, the Cruz haul is remarkable. There are no known cases in which an operation backing a White House hopeful has collected this much money in less than a week. \n \n Those involved in the Cruz super-PACS say many of his biggest financial backers haven\u2019t yet made contributions to the new organizations and are expected to do so in the coming months. By law, super-PACS can accept unlimited contributions from individuals. \n \n From his time as a Senate candidate in 2012, Cruz has been one of the country\u2019s most aggressive and successful super-PAC fundraisers. His political team has calculated from the start of their planning for a presidential campaign that his overall operation would be able to keep pace with rivals in part because of a robust super-PAC operation. They have talked among themselves about the names of numerous wealthy Cruz backers who they fully expect will contribute several million dollars each. \n \n Still, even some Cruz supporters, and many others who have been skeptical that his candidacy could draw significant financial support, are certain to be stunned by this initial round of contributions. \n \n While former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is universally expected to easily lead all other Republican presidential candidates in financial backing, a hotly debated topic in political circles has been who would finish second to Bush in money raised by the end of 2015. This week\u2019s apparent lightning strike could help Cruz claim that spot, possibly besting other leading prospects such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. \n \n Cruz\u2019s campaign is also expected to raise money competitively at the grassroots level through the Internet and small-dollar contributions, as well as through traditional bundling of so-called hard-dollar checks, which are subject to limits of $2,700 per election per individual. Either of those methods, of course, would require significantly more than a week to generate $31 million. \n \n According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the treasurer for the three of the new super-PACS is Dathan Voelter, an Austin, Texas, attorney who is a longtime friend and financial backer of Cruz. A fourth lists as its treasurer Jacquelyn James of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y. All four PACS have a variant of the name \u201cKeep the Promise.\u201d \n \n A document prepared by the super-PAC organizers says they \u201care committed to raising the resources necessary to promote Senator Cruz in his efforts to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.\u201d The document quotes Voelter as saying, \u201cWe\u2019re just getting started \u2026 Our goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate. Supporters of the Senator now have a powerful vehicle with the resources necessary to aid in his effort to secure the Republican nomination and win back the White House.\u201d The document describes those \u201cleading the financial charge\u201d as \u201ca group of close, personal friends of Senator Cruz, who share his conservative vision for America.\u201d \n \n According to the source close to Cruz, more than $20 million of the $31 million is expected by Wednesday, with the rest due in by the end of the week. Those cash figures could not be independently confirmed by Bloomberg, and sources declined to provide financial documents to support the claim. \n \n The group does not plan to reveal the names or number of donors until they are legally required to do so, at the end of the FEC reporting period on July 15. \n \n According to a person familiar with the workings and financing of the new super-PACs, many of the donors are former backers of George W. Bush and Perry. Bush\u2019s brother, of course, and Perry himself, are seeking the White House now, which makes Cruz\u2019s coup that much more impressive. A Houston-area associate of Cruz\u2019s has led the effort to pull together the donors, many of whom are Texans and New Yorkers. \n \n The PAC names are \u201cKeep the Promise,\u201d \"Keep the Promise I,\" \u201cKeep the Promise II,\u201d and \u201cKeep the Promise III.\u201d An internal document describing the groups\u2019 intentions says, \u201cEvery PAC in the Keep the Promise network will fully comply with all disclosure and recordkeeping obligations set forth in federal law. The use of multiple PACS, however, will allow Keep the Promise to uniquely and flexibly tailor its activities in support of Senator Cruz and afford donors greater control over PAC operations.\u201d \n \n In a cover letter dated April 6, sent to the FEC along with the formal filings for three of the super-PAC entities, Voelter says that the trio \u201care affiliated with one another for legal and regulatory purposes.\u201d It lists an Austin post office box as their shared address, and the Fifth Third Bank in Atlanta as the place where funds are being deposited. \n \n Voelter declined to comment. \n \n The document from the group says that \u201cKeep the Promise can provide the \u2018appropriate air cover\u2019 in the battle against Senator Cruz\u2019s opponents in the Washington establishment and on the political left. We plan to support the effort of millions of courageous conservatives who believe 2016 is our last opportunity to \u2018keep the promise\u2019 of America for future generations.\u201d \n \n \n \n This story has been updated to reflect the filing of paperwork for a fourth super-PAC.", "summary": "\u2013 If other GOP contenders shrugged off Ted Cruz's chances of winning the nomination, it's a safe bet they're reassessing things after four new super PACS announced they'd raised a staggering $31 million to support his new candidacy. \"Even in the context of a presidential campaign cycle in which the major party nominees are expected to raise more than $1.5 billion, Cruz\u2019s haul is eye-popping, one that instantly raises the stakes in the Republican fundraising contest,\" writes Mark Halperin at Bloomberg. The super PACs in question are only a week old, and it's unprecedented to have raised so much so quickly. So who's behind the money? The New York Times identifies the main player as a \"reclusive Long Islander\" named Robert Mercer. Mercer began his career at IBM but now runs a hedge fund called Renaissance Technologies, and like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, he is taking advantage of the Citizens United case that loosened restrictions on wealthy donors. He's \"a very low-profile guy, but he\u2019s becoming a bigger and bigger player,\u201d says one campaign finance expert. And his backing of Cruz \u201csends the message to other donors that Cruz is a serious guy,\u201d which in turn encourages other donors. The Times notes that Mercer's hedge fund is under investigation by the IRS, an agency that Cruz would love to abolish. A previous profile of Mercer at Bloomberg describes him as \"one of the most powerful men in Republican politics that nobody is talking about.\""}
{"document": "Pyongyang, June 4 (KCNA) -- The General Staff of the Korean People's Army sent the following open ultimatum to the south Korean group of traitors on Monday: \n \n The celebrations of the 66th anniversary of the Korean Children's Union are now taking place in the revolutionary capital of Pyongyang with splendor. \n \n They are a great political festival of children unprecedented not only in the history of the Korean nation but in the long history of mankind. \n \n As many as 20 000 delegates of school children have come to Pyongyang on invitation from all parts of the country, including remote villages and solitary islands. \n \n It was the noble outlook of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il on the younger generation and the future that they showed paternal loving care and solicitude for them, calling them kings of the country. This outlook has been steadfastly carried forward by the dear respected Kim Jong Un. \n \n All the service members and people are immensely excited and pleased with this stirring reality. \n \n The world is becoming envious of the DPRK, noting that such great event can take place in socialist Korea only. \n \n But it is only the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors in south Korea that is chilling the atmosphere of these auspicious events of the children. \n \n From May 29 the group set in motion Chosun Ilbo, Choongang Ilbo, \"A channel\" of Dong-A Ilbo, KBS, CBS, MBC, SBS and other media to launch a campaign defaming the above-said celebrations. It went the lengths of resorting to a new campaign of hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, availing itself of this opportunity. \n \n The children of the kindergarten in magnificent and modern Changjon Street were so happy as to have a photo taken with Kim Jong Un and sons and daughters of ordinary working people are participating in the above-said celebrations. However, the Lee group is letting loose a string of vituperations describing all these blessings as \"charades intentionally orchestrated\" by the supreme leadership of the DPRK. \n \n The auspicious political festival was opened amid joy and cheers of three million of schoolchildren, hailed by their fathers and mothers throughout the country. The group, however, is playing down it as \"events for publicity stunt,\" \"events to win popularity\", \"events to curry favor with them.\" It made no scruple of letting loose a spate of such invectives as deliberately hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, describing the great inheritance of the love for the younger generation and the future as \"act of imitating gesture and copying after Hitler\" and \"the north's staging of a political show as that staged by the Nazis to train the Juvenile Corps. \n \n And the Lee group went the lengths of describing the unblemished naive schoolchildren as \"children on markets\" more familiar with capitalist markets than socialist policies and \"mere children knowing nothing about the world\". \n \n This is a new form of evil action hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK. It is a thrice-cursed criminal act as it is a monstrous mud-slinging at the rosy future of our revolution. \n \n There is no country in the world as the DPRK which projects children as kings of the country. \n \n When babies are born, they are taken care of at palaces of babies and children are rapidly growing at children's palaces, bringing their talents into full bloom. They are leading such blessed lives under the immensely profound loving care of the great persons of Mt. Paektu, something rare to be found in any other parts of the world. \n \n It was President Kim Il Sung who brought up all the children under his deep care with the noblest viewpoint on the younger generation and the future, despite snow and rain. It was leader Kim Jong Il who saw off the children leaving for their camps while starting his journey to the front along rugged roads in adversity. \n \n It was Kim Jong Un who visited the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School on the New Year's Day and put forward its children as future pillars. \n \n It was thanks to this profound care of the sun that the children were provided with ampler opportunities of learning and flags of the Children's Union fluttered more vigorously over their camps under the clean and blue sky of the country even under the difficult situation where its people had to fasten their belts in manifold adversity. \n \n Children are the future of the country and a symbol of hope and victory. \n \n The above-said vituperation let loose by the group of traitors is nothing but a shriek made by the group, utterly discomfited by the bright future of the supreme headquarters of the DPRK and rosy future of the younger generation. \n \n From olden times, idiots are apt to see everything quite different from a reality. \n \n It is quite natural that the group of traitors branded as fools, idiots and blockheads can hardly see the present world correctly. \n \n If it is not true, how can the group describe the great inheritance of our nation as \"imitation\" and compare the children who would shoulder upon themselves the future of the nation with the juvenile organization of fascist Hitler? \n \n As for Hitler, he was the fascist fanatic who drove guiltless humankind into pitfalls of disasters and death, special class war criminal who destroyed his country and nation and die-hard tyrant who had no love for its children. \n \n The south Korean people had already branded the worst traitor Lee as a notorious \"Hitler Lee\" and burned the traitor in effigy in Nazi uniform, bearing the same moustache as Hitler's as he has been hell-bent on mercilessly suppressing the protestors at the point of bayonet and enforcing an unpopular rule. \n \n It is said that one's wrong tongue-lashing is as harmful as a sword cutting off one's head. \n \n Upon hearing the news that the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and slandered its loved children, the officers and men of the three services of the KPA are expressing towering resentment and pledging themselves as one to resolutely settle accounts by force of arms with those who violated the moral law of the nation and defamed the great man whom the people follow and the world look up to. \n \n Officers and men of the army corps, divisions and regiments on the front and strategic rocket forces in the depth of the country are loudly calling for the issue of order to mete out punishment, declaring that they have already targeted Chosun Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 56 minutes 83 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 65 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, Choongang Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 33 minutes 45 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 58 minutes 14 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, the Dong-A Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 57 minutes 10 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 81 seconds East Longitude in Jongro District, Seoul, KBS, CBS, MBC and SBS, the strongholds of the Lee group orchestrating the new vicious smear campaign. \n \n In view of this grave situation the KPA General Staff sends the following ultimatum to the Lee group of traitors: \n \n The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK are the army of the supreme commander and the people's army which is devotedly defending the supreme commander and protecting his idea and the people and children whom he values and loves so much. \n \n It is the iron will of the army of the DPRK that the dens of heinous provocateurs hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and desecrating its idea, system and people should not be allowed to exist as they are. \n \n We would like ask the Lee group if it wants leave all this to be struck by the DPRK or opt for apologizing and putting the situation under control, though belatedly. \n \n It should take a final choice by itself. \n \n Now it is impossible for the officers and men of the KPA three services to keep back their towering resentment any longer. In case dens of monstrous crimes are blown up one after another, the Lee group will be entirely held responsible for this. \n \n If the Lee group recklessly challenges our army's eruption of resentment, it will retaliate against it with a merciless sacred war of its own style as it has already declared. \n \n We are fully ready for everything. \n \n Time is running out. \n \n \n \n ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| North Korea issued one of its most direct threats yet on South Korean media outlets on Monday. \n \n [This post has been updated, see below] \n \n The threats, to stage \u201ca merciless sacred war\u201d and to blow up \u201cdens of monstrous crimes\u201d came after South Korean media coverage of the Korean Children\u2019s Union anniversary events that are currently taking place in Pyongyang. \n \n From May 29 the group set in motion Chosun Ilbo, Choongang Ilbo, \u201cA channel\u201d of Dong-A Ilbo, KBS, CBS, MBC, SBS and other media to launch a campaign defaming the above-said celebrations. It went the lengths of resorting to a new campaign of hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, availing itself of this opportunity. \u2014 KCNA, June 4, 2012. \n \n The newspapers were singled out and direct threats made against their editorial offices: \n \n Officers and men of the army corps, divisions and regiments on the front and strategic rocket forces in the depth of the country are loudly calling for the issue of order to mete out punishment, declaring that they have already targeted Chosun Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 56 minutes 83 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 65 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, Choongang Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 33 minutes 45 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 58 minutes 14 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, the Dong-A Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 57 minutes 10 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 81 seconds East Longitude in Jongro District, Seoul, KBS, CBS, MBC and SBS, the strongholds of the Lee group orchestrating the new vicious smear campaign. \u2014 KCNA, June 4, 2012. \n \n But take a closer look at those coordinates. \n \n Those given for the Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A-Ilbo are incorrectly stated because the maximum value for minutes and seconds measurements is 60. Sixty seconds make a minute and 60 minutes make one degree. \n \n The Chosun Ilbo is listed at 37\u00b056\u201983\u201d North and 126\u00b097\u201965\u201d East, so that should be written 37\u00b057\u201923\u201d North and 127\u00b038\u201905\u201d East. But plug that into some mapping software and you end up at a location in the mountains to the northwest of Chuncheon. \n \n It\u2019s a long way from downtown Seoul. \n \n Perhaps it\u2019s a typo, but the Chosun Ilbo\u2019s actual location, at 37\u00b034\u201906\u201d North and 126\u00b058\u201935\u201d East, is different enough from the location listed by KCNA to rule out an error on a digit or even two digits. \n \n It\u2019s unclear exactly what those coordinates represent and how they could be so wrong. \n \n Similarly, the Dong-A-Ilbo\u2019s location is well off course. \n \n The only one that\u2019s close \u2014 both written and located \u2014 is for the offices of JoongAng Ilbo, although KCNA has North Korea\u2019s military targeting a building across the street. \n \n UPDATE: Evan Ramstad at The Wall Street Journal notes \u201cA reporter at another Seoul-based Web site, Asia Business Daily, also suggested the numbers in excess of 60 could have been a percentage representation of the minutes and second figures.\u201d The unnamed reporter appears to be correct! \n \n The Chosun Ilbo\u2019s actual location is close to 37\u00b034\u201906\u201d North and 126\u00b058\u201935\u201d East, which can be written in decimal as 37.56833 East and 126.97638 North. Notice the difference between those decimal numbers and the quoted location of 37\u00b056\u201983\u201d North and 126\u00b097\u201965\u201d East. \n \n It appears decimal locations for the Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A-Ilbo were converted to degrees, minutes and seconds by simply inserting the appropriate marks in the number. It should of course be a mathematical step. \n \n So, that explains the error.", "summary": "\u2013 Pity North Korea: Even when, in typical grandiloquent style, it threatens the \"fools, idiots, and blockheads\" in the South Korean media with \"a merciless sacred war,\" it manages to muck that up, reports the Wall Street Journal. Apparently the North got really peeved at South Korean media's coverage of its Children's Day celebrations (the North's propaganda was compared to the Nazi youth). So the North threatened to blow up several South Korean newspapers and TV stations (not for the first time), offering longitude and latitude coordinates for its targets (for the first time). The problem? Pretty much all those coordinates were wrong. One newspaper was listed as \"37 degrees 56 minutes 83 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 65 seconds East Longitude\"\u2014of course, there are only 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, so those numbers made no sense (the same error appeared in the Korean and English versions of the story). Trying to figure out where those coordinates are, as the North Korea Tech blog did, would most likely put you in Gangwon Province, quite a distance east of the target in Seoul. In fact, only one set of coordinates was even close, and even that was a building across the street. To enjoy the full effect of North Korea's flowery rhetoric, check out its original \"open ultimatum\" at the KCNA website."}
{"document": "Teenagers stealing cars, it's an epidemic hitting the Bay area. \n \n \u201cWe need to send a message that we are going to find you, arrest you, jail you,\u201d says Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. \n \n The sheriff and community have had enough after the latest heist ended with three teenage girls dead. \n \n Now, the sheriff\u2019s office is taking extreme measures to combat young criminals and car thefts, because if something doesn't change, the sheriff believes more kids will die. \n \n Fifteen-year-old Laniya Miller, 15-year-old Ashaunti Butler and 16-year-old Dominique Battle died early Thursday morning when investigators say they crashed a stolen car into a pond in a cemetery off Gandy Boulevard and Interstate 275. \n \n It's the latest in what the sheriff says is an out-of-control crime trend. The sheriff\u2019s office says between July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015, teenagers were charged with 1,733 felonies, 20 percent for stealing cars. \n \n Ebony Jackson's stepsister, Ashaunti Butler, is one of the three girls who died when they crashed into a pond, couldn't escape, and deputies couldn't save them. \n \n Sign up for the daily Brightside Blend Newsletter Sign up for the daily Brightside Blend Newsletter Something went wrong. This email will be delivered to your inbox once a day in the morning. Thank you for signing up for the Brightside Blend Newsletter. Please try again later. \n \n Submit \n \n \u201cI was shocked when I heard it, real shocked, because I just saw her,\u201d says Jackson. \u201cI don't think it was a smart decision, whatever she did.\u201d \n \n \u201cThree young lives have been needlessly lost. Between these three teens they were arrested seven times just for grand theft auto,\u201d says Sheriff Gualtieri. \n \n Dominique M. Battle\u2019s Criminal History: \n \n Active Warrant for Violation of Probation- Burglary \n \n 10/30/14- Burglary to a Dwelling \n \n 11/10/14 Burglary to a Dwelling , Resist Officer without Violence, Trespassing \n \n 1/16/15- Vehicle Theft, Resist Officer without Violence \n \n 3/16/15- Vehicle Theft \n \n 7/9/15- Burglary to a Dwelling, Provide False Name to Law Enforcement \n \n 7/25/15- Violation of Probation \n \n 11/22/15- Vehicle Theft, Resist Officer without Violence \n \n 12/15/15- Possession of Marijuana, Burglary to a Dwelling \n \n 1/8/16- Vehicle Theft \n \n Ashaunti N. Butler\u2019s Criminal History: \n \n Active Warrant for Failure to Appear- Resisting Officer without Violence and 2 counts of Petit Theft \n \n Active Pick-up Order- Runaway \n \n 5/5/15 Resist Officer without Violence, Retail Theft \n \n 11/21/15- Vehicle Theft \n \n 12/9/15- Burglary to a Dwelling, Burglary to a Conveyance \n \n 1/18/16- Vehicle Theft, Possession of Marijuana, Burglary, Petit Theft \n \n 3/29/16- Violation of Probation- Trespassing \n \n Laniya D. Miller\u2019s Criminal History: \n \n 3/16/15- Vehicle Theft \n \n The sheriff says the long list of crimes these girls racked up in their young lives, yet aren't behind bars, exposes a deeper problem in the community. \n \n PHOTOS: Police search for car in pond Three dead after crash into pond (WTSP) Three dead after crash into pond (WTSP) Three dead after crash into pond (WTSP) Three dead after crash into pond (WTSP) SKY10 photo showing the car pulled from the pon (WTSP) Photos from SKY10 over the pond (WTSP) Photos from SKY10 over the pond (WTSP) Photos from SKY10 over the pond (WTSP) Photos from SKY10 over the pond (WTSP) Photos from SKY10 over the pond (WTSP) Photos from SKY10 over the pond (WTSP) \n \n \u201cThe system is handcuffed by the existing laws and what the judges can do to detain them. They turn around, they flip you the bird and take off, because they don't care. There's no respect. There's no fear of consequence,\u201d says Sheriff Gualtieri. \n \n \u201cStop slapping them on the wrist. They need to be punished,\u201d says Tameka Salter. 4 teenage boys stole Salter's car Saturday from the Post Card Inn on St. Pete Beach. \n \n \u201cI have a tracking device, and it said my car was moving and where is moving to. I tracked it down. They did an armed robbery in my car,\u201d says Salter. \n \n Salter had to get new tires after deputies used stop sticks to nab the young car thieves and robbers. \n \n \u201cThey caught all 4 suspects, and the youngest is 13. The parents can't handle them, the system needs to step up and handle them,\u201d says Salter. \n \n Local departments are now relaunching a grand theft auto task force. They started it last year with 2, 779 cars reported stolen, but suspended the team after they thought they got a handle on these heists. \n \n \u201cThis is a systemic and complicated problem, but unless we do something differently, we'll continue to see more lives lost,\u201d says Sheriff Gualtieri. \n \n Normally, with our 10News WTSP Crime Guidelines we don't identify juveniles. We made the decision to share the names of these girls since they passed away and to put a face to the issue. ||||| SILVER SPRINGS SHORES \u2014 A 15-year-old boy was killed Wednesday afternoon when he fell off the back of a Chevy Camaro being driven by another teenager. \n \n Gianni Fabian Garcia, of Silver Springs Shores, was sitting on the back of the car with another friend when the accident occurred, according to Florida Highway Patrol troopers at the scene. \n \n The two were seated on the trunk of the white 2011 Camaro with their backs to the rear window and their hands behind them, trooper said. Gianni fell off the moving car and struck his head against the pavement. \n \n The accident was reported at 3:58 p.m., according to sheriff's deputies. Gianni was taken to Ocala Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. \n \n The 2011 Camaro, driven by Herman Joel Nazario, 17, also of Silver Springs Shores, was traveling on Pecan Road. The accident occurred at Pecan Road and Pecan Close Circle. \n \n Angel Luis Garcia Cruz, 18, had been sitting on the back of the car with Gianni when he fell, according to FHP. All three youths were friends and attended Forest High School. \n \n Troopers said the car belongs to Nazario's father. \n \n It is too early to say if speed was factor in accident, troopers said. Their investigation is ongoing. \n \n The incident is similar to what happened to David Cross on Aug. 25, 2012. In that case, after climbing onto the roof of a moving 1997 Honda Accord, Cross fell off and hit his head on the roadway just past Northeast 41st Avenue in Ocala. Cross was flown to UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, where he died. Ocala Police Department officials determined the car was traveling at approximately 35 mph on the two-lane roadway. Cross, 19, had a blood alcohol content of .10. The state's legal limit for a driver is .08. \n \n At the Shores location Wednesday, the surviving boys openly wept as others who were with them, hugged and consoled them. \n \n The driver voluntarily gave blood, and it will be tested at a lab to determine if he had any drugs or alcohol in his body at the time of the incident. \n \n Jara Lopez, whose home is mere yards from the crash site, told a Star-Banner reporter that she was inside when the crash occurred. She said that, when she went outside, she saw one of the boy's arms was covered in blood. She said he was trying to help his friend, and both teens appear devastated. \n \n Lopez said when paramedics arrived, they did chest compressions and they quickly put the victim in the ambulance and drove away. \n \n Troopers said the boys were on their way to a friend's residence when the incident occurred. \n \n Contact Austin L. Miller at austin.miller@ocala.com, 352-867-4118 or @almillerosb. ||||| PINELLAS COUNTY, FL (WFLA) \u2013 Three high school girls are dead after a vehicle they may have stolen sunk in a pond. \n \n Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said all three had criminal histories which included grand theft auto. \n \n \n \n Eagle 8 HD captured the tragic scene early Thursday morning. \n \n The teens are identified as 16-year-old Dominique Battle, 15-year-old Ashaunti Butler, and 15-year-old Laniya Miller. The owner of the car was giving the girls a ride. When he got out to briefly go into Walmart, they took off. \n \n The Honda was reported stolen in St. Pete around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what the girls did or where they were between about 8:30 last night, when they stole the car and when our Sergeant saw them on Sunset Point Road about 3:30 this morning. All three have criminal history for grand theft auto,\u201d said Sheriff Gualtieri. \n \n Deputies spotted the car running a red light off U.S. 19 onto Gandy Blvd. They followed it to the cemetery, where the girls crashed the vehicle. Authorities jumped in to help, but couldn\u2019t find them in the murky water. It was two hours before a tow truck pulled the vehicle out. \n \n \u201cWith the water and the thickness and with the windows being closed, unfortunately it just became a death chamber. They just drowned and they couldn\u2019t get out,\u201d said the Sheriff. \n \n With car thefts on the rise, the sheriff hopes other troubled teens take heed to this tragic story. \n \n \u201cThey need to know that there are consequences for their actions. They need to know that you can\u2019t get arrested four and five times in a year in auto theft and get away with it,\u201d said Sheriff Gualtieri. \u201cThis is a systemic and complicated problem and unless we do something differently, we\u2019ll continue to see more lives lost.\u201d \n \n Neighbor says this could\u2019ve been prevented \n \n Deloyse Hubbard lives next door to one of the victims. She believes the entire tragedy could have been prevented. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s really sad, though,\u201d Hubbard said. \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t have been in a stolen car.\u201d \n \n She believes parents should talk with their kids and tell them that a life of crime isn\u2019t worth it. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t know where you at if you\u2019re in a stolen car,\u201d Hubbard said. \u201cNobody know where you at until the police call and let you know what happened.\u201d \n \n She has two kids and seven grandchildren of her own. They\u2019ve stayed on the right side of the law, except for a few times, Hubbard says, when they missed curfew. \n \n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like that when we was coming up,\u201d she remembers. \u201cWe would have gotten the beatin\u2019 of our lives if we had done something like that.\u201d \n \n OTHER TOP CLICKED STORIES: ||||| The Florida Highway Patrol says a 15-year-old north Florida boy is dead after falling off the back of a moving car being driven by one of his friends. \n \n Troopers say Gianni Fabian Garcia was sitting on the back of a Chevy Camaro with another friend Wednesday afternoon. The teens were sitting with their backs to the rear window as the vehicle was moving. \n \n The Ocala Star-Banner (http://bit.ly/234h3k7 ) reports Garcia fell off the car and hit his head on the pavement. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. \n \n Troopers are investigating and say it's too early to say whether speed was a factor. \n \n The driver is 17 and the other teen on the back of the car is 18. Officials say the teens attended school together. \n \n ___ \n \n Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/ ||||| ST. PETERSBURG \u2014 Three teenage girls asked a stranger for a ride to Childs Park. \n \n But before they were dropped off, the driver stopped at a Walmart at 22nd Street S. He stepped out, leaving the gold Honda Accord running. \n \n Moments later, the girls and the car were gone. \n \n \"Who tryna get seen & wheels?\" posted Dominique Battle, 16, on Facebook at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday. \n \n Seven hours later, the Honda rolled into a pond inside a cemetery off Gandy Boulevard. The car sank within five minutes. \n \n No one got out. \n \n \"Three young lives have been needlessly lost,\" Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Thursday. \n \n \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \n \n Pinellas deputies don't know where Laniya D. Miller, 15, Ashaunti Butler, 15, and Dominique Battle, 16, went after they left the Walmart about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Nor do they know which girl drove the car out of the parking lot. \n \n A sheriff's sergeant first spotted the Honda with the dark tinted windows about 3:30 a.m. Thursday as it headed east on Sunset Point Road west of U.S. 19. Its headlights were off. \n \n The sergeant turned on his vehicle's emergency lights, but the Honda continued east on Sunset Point Road and then turned south onto U.S 19. It ran a red light. \n \n The Honda, driving at the legal speed limit, continued five more miles to Ulmerton Road. There, another Pinellas sergeant ran the tag number and confirmed it was stolen out of St. Petersburg, Gualtieri said at a news conference Thursday where he described the chain of events. \n \n The deputy followed the car from a distance. Under Pinellas County Sheriff's Office policy, deputies cannot pursue stolen cars. \n \n At U.S. 19 and Gandy Boulevard, the Honda stopped again. But when the driver saw another sheriff's cruiser at the same intersection, the Honda ran a red light and headed toward Royal Palm North Cemetery at 2600 Gandy Blvd. \n \n At speeds between 30 to 35 mph, the Honda navigated the narrow roads of the cemetery. It was dark, with the glowing lights of Interstate 275 in the distance. Deputies, with their emergency lights off, slowly followed behind. \n \n At a sharp bend in the road about 4 a.m., the car stayed on a straight course, then slipped into a pond. \n \n It drifted about 20 yards into the muddy waters. Deputies shed their gun belts and equipment and waded in to save whoever was inside. But the mud was so thick, Gualtieri said, it stopped them from venturing farther into the pond. \n \n Within five minutes, the Honda submerged in about 15 feet of water. \n \n \"That car became a death chamber,\" the sheriff said. \"That was a very horrific event for those girls sitting in that car.\" \n \n \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \n \n About 6 a.m. Thursday, a wrecker pulled the car out. It was covered in underwater weeds. The doors were closed and the windows were shut. \n \n Inside, deputies found Battle in the front seat. Miller and Butler were in the back. Because the windows were tinted and the girls may have moved inside as they tried to break free, deputies don't know for sure who was driving when the car entered the pond. \n \n Investigators believe the girls may have thought they could get to I-275 through the cemetery. \n \n Damien Marriott, 36, the owner of the Honda, declined to comment. He told deputies he didn't know the girls. A friend of his had asked him to give them a ride to Childs Park. He said he stopped at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at 1794 22nd St. S to buy a TV when the teens, who stayed behind, stole his car. \n \n As news of the deaths unfolded, friends of the girls mourned them on social media. \n \n \"Wish you would of slowed down when the judge told you to,\" read one post about Butler. \n \n \"Y'all Too Young To Leave,\" read another. \n \n Police records paint a troubling picture of all three girls. \n \n Dominique Battle, a St. Petersburg High School student, had multiple arrests for burglary and grand theft motor vehicle. \n \n Ashaunti Butler, who went to Dixie Hollins High School, was wanted on an arrest warrant and was also the subject of a pick-up order for being a runaway. \n \n Laniya Miller attended Gibbs High School. She was arrested for grand theft motor vehicle last March. It was her only arrest. The dispositions of the girls' arrests were not available Thursday. \n \n Battle's father, Allen Battle, is serving a 30-year prison sentence for drug trafficking. \n \n Butler had just entered the foster care system Wednesday, the sheriff said. \n \n The girls' families could not be reached for comment Thursday. \n \n \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \n \n Gualtieri stood before the TV cameras on Thursday afternoon with photos of the girls on one side of him and photos of the wrecked Honda on the other. \n \n For the past year, he said, authorities have been grappling with an \"epidemic\" of juveniles stealing cars and joyriding across Tampa Bay. In Pinellas County alone last year, 2,779 cars were stolen. \n \n \"Solutions need to come deep from within the community,\" the sheriff said. \"Kids need to know there are consequences. This is a systematic and complex problem. \n \n \"Three dead teenagers is unacceptable.\" \n \n Times senior news researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Contact Laura C. Morel at lmorel@tampabay.com. Follow @lauracmorel.", "summary": "\u2013 Three teen girls allegedly stole a car in Florida Wednesday night\u2014a joyride that ended tragically when the car plunged into a Pinellas County pond, killing all three, WFLA reports. The owner of the Honda had given the girls a ride and stopped at a Walmart, which is when cops say the teens, all of whom have been in trouble for grand theft auto before, took off. Early the next morning, sheriff's deputies saw the car run a red light and tailed it from a distance (county deputies aren't permitted to pursue stolen cars, per the Tampa Bay Times), but the car drove to a cemetery and into the pond. The car was towed out of the water about two hours later. \"We don't know what the girls did or where they were between about 8:30 \u2026 when they stole the car and when our sergeant saw them \u2026 about 3:30,\" says Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, per WFLA. The only clue: A Facebook post that said, \"Who tryna get seen & wheels?\" made by one of the teens at 8:48pm. \"With the water and the thickness and with the windows being closed, unfortunately it just became a death chamber,\" Gualtieri tells WFLA. The teens were IDed as Dominique Battle, 16, and Ashaunti Butler and Laniya Miller, both 15. WTSP notes a car-theft \"epidemic\" has hit the area. Also in Florida, per the AP: A 15-year-old boy from Silver Springs Shores died Wednesday after he fell off the back of a Chevy Camaro driven by a 17-year-old friend. The death of Gianni Fabian Garcia, who hit his head on the pavement when he fell, is being investigated, the Ocala Star-Banner reports."}
{"document": "\"Nothing is written.\" That was T.E. Lawrence to the Arab tribesmen in Robert Bolt's screenplay, a masterpiece, of \"Lawrence of Arabia.\" You write no one off. Nothing is inevitable. Life is news\u2014\"What happened today?\" And news is surprise\u2014\"You're kidding!\" \n \n But you have to look at the landscape and see the shape of the land. You have to see it clearly to move on it well. \n \n So here's one tough, cool-eyed report on what is happening in the presidential race. It's from veteran Republican pollster, now corporate strategist, Steve Lombardo of Edelman public relations in Washington. Mr. Lombardo worked in the 2008 Romney campaign. He's not affiliated with any candidate. This is what he wrote Thursday morning, and what he sees is pretty much what I see. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Associated Press James Baker III, right, and President Reagan \n \n \"The pendulum has swung toward Obama.\" Mitt Romney has \"a damaged political persona.\" He is running behind in key states like Ohio and Virginia and, to a lesser extent, Florida. The president is reversing the decline that began with his \"You didn't build that\" comment. For three weeks he's been on a roll. The wind's at his back. \n \n How did we get here? What can turn it around? \n \n 1. Mr. Romney came out of the primaries \"a damaged and flawed candidate.\" Voters began to see him as elitist, rich, out of touch. \"Here the Democrats' early advertising was crucial.\" Newt Gingrich hurt too, with his attacks on Bain. \n \n 2. The Democrats defined Mr. Romney \"before he had a chance to define himself.\" His campaign failed in \"not doing a substantial positive media buy to explain who Mitt Romney is and what kind of president he might be.\" \n \n 3. \"Perceptions of the economy are improving.\" Unemployment is high, but the stock market has improved, bringing 401(k)s with it. \n \n 4. Obama's approval ratings are up five to six points since last year. He is now at roughly 49% approval, comparable to where President Bush was in 2004. \n \n 5. \"The president had a strong convention and Romney a weak one.\" The RNC failed \"to relaunch a rebranded Romney and create momentum.\" \n \n 6. Team Romney has been \"reactive,\" partly because of the need for damage control, but it also failed to force the Obama campaign to react to its proposals and initiatives. \n \n 7. The \"47%\" comment didn't help, but Mr. Romney's Libya statement was a critical moment. Team Romney did not know \"the most basic political tenet of a foreign crisis: when there is an international incident in which America is attacked, voters in this country will (at least in the short term) rally around the flag and the President. Always. It is stunning that Team Romney failed to recognize this.\" \n \n But, says Mr. Lombardo, nothing is over, much remains fluid. The president and his campaign know it. \"Among likely voters nationally only two-three points separate the two candidates.\" The debates are critical. \"If Romney clearly wins the first debate\" Oct. 3, \"he has a good chance of reversing the trajectory of the last three weeks.\" \n \n Why? \"Because support for Obama remains lukewarm.\" That's why \"he is not running away with this thing even after Romney's myriad stumbles.\" \n \n Finally, \"the economy is still weak and the jobs report on October 5th will be pivotal. A strong one may ensure an Obama victory. On the other hand, a poor one on the heels of a Romney debate win could re-align this race.\" \n \n *** \n \n It is true that a good debate, especially a good first one, can invigorate a candidate and lead to increased confidence, which can prompt good decisions and sensible statements. There is more than a month between the first debate and the voting: That's enough time for a healthy spiral to begin. \n \n But: The Romney campaign has to get turned around. This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant \"rolling calamity.\" \n \n A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: \"Glad you said this,\" \"Mad you said this.\" But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued \"you're missing some of its quiet excellence.\" Instead there was broad agreement with the gist of the critique\u2014from some in the midlevel of the campaign itself, from outside backers and from various party activists and officials. There was a perhaps pessimistic assumption that no one in Boston would be open to advice. A veteran of a previous Romney campaign who supports the governor and admires him\u2014\"This is a good man\"\u2014said the candidate's problem isn't overconfidence, it's a tin ear. That's hard to change, the veteran said, because tin-earness keeps you from detecting and remedying tin-earness. \n \n Peggy Noonan's Blog Daily declarations from the Wall Street Journal columnist. \n \n There were wistful notes from the Republicans who'd helped run previous campaigns, most of whom could be characterized as serious, moderate conservatives, all of whom want to see Mr. Romney win because they believe, honestly, that the president has harmed the country financially and in terms of its position in the world. They're certain it will only get worse in the next four years, but they're in despair at the Romney campaign. Some, unbidden, brought up the name James A. Baker III, who ran Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1984 (megalandslide\u2014those were the days) and George H.W. Bush's in 1988 (landslide.) \n \n What they talked about, without using this phrase, is the Baker Way. \n \n This was a man who could run a campaign. Twice in my life I've seen men so respected within their organizations that people couldn't call them by their first names. That would be Mr. Paley, the buccaneer and visionary who invented CBS, and Mr. Baker, who ran things that are by nature chaotic and messy\u2014campaigns and White Houses\u2014with wisdom, focus, efficiency, determination and discipline. And he did it while being attacked every day from left, right and center\u2014and that was in the Reagan White House, never mind outside, which was a constant war zone. \n \n Mr. Baker's central insight: The candidate can't run the show. He can't be the CEO of the campaign and be the candidate. The candidate is out there every day standing for things, fighting for a hearing, trying to get the American people to listen, agree and follow. That's where his energies go. On top of that, if he's serious, he has to put in place a guiding philosophy that somehow everyone on the plane picks up and internalizes. The candidate cannot oversee strategy, statements, speechwriting, ads. He shouldn't be debating what statistic to put on slide four of the Powerpoint presentation. He has to learn to trust others\u2014many others. \n \n Mr. Baker broke up power centers while at the same time establishing clear lines of authority\u2014and responsibility. When you screwed up, he let you know in one quick hurry. But most of all he had judgment. He delegated, and only the gifted were welcome: Bob Teeter, Dick Darman, Roger Ailes, Marlin Fitzwater. He didn't like hacks, he didn't get their point, and he knew one when he saw one. \n \n A campaign is a communal exercise. It isn't about individual entrepreneurs. It's people pitching in together, aiming their high talents at one single objective: victory. \n \n Mitt Romney needs to get his head screwed on right in this area. Maybe advice could come from someone in politics who awes him. If that isn't Jim Baker then Mitt Romney's not awe-able, which is a different kind of problem. ||||| \"Nothing is written.\" That was T.E. Lawrence to the Arab tribesmen in Robert Bolt's screenplay, a masterpiece, of \"Lawrence of Arabia.\" You write no one off. Nothing is inevitable. Life is news\u2014\"What happened today?\" And news is surprise\u2014\"You're kidding!\" \n \n But you have to look at the landscape and see the shape of the land. You have to see it clearly to move on it well. \n \n So here's one tough, cool-eyed report on what is happening in the presidential race. It's from veteran Republican pollster, now corporate strategist, Steve Lombardo of Edelman public relations in Washington. Mr. Lombardo worked in the 2008 Romney campaign. He's not affiliated with any candidate. This is what he wrote Thursday morning, and what he sees is pretty much what I see. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Associated Press James Baker III, right, and President Reagan \n \n \"The pendulum has swung toward Obama.\" Mitt Romney has \"a damaged political persona.\" He is running behind in key states like Ohio and Virginia and, to a lesser extent, Florida. The president is reversing the decline that began with his \"You didn't build that\" comment. For three weeks he's been on a roll. The wind's at his back. \n \n How did we get here? What can turn it around? \n \n 1. Mr. Romney came out of the primaries \"a damaged and flawed candidate.\" Voters began to see him as elitist, rich, out of touch. \"Here the Democrats' early advertising was crucial.\" Newt Gingrich hurt too, with his attacks on Bain. \n \n 2. The Democrats defined Mr. Romney \"before he had a chance to define himself.\" His campaign failed in \"not doing a substantial positive media buy to explain who Mitt Romney is and what kind of president he might be.\" \n \n 3. \"Perceptions of the economy are improving.\" Unemployment is high, but the stock market has improved, bringing 401(k)s with it. \n \n 4. Obama's approval ratings are up five to six points since last year. He is now at roughly 49% approval, comparable to where President Bush was in 2004. \n \n 5. \"The president had a strong convention and Romney a weak one.\" The RNC failed \"to relaunch a rebranded Romney and create momentum.\" \n \n 6. Team Romney has been \"reactive,\" partly because of the need for damage control, but it also failed to force the Obama campaign to react to its proposals and initiatives. \n \n 7. The \"47%\" comment didn't help, but Mr. Romney's Libya statement was a critical moment. Team Romney did not know \"the most basic political tenet of a foreign crisis: when there is an international incident in which America is attacked, voters in this country will (at least in the short term) rally around the flag and the President. Always. It is stunning that Team Romney failed to recognize this.\" \n \n But, says Mr. Lombardo, nothing is over, much remains fluid. The president and his campaign know it. \"Among likely voters nationally only two-three points separate the two candidates.\" The debates are critical. \"If Romney clearly wins the first debate\" Oct. 3, \"he has a good chance of reversing the trajectory of the last three weeks.\" \n \n Why? \"Because support for Obama remains lukewarm.\" That's why \"he is not running away with this thing even after Romney's myriad stumbles.\" \n \n Finally, \"the economy is still weak and the jobs report on October 5th will be pivotal. A strong one may ensure an Obama victory. On the other hand, a poor one on the heels of a Romney debate win could re-align this race.\" \n \n *** \n \n It is true that a good debate, especially a good first one, can invigorate a candidate and lead to increased confidence, which can prompt good decisions and sensible statements. There is more than a month between the first debate and the voting: That's enough time for a healthy spiral to begin. \n \n But: The Romney campaign has to get turned around. This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant \"rolling calamity.\" \n \n A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: \"Glad you said this,\" \"Mad you said this.\" But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued \"you're missing some of its quiet excellence.\" Instead there was broad agreement with the gist of the critique\u2014from some in the midlevel of the campaign itself, from outside backers and from various party activists and officials. There was a perhaps pessimistic assumption that no one in Boston would be open to advice. A veteran of a previous Romney campaign who supports the governor and admires him\u2014\"This is a good man\"\u2014said the candidate's problem isn't overconfidence, it's a tin ear. That's hard to change, the veteran said, because tin-earness keeps you from detecting and remedying tin-earness. \n \n Peggy Noonan's Blog Daily declarations from the Wall Street Journal columnist. \n \n There were wistful notes from the Republicans who'd helped run previous campaigns, most of whom could be characterized as serious, moderate conservatives, all of whom want to see Mr. Romney win because they believe, honestly, that the president has harmed the country financially and in terms of its position in the world. They're certain it will only get worse in the next four years, but they're in despair at the Romney campaign. Some, unbidden, brought up the name James A. Baker III, who ran Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1984 (megalandslide\u2014those were the days) and George H.W. Bush's in 1988 (landslide.) \n \n What they talked about, without using this phrase, is the Baker Way. \n \n This was a man who could run a campaign. Twice in my life I've seen men so respected within their organizations that people couldn't call them by their first names. That would be Mr. Paley, the buccaneer and visionary who invented CBS, and Mr. Baker, who ran things that are by nature chaotic and messy\u2014campaigns and White Houses\u2014with wisdom, focus, efficiency, determination and discipline. And he did it while being attacked every day from left, right and center\u2014and that was in the Reagan White House, never mind outside, which was a constant war zone. \n \n Mr. Baker's central insight: The candidate can't run the show. He can't be the CEO of the campaign and be the candidate. The candidate is out there every day standing for things, fighting for a hearing, trying to get the American people to listen, agree and follow. That's where his energies go. On top of that, if he's serious, he has to put in place a guiding philosophy that somehow everyone on the plane picks up and internalizes. The candidate cannot oversee strategy, statements, speechwriting, ads. He shouldn't be debating what statistic to put on slide four of the Powerpoint presentation. He has to learn to trust others\u2014many others. \n \n Mr. Baker broke up power centers while at the same time establishing clear lines of authority\u2014and responsibility. When you screwed up, he let you know in one quick hurry. But most of all he had judgment. He delegated, and only the gifted were welcome: Bob Teeter, Dick Darman, Roger Ailes, Marlin Fitzwater. He didn't like hacks, he didn't get their point, and he knew one when he saw one. \n \n A campaign is a communal exercise. It isn't about individual entrepreneurs. It's people pitching in together, aiming their high talents at one single objective: victory. \n \n Mitt Romney needs to get his head screwed on right in this area. Maybe advice could come from someone in politics who awes him. If that isn't Jim Baker then Mitt Romney's not awe-able, which is a different kind of problem.", "summary": "\u2013 Peggy Noonan raised some eyebrows earlier this week when she called Romney's campaign incompetent. \"I was being polite,\" she writes in today's Wall Street Journal. \"I really meant 'rolling calamity.'\" Noonan says almost everyone agreed with her dire outlook, including some midlevel campaign insiders. Some said Boston wouldn't listen to advice. One Romney 2008 veteran said he was a good man with a \"tin ear.\" \"No one that I know of defended the campaign, or argued, 'you're missing some of its quiet excellence.'\" What Romney needs, Noonan declares, is a \"new CEO.\" Someone like Reagan campaign manager James Baker III, whose guiding philosophy was that the candidate \"can't run the show.\" His energy should be devoted to campaigning. \"He shouldn't be debating what statistic to put on slide four of the Powerpoint presentation. He has to learn to trust others\u2014many others. \u2026 Mitt Romney needs to get his head screwed on right in this area.\" Maybe some advice from Baker himself would do the trick. Read Noonan's full column here."}
{"document": "Hal Douglas, whose gravelly tones graced famous trailers for films such as Forrest Gump, Philadelphia and Lethal Weapon, has died. He was 89. \n \n Douglas's daughter Sarah told the New York Times her father passed away following complications from pancreatic cancer. He was known as one of a top trio of trailer voiceover artists - the late Don LaFontaine and Don Morrow, voice of the Titanic trailer were the others - who came close to monopolising the industry for decades with catchphrases such as \"In a world \u2026 \". \n \n \"The fact is, my voice has been out there,\" Douglas told the Times in 2009. \"And it hangs out there. You sit down in the theatre and sometimes in three out of four trailers I'd be on them.\" \n \n While Douglas was well known for the \"in a world\" phrase, there was some disagreement over whether he originated it, with LaFontaine claiming to have used it first. Unlike his late contemporary, who hired his own driver to take him from Hollywood studio to Hollywood studio at the height of his career in order to avoid wasting time on parking, Douglas worked mainly in New York studios. \n \n Reading on mobile? Click here to view Comedian trailer \n \n The voiceover artist's only known on-screen role came in the trailer for a 2002 documentary from Jerry Seinfeld, titled Comedian. While the film itself did not perform particularly well, Douglas's segment was viewed more than 700,000 times on YouTube. If features him repeatedly attempting to launch into the trailer with phrases such as \"In a world \u2026 \", \"In a land \u2026\" and \"In a land before time\u2026 \" while being unceremoniously interrupted (and eventually fired) by a producer determined to avoid such cliched phrases. \n \n Born Harold Cone in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1924, Douglas flew as a US navy pilot in the second world war for three years before enrolling at the University of Miami via the GI bill to study acting. He began doing voiceover work to supplement his income from acting in New York during the late 1940s, and soon became much sought-after. \n \n Douglas's story is told in the 2013 short film A Great Voice, in which he decried suggestions that his deep baritone was anything special. \"I never thought of it as a great voice,\" he said, suggesting it was in fact \"throaty, chesty, a voice in need of clearing\". \n \n Douglas died on 7 March at his home in Lovettsville, north Virginia. He leaves behind his wife Ruth, a daughter and two sons from a previous marriage, Jeremy and Jon. \n \n \u2022 Hal Douglas - six of the best trailers from the voiceover king ||||| Photo \n \n Hal Douglas, a voice-over artist who narrated thousands of movie trailers in a gravelly baritone heard by \u201caudiences everywhere,\u201d as he might have put it, \u201cthrilled by images never before seen ... until now!,\u201d died on Friday at his home in Lovettsville, Va. He was 89. \n \n The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, his daughter, Sarah Douglas, said. \n \n Mr. Douglas was known for a generation in the voice-over industry as one of the top two or three go-to talents, along with Don LaFontaine, the most prolific, who died in 2008, and Don Morrow, the voice of the \u201cTitanic\u201d trailer. \n \n His dramatic range, from Olympian-thunderous to comic-goofy, suited him for trailers for movies as diverse as \u201cPhiladelphia,\u201d \u201cForrest Gump,\u201d \u201cConeheads,\u201d \u201cMeet the Parents\u201d and \u201cLethal Weapon.\u201d (\u201cUnder 17 not admitted without a parent.\u201d) \n \n The flexibility of his voice, and the longevity of his career \u2014 he worked steadily until two years ago \u2014 made him a \u201cone name\u201d phenomenon in Hollywood, said Marice Tobias, a consultant and voice coach to many A-list actors. \u201cWhen you go past superstar status, you reach icon status in this business, where people know you by one name only,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was Hal.\u201d \n \n Mr. Douglas, who never lived in Hollywood, preferring to work from studios in New York, took a more relaxed view of his work. \u201cI\u2019m not outstanding in any way,\u201d he told The New York Times in 2009. \u201cIt\u2019s a craft that you learn, like making a good pair of shoes. And I just consider myself a good shoemaker.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n With his insider\u2019s cachet and ironic sensibility, he was cast in one of his few on-camera roles \u2014 as a voice-over artist \u2014 in the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld\u2019s 2002 documentary, \u201cComedian.\u201d \n \n Mr. Douglas played an announcer, named Jack, who speaks only in trailer clich\u00e9s. Settling into a recording booth to do the usual spiel, he begins, \u201cIn a world where laughter was king\u201d \u2014 only to be cut off by a director on the other side of the glass. \n \n \u201cUh, no \u2018in a world,\u2019 Jack.\u201d \n \n \u201cWhat do you mean, No \u2018in a world\u2019?\u201d \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s not that kind of movie.\u201d \n \n \u201cOh? O.K. In a land that ... \u201d \n \n \u201cNo \u2018in a land,\u2019 either.\u201d \n \n \u201cIn a time ... \u201d \n \n \u201cNah, I don\u2019t think so.\u201d \n \n \u201cIn a land before time.\u201d \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s about a comedian, Jack.\u201d \n \n \u201cOne man!\u201d \n \n \u201cNo ... \u201d \n \n The movie was not particularly successful, but the trailer \u2014 uploaded to YouTube \u2014 has been viewed more than 700,000 times. \n \n Mr. Douglas was born Harold Cone in Stamford, Conn., on Sept. 1, 1924, to Samuel and Miriam Levenson Cone. After his mother died when he was 9, Hal (as he was always known) and a brother, Edwin, were raised mainly by their grandparents, Sarah and Tevya Levenson. His father, whose original name was Cohen and who worked in the Cohen family haberdashery in Stamford, remarried. \n \n Hal Cone trained as a pilot and spent three years in the Navy during World War II. He wrote fiction in his free time, and after the war he enrolled on the G.I. Bill at the University of Miami, where he studied acting. \n \n After moving to New York, he changed his last name to Douglas and began supplementing his meager income from acting jobs with voice-over and announcer work on radio and television, becoming much sought after for commercials and lead-ins for TV shows. He continued working in television throughout his life, while also doing film trailers and occasional documentaries. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Besides his daughter, Mr. Douglas is survived by his wife of 43 years, Ruth Francis Douglas, and two sons from a previous marriage, Jeremy and Jon. \n \n \u201cI never thought of it as a great voice,\u201d he said of himself in \u201cA Great Voice,\u201d a short 2013 film about his career directed by Casimir Nozkowski. It was, he said, \u201cthroaty, chesty, a voice in need of clearing.\u201d \n \n But he found, he said, that it was \u201cO.K. for a lot of things\u201d professionally, if he didn\u2019t clear it.", "summary": "\u2013 You know the voice even if the name isn't familiar. Voice-over artist Hal Douglas, who added drama to countless movie trailers and TV promos, is dead at age 89 of pancreatic cancer, reports the Guardian. The New York Times notes that Douglas was one of three legends in the industry, including Don Morrow (Titanic trailer) and the late Don LaFontaine. Douglas achieved some in-front-of-the-camera fame of his own in a 2002 trailer for Comedian, in which he spoofs his own propensity to use phrases like \"In a world where ...\""}
{"document": "Personal Quote: \n \n To have that concentration to act well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that's a thing people don't understand. It is that exhausting. If you're doing it well, if you're concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotional and imagination and emotional life are all in tune, concentrated and working together in that role, that is just like ... ||||| PARK CITY, Utah (AP) \u2014 Philip Seymour Hoffman's new movie is a psychological thriller about terrorism, but he says it also has something to do with hitting a midlife crisis \u2014 and that's what really drew him to the role. \n \n FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014 file photo, cast member Philip Seymour Hoffman poses at the premiere of the film \"A Most Wanted Man\" during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah. Hoffman's... (Associated Press) \n \n This photo provided by the Sundance Institute shows Philip Seymour Hoffman, right, and Rachel McAdams, front, in a scene from the film, \"A Most Wanted Man,\" which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.... (Associated Press) \n \n \"The story really moved me,\" said Hoffman. \n \n \"A Most Wanted Man,\" based on John Le Carre's 2008 book, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last weekend, with Hoffman playing a German operative heading up an anti-terrorism team in Hamburg, Germany. \n \n Hoffman recalls reading it a long time ago and being draw to \"everything about it.\" \n \n \"There is something about that story that spoke to me about where I am now in my life, though it's not something I could really put into words,\" he said. \"I read it and saw myself in it somehow. It's about being in the middle of your life. It's as much a story about that, than all of the other things. It's about a man really confronted with what he's passionate about pursuing and what that's done to him.\" \n \n The Anton Corbijn-directed film focuses on a Chechen-Russian immigrant, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), who's on the run in post-9/11 Hamburg, Germany. Hoffman, as spy Gunther Bachmann, develops Islamic sources. He believes Issa could guide him to more powerful culprits. \n \n Taking a benevolent approach when examining the counterterrorist profession and those thought to be suspects, the film also stars Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright and Willem Dafoe. \n \n \"The story is such a tangled web and is very relevant,\" said McAdams, also at Sundance to promote the film. \"I learned a lot about what human rights lawyers are doing in Hamburg and what a difficult position they are in. There are realities to the story that are very disturbing. Every character is dealing with moral questions. That stays with you.\" \n \n After appearing in over 50 movies, 46-year-old Hoffman says working on \"A Most Wanted Man\" was one of the most satisfying movie-making experiences he's had. \n \n \"Far more than most films I've done,\" he says. \"These espionage-ish stories tend to get lost and I wanted people to be surprised emotionally. Everyone was on board with making this story believable, meaningful and human.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Follow AP Film Writer Jessica Herndon at https://twitter.com/SomeKind . ||||| In 2006, he told \"60 Minutes\" that he went to rehab and got sober when he was 22. Hoffman said he began using drugs after graduating from New York University's drama school in 1989. \"It was all that (drugs and alcohol), yeah, it was anything I could get my hands on ... I liked it all,\" he said then. ||||| NEW YORK\u2014Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead of an apparent drug overdose late Sunday morning in his Manhattan apartment, authorities said. \n \n Law-enforcement officials said a hypodermic needle and two glassine envelopes containing what is believed to be heroin were found in the apartment on Bethune Street in the West Village. \n \n The 46-year-old actor was found unconscious in the bathroom of his fourth-floor... ||||| Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead of an apparent heroin overdose \u2014 with a hypodermic needle still stuck in his arm and 70 baggies of the drug inside his Greenwich Village pad Sunday, authorities said. He was 46. \n \n The acclaimed screen and stage star was discovered in his underwear on the bathroom floor of his $9,800-a-month rental after missing a morning appointment to pick up his three young kids from their mother, his estranged girlfriend, Mimi O\u2019Donnell, law-enforcement sources said. \n \n He was declared dead at the scene, a needle in his left forearm. A source said it was clear that the \u201cCapote\u2019\u2019 star had been dead \u201cfor hours.\u201d \n \n Hoffman \u2014 a versatile and prolific actor famed for his vivid portrayals of troubled souls \u2014 had repeatedly struggled with substance abuse. He spent 10 days in rehab last year for abusing prescription pills and heroin after 23 years of sobriety. \n \n Cops found five empty glassine envelopes in a garbage can, two more under the bed and one on a table in the apartment, along with a charred spoon in the kitchen sink, sources said. \n \n \u201cHe was shooting up in the bathroom,\u201d a law-enforcement source said. \n \n The drug envelopes were marked \u201cAce of Spades,\u201d which sources said is a brand of heroin that has not been seen on city streets since around 2008 in Brooklyn. \n \n Police later executed a search warrant and found 70 glassine envelopes of heroin inside a desk. In addition to the \u201cAce of Spades,\u201d investigators also found packages marked \u201cAce of Hearts\u201d and one with a playing-card jack stamped on it. \n \n Hoffman\u2019s body was found at about 11:15 a.m. by a screenwriter pal, David Bar Katz, and Isabella \u201cBella\u201d Wing-Davey, Hoffman\u2019s personal assistant, who performed CPR. They called 911 at 11:36 a.m. Hoffman was pronounced dead at 11:45 a.m. \n \n Reached by phone, Katz confirmed, \u201cYes, I was the one who found him . . . But, honestly, right now isn\u2019t the time to talk about this . . . I apologize.\u201d \n \n Wing-Davey let Katz into the apartment after getting a call from O\u2019Donnell, with whom Hoffman had lived until moving out three months ago, a law enforcement source said. \n \n \u201cThey were apparently estranged. They were living separate lives. He was living over here, she was living over there. You do the math,\u2019\u2019 the source said. \n \n Wing-Davey, according to her LinedIn page, has written and produced a number of short indy flicks, including \u201cCandlesticks,\u201d whose credits list Hoffman as an associate producer. \n \n She is the daughter of Mark Wing-Davey, chairman of the graduate acting department at NYU\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts and a longtime friend of the troubled actor. \n \n \"Scent of a Woman\" (1992) Courtesy Everett Collection \"Twister\" (1996) Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection \"Boogie Nights\" (1997) Courtesy Everett Collection \"Patch Adams\" (1998) MCA Universal/courtesy Everett Collection \"Happiness\" (1998) Lions Gate Films/courtesy Everett Collection \"Next Stop Wonderland\" (1998) Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection \"The Big Lebowski\" (1998) Gramercy Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection \"The Talented Mr. Ripley\" (1999) Courtesy Everett Collection \"Magnolia\" (1999) Courtesy Everett Collection \"Flawless\" (1999) MGM/courtesy Everett Collection \"State and Main\" (2000) Fine Line Features/courtesy Everett Collection \"Almost Famous\" (2000) DreamWorks/ courtesy Everett Collection. \"Red Dragon\" (2002) Universal/courtesy Everett Collection \"Punch Drunk Love\" (2002) Columbia/courtesy Everett Collection \"25th Hour\" (2002) Walt Disney/courtesy Everett Collection \"Love Liza\" (2002) Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection \"Owning Mahowny\" (2003) Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection \"Along Came Polly\" (2004) Universal/courtesy Everett Collection \"Capote\" (2005) Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection \"Mission: Impossible III\" (2006) Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection \"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead\" (2007) Think Film/Courtesy Everett Collection \"The Savages\" (2007) 20th Century Fox/courtesy Everett Collection \"Charlie Wilson's War\" (2007) Universal/courtesy Everett Collection \"Synecdoche, New York \" (2008) Sony Pictures Classics/Courtesy Everett Collection \"Doubt\" (2008) Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection \"Pirate Radio\" (2009) Focus Features/courtesy Everett Collection \"Jack Goes Boating\" (2010) Overture Films/courtesy Everett Collection \"Moneyball\" (2011) Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection \"A Late Quartet\" (2012) RKO Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection \"The Ides of March\" (2011) Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection \"The Master\" (2011) The Weinstein Company/courtesy Everett Collection \"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire\" (2013) Lionsgate/courtesy Everett Collection \"A Most Wanted Man\" (2014) Roadside Attractions/Courtesy Everett Collection Ad Up Next Close This week's couple: Offline connection There are all sorts of ways to get in touch... 33 View Slideshow Back Continue Share this: Facebook \n \n Twitter \n \n Flipboard \n \n WhatsApp \n \n Email \n \n Copy \n \n Advertisement \n \n The law enforcement source said he doubted Hoffman and Wing-Davey were romantically involved. \n \n \u201cHe was apparently in the throes of a major heroin addition. Sex is the last thing on your mind. Your sex is your drugs,\u2019\u2019 the source said. \n \n Cops interviewed both O\u2019Donnell and Wing-Davey but did not delve into their personal lives, the source said. \n \n Detectives limited their line of inquiry to questions about Hoffman, such as when the women had last seen him and whether he usually kept his apartment the way they found it, the source added. \n \n Wing-Davey could not be reached for comment. \n \n There was no note, and Hoffman\u2019s death is believed to have been be accidental. \n \n Probers believe the last person that Hoffman talked to was O\u2019Donnell, during a phone call at 10 p.m. Saturday. She said he sounded as if he were high. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re just really devastated that this could happen,\u201d said Doris Barr, 76, whose son is married to Hoffman\u2019s sister. \n \n \u201cThere had always been a concern with the business he was in. We just worried there was a great opportunity for [drug] issues to come up.\u201d \n \n The building where Hoffman lived, at 35 Bethune St., is less than three blocks from a three-bedroom, 2\u00b9/\u2082-bath apartment on Jane Street that he and O\u2019Donnell, a costume designer, bought for $4.4 million in 2008. \n \n The couple met in 1999 while working on the play \u201cIn Arabia We\u2019d All Be Kings,\u201d which Hoffman directed. \n \n They have a son, Cooper, 10, and two daughters, Tallulah, 7, and Willa, 5. \n \n O\u2019Donnell, weeping and distraught, went to the Bethune Street apartment after Hoffman\u2019s body was discovered, but cops wouldn\u2019t let her into the bathroom, sources said. \n \n His body was finally removed at around 6:45 p.m. \n \n A Jane Street neighbor described Hoffman as \u201ca troubled soul,\u201d adding that \u201ceveryone knew he had substance-abuse problems.\u201d \n \n \u201cHe did not look well recently \u2014 like he was out of it,\u201d the woman said. \n \n Another neighbor, Amy Gruenhut, 33, said she last saw Hoffman about two weeks ago. \n \n \u201cI would see him strolling around looking depressed. \n \n \u201cHe looked sad. He didn\u2019t look normal. There was something off. He just looked really sad and lonely.\u201d \n \n A native of upstate Fairport, Hoffman was a trained stage actor who scored his breakthrough movie role in 1997\u2019s \u201cBoogie Nights,\u201d in which he played a gay member of a porn film crew. \n \n He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Truman Capote in the 2005 movie \u201cCapote,\u201d shortly after publicly admitting that he had nearly succumbed to substance abuse years earlier, after graduating from NYU\u2019s drama school. \n \n \u201cIt was all that [drugs and alcohol], yeah. It was anything I could get my hands on . . . I liked it all,\u201d he told \u201c60 Minutes\u201d at the time. \n \n But he said he got sober in rehab. \n \n Then last year, he admitted to suffering a drug relapse in 2012, and again went to rehab. \n \n Also in 2012, he was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Willy Loman in a revival of \u201cDeath of a Salesman,\u201d one of three times he was up for Broadway\u2019s highest honor. \n \n He also had been nominated for Oscars for his appearances in \u201cDoubt,\u201d \u201cCharlie Wilson\u2019s War\u201d and \u201cThe Master,\u201d in which he played a character inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. \n \n In a statement released by his manager, Hoffman\u2019s family called his death \u201ca tragic and sudden loss.\u201d \n \n \u201cWe are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone,\u201d the statement said. \n \n \u201cPlease keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers.\u201d \n \n Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland, Frank Rosario, Kate Briquelet, Jamie Schram and C.J. Sullivan", "summary": "\u2013 Philip Seymour Hoffman, the staggeringly talented actor who won a 2005 Academy Award for his portrayal of Truman Capote, was found dead this morning in his Manhattan apartment at the age of 46, reports the Wall Street Journal. Though the medical examiner's office has yet to release a cause of death, a heroin overdose is suspected. He was found in his bathroom by screenwriter David Katz, who, unable to get in touch with Hoffman, went to the West Village apartment. The New York Post goes further, reporting he was found with a needle still in his arm. Police officials tell the Journal a hypodermic needle and two envelopes possibly containing heroin were recovered from the apartment. Hoffman had undergone a stint in rehab last May for snorting heroin. Hoffman had most recently starred in A Most Wanted Man, and leaves behind three children he had with longtime girlfriend Mimi O\u2019Donnell. The New York Daily News has this statement from the family: \"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone. This is a tragic and sudden loss and we ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grieving. Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers.\""}
{"document": "Fashion photographer David Bailey captured Queen Elizabeth\u2019s youthful spirit ahead of her 88th birthday on April 21. \n \n \"I've always been a huge fan of the Queen. She has very kind eyes with a mischievous glint,\u201d said Bailey according to Britain\u2019s Press Association. \u201cI've always liked strong women and she is a very strong woman.\" \n \n His affable nature behind-the-lens helped catch the oft photographed Queen with a more candid expression than what is seen in her typical formal portraits. \n \n British-born Bailey, 76, rose to prominence as a fixture in the \u2018Swinging London\u2019 scene of the 1960s, and was caricaturized in Michelangelo Antonioni\u2019s 1966 film Blow-Up. Antonioni based the film\u2019s main character on Bailey\u2019s signature flamboyant rapport with his subjects. \n \n The portrait was commissioned as part of the GREAT Britain campaign, intended to encourage business and tourism to the country. ||||| This portrait of Queen Elizabeth II taken and made available at 12:00 GMT Sunday, April 20, 2014, by British photographer David Bailey has been released to mark her 88th birthday on Monday April 21, 2014.... (Associated Press) \n \n This portrait of Queen Elizabeth II taken and made available at 12:00 GMT Sunday, April 20, 2014, by British photographer David Bailey has been released to mark her 88th birthday on Monday April 21, 2014.... (Associated Press) \n \n LONDON (AP) \u2014 A portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by renowned British photographer David Bailey has been unveiled to mark the monarch's 88th birthday. \n \n The black-and-white photograph, taken at Buckingham Palace in March, shows the queen smiling broadly. Bailey described his subject as a \"very strong woman\" with \"very kind eyes with a mischievous glint.\" \n \n The portrait, unveiled Sunday for the queen's birthday on Monday, was commissioned for a government campaign to promote Britain's heritage and tourism to potential visitors abroad. \n \n Britain's monarchy and royal history is one of the biggest drivers of its strong tourism industry. \n \n The queen celebrates two birthdays each year: Her actual one on Apr. 21 is celebrated privately, while a public ceremony in June marks the occasion with a Trooping the Color parade in London.", "summary": "\u2013 What to get for the forever-reigning monarch who has everything? Britain's Queen Elizabeth turns 88 tomorrow, and the government got her, well, a portrait of herself to mark the occasion. The black-and-white photo by Brit photographer David Bailey was taken back in March, notes the AP. \"I've always been a huge fan of the queen. She has very kind eyes with a mischievous glint,\" Bailey tells Britain\u2019s Press Association, as per NBC. \"I've always liked strong women and she is a very strong woman.\" The portrait, which NBC thinks captures her \"youthful spirit,\" was commissioned as part of an official tourism campaign. And in case you forgot that the lives of Britain's royals are better than everyone else's, the AP notes that Elizabeth gets two birthdays: Tomorrow will be celebrated privately, while a public ceremony will be held in June."}
{"document": "A bear hunter based out of Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in critical condition at Anchorage Providence after an accident above Carter Lake Saturday afternoon, according to Alaska State Troopers. \n \n Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center received a distress signal via an in-reach device just after 12:00 Saturday afternoon. Two men, Zachary Tennyson, 19, and William McCormick, 28, both of JBER, shot a bear on a ridge above them. \n \n The bear then rolled down the slope, dislodging rocks in the process. Troopers say McCormick was struck by both a rock and the falling bear. Tennyson was reportedly uninjured, but McCormick was hand carried to a LifeMed helicopter and transported to Anchorage Providence with life threatening injuries. \n \n Alaska State Troopers, Bear Creek Fire Department, Moose Pass Volunteer Fire Department, and LifeMed all responded to the scene. \n \n ||||| William McCormick, 28, and Zachary Tennyson, 19, were hunting in the area above Carter Lake near Moose Pass at the time of the incident, according to a trooper dispatch. Dispatchers in Soldotna first learned of it at about noon Saturday through a signal from an InReach satellite beacon.", "summary": "\u2013 Getting hurt by a bear in Alaska is rare but not unheard of. But William McCormick's injury is more of the unheard of kind: The Army soldier suffered \"life-threatening injuries\" last weekend when a bear he shot fell on him. McCormick was hunting with Zachary Tennyson, 19, near Moose Pass; both are stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. They shot a bear positioned above them on a ridge, KTVA reports, and troopers explained the bear then began to roll down the ridge, \"dislodging rocks in the process. [McCormick] was injured when he was struck by both a rock and the bear.\" It's unclear how far the bear was from the men when they shot it, and details about the bear itself weren't available. Tennyson was uninjured; KTUU reports McCormick was carried to a helicopter and airlifted to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage. (This bear killed a hiker in Alaska and mauled a volunteer who went looking for him.)"}
{"document": "Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teenager, was shot on Tuesday by a bullet police believe was intended for someone else. Gun violence in Chicago appears to be on the rise. In the meantime, legislators discussed gun laws in Washington on Wednesday. \n \n What does the Pope\u2019s synagogue visit mean for Jews and Christians? \n \n More than a day off: How some communities honor MLK's legacy \n \n This undated family photo shows 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton of Chicago. Pendleton was shot and killed Tuesday by a gunman who apparently was not even aiming at her. Pendleton is the latest face on the ever-increasing homicide toll in the president's hometown. \n \n A 15-year-old Chicago girl who performed at President Barack Obama's inauguration last week was shot to death in a city park in what police think was a case of \"mistaken identity\" related to a gang turf war. \n \n \"Mistaken identity -- wrong place at the wrong time,\" Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said at a press conference on Wednesday, a day after the shooting that killed Hadiya Pendleton and injured another teen. The press conference was broadcast by CLTV. \n \n McCarthy said police have been interviewing witnesses who were standing near Pendleton in a park on the city's South Side. He said police were making progress in the investigation. \n \n \"I don't want this to be a three-week or a three-month investigation,\" said McCarthy, who was in Washington earlier this week addressing gun control. \"I want this closed now ... I want that kid off the street,\" he said, referring to the killer. Police believe a handgun was used. \n \n Pendleton, a sophomore at Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep, had performed at the inauguration with her school band, according to local media reports. News of her death near Obama's old home in the Kenwood neighborhood came before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on gun control on Wednesday. \n \n Gun violence in Chicago has been in the national spotlight over the past year, with 506 murders in 2012, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year. So far in January, there have been 42 homicides and 157 shootings, according to Chicago police. \n \n Obama spokesman Jay Carney was asked about Pendleton's death Wednesday. He said the prayers of the president and the first lady were with the girl's family. \n \n \"The president has more than once, when he talks about gun violence in American, referred not just to the horror of Newtown or Aurora or Virginia Tech or Oak Creek, but to shootings on the corner in Chicago and other parts of the country,\" said Carney. \"And this is just another example of the problem that we need to deal with.\" \n \n McCarthy said that an $11,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the capture of Pendleton's killer. \n \n Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, shot in the head in a 2011 mass shooting, made an emotional plea before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for action to curb U.S. gun violence, but a National Rifle Association executive said new gun laws have failed in the past and would fail again. \n \n Giffords opened testimony at the first congressional hearing on gun violence since the Dec. 14 massacre in which a gunman shot dead 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. \n \n Responding to outrage across the country following that incident, Obama and other Democrats have asked Congress to pass the largest package of gun restrictions in decades. \n \n Speaking at the news conference in Chicago, Father Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest known for his activism against gun violence, compared the Chicago shootings to Newtown. \n \n \"This is Sandy Hook. This is Connecticut. This is Newtown, right here. We have to be just as outraged,\" Pfleger said. \n \n (Reporting By Mary Wisniewski; additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro, Roberta Rampton and Renita D. Young; Editing by Greg McCune and Leslie Adler) ||||| With outrage over Hadiya Pendleton's slaying spreading from City Hall to the White House, the 15-year-old became a symbol Wednesday of escalating violence in Chicago while fueling the national debate over guns and crime. \n \n A little more than a week after performing with the King College Prep band in Washington during President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities, Hadiya was fatally shot Tuesday afternoon in a park about a mile north of Obama's Kenwood home. Two other teens were wounded. \n \n At a White House press briefing Wednesday, Obama spokesman Jay Carney was asked about Hadiya's death. \"It's a terrible tragedy any time a young person is struck down with so much of their life ahead of them, and we see it far too often,\" he said. \n \n Hadiya's slaying also came up in an interview Obama did with Telemundo. The president was asked whether the example of Chicago, with strict gun control laws, gave credence to the National Rifle Association's position that more gun laws don't necessary mean less gun violence. \n \n \"Well, the problem is that a huge proportion of those guns come in from outside Chicago,\" Obama said. The president said it was true that creating a \"bunch of pockets of gun laws\" without a unified, integrated system of background checks makes it harder for a single community to protect itself from gun violence. \n \n Police announced an $11,000 reward for information leading to the killer's capture and conviction during a Wednesday afternoon news conference at the North Kenwood park where Hadiya was shot. \n \n \"I want this closed now,\" said police Supt. Garry McCarthy, who was among the police chiefs in Washington on Monday to meet with Obama on gun control. \"I don't want to wait.\" \n \n Hadiya was the 42nd homicide victim this year in Chicago, where killings last year climbed above 500. Mayor Rahm Emanuel spoke with Hadiya's mother Wednesday morning and later, at an unrelated news conference, said the teenager represented \"what is best in our city.\" \n \n \"A child going to school, who takes a final exam, who had just been to inaugural,\" said Emanuel, looking down at the podium for several seconds to collect himself before continuing. \"And I think if anybody has any information, you are not a snitch, you're a citizen. You're a good citizen in good standing if you help.\" \n \n Hadiya's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, pleaded for someone to step forward and bring the 15-year-old's killer to justice. \n \n \"She was destined for great things,\" he said. \n \n Hadiya was a majorette with the band at King, one of the city's elite selective-enrollment schools. She dreamed of going to Northwestern University and talked about becoming a pharmacist or a journalist, maybe a lawyer. \n \n She had just finished her final exams at King, where she was a sophomore, and was hanging out with friends from the school's volleyball team Tuesday afternoon in a park in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue. The group sought shelter from a rainstorm under a canopy at the park about 2:20 p.m. when a gunman jumped a fence, ran toward them and opened fire, police said. \n \n As the teens scattered, Hadiya and two teenage boys were shot. Hadiya was hit in the back and pronounced dead at Comer Children's Hospital less than an hour after the shooting. The wounds suffered by the boys were not life-threatening. \n \n McCarthy stressed that neither Hadiya nor anyone in the group she was with were involved with gangs. But it appears the gunman mistook the students for members of a rival gang, he said. \n \n \"This guy, whoever he was, the gunman \u2026 you took the light of my life,\" Hadiya's father said. \"Just look at yourself and just know that you took a bright person, an innocent person, a non-violent person.\" \n \n No bullet casings were found by investigators at the crime scene, leading them to believe that Hadiya may have been shot with a revolver, according to McCarthy. While it took a while to gather witnesses, McCarthy said police were making \"a lot of progress.\" \n \n At King on Wednesday, classmates created a memorial at Hadiya's locker with pictures, teddy bears and balloons, said Jayla Rufus, 16, a junior who also traveled to D.C. with the King band. \"A lot of people are saying, 'Why Hadiya? Why did it have to be her?'\" Rufus said. \n \n During the band's three-day trip to Washington, the students visited the Washington Monument and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Rufus said. Hadiya and the majorettes performed with the band in the Presidential Inauguration Heritage Festival. \n \n The school won multiple awards while at the competition, including a first place honor for the band's auxiliary team that included the majorettes, according to Benjamin Washington, the school's director of bands. ||||| MARY MITCHELL: Friend sets record straight: Hadiya was not left alone to die BY MARY MITCHELL marym@suntimes.com \n \n A teen shows her boot that was hit by shrapnel. | Richard A. Chapman~Sun-Times \n \n storyidforme: 43869423 \n \n tmspicid: 16241926 \n \n fileheaderid: 7305548 \n \n Updated: \n \n Hadiya Pendleton was not left alone. \n \n When an unidentified gunman fired into a crowd of King College Prep students who had gathered in a neighborhood park Tuesday, about a dozen students ran for their lives. \n \n One bullet caught 15-year-old Hadiya in the back, causing her death a short while later. \n \n Another grazed the boot of a 16-year-old classmate and lodged in her boyfriend\u2019s ankle. Another unidentified 16-year-old boy also was wounded and was in good condition. \n \n Contrary to earlier reports, Hadiya, who had just attended presidential inauguration festivities a week earlier, was not left mortally wounded while her classmates ran off. \n \n A 15-year-old classmate who was with the group described the chaotic scene that unfolded when, for no apparent reason, a gunman jumped a fence and opened fire on the students then sped away in a waiting car. \n \n \u201cWe were under a little tent thing and a man came up and shot at us about five times,\u201d the girl told me in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. (Because the shooter is still at large, I am not identifying the girl, or her mother, by name.) \n \n According to the girl, the group had been in the park for about 20 minutes and had sought shelter under a canopy when gunfire erupted. \n \n \u201cWe all started running and Hadiya fell down. We were running at about the same pace, and Hadiya said: \u2018I think I got shot,\u2019 and slowed, then fell.\u201d \n \n The girl\u2019s boyfriend pushed her out of the way and a bullet grazed her boot and struck his ankle. The boyfriend, who was taken from the scene in an ambulance, was treated at the hospital and released. \n \n Hadiya\u2019s classmate said a nurse who lived in one of the houses nearby heard the gunshots and came to the scene. \n \n \u201cShe told me to hold Hadiya\u2019s hand, and I had her head in my lap,\u201d the girl told me. \n \n Although earlier reports suggested that most of the teens in the group were gang members, that is not the case. \n \n At a news conference attended by the slain girl\u2019s parents and other relatives at the park on Wednesday, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Hadiya had no arrest record or affiliation with any gang or criminal activity. \n \n \u201cIn fact, every indication points to the fact that none of the individuals who were here in the group were involved with any sort of criminal activity,\u201d McCarthy said. \u201cWhat we believe happened is that this is some sort of territory that some gang might call their own. As a result of that, we believe that somebody mistaking a group that was hanging out here of innocent children returned with a firearm and fired into the crowd killing Hadiya.\u201d \n \n McCarthy said the group immediately dispersed and overnight detectives were \u201cbusy scrambling\u201d trying to identify witnesses. \n \n The 15-year-old girl said she was questioned by police at the hospital. \n \n \u201cI just feel that people are getting the story wrong and making other people blame themselves, and it was not even their fault,\u201d she said. \n \n The girl\u2019s mother pointed out that all of the teens in the park were \u201chonor school kids,\u201d and it was \u201cdevastating\u201d to see them initially portrayed as \u201cgang members.\u201d \n \n \u201cThis is a selective enrollment school. You have to place high to get into this school. These kids are bright kids,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was totally wrong for these kids to be called gang members.\u201d \n \n Hadiya and the other wounded students were innocent victims in the same way that the 20 children in Newtown, Conn., were innocent victims. \n \n But unfortunately, some of us don\u2019t see it that way. Frankly, some of the emails I received about this tragedy were shameful. \n \n Instead of blaming the shooter, some of you leaped at the chance to blame Hadiya for hanging out with gang-bangers who didn\u2019t stick around to cooperate with police. \n \n In reality, these were clean-cut teens who were simply trying to unwind in a public park after a grueling day of final exams. \n \n Hadiya\u2019s classmates aren\u2019t the bad guys. \n \n They didn\u2019t create a world where someone with evil intentions can walk into a park in the middle of the afternoon and kill at will. \n \n They are the heroes. \n \n What does that make us?", "summary": "\u2013 The Chicago teen who was killed days after performing in President Obama's inauguration may have simply been in the \"wrong place at the wrong time,\" Chicago's police superintendent says, calling the shooting a matter of \"mistaken identity.\" The shooting, police believe, was part of a turf war among gangs, but Hadiya Pendleton herself had no gang links\u2014nor, it appears, did any of those with her that day. The gunman, however, seemed to confuse the group with gang members. In other details from the case: Hadiya was a band majorette at the elite King College Prep; she hoped to go to Northwestern University, the Chicago Tribune reports. A friend of Hadiya rejects reports that the teen's friends abandoned her as they ran. \"A man came up and shot at us about five times,\" the friend tells the Chicago Sun-Times. \"We were running at about the same pace, and Hadiya said: \u2018I think I got shot,\u2019 and slowed, then fell.\" A nurse who lived nearby arrived on the scene. \"She told me to hold Hadiya\u2019s hand, and I had her head in my lap,\" the friend said. There were no bullet casings on the scene, suggesting the shooter may have used a revolver. Officers are offering an $11,000 reward for information leading to the shooter's arrest, adds the Christian Science Monitor. \"This guy, whoever he was, the gunman ... you took the light of my life,\" says dad Nathaniel Pendleton. \"Just look at yourself and just know that you took a bright person, an innocent person, a non-violent person.\" The shooting prompted Telemundo to ask President Obama whether tight gun control laws like Chicago's really worked. \"The problem is that a huge proportion of those guns come in from outside Chicago,\" he said, per the Tribune."}
{"document": "Janie Thompson speaks about her financial concerns outside of a temporary shelter in Gatlinburg, Tenn., Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016. Thompson, who works at the McDonalds in Gatlinburg, has been unable to... (Associated Press) \n \n Janie Thompson speaks about her financial concerns outside of a temporary shelter in Gatlinburg, Tenn., Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016. Thompson, who works at the McDonalds in Gatlinburg, has been unable to work due to the wildfire that hit the town, and doesn't know when she can return. (Andrew Nelles/The... (Associated Press) \n \n GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 Crews discovered the remains of more people as they searched the rubble of wildfires that torched hundreds of homes and businesses near the Great Smoky Mountains, bringing the death toll to 11, officials said Thursday. \n \n Authorities set up a hotline for people to report missing friends and relatives, and after following up on dozens of leads, they said many of those people had been accounted for. They did not say whether they believe anyone else is still missing or may have died. \n \n \"I think it's fair to say that the search is winding down,\" Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said. \"And hopefully we will not find any more.\" \n \n He said the searches would likely be completed Friday. \n \n Nearly 24 hours of rain on Wednesday helped dampen the wildfires, but fire officials struck a cautious tone, saying people shouldn't have a false sense of security because months of drought have left the ground bone-dry and wildfires can rekindle. \n \n The trouble began Monday when a wildfire, likely caused by a person, spread from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park into the tourist city of Gatlinburg as hurricane-force winds toppled trees and power lines, blowing embers in all directions. \n \n \"We had trees going down everywhere, power lines, all those power lines were just like lighting a match because of the extreme drought conditions. So we went from nothing to over 20-plus structure fires in a matter of minutes. And that grew and that grew and that grew,\" Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said. \n \n More than 14,000 residents and visitors in Gatlinburg were forced to evacuate, and the typically bustling tourist city has been shuttered ever since. At least 700 buildings in the county have been damaged. \n \n \"Gatlinburg is the people; that's what Gatlinburg is. It's not the buildings, it's not the stuff in the buildings,\" Mayor Mike Werner said. \"We're gonna be back better than ever. Just be patient.\" \n \n Starting Friday, homeowners, business owners, renters and lease holders will be allowed to go see most of their Gatlinburg properties, said City Manager Cindy Cameron Ogle. The city is hoping to open main roads to the general public Wednesday. \n \n There were other signs of recovery. Waters declared that Sevier County was \"open for business.\" In nearby Pigeon Forge, the Comedy House rented an electronic billboard message that said it was open for laughs, and a flyer at a hotel urged guests to check out the scenic Cades Cove loop. \"Take a drive and remember what you love about the Smokies!\" the flyer said. \n \n Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash has said the fires were \"likely to be human-caused\" but he has refused to elaborate, saying only that the investigation continues. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are helping investigate the cause. \n \n About 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, burned inside the country's most visited national park. Another 6,000 acres were scorched outside of the park. \n \n One of the victims was identified as Alice Hagler. Her son Lyle Wood said his mother and brother lived in a home at Chalet Village in Gatlinburg and she frantically called his brother Monday night because the house had caught fire. The call dropped as Wood's brother raced up the fiery mountain trying to get to his mother. He didn't make it in time. \n \n \"My mom was a very warm, loving, personable person. She never met a stranger. She would talk to anybody,\" Wood said. \n \n Authorities said they were still working to identify the dead and did not release any details about how they were killed. \n \n Three brothers being treated at a Nashville hospital said they had not heard from their parents since they were separated while fleeing the fiery scene during their vacation. \n \n A number of funds have been established to help victims of the wildfires, including one set up by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and another by country music legend and native Dolly Parton. \n \n The flames reached the doorstep of Dollywood, the theme park named after Parton, but the park was spared any significant damage and will reopen Friday. \n \n About 240 people stayed overnight in shelters, including Mark Howard, who was flat on his back in the hospital with pneumonia when the wildfires started. He called 911 when he heard his house was consumed. \n \n \"I had no insurance. It's a total loss,\" the 57-year-old owner of a handyman business said. \n \n ___ \n \n Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Associated Press writers Rebecca Yonker in Louisville, Kentucky, and Kristin M. Hall in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, contributed to this report. ||||| Summers Family (Photo: Summers Family) \n \n Jon and Janet Summers, the Memphis couple missing since the spread of the Gatlinburg fires, were confirmed dead late Thursday afternoon, brother Jim Summers said in a Facebook post. \n \n \"I am sorry to report that at 4:45 pm CST the Sevier County Sheriff's Department has reported that the medical examiner has confirmed that two of the bodies found in North Chalet Village were Jon and Janet Summers,\" the post read, adding that the couple's three sons have also been notified. \n \n While the news was not unexpected considering that the couple had been missing for several days, family and friends still mourned when the official notification came through. \n \n \"We\u2019re going to miss Jon. He brought a lot of leadership to the firm. His exuberance for the work that we did is just something that we\u2019re going to miss,\" said Steve Berger, the managing principal at brg3s architects, where Jon Summers was a partner. \"He brought a lot of experience and our staff always looked to him for guidance. All of us, our thoughts now are with the boys and the family. We\u2019re a small office and all of our families know each other. Janet was a wonderful partner for Jon and a great mom for the boys. We\u2019re going to miss her as well.\" \n \n Jon and Janet, both 61, and their three sons were in Gatlinburg for a birthday celebration, and had been staying at the Chalet Village a little west of the city\u2019s popular downtown area. But when the wildfires spread, the family tried to flee the area by car. However, friends said, their path was blocked by debris. They left the car and tried to flee on foot, but became separated. \n \n The sons \u2014 Branson, 23, and Jared and Wesley, who turned 22 on Wednesday \u2014 were rescued and taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. All three were recovering Thursday \u2014 Jared and Wesley in stable condition with Branson in critical but stable condition. \n \n No one had seen or heard from Jon and Janet since that attempted escape, and friends and family had hoped for good news but feared the worst. That came with the family notification Thursday afternoon. According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Knox County medical examiner's office handled the identification of the remains, likely through dental records. \n \n \"It\u2019s significant not only for me, but a lot of other kids our age,\" said Ryan Agee, a friend to the Summers boys and an admirer of their parents. \"(They) were always a second (set of) parents to everybody. We were always eating dinner at their house, talking to them about things. They were very caring people.\" \n \n Jon, Janet and Jared left Memphis ast weekend for the quick getaway to the Smoky Mountains, likely picking up Branson and Wesley \u2014 who were still living in Nashville \u2014 on the way. The plan was to get the family together to celebrate Wednesday's 22nd birthday for the twins, Jared and Wesley. \n \n They booked a spot at Chalet Village, a large property just west of Downtown Gatlinburg that primarily rents vacation cabins. Before the fires, the family posted several updates and images on social media, letting everyone know how their vacation was going. \n \n But on Monday night, a fire that began at a point on Chimney Tops Trail, south of Gatlinburg in the mountains, was stoked and spread by high winds that pummeled the area. Those winds took embers from Chimney Tops and threw them all over the Gatlinburg area, sparking dozens of fires that grew and coalesced into what some called an apocalyptic scene. It was that conflagration that prompted the Summers family to try and flee, particularly since several areas in Chalet Village were on fire. \n \n Firefighters from Gatlinburg and, eventually, from all over the nation battled the flames for days until they finally brought them under control. The original fire on Chimney Tops, however, remained ablaze. \n \n So far, the grim tally is 11 dead, including Jon and Janet Summers and Alice Hagler, who was also in the Chalet Village area, as well as dozens wounded. More than 400 structures have been destroyed or damaged, and at least 17,000 acres have been scorched in what some officials called the worst fire in Tennessee in more than a century. \n \n The one spot of good news Thursday, however, was that the Summers boys were improving. Jim Summers posted several Facebook updates Thursday letting well-wishers know what was going on with the young men, adding that it was possible that they could be discharged on Sunday. \n \n \"Sunday discharge not cast in stone. Many things can occur that would extend that, but still positive since we were looking at weeks vs days on arrival. Thanks again for all the prayers and well wishes. So very much appreciated,\" Jim Summers said on Facebook. \n \n He then went on to update family and friends about the condition of his nephews. He said that Branson Summers will have to undergo another procedure to repair a small leakage in his collapsed lung. \n \n \"All, this morning at 6 a.m. Ruth and the attending physician contacted me and advised that Branson had developed a very small leakage in the fire damaged lung, and would need a thoracostomy to plug the leakage and remove the fluid from the is chest cavity,\" Jim Summers wrote. \"This will not interfere with his recovery, and will assist in recovering a partially collapsed lung. This is not an unusual condition, considering the trauma from the injury. It not a procedure to be postponed, and I advised the physician to move forward with the procedure, which is done in the room. It takes about 10 minutes. The condition was found with a routine chest X-ray used to monitor lung and chest cavity while he is on the respirator. The risks are minor from the procedure, major if no effort is made to plug the leak. I have no further information at this time.\" \n \n Later, he updated readers about the twins. \n \n \"Jared's ventilator was successfully removed yesterday, and he did well. It was decided to hold off on any attempts to remove Branson and Wesley from the ventilator until more time has passed. If Jared continues to breathe on his own today, there is a possibility he will be discharged from emergency care, and move to dressing replacement and wound care. No surgery planned. With the exception of the minor setback to Branson this morning, he and Wesley may be discharged by Sunday, and will then have follow up care for the injuries. But out of the woods in terms of critical vs stable. Improvement continues.\" \n \n Friends have set up a fund to help the brothers. By late Thursday, more than $35,000 in donations had been made at youcaring.com/bransonsummersjaredsummersandwesleysummers-704149. \n \n Gatlinburg Developments \n \n GATLINBURG, Tenn. - Crews discovered the remains of three more people as they searched the rubble of wildfires that torched hundreds of homes and businesses near the Great Smoky Mountains, bringing the death toll to 11, officials said Thursday. \n \n Authorities set up a hotline for people to report missing friends and relatives, and after following up on dozens of leads, they said many of those people had been accounted for. They did not say whether they believe anyone else is still missing or may have died. \n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that the search is winding down,\u201d Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said. \u201cAnd hopefully we will not find any more.\u201d \n \n He said the searches would likely be completed Friday. \n \n More than 14,000 residents and visitors in Gatlinburg were forced to evacuate, and the typically bustling tourist city has been shuttered ever since. At least 700 buildings in the county have been damaged. \n \n Starting Friday, homeowners, business owners, renters and lease holders will be allowed to go see most of their Gatlinburg properties, said City Manager Cindy Cameron Ogle. The city is hoping to open main roads to the general public on Wednesday. \n \n Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash has said the fires were \u201clikely to be human-caused\u201d but he has refused to elaborate, saying only that the investigation continues. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are helping investigate the cause. \n \n About 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, burned inside the country\u2019s most-visited national park. An additional 6,000 acres were scorched outside of the park. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://memne.ws/2gpkjql", "summary": "\u2013 Crews discovered the remains of more people as they searched the rubble of wildfires that torched hundreds of homes and businesses near the Great Smoky Mountains, bringing the death toll to 11, officials in Gatlinburg, Tenn., said Thursday. The Commercial Appeal reports that Memphis couple Jon and Janet Summers are among the dead. They were at the Chalet Village with sons Branson, 23, and Jared and Wesley, 22, and found themselves unable to flee by car; the family got separated while on foot. The sons are being cared for at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A hotline has been set up for people to report missing friends and relatives, and after following up on dozens of leads, authorities say many of those people had been accounted for. They didn't say whether they believe anyone else is still missing or may have died, the AP reports. \"I think it's fair to say that the search is winding down,\" Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters says. \"And hopefully we will not find any more.\" He says the searches will likely be completed Friday. More than 14,000 residents and visitors in Gatlinburg were forced to evacuate, and the typically bustling tourist city has been shuttered ever since. At least 700 buildings in the county have been damaged. The city hopes to open main roads again by the middle of next week. The superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park has said the fires were \"likely to be human-caused\" but he has refused to elaborate, saying only that the investigation continues. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives are helping investigate the cause."}
{"document": "Ivanka Trump watches as President Trump speaks before presenting a Medal of Honor at the White House this week. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) \n \n When Samantha Bee used a vulgarity last month to describe his eldest daughter, President Trump lashed out at the \u201cno talent\u201d comedian and asked why she hadn\u2019t been fired. \n \n White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Bee\u2019s language \u201cvile and vicious\u201d and said that her \u201cdisgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast.\u201d \n \n Ivanka Trump remained silent. \n \n During a television interview Friday morning, she sought to explain why. \n \n \u201cI have chosen, and I made a conscientious decision a long time ago, that I was not going to get into the fray, and that means that I\u2019ll absorb the body blows that come my way,\u201d Trump told host Maria Bartiromo during an appearance on the Fox Business Network. \n \n \u201cIt is important to me to focus on the task at hand, which is serving the American people and using this moment in my life to advance an agenda that I deeply believe in and feel very fortunate to be able to work on,\u201d added Trump, who serves as a White House adviser. \n \n [Trump says Samantha Bee has \u2018no talent,\u2019 asks why she hasn\u2019t been fired] \n \n During a segment of her \u201cFull Frontal\u201d show on TBS last month, Bee took aim at Trump for tweeting a photo of herself with her younger son around the same time as reports that the U.S. government had lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children last year. \n \n \u201cYou know, Ivanka, that\u2019s a beautiful photo of you and your child,\u201d Bee said. \u201cLet me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad\u2019s immigration practices, you feckless c---. He listens to you.\u201d \n \n Bee later apologized, saying her use of the vulgarity was \u201cinappropriate and inexcusable\u201d and that she had \u201ccrossed a line.\u201d \n \n During Friday\u2019s broadcast on Fox Business, Trump also confirmed reports that she had advocated that her father reverse his administration\u2019s policy of separating migrant families at the border. \n \n \u201cOf course, I have very strong opinions on that topic,\u201d Trump said when asked by Bartiromo if she had advised the president on the issue before his issuance of an executive order last week. \n \n Ivanka Trump was among administration guests on the network Friday who talked up the importance of the GOP tax bill signed by the president six months ago. \n \n She said the tax cuts and other administration policies had served \u201cto really release the animal spirits of the economy.\u201d ||||| When comedian Samantha Bee hurled insults at Ivanka Trump during an episode of \u201cFull Frontal\u201d in June, she incited outrage and furor that crossed the political aisle, with many urging TBS, the Time Warner channel that's now part of AT&T, to cancel her show. \n \n Continue Reading Below \n \n But the president\u2019s daughter and close adviser stayed silent on the issue and the extreme vulgarity used to describe a photograph she\u2019d shared on social media. \n \n \u201cI have chosen, and I made a conscientious decision a long time ago, that I was not going to get into the fray,\u201d she said during an interview with FOX Business\u2019 Maria Bartiromo on Friday. \u201cThat means I will absorb the blows that come my way. It is important to me to focus on the task at hand.\u201d \n \n Bee -- along with other celebrities -- criticized the first daughter for sharing what they said was a tone deaf photo of her with her child, even amid reports that the Office of Refugee Resettlement lost track of 1,500 immigrant children in the last three months of 2017. But Bee took it a step further, calling her a \u201cfeckless c---.\u201d \n \n The comedian, and TBS, later apologized for the comment. Trump, however, said she tries to stay focused on moving forward with her own goals and helping shape policies for America, including expanded paid family leave. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \u201cI never allow myself to forget the extraordinary privilege I have to serve this country,\u201d she said. ||||| The first daughter remained silent for months about her father's policy of separating parents and children at the border. During an interview with Fox Business on Friday, Ivanka Trump commented verbally on the family separation policy. When asked whether she'd approached Trump about it, Ivanka said she had, and added that she has \"very strong opinions on that topic.\" \n \n In April, the Trump administration announced a \"zero-tolerance\" immigration policy of prosecuting all parents who crossed the border without paperwork, part of which included taking children from their parents and detaining them separately. Ivanka didn't speak out publicly about the policy for months, until the president signed an executive order in June to replace it with one that would allow the government to keep families in detention together indefinitely. \n \n After discussing the first daughter's support for a child tax credit, interviewer Maria Bartiromo brought up family separation. \"Our first lady was very moved by it, went to the border twice,\" she said. \"Did you also say something to him [...] before he signed that executive order?\" \n \n \"Of course,\" Ivanka said, nodding. \"I have very strong opinions on that topic.\" She did not elaborate on those opinions, and Bartiromo ended the interview there. \n \n Prior to Friday, the first daughter had only commented on the policy via Twitter. After Trump signed the order, she tweeted: \n \n Thank you @POTUS for taking critical action ending family separation at our border. Congress must now act + find a lasting solution that is consistent with our shared values;the same values that so many come here seeking as they endeavor to create a better life for their families.\" \n \n She also wrote that families should be reunited as \"swiftly and safely\" as possible. These tweets, and her comment to Fox Business, suggest that she was opposed to the separation policy \u2014 and she's received some criticism for not saying so openly while it was still going on. \n \n \"Where is Ivanka in all of this?\" Meghan McCain, ABC host and daughter of Senator John McCain (R-AZ), said on June 19. \"Because she's all for women and mothers, and she has a White House role... and I'm sort of interested that her platform has been women and mothers and she doesn't seem to have anything to say about this.\" \n \n The first daughter also experienced backlash for posting photos of her children on social media during the border crisis. Journalist Brian Klaas called one of the pictures \"unbelievably tone deaf.\" \n \n Even though Ivanka has been reticent to address the crisis in public, Trump told lawmakers on June 19 that she approached him about it privately. \"Daddy, what are we doing about this?\" he said she asked him. \n \n Representative Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) told The Daily Beast that Ivanka was eager to end family separations. \"She has been apparently very affected by this and moved, and asked him to find a way to stop this practice,\" he said. Axios reported that she also told the president that photographs from the border crisis were a \"problem.\" \n \n Last week, Ivanka donated $50,000 to a megachurch in Plano, Texas that plans to help separated migrant kids. The church says that it will hold an event to raise the children's spirits and give families financial assistance. The donation brought her a new round of condemnation, though, when word spread that the church engages in anti-LGBTQ activism. \n \n The first daughter's comments on Thursday seem destined to bring her yet another surge of criticism. \"After weeks of silence on Trump's immoral family separation policy,\" CNN pundit Keith Boykin tweeted on Friday, \"Ivanka Trump now wants to take credit for her father's policy shift.\"", "summary": "\u2013 So why didn't Ivanka Trump fire back when Samantha Bee hurled a vulgarity at her? The presidential daughter appeared on Fox Business Network Friday and said her silence was deliberate. \u201cI have chosen, and I made a conscientious decision a long time ago, that I was not going to get into the fray, and that means that I\u2019ll absorb the body blows that come my way,\u201d Trump told Maria Bartiromo. Instead, she says she wants to \"focus on the task at hand, which is serving the American people and using this moment in my life to advance an agenda that I deeply believe in and feel very fortunate to be able to work on.\" Ivanka Trump had taken flak for not publicly criticizing the policy of separating families at the border\u2014in fact, that was the source of Bee's criticism. When Bartiromo asked her if she had advised her father privately to ditch the policy, the first daughter said she had. \u201cOf course, I have very strong opinions on that topic,\u201d she said, per the Washington Post. As Bustle notes, Ivanka Trump tweeted her thanks to President Trump after he reversed the policy and called for families to be reunited \"swiftly.\""}
{"document": "FILE - The Nov. 21, 2011 file photo shows visitors standing in front of an attraction at the Christmas market near Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Police said Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 a man dressed as Santa drugged... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - The Nov. 21, 2011 file photo shows visitors standing in front of an attraction at the Christmas market near Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Police said Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 a man dressed as Santa drugged... (Associated Press) \n \n A man dressed as Santa drugged a 15-year-old girl at a Berlin Christmas market over the weekend _ the latest such attack that has seen holiday revelers left either sickened or unconscious, police said Monday. \n \n At about 10 p.m. Saturday the suspect approached the girl and her friend at Berlin's downtown Alexanderplatz Christmas market, offering both of them what he said was a shot of alcohol in a paper cup, police said. \n \n One girl refused, but the other girl drank both of the shots. She soon started vomiting and had to be taken to the hospital, where she underwent a blood test, before being released. \n \n Police said it appeared she had been slipped some type of a date rape drug, but released no further details, citing the ongoing investigation. \n \n Eight other people at various Berlin Christmas markets have fallen prey to similar attacks _ usually with an unidentified man in regular clothes handing out single-shot bottles of alcohol, asking people to join him in celebrating the birth of his child. \n \n Police say some of the victims _ mostly young women _ have lost consciousness and many have been briefly hospitalized. All have experienced dizziness and nausea. \n \n It's not yet clear whether all the attacks are linked, or whether some may be copycat crimes, and police spokesman Ivo Habedank said authorities did not yet have a good description of the suspect. \n \n \"Intense investigations are ongoing,\" Habedank said. \n \n Most recently, a 31-year-old woman who had read media reports of the attacks reported to police Sunday night that she and her friend, a 33-year-old man, had both fallen ill Dec. 7 after drinking small bottles of alcohol given to them at the Alexanderplatz Christmas market by a man saying he was celebrating becoming a first-time father. \n \n She described the man as about 40-years-old and 5-foot 9-inches (180 centimeter) tall but no further details were released. \n \n In Germany, Christmas markets are traditional outdoor holiday markets that are popular with residents and tourists alike throughout December, bringing together stands selling handicrafts, ornaments and small gifts along with a wide array of food and drink, including multiple varieties of hot mulled wine. ||||| Christmastime means Christmas crimes. People do stupid crap all year-long, but the holidays inspire a special brand of crazy. The 2011 holiday crime season is just ramping up. Just this week a burglar broke into a Pittsburgh liquor store and made off with two bottles of alcoholic egg nog. I mean, egg nog is good, but not worth going to jail for. Click on through to see some of the craziest Christmas crimes committed so far this year. [Huffington Post]", "summary": "\u2013 A ho-ho-horrible story out of Berlin, where police say a man dressed as Santa drugged a teenager Saturday night at a Christmas market. The suspect offered the 15-year-old girl and her friend a shot of alcohol; the friend refused, but the victim drank both and soon began vomiting. Police say she was apparently given a date rape drug, the AP reports; she was hospitalized and released. Eight other people have recently been left ill or unconscious after similar attacks at Christmas markets in the city, although the suspect is usually dressed normally. The suspect typically hands out small bottles of alcohol and claims to be celebrating the birth of his child. Most of the victims have been young women, and police are still investigating the possibilities of linked attacks or copycat crimes. If that doesn't trample on your holiday spirit enough, click for six more crazy Christmas crimes from this year."}
{"document": "\"She had to make a decision between the drugs and the babies,\" Roberts said Tuesday. \n \n He also said DNA testing on seven dead babies found stuffed into cardboard boxes at Huntsman's home in April confirmed that all of them \u0097 five girls and two boys \u0097 were fathered by her husband. \n \n The long-awaited results were difficult to obtain due to the condition of the remains. Forensic experts resorted to \"nuclear DNA\" testing to determine both gender and paternity. \n \n Nuclear DNA, found in the nucleus of most human cells, generally provides more genetic information \u0097 and from both parents \u0097 than the more commonly tested mitochondrial, or maternal DNA. \n \n Prosecutors contend that six of the infants were choked or smothered shortly after birth by Huntsman, 39, during the period from Jan. 1, 1996, to Dec. 31, 2006. Huntsman allegedly told investigators that she had killed six of the babies, but she claimed the seventh was stillborn. \n \n Huntsman, who was charged in Provo's 4th District Court with six counts of first-degree felony murder, remained in the Utah County Jail on Tuesday in lieu of $6 million cash-only bail. \n \n The long-kept, deadly secret began to unravel April 12, when Huntsman's now-estranged husband, 41-year-old Darren West \u0097 who had spent eight years in prison for drug crimes before being released into a Salt Lake City halfway house \u0097 was at their Pleasant Grove home retrieving some of his belongings. \n \n Inside the garage, West found the remains of a baby wrapped in plastic bags and a green towel and stuffed into a white box, sealed with electrical tape. Alerted to the grisly discovery, police later found six more infant corpses similarly stored inside other boxes. \n \n Huntsman will not face the death penalty under the near-decade-old murder statute in effect at the time of the crimes. Instead, she faces a maximum penalty for each count of five years to life. \n \n West and Huntsman have three living children together, all daughters, now ages 13 to 20. \n \n Huntsman is next set to appear in court July 21 to determine if she will waive a preliminary hearing. \n \n On May 16, Judge Darold McDade ordered that Huntsman be made available for a psychological evaluation, but no further details on whether that exam had yet been done, or if so what the results were, had been released as of Tuesday. \n \n remims@sltrib.com \n \n Twitter: @remims ||||| SALT LAKE CITY (AP) \u2014 A Utah mother told authorities that she killed six of her newborns and stored their bodies in a garage because she was addicted to drugs and didn't want to deal with the responsibility of raising them, police said Tuesday, revealing a suspected motive for the first time. \n \n FILE - This April 13, 2014 file photo shows police tape in front of the scene where seven infant bodies were discovered and packaged in separate containers at a home in Pleasant Grove, Utah. On Tuesday,... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this April 21, 2014 file photo, Megan Huntsman, accused of killing six of her babies and storing their bodies in her garage, appears in court, in Provo, Utah. On Tuesday, July 8, 2014, authorities... (Associated Press) \n \n Megan Huntsman, 39, was heavily into a meth addiction when she strangled or suffocated the infants from 1996 to 2006, Pleasant Grove Police Capt. Mike Roberts told The Associated Press. \n \n She wasn't worried about potential health problems caused by her drug abuse while pregnant, she simply didn't want to care for them, he said. \"It was completely selfish. She was high on drugs and didn't want the babies, or the responsibility,\" Roberts said. \"That was her priority at the time.\" \n \n Authorities think a seventh baby found in her Pleasant Grove garage after an April search was stillborn. \n \n Police had previously declined to discuss a motive in the case, saying only that it had been uncovered during interviews with Huntsman. \n \n Huntsman has been held in Utah County Jail since April 13, and her bail has been set at $6 million. She has been charged with six counts of first-degree murder and is due in court in Provo on July 21. She has not yet entered a plea. \n \n Her lawyer, public defender Anthony Howell, declined comment Tuesday, saying office policy prevents him from discussing open cases. \n \n Huntsman's estranged husband, Darren West, spent more than eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to meth charges. He was released to a halfway house in Salt Lake City in January. \n \n West made the grisly discovery April 12 while cleaning out the garage of the home he had shared with Huntsman. He told police he found a dead infant in a small white box covered with electrician's tape. \n \n Six other bodies were found after police obtained a search warrant. Documents show the newborns had been wrapped in shirts or towels inside individual boxes in the garage. \n \n West lived with Huntsman during the decade their children were killed before going to federal prison in 2006, but he isn't a suspect in the deaths, Roberts said. Investigators don't know how he could have been oblivious to the pregnancies or deaths, but they don't plan to bring him in for further questioning. \n \n Huntsman remains the only suspect in the investigation, which remains open, Roberts said. Results of a psychological examination of Huntsman haven't been disclosed. \n \n DNA results revealed Tuesday showed that all seven babies were full term and that five were girls and two were boys. Those tests also confirmed that West was biological father of the infants. \n \n Previous tests from the Utah state lab found that the babies were likely dead anywhere from two to 10 years or more, Roberts said. \n \n The day of the grisly discovery, Huntsman told police that were eight or nine dead babies in her home, a previously released search warrant affidavit showed. But Roberts said Huntsman was confused and was taking a ballpark guess. Roberts said Tuesday investigators continue to believe there were only seven.", "summary": "\u2013 What could drive a mother to smother six babies as soon as she gave birth to them? Police in Utah say it was pure selfishness, driven by drug addiction. Megan Huntsman was a heavy methamphetamine user when she strangled or suffocated the newborns between 1996 and 2006, a police spokesman tells the AP. He says she wasn't concerned about potential health problems caused to the infants by her drug use\u2014but did care about the cost of feeding her addiction. \"It was completely selfish. She was high on drugs and didn't want the babies, or the responsibility,\" he says. \"That was her priority at the time.\" \"She had to make a decision between the drugs and the babies,\" says the police spokesman, who confirmed that the five girls and two boys found in boxes in her garage were all fathered by her husband, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Investigators believe one of the babies was stillborn, so Huntsman faces six counts of first-degree felony murder. She has been in jail since April with bail set at $6 million. Her long-estranged husband, who spent eight years in federal prison on meth charges, was the one who alerted police after finding one of the dead infants and is not considered a suspect."}
{"document": "HONOLULU (AP) \u2014 Honolulu police officers have urged lawmakers to keep an exemption in state law that allows undercover officers to have sex with prostitutes during investigations, touching off a heated debate. \n \n Hawaii state Rep. Karl Rhoads listens during a House floor session at the Capitol in Honolulu on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. As Hawaii lawmakers considered a measure that would crack down on prostitution,... (Associated Press) \n \n A pedestrian walks in front of a Honolulu Police Department station in Honolulu's tourist area of Waikiki on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. As Hawaii lawmakers considered a measure that would crack down on... (Associated Press) \n \n Authorities say they need the legal protection to catch lawbreakers in the act. Critics, including human trafficking experts and other police, say it's unnecessary and could further victimize sex workers, many of whom have been forced into the trade. \n \n Police haven't said how often \u2014 or even if \u2014 they use the provision. And when they asked legislators to preserve it, they made assurances that internal policies and procedures are in place to prevent officers from taking advantage of it. \n \n But expert Derek Marsh says the exemption is \"antiquated at best\" and that police can easily do without it. \n \n \"It doesn't help your case, and at worst you further traumatize someone. And do you think he or she is going to trust a cop again?\" asked Marsh, who trains California police in best practices on human trafficking cases and twice has testified to Congress about the issue. \n \n A Hawaii bill cracking down on prostitution (HB 1926) was originally written to scrap the sex exemption for officers on duty. It was amended to restore that protection after police testimony. The revised proposal passed the state House and will go before a Senate committee Friday. \n \n It's not immediately clear whether similar provisions are in place elsewhere as state law or department policy. But advocates were shocked that Hawaii exempts police from its prostitution laws, suggesting it's an invitation for misconduct. \n \n \"Police abuse is part of the life of prostitution,\" said Melissa Farley, the executive director of the San Francisco-based group Prostitution Research and Education. Farley said that in places without such police protections \"women who have escaped prostitution\" commonly report being coerced into giving police sexual favors to keep from being arrested. \n \n The Hawaii bill aims to ratchet up penalties on johns and pimps. Selling sex would remain a petty misdemeanor. \n \n During recent testimony, Honolulu police said the sex exemption protects investigations and should remain in place. \n \n \"The procedures and conduct of the undercover officers are regulated by department rules, which by nature have to be confidential,\" Honolulu Police Maj. Jerry Inouye told the House Judiciary Committee. \"Because if prostitution suspects, pimps and other people are privy to that information, they're going to know exactly how far the undercover officer can and cannot go.\" \n \n Democratic state Rep. Karl Rhoads, the committee chairman, said police testimony convinced him to amend the proposal. \n \n \"It's a really murky area,\" said Rhoads, who represents a district that includes Honolulu's Chinatown, a longstanding epicenter of street prostitution. \"I was reluctant to interfere in something that they face all the time. If they think it's necessary to not have it in the statute, this is one area where I did defer to them and say, 'I hope you're not having sex with prostitutes.'\" \n \n Critics say the police perspective is off base. Lauren Hersh, a former prosecuting attorney who runs the global trafficking program of the women's advocacy group Equality Now, said the risk of re-victimizing a sex worker, who may already have been trafficked, should make sex during an investigation off-limits. \n \n \"I can understand you're in a drug den, and you have a gun to your head and someone says 'snort this,'\" Hersh said, acknowledging the gray areas associated with undercover police work. But the sex exemption in Hawaii is \"so dissimilar from that circumstance on so many levels.\" \n \n There have been instances of police being accused of victimizing sex workers across the nation. In Philadelphia, a former officer is on trial facing charges of raping two prostitutes after forcing them at gunpoint to take narcotics. A former West Sacramento, Calif., officer is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of raping prostitutes in his police cruiser while on patrol. And last year in Massachusetts, a former police officer pleaded guilty to extorting sex from prostitutes he threatened with arrest. \n \n Rhoads said he knew no reason to suspect Honolulu police are out of line. \n \n \"All allegations of misconduct are investigated and the appropriate disciplinary action taken,\" said Michelle Yu, Honolulu police spokeswoman, in an email. \n \n It's not clear, however, what the punishment would be. The disclosure laws for police misconduct in Hawaii make it impossible to know if an on-duty officer had faced discipline or accusations of having sex with a prostitute. \n \n Officers who investigate prostitution haven't been accused of sexual wrongdoing in recent memory, Yu said. A patrol officer in 2011 was fired after being convicted of sexual assault against a prostitute, she said. \n \n Skeptics, such as Roger Young, a retired special agent who for more than 20 years worked sex crimes for the FBI from Las Vegas and has trained vice squads around the country, remain unconvinced. \n \n Young said Thursday, \"I don't know of any state or federal law that allows any law enforcement officer undercover to penetrate or do what this law is allowing.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Sam Eifling can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sameifling ||||| Debate is raging in Hawaii over a controversial law that permits undercover officers to have sex with sex workers during police operations. \n \n The debate over the law started over a recent bill that attempted to do away with the sex exemption for officers, but it was amended to restore the measure after police testified for lawmakers. According to a report by the Associated Press in The New York Times, police officials say the law is vital in helping them catch people breaking the law in the act. \n \n Critics, rightfully so, are outraged and say the measure further victimizes people in sex trafficking rings or those who may have been forced into prostitution by abusers and others. There are also serious concerns about potential abuses: \n \n \"Police abuse is part of the life of prostitution,\" said Melissa Farley, the executive director of the San Francisco-based group Prostitution Research and Education. Farley said that in places without such police protections \"women who have escaped prostitution\" commonly report being coerced into giving police sexual favors to keep from being arrested or harassed. \n \n [....] \n \n Critics say the police perspective is off base. Lauren Hersh, a former prosecuting attorney who runs the global trafficking program of the women's advocacy group Equality Now, said the risk of re-victimizing a sex worker, who may already have been trafficked, should make sex during an investigation off-limits. \n \n \"I can understand you're in a drug den, and you have a gun to your head and someone says 'snort this,'\" Hersh said, acknowledging the gray areas associated with undercover police work. But the sex exemption in Hawaii is \"so dissimilar from that circumstance on so many levels.\" \n \n The law even has critics inside the law enforcement community crying foul, according to the A.P. \n \n Skeptics, such as Roger Young, a retired special agent who for more than 20 years worked sex crimes for the FBI from Las Vegas and has trained vice squads around the country, remain unconvinced. \n \n Young said Thursday, \"I don't know of any state or federal law that allows any law enforcement officer undercover to penetrate or do what this law is allowing.\" [....] \n \n Derek Marsh says the exemption is \"antiquated at best\" and that police can easily do their jobs without it. \"It doesn't help your case, and at worst you further traumatize someone. And do you think he or she is going to trust a cop again?\" asked Marsh, who trains California police in best practices on human trafficking cases and twice has testified to Congress about the issue. \n \n Police officials, such as Major Jerry Inouye who testified before the House Judiciary Committee say they need the exemption because suspects are too familiar with how far undercover cops can and can't go in during sting operations. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Of course, the main concern from critics is potential abuse, especially since we've already seen instances where officers have used their position of power to re-victimize women in vulnerable situations. The A.P. points out even more instances that will make you shudder: \n \n In Philadelphia, a former officer is on trial facing charges of raping two prostitutes after forcing them at gunpoint to take narcotics. A former West Sacramento, Calif., officer is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of raping prostitutes in his police cruiser while on patrol. And last year in Massachusetts, a former police officer pleaded guilty to extorting sex from prostitutes he threatened with arrest. \n \n So far, police won't say how much they use this tactic and told lawmakers they have policies in place to keep their officers from abusing it. But very little information is being made available about just what those policies and internal procedures are: \n \n \"All allegations of misconduct are investigated and the appropriate disciplinary action taken,\" said Michelle Yu, Honolulu police spokeswoman, in an email. It's not clear, however, what the punishment would be. The disclosure laws for police misconduct in Hawaii make it impossible to know if an on-duty officer had faced discipline or accusations of having sex with a prostitute.Vice officers who investigate prostitution haven't been accused of sexual wrongdoing in recent memory, Yu said. \n \n Even more troubling? There's already been an example in Hawaii of abuse of power\u2014a parole officer was convicted of sexual assault against a prostitute in 2011. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Isn't one of the biggest questions here just why, exactly, Hawaii needs a exemption like this for their sex sting operations and none of the other law enforcement agencies in other states need one? They seem to be able to bust prostitutes and pimps in other states just fine without allowing their officers to engage in sexual acts in other places. \n \n Actually, there's a lot of questions raised by this. As addressed by critics mentioned above, what policies are in place to prevent officers from using this exemption to have sex with people who are being forced into this lifestyle? (Is that even a consideration or concern for Hawaii law enforcement?) How exactly would they even know what someone's situation is before the bust them? And what about underage sex workers? If a young girl is working as prostitute, what's to stop an undercover from engaging in a sexual act with her under this exemption? Hawaii, do you really want your police officers having sex with underage people just so you can increase a few crime fighting stats on a spreadsheet somewhere? Is that what we've come to in this country? Excuse me while I throw up the proverbial \"give me a freaking break!\" \n \n The revised proposal has passed the state House and will go before a Senate committee Friday. Hopefully, lawmakers will come to their senses by then.", "summary": "\u2013 Cops in Hawaii are fighting to keep what they describe as an important legal protection: Permission to have sex with prostitutes. A state bill cracking down on prostitution originally scrapped an exemption allowing undercover officers to have sex with prostitutes, but it was controversially restored after police testimony, the AP finds. Police won't say how often the exemption is used, but critics argue that it leaves the system wide open to abuse, noting that there have been many cases nationwide of police officers extorting sex from prostitutes. The chief of Honolulu's vice squad argued the exemption is necessary because prostitutes and pimps are otherwise \"going to know exactly how far the undercover officer can and cannot go.\" A former FBI agent who trained vice squads around the country for 20 years, however, says he doesn't know of any other state or federal law that allows undercover officers to do what the Hawaii law allows. \"Isn't one of the biggest questions here just why, exactly, Hawaii needs a exemption like this for their sex sting operations and none of the other law enforcement agencies in other states need one?\" asks Rebecca Rose at Jezebel. \"They seem to be able to bust prostitutes and pimps in other states just fine without allowing their officers to engage in sexual acts.\""}
{"document": "Image copyright Getty Images \n \n Open heart surgery appears to be safer in the afternoon because of the body's internal clock, scientists have said. \n \n The body clock - or circadian rhythm - is the reason we want to sleep at night, but it also drives huge changes in the way our bodies work. \n \n The research, published in the Lancet, suggests the heart is stronger and better able to withstand surgery in the afternoon than the morning. \n \n And it says the difference is not down to surgeons being tired in the morning. \n \n Doctors need to stop the heart to perform operations including heart valve replacements. This puts the organ under stress as the flow of oxygen to the heart tissue is reduced. \n \n The doctors and researchers looked for complications including heart attacks, heart failure or death after surgery. They found: \n \n 54 out of 298 morning patients had adverse events \n \n 28 out of 298 afternoon patients had adverse events \n \n Afternoon patients had around half the risk of complications \n \n One major event would be avoided for every 11 patients operated on in the afternoon \n \n One of those involved in the research, Prof Bart Staels, from the Institut Pasteur de Lille, told the BBC News website: \"We don't want to frighten people from having surgery - it's life saving.\" \n \n He also said it would be impossible for hospitals to conduct surgery only after lunch. \n \n But Prof Staels added: \"If we can identify patients at highest risk, they will definitely benefit from being pushed into the afternoon and that would be reasonable.\" \n \n Obesity and type 2 diabetes have been shown to increase the risk of complications after surgery. \n \n Heart health is already known to fluctuate over the course of a day. \n \n The risk of a heart attack or stroke is highest first thing in the morning, while the heart and lungs work at their peak in the afternoon. \n \n Dr John O'Neill, from the UK Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology, said: \"Scientifically it is not hugely surprising, because just like every other cell in the body, heart cells have circadian rhythms that orchestrate their activity. \n \n \"Our cardiovascular system has the greatest output around mid/late-afternoon, which explains why professional athletes usually record their best performances around this time.\" \n \n Other possible explanations for the findings included surgeons being tired in the morning or their own body clock affecting their surgical skill, particularly if they are not \"morning people\". \n \n But Prof Staels said the researchers had gone to great lengths to show that the difference in survival rates was not down to the surgeons. \n \n The French team also experimented on cardiac tissue samples from patients and showed they beat more readily in the afternoon. \n \n And an analysis of the DNA in the samples found 287 genes whose activity showed a circadian rhythm - waxing and waning during the day. \n \n They then moved into mice and used experimental drugs to alter the activity of one of those genes and seemed to be able to reduce the risk of death. \n \n Prof Staels said: \"We believe we have identified a potential way to circumvent the disturbing observation that operations in the morning lead to more complications.\" \n \n However, that will require more research to confirm. \n \n The researchers are also investigating whether circadian rhythms have an impact on survival in other types of surgery. \n \n Dr Mike Knapton, from the British Heart Foundation, said: \"Thousands of people now have open heart surgery in the UK. If this finding can be replicated in other hospitals this could be helpful to surgeons planning their operating list, for non-urgent heart surgery. \n \n Follow James on Twitter. ||||| Nobody wants to have open heart surgery. But if you do, you want to have it in that afternoon. \n \n That's the conclusion of a major new study that found there is a significantly higher risk of damage for people having surgery in the morning. \n \n And it's all because of the body clock, or circadian rhythms, which help keep us regulated through the day. It decides when we wake up, sleep and eat \u2013 and how ready we are to recover from major surgery. \n \n The new study, published in the Lancet, found that there are almost 300 genes that link the body clock to heart damage. \n \n And it found that there is a link between a person's body clock and how at risk they are of undergoing heart damage and major events like heart attacks after having heart surgery. \n \n Science news in pictures \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 20 show all Science news in pictures \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 1/20 Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary \n \n 2/20 A 3D reconstruction of an African grey parrot post euthanasia Included in Wellcome Image Awards, this 3D image of an African grey parrot shows the highly intricate system of blood vessels. Scott Birch. Wellcome Images \n \n 3/20 Baby Hawaiian bobtail squid Another Wellcome Images Award winner, this time of baby Hawaiian bobtail squid. The black ink sac and light organ in the centre of the squid\u2019s mantle cavity can be clearly seen. Macroscopic Solutions. Wellcome Images \n \n 4/20 Skeletons of 5,000-year-old Chinese \u2018giants\u2019 discovered by archaeologists The people are thought to have been unusually tall and strong. The tallest of the skeletons uncovered measured at 1.9m YouTube \n \n 5/20 Nasa discovers 75,000 mile-wide hole in the Sun Sunspots are caused by interactions with the Sun\u2019s magnetic field and are cooler areas on the star\u2019s surface. Nasa \n \n 6/20 View(active tab) Apple News Breaking news email Edit Revisions Workflow Clear Cache NewsScience 132 million-year-old dinosaur fossil found at factory in Surrey Paleontologists Sarah Moore and Jamie Jordan believe they have discovered a Iguanodon dinosaur, a herbivore that was around three metres tall and 10 metres long Cambridge Photographers/Wienerberger \n \n 7/20 Discovering life on Mars is less likely as researchers find toxic chemicals on its surface The Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars Getty Images \n \n 8/20 The Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest in the United States and third largest in the world, is seen in Yellowstone National Park. The park is famous for its geothermal activity \u2013 which includes its spectacular, flowing springs as well as the famous \"Old Faithful\" geyser that sprays water out every hour or so. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart \n \n 9/20 An iris clip fitted onto the eye This images is apart of the Wellcome Images Awards and shows how an artificial intraocular lens is fitted onto the eye. Used for conditions such as myopia and cataracts. Cambridge University Hospitals NHS FT. Wellcome Images \n \n 10/20 The Syrian civil war has caused the first ever withdrawal from the 'doomsday bank' Researchers in the Middle East have asked for seeds including those of wheat, barley and grasses, all of which are chosen because especially resistant to dry conditions. It is the first withdrawal from the bank, which was built in 2008. Those researchers would normally request the seeds from a bank in Aleppo. But that centre has been damaged by the war \u2014 while some of its functions continue, and its cold storage still works, it has been unable to provide the seeds that are needed by the rest of the Middle East, as it once did. \n \n 11/20 Scientists find exactly what human corpses smell like New research has become the first to isolate the particular scent of human death, describing the various chemicals that are emitted by corpses in an attempt to help find them in the future. The researchers hope that the findings are the first step towards working on a synthetic smell that could train cadaver dogs to be able to more accurately find human bodies, or to eventually developing electronic devices that can look for the scent themselves. \n \n 12/20 Black hole captured eating a star then vomiting it back out Astronomers have captured a black hole eating a star and then sicking a bit of it back up for the first time ever. The scientists tracked a star about as big as our sun as it was pulled from its normal path and into that of a supermassive black hole before being eaten up. They then saw a high-speed flare get thrust out, escaping from the rim of the black hole. Scientists have seen black holes killing and swallowing stars. And the jets have been seen before.But a new study shows the first time that they have captured the hot flare that comes out just afterwards. And the flare and then swallowed star have not been linked together before \n \n 13/20 Dog-sized horned dinosaur fossil found shows east-west evolutionary divide in North America A British scientist has uncovered the fossil of a dog-sized horned dinosaur that roamed eastern North America up to 100 million years ago. The fragment of jaw bone provides evidence of an east-west divide in the evolution of dinosaurs on the North American continent. During the Late Cretaceous period, 66 to 100 million years ago, the land mass was split into two continents by a shallow sea. This sea, the Western Interior Seaway, ran from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Dinosaurs living in the western continent, called Laramidia, were similar to those found in Asia \n \n 14/20 'Male and female brains' aren't real Brains cannot be categorised into female and male, according to the first study to look at sex differences in the whole brain. Specific parts of the brain do show sex differences, but individual brains rarely have all \u201cmale\u201d traits or all \u201cfemale\u201d traits. Some characteristics are more common in women, while some are more common in men, and some are common in both men and women, according to the study \n \n 15/20 Life on Earth appeared hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought Life may have come to earth 4.1 billion years ago, hundreds of millions of years earlier than we knew. The discovery, made using graphite that was trapped in ancient crystals, could mean that life began \"almost instantaneously\" after the Earth was formed. The researchers behind it have described the discovery as \u201ca potentially transformational scientific advance\u201d. Previously, life on Earth was understood to have begun when the inner solar system was hit by a massive bombardment from space, which also formed the moon's craters \n \n 16/20 Nasa confirms Mars water discovery Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae \u2014 or dark patches \u2014 on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. \n \n 17/20 Earth could be at risk of meteor impacts Earth could be in danger as our galaxy throws out comets that could hurtle towards us and wipe us out, scientists have warned. Scientists have previously presumed that we are in a relatively safe period for meteor impacts, which are linked with the journey of our sun and its planets, including Earth, through the Milky Way. But some orbits might be more upset than we know, and there is evidence of recent activity, which could mean that we are passing through another meteor shower. Showers of meteors periodically pass through the area where the Earth is, as gravitational disturbances upset the Oort Cloud, which is a shell of icy objects on the edge of the solar system. They happen on a 26-million year cycle, scientists have said, which coincide with mass extinctions over the last 260-million years \n \n 18/20 Genetically-engineered, extra-muscular dogs Chinese scientists have created genetically-engineered, extra-muscular dogs, after editing the genes of the animals for the first time. The scientists create beagles that have double the amount of muscle mass by deleting a certain gene, reports the MIT Technology Review. The mutant dogs have \u201cmore muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications\u201d, Liangxue Lai, one of the researchers on the project. Now the team hope to go on to create other modified dogs, including those that are engineered to have human diseases like muscular dystrophy or Parkinson\u2019s. Since dogs\u2019 anatomy is similar to those of humans\u2019, intentionally creating dogs with certain human genetic traits could allow scientists to further understand how they occur \n \n 19/20 Researchers discover 'lost world' of arctic dinosaurs Scientists say that the new dinosaur, known as Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, \u201cchallenges everything we thought about a dinosaur\u2019s physiology\u201d. Florida State University professor of biological science Greg Erickson said: \u201cIt creates this natural question. How did they survive up here?\u201d \n \n 20/20 A team of filmmakers in the US have made the first ever scale model of the Solar System in a Nevada desert Illustrations of the Earth and moon show the two to be quite close together, Mr Overstreet said. This is inaccurate, the reason being that these images are not to scale. \n \n Study author Professor David Montaigne, University of Lille, France, said: \"Our study found that post-surgery heart damage is more common among people who have heart surgery in the morning, compared to the afternoon. \n \n \"Our findings suggest this is because part of the biological mechanism behind the damage is affected by a person's circadian clock and the underlying genes that control it. \n \n \"As a result, moving heart surgery to the afternoon may help to reduce a person's risk of heart damage after surgery.\" \n \n Researchers looked at the medical records of 596 people who had heart valve replacement surgery including half who had surgery in the morning, half in the afternoon. \n \n They checked for any major cardiac events such as a heart attack, heart failure or death from heart disease in this research which took place between January 2009 to December 2015. \n \n They found that 28 out of 298 afternoon patients had adverse events while 54 out of 298 morning patients experienced such events. \n \n The researchers suggest this could equate to one major event being avoided for every 11 patients who have afternoon surgery and that people who had surgery in the afternoon had a 50% lower risk of a major cardiac event, compared with people who had surgery in the morning. \n \n The team also tracked the health of 88 patients who were randomly scheduled for heart valve replacement surgery in the morning or afternoon between January 2016 to February 2017. \n \n Those who had afternoon surgery had lower levels of heart tissue damage after surgery, compared with morning surgery patients, according to the researchers. \n \n Tests on heart tissue samples from 30 of the patients - including 14 who had morning surgery and 16 from the afternoon surgery group - showed that the afternoon surgery samples more quickly regained their ability to contract when put in conditions similar to the heart refilling with blood. \n \n Genetic analysis of these samples also showed that 287 genes linked to the circadian clock were more active in the afternoon surgery sample. \n \n The researchers believe this suggests the heart is subject to the body's circadian clock and the post-surgery results highlight that the heart is maybe weaker at repairing in the morning than in the afternoon. \n \n Larger trials are need to test the findings. \n \n Professor Michel Ovize, Hopital Louis Pradel, France, said the scientists have \"clearly shown that circadian rhythm is of clinical importance in aortic valve replacement surgery\" but that more research is needed. \n \n He added: \"Even before we have drugs available to regulate the circadian clock, one might propose that high-risk patients should preferentially be operated on in the afternoon.\" \n \n Additional reporting by agencies", "summary": "\u2013 Should you ever need heart surgery, it might be worth pressing for an afternoon appointment. New research in the Lancet finds patients who undergo morning heart surgery are twice as likely to suffer heart issues and other complications as patients who have surgery in the afternoon, per the BBC. It's not that doctors are drowsy in the morning and therefore prone to mistakes. Rather, researchers say the body's circadian rhythm regulates genes that are in top form and better able to handle stress in the afternoon, a fact that also explains why one's risk of heart attack is highest in the morning. To discover this, researchers conducted several studies, one monitoring 596 patients who underwent an aortic valve replacement, half in the morning, half in the afternoon. After 17 months, they found 18% of morning patients had suffered a major adverse cardiac event, acute heart failure, cardiovascular death, or a heart attack during the operation, compared to 9% of afternoon patients. Morning patients also had twice the risk of other complications, per the study, which identified 287 genes linking the body clock to heart health, reports the Independent. A second study also found morning patients had significantly higher levels of troponin, a measure of heart damage, per the New York Times. This doesn't mean morning surgeries should be avoided, but \"we should identify patients at high risk for complications\u2014those with diabetes or other metabolic risks, for example\u2014and operate on those in the afternoon,\" a study author tells the Times."}
{"document": "CLOSE The Pentagon has apparently spent $28 million dollars on \u201cforest\u201d camouflaged Afghanistan military uniforms rather than give them other patterns that cost nothing. Josh King has the story (@abridgetoland). Buzz60 \n \n An Afghan soldier with an appropriate form of uniform. (Photo: Kay Johnson, AP) \n \n WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon wasted as much as $28 million over the past decade buying uniforms for the Afghan army with a woodland camouflage pattern appropriate for a tiny fraction of that war-torn country, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. \n \n The Afghan Defense Minister picked the pricey, privately owned \u201cforest\u201d color pattern over free camouflage schemes owned by the U.S. government, according to an advance copy of the report due out on Wednesday. The scathing, 17-page study notes that \u201cforests cover only 2.1% of Afghanistan\u2019s total land area.\u201d \n \n \u201cMy concern is what if the minister of defense liked purple, or liked pink?\u201d John Sopko, the special inspector general, told USA TODAY in an interview. \u201cAre we going to buy pink uniforms for soldiers and not ask questions? That\u2019s insane. This is just simply stupid on its face. We wasted $28 million of taxpayers\u2019 money in the name of fashion, because the defense minister thought that that pattern was pretty. So if he thought pink or chartreuse was it, would we have done that?\u201d \n \n John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. (Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP) \n \n For years, Sopko\u2019s office has scalded the Pentagon for squandering tens of millions of dollars of the $66 billion Congress has appropriated to train, equip and house Afghan security forces. Wednesday\u2019s installment on uniforms was particularly pungent, noting that special tailoring \u2014 zippers instead of buttons \u2014 boosted the cost of uniforms of already dubious value. \n \n The report\u2019s release comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis considers sending thousands more U.S. troops to bolster beleaguered Afghan forces in what has become America\u2019s longest war. Afghan troops face a resurgent Taliban insurgency, an offshoot of the Islamic State (ISIS), and other terrorist groups. \n \n The Pentagon has spent $93 million on the uniforms since 2007. Switching to a camouflage pattern owned by the U.S. military could save taxpayers as much as $71 million over the next decade, the inspector general found. \n \n The Pentagon, in its written response, didn\u2019t quibble with the findings. Instead, in a letter to Sopko, the military acknowledged the need for a cost-benefit analysis \u201cto determine whether there is a more effective alternative, considering both operational environment and cost.\u201d \n \n No camouflage for bad decisions \n \n Reaction to Sopko\u2019s findings was swift and sharp. \n \n \u201cYou\u2019d think the Pentagon would have had a good handle on how to pick the right camouflage for uniforms,\u201d Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican and senior member of the Budget and Finance committees, said in a statement. \u201cInstead, the Defense Department gave up control of the purchase and spent an extra $28 million on the wrong pattern just because someone in Afghanistan liked it. It\u2019s embarrassing and an affront to U.S. taxpayers. Those who wasted money on the wrong camouflage uniforms seem to have lost sight of their common sense.\u201d \n \n The decision to buy the woodland-pattern uniform dates to 2007. For the previous five years, Afghan soldiers had been issued a \u201chodgepodge\u201d of uniforms donated from several nations, according to the report. Early in 2007, the Afghan Defense Ministry decided it needed a \u201cnew and distinctive uniform\u201d to set the Afghan army apart. \n \n CLOSE The United States is not winning in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress on Tuesday, saying he was crafting a new war strategy to brief lawmakers about by mid-July that is widely expected to call for thousands more U.S. troops Time \n \n In February 2007, U.S. officials training the Afghan army cruised the internet for camouflage patterns. In an email, the officials \u201cran across\u201d camouflage from a company called HyperStealth and showed them to Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak. He \u201cliked what he saw,\u201d the report says. \n \n By May, Wardak had selected the \u201cForest\u201d pattern, and U.S. officials made the decision to buy 1,364,602 uniforms and 88,010 extra pairs of pants \u201cwithout conducting any formal testing to determine the pattern's effectiveness for use in Afghanistan,\u201d according to the report. \n \n The report, however, raises questions about the utility of forest camouflage in a country that \u201con the whole is dry, falling within the Desert or Desert Steppe climate classification,\u201d according to the National Climatic Data Center. \n \n Read more: \n \n The Pentagon also could have recommended camouflage patterns the military owns but no longer uses. Those uniforms \u201cmay have been equally effective in the Afghan environment\u201d and with fewer alterations, like zippers, could have saved as much as $28 million. \n \n \u201cWe had camouflage patterns,\u201d Sopko said. \u201cDozens of them. For free!\u201d \n \n The inspector general\u2019s report concludes that neither the Pentagon nor the Afghan government knows if the uniform still being issued there is \u201cappropriate to the Afghan environment, or whether it actually hinders their operations by providing a more clearly visible target to the enemy.\u201d \n \n Those soldiers may be the ultimate losers in the uniform debacle, Sopko said. \n \n \u201cI feel sorry for the poor Afghan soldiers,\u201d Sopko said. \u201cI mean they\u2019re walking around with a target on their backs, \u2018Shoot me.\u2019 Because only 2% of the country is forest woodland, and that\u2019s the outfit that the Afghan minister picked.\u201d \n \n \n \n \n \n Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2sRL7qf ||||| Woodland Battle Dress Uniform worn by Afghan commandos (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Dustin Payne) \n \n Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Dustin Payne \n \n Uniforms used by ANA conventional forces with Spec4ce Forest Uniform pattern. (Defense Department photo by Pfc. David Devich) \n \n Photo Credit: Defense Department photo by Pfc. David Devich \n \n WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon is under fire for spending nearly $28 million procuring camouflage uniforms for the Afghan army, gear suited for environments so rare they account for just 2 percent of Afghanistan's countryside, according to a new watchdog report.The Defense Department organization overseeing efforts to train and equip Afghan forces supervised selection and design of the new proprietary woodland camouflage pattern without proper testing and assessment, according to the report published Wednesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.For years, Afghan conventional forces and elite commandos have fielded the U.S. Army\u2019s woodland pattern utility uniforms. In 2007, the Afghan Defense Ministry embarked on a quest to design new uniforms to counter efforts by the Taliban and militants battling government forces to counterfeit the clothing.The new uniform was designed in similar fashion to the current uniform worn by the U.S. Army, called the Army Combat Uniform, but at a much higher cost, the inspector general determined.According to the report, the HyperStealth\u2019s Spec4ce Forest camouflage pattern was chosen by the then-Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak \u2014 because he liked what he saw while browsing a website.\u201cThis is just simply stupid on its face. We wasted $28 million of taxpayers\u2019 money in the name of fashion, because the defense minister thought that that pattern was pretty. So if he thought pink or chartreuse was it, would we have done that?\u201d said John Sopko, the inspector general, in an interview with USA Today Picking uniform patterns for specific environments requires formal testing and evaluation, a process that can be a \u201can extremely fussy and demanding experimental design problem,\u201d said Dr. Timothy O\u2019Neill, creator of the camouflage pattern which served as the basis for the Army Combat Uniform. \u201cDesert designs don\u2019t work well in woodland areas and woodland patterns perform poorly in the desert.\u201dThe U.S. government already had the rights to multiple camouflage pattern schemes that could have been provided to the Afghan army at no cost.Furthermore, the \u201cDOD was unable to provide documentation demonstrating that the Spec4ce Forest specification was essential to the U.S. government\u2019s requirement, or documentation justifying and approving the Spec4ce Forest requirement in the ANA uniform specification,\u201d the report reads.Propriety uniforms cost significantly more to produce because vendors seeking to supply the Afghan military with its uniform needs are required to \u201cpurchase pre-patterned material, or obtain the rights to use the proprietary pattern from HyperStealth or an authorized licensee, according to the report.The new uniforms now cost 40 percent to 43 percent more at about $45 to $80 per set.Sopko has recommended conducting a cost-benefit analysis and consider changing the Afghan camouflage uniforms, which could save taxpayers $70 million over the next 10 years.", "summary": "\u2013 Just one week after defense chief James Mattis told a Senate panel the US is \"not winning in Afghanistan,\" a new report reveals that the US wasted $28 million on the wrong kind of uniforms for Afghan army soldiers. In 2007, the Pentagon allowed the Afghan defense minister to pick expensive woodland-camouflage patterns from a private company rather than free camouflage schemes from the government, reports USA Today. This despite the fact that forest makes up only 2.1% of Afghanistan's land area. The revelation is in a newly released report from Afghan special inspector general John Sopko. \u201cThis is just simply stupid on its face,\" he tells the newspaper. \"If he thought pink or chartreuse was it, would we have done that?\u201d A decade ago, US military consultants decided the Afghan army needed a more distinct uniform, in part to make it harder for the Taliban to stage attacks in counterfeit uniforms, reports the Military Times. The consultants showed then-Afghan defense chief Abdul Rahim Wardak pictures of \"forest\" uniforms they found on the internet, and he \"liked what he saw,\" according to the report. The Pentagon bought more than 1.3 million of the uniforms and 88,000 extra pairs of pants \u201cwithout conducting any formal testing to determine the pattern's effectiveness for use in Afghanistan.\u201d The report comes at a sensitive time: Afghan troops are in the midst of a multi-front conflict with both the Taliban and an ISIS offshoot, and earlier this month President Trump gave Mattis the authority to increase troop levels."}
{"document": "A Sauk Village nail salon allegedly burned a man so badly during a pedicure his leg was later amputated and his injuries caused or contributed to his death, according to court records. \n \n According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Cook County court Thursday by the man\u2019s wife, Darryl Carr went to AZ Happy Nails for a pedicure in November 2013. His feet were soaked in a hot water and chemical solution, followed by a hot wax solution, the lawsuit states. \n \n The suit alleges AZ Happy Nails was careless or negligent in using contaminated or unsafe chemical and wax solutions, soaking Carr\u2019s foot in the solutions too long, using excessive heat on Carr\u2019s left foot and failing to test whether Carr might suffer an allergic reaction or ask whether he had any medical conditions. \n \n They also failed to warn Carr about the risk of harm and failed to properly train and supervise its employees, the suit claims. \n \n \"As the proximate result \u2026 (Carr) suffered injuries of a personal and pecuniary nature, including serious burns to his left foot and leg, which subsequently became infected, resulting in the amputation of his left foot and leg, and other medical complications that ultimately caused or contributed to his death on June 4, 2015,\" the lawsuit states. \n \n The lawsuit also names A-Z Nail Spa, Inc., Wen Hua Cong and Xiao Xian Wang. During a call to AZ Happy Nails, a person answering the phone said the salon\u2019s owners or manager were not available to comment Friday evening. \n \n Carr\u2019s wife is seeking more than $50,000 in damages, according to the complaint. ||||| A man who went to a South suburban nail salon for a pedicure lost his leg, and then his life, after he contracted a gruesome infection, according to a lawsuit filed Friday. \n \n Darryl Carr got the pedicure on Nov. 13, 2014, at AZ Happy Nails, 1715 Sauk Trail in Sauk Village, according to the lawsuit filed by his widow, Latania Peterson-Carr, in Cook County Circuit Court. \n \n Workers at Happy Nails soaked Darryl Carr\u2019s feet in a hot water and chemical solution, followed by a hot wax solution, the suit claims. \n \n But the solutions were contaminated and Darryl Carr\u2019s left foot soaked for an excessive period of time, it\u2019s alleged. \n \n He suffered \u201cserious burns\u201d to his left foot and leg, which then became infected and had to be amputated, the suit claims. \n \n The infection and amputation eventually led to \u201cother medical complications that ultimately caused or contributed to his death on June 4, 2015,\u201d according to the suit, which also claims the workers did not determine whether their customer was at risk for an allergic reaction and did not inquire about underlying medical conditions. \n \n Darryl Carr is survived by his wife and two children, ages 10 and 13, the suit claims. Latania Peterson-Carr is seeking at least $50,000 in damages. \n \n A representative from Happy Nails could not be reached for comment Friday evening.", "summary": "\u2013 A widow in suburban Chicago blames a nail salon for killing her husband in a pedicure-gone-wrong. A lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court alleges that Darryl Carr suffered a grisly infection that led to the amputation of his left leg and, ultimately, his death, reports the Chicago Tribune. Carr's family says the AZ Happy Nails salon in Sauk Village soaked his feet in a chemical solution and then in a hot wax solution, but it alleges that the solutions were contaminated and that his left foot was left soaking for too long, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Carr suffered \"serious burns\" to his leg, which then became infected, says the lawsuit. It faults the salon for lax safety and training procedures, and for failing to test Carr for possible allergic reactions or warn him of any risks. He visited the salon in November 2013 and died this month, leaving his wife and two kids, ages 10 and 13. His widow is seeking at least $50,000 in damages from the salon, which hasn't responded publicly. (In New York, authorities are cracking down on the exploitation of nail salon workers.)"}
{"document": "Father of School Attacker Blames Everyone Else For His Son Getting Shot \n \n A 14-year-old student pulled a pair of butcher\u2019s knives yesterday during a fight at a Reno High School and swung them at other students before advancing upon an armed school resource officer, who promptly dropped him with a single shot. \n \n Like this Story? Share it on Facebook! Share \n \n A student brandishing a knife at Hug High School was shot by a Washoe County School District police officer Wednesday morning, sending the campus into lockdown for the rest of the day as police went room to room accounting for all students and finding witnesses. Justin Clark, who identified his son Logan Clark, 14, as the student shot Wednesday by a police officer during school, said the family is being represented by Reno attorney David Houston. The Washoe County School District and Reno Police Department, heading the investigation, wouldn\u2019t identify the student shot by police but said he\u2019s in critical condition at a local hospital. SEE ALSO: Failed President Really Angry He Failed To Gut Constitution In Eight Years Reno police spokesman Tim Broadway said the officer who shot the student is on paid administrative leave. Police aren\u2019t yet releasing the officer\u2019s identity. It is routine procedure to put officers involved in shootings on leave. \u201cA student is in the hospital, and a thorough investigation is underway,\u201d said the district in a statement, emphasizing that it immediately called Reno police, the Washoe County Sheriff\u2019s Office and the FBI for assistance following the shooting. Reno Police Chief Jason Soto said the incident began at 11:25 a.m. with an altercation between two students. One of those students drew a knife and tried to attack others. At that point, a school police officer told the student to drop the knife, Soto said. When the student didn\u2019t cooperate, the officer shot him and then provided medical attention, he said. Witness testimony and videos posted to social media on Wednesday also depict the incident. \n \n It\u2019s unfortunate that young Logan Clark brought knives to his school to deal with the personal problems he had with other students. It\u2019s unfortunate that the officer felt Clark was enough of a threat that he needed to shoot him. \n \n One of the videos taken of the incident posted online captures a large part of the incident. I\u2019ll caution that the language is profane and that the video captures both the shooting and the immediate aftermath. \n \n Amazingly (or maybe not), Justin Clark is blaming everyone but his son for the incident. \n \n Clark started by blaming the school resource officer for shooting his son with a firearm instead of using a taser. \n \n As regular readers of Bearing Arms are well aware, single officers must respond with lethal force against lethal force weapon, and butcher knives are most certainly capable of killing. Tasers are only to be used against non-compliant unarmed suspects, or if officers have the numbers, in support of an armed officer squaring off against a suspect with impact weapons such as a knife or club. As this school resource officer was responding to this incident unsupported, deploying his firearm was absolutely the correct response. \n \n If anything, the officer put his life at greater risk by not firing the more typical response of two or more rounds. He fired a single shot, and it is quite possible that Logan Clark is in critical condition instead of the morgue because the officer was willing to take that risk. \n \n Instead of reaching out to attorneys in hopes of profiting from the city for the officer\u2019s actions, he should be thanking the officer for having such great restraint when he would have been justified in shooting Logan to the ground, and for being the very first person to start trying to save Logan Clark\u2019s life, visibly applying pressure to and sealing with his hand the sucking chest wound that penetrated his son\u2019s lung. If it were not for this school resource officer\u2019s actions, Logan Clark\u2019s last words might have been \u201cI can\u2019t breath\u201d before tension pneumothorax killed him. \n \n But Justin Clark isn\u2019t grateful. He\u2019s blame-casting, and he\u2019s not done yet. \n \n At no point does Justin Clark actually blame his thug of a son for bringing weapons onto the school campus, or for lashing out at other students with those knives. \n \n Did i just call a 14-year-old a \u201cthug?\u201d \n \n You\u2019re darn right I did. \n \n According to Logan Clark\u2019s own Facebook page he was a far from being the victim his father is attempting to manufacture. He\u2019s already been arrested and incarcerated on multiple occasions, and was only been out of juvenile lockup a little over two weeks before he was shot at Procter Hug High School . \n \n Perhaps instead of blaming everyone else, Justin Clark may want to take long, hard look in the mirror at what kind of father he has been, and at the violent young criminal he appears to be raising. \n \n If he doesn\u2019t, there\u2019s a darn good chance that his son\u2019s going to be in the ground before he\u2019s old enough to vote. ||||| Published on Dec 7, 2016 \n \n This happened at Hug High Reno, NV 12/7/16 around 11:30am. \n \n \n \n I took this video from Facebook. It has since been removed by the author. ||||| Buy Photo Students and parents are reunited after an officer involved shooting occurred on the Hug High School campus in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday Dec. 7, 2016. (Photo: Andy Barron/RGJ)Buy Photo \n \n There was a shooting at Hug High School in Reno on Wednesday morning. Here's what we know now: \n \n * A campus police officer shot a knife-wielding student who was fighting with a classmate. \n \n * Attorney David Houston, who is representing the family of Logan Clark, said the 14- year-old had a stroke Friday morning and is emergency surgery. \n \n * Justin Clark, who identified his son Logan Clark, 14, as the student who was shot, said the family is being represented by Reno attorney David Houston. \n \n * The officer who shot the student is on paid administrative leave. Police aren\u2019t yet releasing the officer\u2019s identity. \n \n * According to police, the incident began at 11:25 a.m. as a fight. One student drew a knife and tried to attack others. A school police officer told the student to drop the knife. When the student didn't cooperate, the officer shot him and then provided medical attention. \n \n * Witness testimony and videos posted to social media also depict the incident. \n \n * During the incident, students were told to shelter in the school. They were released to parents after several hours. \n \n * School will continue as usual on Thursday at Hug High School, the district said. \n \n * The 911 call came in shortly before 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. \n \n * Officers detained a group of teens behind the school shortly after the incident. It was unclear why. \n \n * One video, posted by Vincent Coronado on Facebook about 1:30 p.m. that is not public but was reviewed by the Reno Gazette-Journal, shows the moments leading up to the shooting. The video starts with several students avoiding a boy in a blue shirt brandishing a knife. A male\u2019s voice can be heard yelling, \u201cback up, back up!\u201d At 22 seconds into the video, a single gunshot is heard and several students scream. The camera briefly points down and then points at the boy who is now writhing in pain on the ground. A police officer can then be seen approaching the boy with a pistol drawn, still pointed at him. School officials begin to yell, \u201cget out of here!\u201d The police officer approaches the boy and appears to move something away using his feet. The officer then kneels next to the boy and turns him over on his back. Before the video ends, the officer can be seen using his radio. In another video posted by Eduardo Ayala on Twitter at 12:39 p.m., the same boy is seen brandishing a knife. Ayala posted another video at 12:40 p.m. immediately following the shooting as the police officer approaches the boy who is now on the ground. \n \n For full coverage, visit: \n \n CLOSE Reno police spokesman Tim Broadway talks to the press Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016 after a shooting incident at Hug High School. Marcella Corona/RGJ \n \n Read or Share this story: http://on.rgj.com/2hktwxF", "summary": "\u2013 A 14-year-old boy was shot by a school police officer as he allegedly lunged at classmates with a large knife at Reno's Hug High School Wednesday morning. In a series of Facebook posts written Wednesday and Thursday but later removed from social media, the boy's father ranted against the police response to the situation. Justin Clark, who says son Logan is expected to \"pull through,\" questioned why the officer involved \"pulled his side arm\" instead of a Taser; the Reno Gazette-Journal is looking into whether school police officers carry Tasers. Justin Clark also alleged that police have been deleting evidence, and asked the public to send him any videos of the incident. (Video is currently still posted on YouTube; warning, disturbing content.) \"My son was a a superior athlete and has lost part of his lung,\" Justin Clark wrote. \"Now he won't have the ability that he had before, so he won't have the chance to go to college or any other way to use this gift. Cuz it's gone.\" The Reno Police Department is investigating the incident and looking into whether the shooting was justified, and a police spokesperson says no evidence has been deleted, including evidence collected \"from some students' phones\" that includes at least one video. Justin Clark's posts haven't gone over well in some forums: A Bearing Arms blog headline reads, \"Father of School Attacker Blames Everyone Else For His Son Getting Shot.\" The blog also includes screenshots of Justin Clark's posts, one of which claims Logan was being bullied and brought the knife to school because he knew he was going to be \"jumped.\""}
{"document": "(CNN) Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir , a man accused of war crimes and genocide, has left South Africa one step ahead of the law. \n \n Al-Bashir left the country Monday just as a South African High Court decided to order his arrest. \n \n The human rights group that had petitioned the court to order al-Bashir's arrest, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, said in a statement it was disappointed that the government allowed the Sudanese President to leave before the ruling. \n \n Judge Hans Fabricius had ruled Sunday that al-Bashir had to stay in South Africa while a court considered whether he should be arrested. The judge also ordered all ports in the country to prevent the Sudanese leader from leaving. \n \n But lawyers arguing in court for al-Bashir's arrest warned, in advance, that the ports of entry and exit were not obeying the judge's order. \n \n \"Being an organisation committed to the rule of law, SALC is encouraged by the Court's order and the independence of the judicial process,\" said Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, the group's director. \"The rule of law, however, is only as strong as the government which enforces it. Home Affairs have allowed a fugitive from justice to slip through its fingers, compounding the suffering of the victims of these grave crimes.\" \n \n Al-Bashir's departure was confirmed by the South African and Sudanese governments. \n \n Sudan's state news agency, SUNA, reported that Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour would hold a news conference at the airport Monday evening \"following return of the President of the Republic.\" \n \n It is unclear in light of the judge's order what help al-Bashir might have received, and from whom. His plane had been relocated earlier from Tambo International Airport, near Johannesburg, to Waterkloof military base, south of Pretoria. \n \n And sometime after that, the alleged war criminal went to the military base and slipped through the net. \n \n Court proceedings were underway \n \n His departure came as the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria was considering a request by the International Criminal Court to arrest him on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. \n \n The ICC charges against al-Bashir stem from the conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan, which began in 2003. The government of Sudan has been accused of repression and ethnic cleansing of Darfur's non-Arab population. \n \n Al-Bashir had been in South Africa attending a two-day summit of African Union leaders. \n \n Fabricius, the judge, said Sunday that he wanted to determine whether it was legally acceptable for Pretoria to allow al-Bashir to visit South Africa without arresting him -- and key in that decision would be determining if the South African Cabinet's decision not to comply with the ICC demand could trump an international treaty, South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper reported \n \n U.N. official: South Africa must comply with treaty \n \n JUST WATCHED Report: Sudanese soldiers rape more than 200 women Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Report: Sudanese soldiers rape more than 200 women 02:56 \n \n Earlier Monday, when al-Bashir's whereabouts were still unclear, the chairman of South Africa's Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation, Siphosezwe Masango, said he was concerned about the Sudanese President's possible arrest. \n \n \"This is an opportunistic act only meant to pit African leaders against each other in the name of international law,\" Masango said in a statement. He urged the leaders gathered for the summit to concentrate instead on regional trade, xenophobia and the development of Africa's infrastructure. \n \n He said the ICC appeared to target African leaders and, if the trend continued, his committee might have to recommend that the government re-examine South Africa's membership in the international court. \n \n Obama, Blair etc are mass murderers & got away with it, why should we hold Zuma & his govt accountable for Marikana? #Bashir \u2014 Max du Preez (@MaxduPreez) June 15, 2015 \n \n But the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, warned that member states had to follow ICC rules. \n \n \"It is of deep concern to me and my office when court orders are issued by the ICC in respect of the serving head of state of Sudan, and state parties to the Rome Statute openly flout them,\" he said Monday at a meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. \n \n The Rome Statute was a treaty that established the International Criminal Court. \n \n \"In this regard, we await the ruling of the Pretoria High Court this morning, as it assesses the request submitted by the ICC,\" he said. \n \n Sidiki Kaba, the Senegalese justice minister who serves as president of the assembly of states parties to the Rome Statute, expressed his \"deep concern about the negative consequences for the court in case of nonexecution of the warrants by States Parties and, in this regard, urges them to respect their obligations to cooperate with the Court.\" \n \n South Africa had twice before threatened to arrest al-Bashir -- in 2009 before President Jacob Zuma's inauguration and in 2010 before the World Cup, according to the Southern Africa Litigation Centre . He attended neither event, according to news reports. \n \n Immunity for heads of state on official business doesn't apply to the ICC; SA must #ArrestBashir. #AUSummit http://t.co/zIxdTW1HYm \u2014 ISS (@issafrica) June 14, 2015 \n \n Devastation in Darfur \n \n Arrest warrants from 2009 and 2010 outline the case against al-Bashir and allege that during the Darfur conflict he ordered the military, police and Janjaweed militia to attack three ethnic groups deemed sympathetic to rebel outfits with \"the specific intent to destroy in part\" those groups. \n \n As part of that campaign, the warrants say, the Sudanese President ordered the rape, murder and torture of civilians and the razing of villages. \n \n The United Nations has estimated that as many as 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict since 2003, a tally the Sudanese government says is inflated. Another 7 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates ||||| PRETORIA/KHARTOUM, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir flew out of South Africa on Monday in defiance of a Pretoria court that later said he should have been arrested to face genocide charges at the International Criminal Court. \n \n Despite a legal order for him to stay in the country ahead of the ruling on his detention, the government let Bashir leave unhindered, with South Africa's ruling party accusing the ICC of being biased against Africans and \"no longer useful\". \n \n Bashir has been indicted by the ICC over war crimes and crimes against humanity but South Africa gave him immunity along with all delegates attending an African Union summit in Johannesburg this week. \n \n As an ICC signatory, South Africa was obliged to implement arrest warrants. The decision to let Bashir leave represented an affirmation of shifting diplomatic priorities for the government, with African interests trumping those of the West. \n \n It also represented a blow for the Hague-based ICC, which has convicted just two minor African warlords since it started work in 2002 and has struggled to create accountability for those who are too powerful to be tried at home. \n \n The veteran Sudanese leader flew out of the Waterkloof Air Base at around 1000 GMT, headed for Sudan's capital, Khartoum. \n \n Hours later, judge Dunstan Mlambo found in favor of an application by a rights group calling for him to be detained, saying the failure to arrest him contravened the constitution. \n \n \"The respondents are forthwith compelled to take all reasonable steps to arrest President Bashir,\" Mlambo said. \n \n Government lawyer William Mokhari said the home affairs department would be investigating Bashir's departure. \n \n Bashir arrived in Khartoum to throngs of well-wishers and government officials inside the airport. \n \n Wearing traditional white robes, Bashir waved his trademark cane greeting the cheering crowd in an open-topped vehicle. Waving the Sudanese flag, the crowd chanted God is Great and some carried pictures of Bashir with the banner 'Lion of Africa'. \n \n Sudan's foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour said Africa's enemies were behind the failed bid. \n \n \"The participation could have been normal and without a fuss, but Africa's enemies, Sudan's enemies and the enemies of peace-loving countries wanted to try and turn it into a drama, to prevent the president from important participations,\" Ghandour said. \n \n Ghandour said the South African government had assured Sudan that Bashir's participation at the summit was a source of pride and that President Jacob Zuma had blamed opposition parties trying to embarrass Pretoria. \n \n \"This is a case of state sovereignty. Here we have a president elected and supported by his people. I don't have to point to the elections as I can simply point to this scene right here,\" he said referring to the boisterous crowd. \n \n Bashir was re-elected in April in a vote boycotted by most of the opposition, thereby extending his quarter-century rule. \n \n \"LONG GAME\" \n \n The ruling provided fresh ammunition for Zuma's critics, who accused him of ignoring his own judiciary. The presidency and foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. \n \n \"It is completely unacceptable. The South African government has been complicit in assuring Mr Bashir is able to flee the country,\" Democratic Alliance Chief Whip John Steenhuisen told Reuters, calling for \"heads to roll\". \n \n \"Our international reputation lies in tatters,\" he added. \n \n The ICC issued arrest warrants for Bashir in 2009 and 2010, accusing him of masterminding genocide and other atrocities in his campaign to crush a revolt in the Darfur region - a conflict that killed as many as 300,000 people, the United Nations says. \n \n He has long rejected the court's authority, but the warrants have curtailed his ability to travel freely. Monday's ruling means that he will not be able to come back to South Africa. \n \n ICC deputy prosecutor James Stewart said he was disappointed Bashir had managed to escape, but told Reuters he did not see it as a setback for the court, which was playing \"a long game\". \n \n \"I think that what happened over the past couple of days and in particular today, demonstrates that an ICC warrant of arrest actually means something and clearly the court in South Africa took that view,\" he said. \n \n The U.S. State Department said it was disappointed South Africa did not prevent Bashir from leaving Johannesburg. \n \n Spokesman Jeff Rathke declined to say South Africa should have arrested Bashir but said \"clearly, some action should have been taken\". \n \n The ICC and the U.N. criticized Pretoria for rolling out the red carpet for Bashir. \n \n \"The International Criminal Court\u2019s warrant for the arrest of President al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes is a matter I take extremely seriously,\" U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Geneva. \n \n \"The authority of the ICC must be respected and its decision implemented,\" Ban said. \n \n (Additional reporting by Peroshni Govender in Johannesburg, Tom Miles in Geneva, Yara Bayoumy, Ahmed Aboulenein and Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Giles Elgood) ||||| Play Facebook \n \n Twitter \n \n Embed Sudanese President 'Will Leave on Schedule', Minister Says 0:32 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog \n \n It ain't over until it's over. \n \n Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir \u2014 wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity \u2014 appears to have dodged a legal bullet and again avoided facing trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC). \n \n Bashir has evaded arrest for years and was facing the toughest challenge to his freedom yet in South Africa, where he was attending an African Union summit when a judge barred him from leaving the country pending a hearing on whether to hand him over to the ICC. \n \n Before the hearing was over, Sudan's State Minister for Information Yasser Youssef told Reuters that Bashir had flown home and was expected to land in the Sudanese capital Khartoum at about 6:30 pm local time (11:30 a.m.). \n \n The news capped a series of conflicting reports on Bashir's whereabouts at the court hearing. At one point, the South African government said \"to the best of our knowledge\" the Sudanese leader was still in the country. \n \n The legal wrangling was the latest in a long-running saga whereby Bashir's indictment \u2014 the only genocide charges against a sitting head of state \u2014 has become a test for the ICC and rallying cry against it from several African nations. \n \n The international court issued one arrest warrant against Bashir in 2009 and another in 2010 for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes over atrocities in Darfur. \n \n Bashir has danced around the arrest warrants for years, skipping visits to countries where he might face immediate arrest while visiting friendlier countries at will. \n \n The visit to South Africa \u2014 like Bashir's recent travel \u2014 drew condemnation from ICC member states and non-members such as the U.S. even before the judge blocked his departure. \n \n The U.S. said it was \"deeply concerned\" over Bashir's travel to South Africa for the summit, and the ICC urged South Africa to \"spare no effort in ensuring the execution of the arrest warrants.\" \n \n Many African nations have been loathe to endorse the court amid the perception it disproportionately targets African leaders for indictment. \n \n South Africa's African National Congress \u2014 the party of President Jacob Zuma \u2014 urged the government to challenge the judge's move to detain Bashir, saying the ICC is \"no longer useful.\" \n \n Most of Bashir's travel has been to non-ICC member states, however some members have allowed him to visit without facing arrest. \n \n In 2013, ICC-member Nigeria drew fire for failing to arrest Bashir when he visited the country for a conference. \n \n Bashir \u2014 who seized power in a bloodless 1989 military coup \u2014 was re-elected in April, though the U.S. said it didn't consider the vote's outcome to be a \"credible expression of the will of the Sudanese people.\" \n \n \"The restrictions on political rights and freedoms, the lack of a credible national dialogue, and the continuation of armed conflict in Sudan\u2019s periphery are among the reasons for the reported low participation and the very low voter turnout,\" the State Department said at the time. \n \n More than 300,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict dating back to 2003, according to United Nations figures. Around 2 million have been displaced.", "summary": "\u2013 For six years and counting, Omar al-Bashir has evaded arrest and a trial at the International Criminal Court on genocide and crimes against humanity charges stemming from the Darfur conflict, and it appears he may have slipped through the cracks again\u2014this time in South Africa. The Sudanese leader was visiting for a two-day African Union summit, and a South Africa High Court judge yesterday ordered al-Bashir to stay in the country while the court decided whether he should be arrested and handed over to the ICC, notes CNN; the judge also ordered all ports of exit and entry to stop al-Bashir from leaving. But before the hearing on his arrest could be completed, al-Bashir's private jet reportedly departed a Pretoria military airport, per the New York Times, and Sudan's minister of information told Reuters that his boss would arrive back in Khartoum at around 6:30pm local time. This apparent escape is just the latest in the ICC's frustrating attempt to get someone, anyone, to turn al-Bashir over. Since the first indictment against him in 2009, the Sudanese president has \"danced around the arrest warrants,\" per NBC News, traveling to countries where he doesn't fear arrest and avoiding all others. When the ICC got wind he'd be heading to South Africa, it put out a statement imploring South Africa to \"spare no effort in ensuring the execution of the arrest warrants.\" UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reminded ICC member countries today that, as members, they have an obligation to carry out those warrants. But, as NBC notes, many African nations haven't been willing to go the extra mile for the ICC because they feel Africa has been unfairly targeted by the court at The Hague. Sudan's state news agency says there will be a press conference after al-Bashir returns, per CNN."}
{"document": "Newly-released search warrants show that investigators believe a family of five in Springville died of poisoning last month. \n \n SPRINGVILLE \u2014 Investigators believe a family of five in Springville died last month of poisoning. \n \n Police suspected the family's deaths were \"not accidental or natural in any way\" from the day they were found in their Springville home, 954 E. 900 South, according newly-released search warrants filed in 4th District Court as part of a homicide investigation. \n \n Benjamin Strack, 37, his wife Kristi Strack, 36, and three of their children, Benson, 14, Emery, 12, and Zion, 11, were discovered dead behind the locked door of the parents' master bedroom on Sept. 27. At the time, Springville police told the media they had no answers as to how the family died, saying there was no signs of carbon monoxide in the home, no trauma suffered and no obvious signs. \n \n What they didn't say then is that detectives immediately suspected the family ingested poison and that at least one family member seemed to have suspected what happened. \n \n \"The detectives on scene determined the cause to be an accidental or intentional poisoning either by ingestion or environmental causes,\" detective Raymond Flores wrote in an affidavit. \n \n The parents' bodies were found in the bed, while the three children were lying \"around the bed,\" covered up to their necks with bedding, according to the affidavits. All five had cups of red liquid near their bodies. \n \n \"Furthermore, with the placement of the bodies, it would appear somebody had to position the bodies after they were deceased,\" detective Jeffery Ellsworth wrote. Family members told investigators the children had their own bedrooms and it was unusual for all of them to be together in their parents' bedroom. \n \n A trash bag at the home was found with 10 opened and empty boxes of a nighttime cold and flu medication and nine empty blister packs for cold and flu medication, according to the warrants. The bag also contained two empty boxes for allergy relief medication. \n \n Police also removed a bag of marijuana, cellphones, a laptop, wallets, a towel with a red substance on it, a pitcher of red juice, pill bottles and medications from the Strack house. Empty bottles of liquid Methadone were also found. \n \n The family was found by Kristi Strack's 18-year-old son, Janson McGee, and his girlfriend, who had contacted Kristi Strack's mother, Valerie Sudweeks, and her friend, to help them enter the locked bedroom. \n \n According to the warrants, McGee's girlfriend, who also lived at the home, spoke with Kristi Strack at 6 a.m. that Saturday, and then went back to bed. McGee and his girlfriend woke up around noon and, finding the house quiet, went to a friend's home believing the family had left. \n \n When they returned about 7 p.m., they found the home quiet although all the family cars were still at the house. Knocks and calls to the master bedroom door went unanswered. \n \n When firefighters arrived, they warned Sudweeks there may be a carbon monoxide leak in the home. \n \n \"Valerie replied, stating there was no carbon monoxide leak, and that she knew her family. Valerie also said she couldn't believe 'she' would do this to the kids,\" one of the affidavits states. \"Officers tried to clarify Valerie's statement, but she only assured them it wasn't a carbon monoxide leak.\" \n \n Officers had to physically remove the mother and grandmother because of her emotional state. \n \n Neither Springville police nor family members responded to calls for comment Wednesday. However, a man named Jake Strack posted a message on the Strack family's memorial Facebook page offering an exclusive interview for media willing to donate to the family's Go Fund Me account. Professional journalism ethics preclude reporters from paying for interviews. \n \n At a vigil prior to the family's funeral earlier this month, friends and neighbors recalled the easy, sincere friendships they shared with the Stracks, whom they described as loving and kind. \n \n Isaac Strack, Benjamin's older brother, asked the crowd at the event to be patient as they waited for answers surrounding the deaths. Toxicology tests have yet to be completed. \n \n \"We understand that there is healing that comes with those answers,\" Isaac Strack said at the time. \"We're confident those answers will come. We all have to be patient and wait until those answers come, and even when they do come, we won't know everything.\" \n \n Email: mromero@deseretnews.com, Twitter: McKenzieRomero; DNewsCrimeTeam ||||| A red liquid substance was coming from Kristi Strack's mouth, police wrote. \n \n Officers found in a trash bag a number of empty containers for medications, including 10 empty boxes of nighttime cold and flu medicine and two empty boxes of \"generic benadryl.\" Police also found empty bottles of liquid methadone, \"dispensed from a drug treatment clinic,\" officers wrote. Some of the empty bottles were labeled with future dates. \n \n Police also found pill bottles, a pitcher of red juice, a purple bucket of yellow liquid, a towel with a red substance on it, empty sleep aid boxes and a baggie of marijuana. \n \n The Stracks' lone surviving son, who had been out of the house, and his grandmother happened upon the motionless bodies the evening of Sept. 27. The master bedroom door was locked, so the grandmother had to force it open. \n \n Kristi Strack's mother had to be physically removed from the home \"due to her emotional state,\" officers wrote. When officers told her carbon monoxide may have been leaking into the home, the mother said \"there was no carbon monoxide leak, and that she knew her family,\" police wrote. \"[The mother] also said she couldn't believe 'she' would do this to the kids. Officers tried to clarify [the grandmother's] statement, but she only assured them it wasn't a carbon monoxide leak.\" \n \n A test of the air in the home by firefighters did not find any carbon monoxide. \n \n Springville Police Lt. Dave Caron on Thursday said he is declining to comment until the medical examiner's report is finished at the end of November. \n \n \"To comment or speculate on the cause or manner of death prior to the results of those autopsies would be unprofessional,\" according to a Thursday news release from the department. \"And minus those reports we have no updates to give on the case or the investigation itself.\" \n \n Benjamin and Kristi Strack, 37 and 36, respectively, pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of forgery, theft, identity fraud and unlawful possession of credit cards. Benjamin Strack also pleaded guilty to drug paraphernalia charges. \n \n No other serious criminal history appears in the Utah court record. \n \n \u2014 Reporter Michael McFall contributed to this story.", "summary": "\u2013 Police believe the deaths of five members of a Utah family last month were \"not accidental or natural in any way,\" according to newly released documents. Benjamin and Kristi Strack, their sons Benson, 14, and Zion, 11, and their 12-year-old daughter Emery were found dead in their Springville home on Sept. 27, and police suspect they were poisoned, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. A search warrant states that all five were found dead in the home's master bedroom with cups of red liquid near their bodies; Kristi Strack had red liquid coming from her mouth. The adults were in the bed, the children were lying around it with bedding covering all but their heads, and \"it would appear somebody had to position the bodies after they were deceased,\" officers wrote. The horrific scene was found by Kristi Strack's mother and 18-year-old son, who called his grandmother after finding the bedroom locked. When firefighters warned the mother that there could be a carbon monoxide leak, she replied \"there was no carbon monoxide leak, and that she knew her family,\" saying she \"couldn't believe 'she' would do this to the kids,\" warrants state; though officers pressed her, she didn't elaborate. In a trash bag, officers found nearly 20 empty boxes and blister packs of cold and flu medication. A bag of marijuana, pill bottles, a pitcher of red juice, and empty bottles of liquid methadone from a drug treatment clinic were also found in the home, reports the Deseret News. At a vigil earlier this month, Benjamin's brother said they were still waiting on toxicology results, but noted that even when the \"answers come ... we won't know everything.\" Click for more on the case."}
{"document": "Humblebragging is irritating; this, you know. But the truth about that special, noxious blend of whining and boasting is that it also doesn\u2019t even appear to work the way that humblebraggarts think it does, in that it doesn\u2019t successfully get the intended message across, according to a new working paper from a team of Harvard Business School researchers. Sometimes, you\u2019re better off just regular-bragging. \n \n The researchers, Ovul Sezer, Francesca Gino, and Michael I. Norton, tested people\u2019s perception of humblebragging across five separate experiments. In one, they asked 302 people to imagine the person who said one of three statements: a complaint (\u201cI am so bored\u201d), a brag (\u201cPeople mistake me for a model\u201d), or a humblebrag (\u201cI am so bored of people mistaking me for a model\u201d). They were then asked to rate how much they liked this person, judging from this one statement, and how sincere the person seemed. \n \n Overall, the study participants liked the complainers the best, and then the braggers; in last place, perhaps not surprisingly, were the humblebraggers. The participants also rated the complainers as most sincere and the humblebraggers as least sincere, which gets at one reason humblebragging is so obnoxious: It comes off as inauthentic. \n \n In another experiment, the researchers showed that humblebragging isn\u2019t an effective way to get your point across when compared to straightforward bragging. To test this, they had 201 people either read a brag (\u201cI get hit on all the time\u201d) or a humblebrag (\u201cJust rolled out of bed and still get hit on all the time, so annoying.\u201d); each group was asked to rate how attractive they\u2019d guess the person behind the statement was. The findings showed that people consistently rated humblebraggers as less attractive than the braggers \u2014 4.34 out of 7 for the humblebraggers, as compared to 4.91 for the braggers (a significant difference, though admittedly not a huge one). \n \n Humblebragging, then, the researchers conclude, a self-promotion strategy you're better off avoiding. \u201cFaced with the choice to (honestly) brag or (deceptively) humblebrag,\u201d they write, \u201cwould-be self-promoters should choose the former \u2014 and at least reap the rewards of seeming sincere.\u201d ||||| Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2017 Humblebragging: A Distinct\u2014and Ineffective\u2014Self-Presentation Strategy by Ovul Sezer, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton \n \n Abstract \n \n Self-presentation is a fundamental aspect of social life, with myriad critical outcomes dependent on others\u2019 impressions. We identify and offer the first empirical investigation of a prevalent, yet understudied self-presentation strategy: humblebragging. Across seven studies including a week-long diary study and a field experiment, we identify humblebragging\u2014bragging masked by a complaint or humility\u2014as a common, conceptually distinct, and ineffective form of self-presentation. We first document the ubiquity of humblebragging across several domains, from everyday life to social media. We then show that both forms of humblebragging\u2014complaint-based or humility-based\u2014are less effective than straightforward bragging, as they reduce liking, perceived competence, and compliance with requests. Despite being more common, complaint-based humblebrags are less effective than humility-based humblebrags and are even less effective than simply complaining. We show that people choose to deploy humblebrags particularly when motivated both to elicit sympathy and impress others. Despite the belief that combining bragging with complaining or humility confers the benefits of each strategy, we find that humblebragging confers the benefits of neither, instead backfiring because it is seen as insincere. \n \n Keywords: Humblebragging; impression management; sincerity; liking; competence; interpersonal perception; Self-presentation; Perception; Marketing; Trust; Personal Development and Career; \n \n Language: English Format: Print 79 pages SSRN Read Now", "summary": "\u2013 Masking a brag with false modesty\u2014known as a \"humblebrag\" in today's parlance\u2014may seem like an effective way to boast about your achievements without seeming like, well, an egotistical jerk. But a working paper from Harvard Business School researchers finds exactly the opposite, noting that people may be better off simply bragging and self-promoting without shame than adopting a veneer of faux humility, the Science of Us reports. Even complainers fared better than humblebraggers in the study because they were viewed as more \"sincere.\" The researchers conducted five separate experiments to test how people perceived humblebragging. In one of the experiments, 300 or so people were asked to rate hypothetical people who made the following three statements: \"I am so bored\" (complaint), \"People mistake me for a model\" (explicit brag), and the everyone-wishes-they-had this-problem remark of \"I am so bored of people mistaking me for a model\" (humblebrag). Not only did the participants rate the complainers as the most authentic (braggers came in second), but they also imagined the humblebraggers to be less attractive than the braggarts. \"Despite people's belief that combining bragging and complaining confers the benefits of both self-promotion strategies, humblebragging fails to pay off,\" the researchers conclude. (One writer thinks celebrities are the worst humblebraggers.)"}
{"document": "J. Vespa/WireImage.com \n \n A man can only take so much. Particularly when that man is Charlie Sheen's publicist. \n \n Stan Rosenfield, the ever put-upon flack responsible for gifting the world with such well-intentioned if wholly unbelieved doozies as blaming Sheen's hooker-assisted hospitalization on \"an allergic reaction to some medication,\" calling his rehab a \"preventative measure\" and otherwise assuring the public that Chuck Sheen is always A-OK has resigned. \n \n Guess the Sheen-anigans finally got to him. So, did he go out in a blaze of glory? Spill all of Charlie's dirty secrets? (Or whatever's left of them?) \n \n VIDEO: Charlie's issued a new list of demands for Two and a Half Men's Chuck Lorre. Hear them now! \n \n Nah, he's too much of a pro for that. \n \n \"I have worked with Charlie Sheen for a long time and I care about him very much,\" Rosenfield announced today (and not long after Sheen blasted the PR man for making excuses for his behavior\u2014aka doing his job). \n \n \"However, at this time, I'm unable to work effectively as his publicist and have respectfully resigned.\" \n \n Our only question for Stan now: what took you so long? \n \n Incidentally, Rosenfield was working with Sheen right up until the bitter end, this morning issuing a pair of denials about his now-former client. \n \n \"Somebody I've never heard of by the name of Ian Fortey has sent out an email under my company's name that Charlie Sheen has retired,\" he told E! News. \"THAT IS A HOAX. \n \n \"It was reported by X17 that Charlie Sheen is in rehab. This is NOT true.\" \n \n This, however, is. \n \n VIDEO: Watch the interview that sent Stan over the edge! ||||| 'Two and a Half Men' Creator Chuck Lorre: 'I Am So Outta Here!' \n \n Email This Chuck Lorre, creator and executive producer of 'Two and a Half Men,' posted a \"vanity card\" after last night's episode of 'Mike & Molly', one of the other shows he helms, that answered his thoughts on the recent \n \n \n \n According to \n \n \n \n He continues, \"I believe that consciousness creates the illusion of individuation, the false feeling of being separate. In other words, I am aware, ergo I am alone. I further believe that this existential misunderstanding is the prime motivating force for the neurotic compulsion to blot out consciousness. This explains the paradox of our culture, which celebrates the ego while simultaneously promoting its evisceration with drugs and alcohol.\" Chuck Lorre, creator and executive producer of 'Two and a Half Men,' posted a \"vanity card\" after last night's episode of 'Mike & Molly', one of the other shows he helms, that answered his thoughts on the recent Charlie Sheen debacle and the possible future of 'Two and a Half Men.'According to EW , on the card Lorre says, \"I understand that I'm under a lot of pressure to respond to certain statements made about me recently. The following are my uncensored thoughts. I hope this will put an end to any further speculation.\"He continues, \"I believe that consciousness creates the illusion of individuation, the false feeling of being separate. In other words, I am aware, ergo I am alone. I further believe that this existential misunderstanding is the prime motivating force for the neurotic compulsion to blot out consciousness. This explains the paradox of our culture, which celebrates the ego while simultaneously promoting its evisceration with drugs and alcohol.\" \n \n He goes on, \"It also clarifies our deep-seated fear of monolithic, one-minded systems like communism, religious fundamentalism, zombies and invaders from Mars. Each one is a dark echo of an oceanic state of unifying transcendence from which consciousness must, by nature, flee. The Fall from Grace is, in fact, a Sprint from Grace. Or perhaps more accurately, 'Screw Grace, I am so outta here!'Questions?\"It looks like Lorre is done with the show and could possibly be packing it in. TMZ also notes Lorre's statement is long and rambling, possibly mocking Sheen's recent statements Lorre's vanity cards came into play two weeks ago when he finally broke his silence regarding the trouble caused by Sheen being in the news for all the wrong reasons.The card talked about how Lorre lead a healthy lifestyle and finally said, \"If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I'm gonna be really pissed.\" ||||| Tomsfeet Productions \n \n Tomsfeet Productions \n \n \"It was epic,\" he told GMA correspondent Andrea Canning. \"The run I was on made [Frank] Sinatra, [Errol] Flynn, [Mick] Jagger, [Keith] Richards -- all of them -- look like droopy-eyed, armless children.\"Those comments probably won't cause Mick Jagger or Keith Richards to lose much sleep, but they definitely offend San Diego-based motivational speaker Tom Willis. That's because they hit him right where it hurts. You see, Willis was born without any arms, just a small left hand with two fingers that aren't very strong.But that hasn't stopped him from a successful life, first as a producer of educational films and currently as a motivational speaker who has made it his goal to throw out the first ball at every Major League Baseball stadium -- with his feet. Over the years, Willis has tried to change people's hearts and minds about disabled Americans, but he says Sheen's shunning of the disabled shows how little has changed -- and how much work he has to do.\"Sheen's comments -- the way he said them so matter-of-factly -- made me feel like he might say it any day of the week, that this was normal for him. I had to back up my DVR over and over again because I couldn't believe he said it. Then I had to transcribe it and send it to others.\"One of the people he sent it to was the mother of an 8-year-old girl with no arms.\"I had to send it to her so that she would know what her daughter will experience as she grows up,\" Willis said.Willis has every right to get mad, but hopes he can instead turn the situation into a \"teachable moment.\"\"[The comments] reinforce why I do my speeches,\" he told AOL News. \"When you see a person without limbs, it doesn't mean you can't do anything.\"Willis is the perfect example to prove his own point. When he speaks to groups, he comes onstage throwing Frisbees and balls with his feet. In fact, he can throw a baseball forcefully at least 60 feet, 6 inches, the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate, something that should impress Sheen, who has appeared in baseball-themed movies like \"Eight Men Out\" and \"Major League.\"However, Willis is not impressed with Sheen, or the context in which he used the term \"armless children.\"\"He compares himself to iconic figures and calls them 'armless children' because he's better at sex and drugs?'\" Willis asked rhetorically. \"I don't know what to say to a person like this. It was strange that this was the one reference that was an insult. He didn't put anyone else down.\"It isn't the words that offend me -- there are armless children -- but it's the way he presented it, as if it's the worst thing in the world.\"Willis realizes there is a long line of people ahead of him waiting for a Charlie Sheen apology.\"I wouldn't expect anything, because he has his own issues. But I wish him well,\" Willis said. \"I hope he can find his own peace and happiness. Maybe even with a porn star.\"On the other hand, he hopes that raising attention to the offensiveness of Sheen's comments can also help others realize that he's wrong in at least one respect.\"Christopher Reeve showed that in one snap of the finger your life can change,\" Willis said. \"However, he also showed that a disability is not the end of the world.\" ||||| Is John Stamos Replacing Charlie Sheen on 'Two and a Half Men'? \n \n Email This Last week, \n \n \n \n According to \n \n \n \n \"They were at the bar talking, and Les asked John if he'd be interested in replacing Charlie,\" a source told E! \"It wouldn't be to play Charlie's character, but they talked more about introducing a new character.\" \n \n \n \n On Friday, though, Stamos Last week, John Stamos shot down rumors that he was in talks to replace Charlie Sheen on 'Two and a Half Men.' But those rumors have rekindled, and there might be some more truth to them this time.According to E! Online , CBS chief Les Moonves chatted with Stamos on Saturday about possibly joining the network's hit sitcom.\"They were at the bar talking, and Les asked John if he'd be interested in replacing Charlie,\" a source told E! \"It wouldn't be to play Charlie's character, but they talked more about introducing a new character.\"On Friday, though, Stamos tweeted , \"Contrary to the rumors, I am not replacing Charlie Sheen on 'Two and a Half Men.' However, Martin Sheen has asked me to be his son.\" \n \n Sheen responded to rumors that the studio was angling to bring in Stamos as a replacement for him.\"If they do that then they deserve their failures and the follies,\" he told TMZ Stamos has been sorely underused in his 'Glee' guest spot as the dentist husband of guidance counselor Emma, so maybe there's something to this rumor. E! reports that Stamos' conversation with Moonves lasted about 15 minutes, but more formal talks haven't taken place.See more at TV Squad ||||| Five days ago, we closed a profile built around an interview with Charlie Sheen that will appear in the April issue of GQ. Since then, Sheen has continued doing what the article describes\u2014texting and emailing the media (on Friday, he sent images of his new \"Death from Above\" tattoo to Entertainment Tonight) and calling in live to radio shows. \n \n But Sheen also did something new: lobbed insults at his employers, specifically Chuck Lorre, the co-creator of Two and a Half Men, the top-rated sitcom on which Sheen stars. In a choice of words many saw as anti-Semitic, the actor referred to Lorre, who was born Charles Levine, as \"Chaim Levine\"\u2014a name that Lorre himself has sometimes used. Sheen also called his hit show a \"puke fest that everybody worships\" and called the bosses who'd urged him to clean up his act \"AA Nazis\" and \"blatant hypocrites.\" Sheen's spewing of vitriol appears to have pushed CBS and Warner Bros. Television to act. In a joint statement, the two companies suspended production of Two and a Half Men for the season, leaving at least 200 people out of work and canceling four planned episodes. \n \n While there has been no word yet about whether the show will be canceled for good, Sheen himself has been voluble\u2014if contradictory\u2014on the topic. One minute, the 45- year-old actor has said he plans to show up to work even though the show's sets are shut down (\"I'm going back to work,\" he texted Good Morning America from an island in the Bahamas, where he was vacationing with three women\u2014a model, one of his ex-wives, and a porn star\u2014on Thursday). The next minute, he has said that he can't imagine working with the \"turds\" who run the show ever again. \"Can you imagine going back... with those knuckleheads?\" he told Pat O'Brien later that same day. \"It would go bad quickly... We're pretty much done.\" Whatever his plan, Sheen seems determined to engage his corporate overlords in full-scale combat. On Friday, in a Fox Sports Radio interview with Pat O'Brien, he suggested CBS and Warners were in \"absolute breach\" and appeared to be gearing up for a legal battle. \"We are at war,\" he said. \"It's about to get really gnarly.\" \n \n So wacky and self-destructive have Sheen's comments been that it's hard to imagine he's telling the truth when he repeatedly says that he has cured his addiction \"with my mind,\" leaving him \"100 percent clean\" of drugs and alcohol (though on Saturday, RadarOnline.com posted results\u2013and photos\u2014of a preliminary urine test the site said it had conducted in his home; Sheen passed). On Alex Jones' show, for example, he interspersed his zingers about Lorre with references to trolls, F-18 fighter pilots and Vatican assassins. He reportedly texted RadarOnline.com that he was in talks with HBO about a new show\u2014Sheen's Corner\u2014that would pay him $5 million an episode (an assertion promptly denied by HBO, which like Warner Bros. Television, is owned by Time Warner). On Saturday came another grandiose claim: Sheen reportedly told TMZ.com that he's writing a tell-all book to be titled When the Laughter Stopped. He wants the bidding for the publication rights to start at $10 million. \n \n So what's driving Sheen? One answer is Apocalypse Now, the 1979 war epic that starred his father, Martin Sheen. As he told GQ, the movie\u2014whose set he visited as a child\u2014is nearly always in his thoughts (an assertion he only amplified with that new tattoo, which quotes the death card that Robert Duvall's character, Kilgore, throws on his victims in the film). \"I'm not just my dad,\" Sheen said this week in one radio rant. \"I'm putting up the river to kill another part of me, which is Kurtz. I'm every character in between, save for that little weirdo with his guts strapped in, begging for water. That's not me. But there are parts of me that are Dennis Hopper.\" \n \n Sean Penn, the actor who grew up making Super 8 movies with Sheen, told GQ that he's always seen his friend as something of a performance artist, raising the odd possibility that Sheen's behavior is his own weird form of agitprop. Is the man who started life as Carlos Irwin Estevez mocking the Hollywood celebrity meltdown by staging the Mother of All Meltdowns? Is he bi-polar? Or is he just an addict who's circling the drain? What follows is the full story on how Sheen became Sheen. \n \n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \n \n People are always asking Charlie Sheen, \"What are you thinking?\" The drugs, the drink, the porn stars, the alleged violence, the trashed hotel rooms... why? \n \n \"Here's a peek into my insanity,\" he tells me one afternoon in February. \"People say, 'What are you thinking?' and here's the truth. It's generally a quote from Apocalypse Now or Jaws.\" \n \n It's Sheen's fourteenth day of sobriety (this time around), and he's calling from a baseball diamond on the west side of Los Angeles. Batting practice is like therapy for the former star athlete, people who know him say, and he's spent the past few hours hitting balls with his friend Tony Todd, whom he met in Little League when they were 8 years old. This has been \"the best day ever,\" says Sheen, 45. His voice is relaxed and fluid. He sounds like he's on the mend. But when I say as much, he's quick to correct me. \n \n \"We're past 'on the mend,' \" he says. \"We're not dealing with normal DNA here, you know what I'm saying? All those other sissies and amateurs, they can take their fucking time.\" But not Charlie Sheen, the star of CBS's Two and a Half Men, the top-rated comedy on television. He needs to get back to the set. \"I heal as fast as I unravel. It's a blessing and a curse. I feel I have to. There's families out of jobs. There's work to do.\" \n \n As we talk, he addresses his latest binge only obliquely at first. \"In regards to this whole recent odyssey, I'll just say this: It was epic,\" he says. \"There are two rules at my house right now: You park your judgment at the door, and you enjoy every moment. People can interpret that however they want. Enjoy every sober moment. Enjoy every loaded moment. Just enjoy every moment. It's not a rehearsal, you know?\" ||||| >> new interview with charlie sheen . jeff rossen is in los angeles with details. jeff, what are we going to get this morning? \n \n >> reporter: oh, a lot more. charlie sheen called us and said, come back to the house. i have more to say. we went and got a glimpse into his life behind closed doors , including a rare interview with the new women in his life, women helping to raise his children every day. charlie calls them his goddesses. \n \n >> how long have we owned this? \n \n >> reporter: it's charlie sheen 's version of domestic bliss at home with the new loves of his life. one, a self-described porn star he calls rach, the other a modelle he calls natty. \n \n >> we run errands, eat, play with the kids. \n \n >> we have fun. \n \n >> we watch movies. i watch a lot of \"two and a half me men\". \n \n >> do you love his kids? \n \n >> are you kidding? \n \n >> i wish i was with them now. i didn't want to put them down. bob was like, they're calling you. he's saying bye! \n \n >> if you say dad's busy he says, okay, dada busy. he knows. he's fine with it. \n \n >> is this normal? \n \n >> aside from the days we sit around with the gold pom-pons and everything. \n \n >> don't run with that. \n \n >> i'm joking. \n \n >> charlie said you can put him in his place. when he's wrong you put him in his place -- \n \n >> i don't -- \n \n >> let her answer. \n \n >> i don't generally have to. i respect charlie as a man and as head of the household and trust him completely. if there is something i think is a bad idea i might say, hey, babe, let's think about it this way and, you know, it works. the system works for us. \n \n >> reporter: the goddesses now live with charlie , almost always around at his los angeles mansion. \n \n >> it's a good day at the silver valley lodge -- \n \n >> reporter: his nickname for in-home rehab. we took him outside for a candid conversation about his history with women . what do these women do for you other women haven't? \n \n >> these women don'tle jud judge me, lead with opinions, lead with their own needs all the time. they are honest to say, park your nonsense. help me solve this and we solve it. what i tell them is don't live in the middle. get away from your ego and emotions. therein lies the solution. \n \n >> reporter: are these women allowed to say, charlie , you're being a jerk. can they talk back? \n \n >> oh, yeah. those are the best jokes of the day. we have an open dialogue. \n \n >> reporter: do they put you in your place ? \n \n >> everybody's vote has equal importance. when we are approaching crisis, i remind them, look, i'm 22 years further down the road. trust me. most of the time -- well in the last few days, all the time my plan is the best. everybody will win and everybody's needs will be taken care of. \n \n >> reporter: including, he says, his young children. charlie 's twin boys spend a lot of time at his house. there are nannies but charlie 's angels play a role, too. \n \n >> reporter: are the goddesses with your kids? \n \n >> if i'm not there, everybody helps out. i don't know. there's nothing broken here. \n \n >> reporter: some would say everything is broken. \n \n >> wait. i'm still in pain. \n \n >> hang in there. \n \n >> reporter: his hit sit-com \"two and a half men\" has been shut down for the rest of the season based, according to cbs and warner brothers on sheen's statement, conduct and condition. your lawyers wrote a letter to warner brothers saying you want to be paid for eight episodes. \n \n >> of course. \n \n >> reporter: why? \n \n >> that's what i agreed to do. \n \n >> reporter: you want to move forward? \n \n >> god yeah. there is work to do, shows to be delivers. the clock is ticking. \n \n >> reporter: warner brothers agreed to pay the crew for four episodes. \n \n >> that's a start. i want eight. i will worry about the cast and myself last. \n \n >> reporter: you think because of the pressure you're applying they are getting paid? \n \n >> well, yeah. who else is applying pressure? jon cryer ? no. just sitting around. \n \n >> reporter: warner brothers denies sheen's pressure had anything to do with paying the crew. sheen's publicist quit after years on the job saying he's unable to work effectively as his publicist. what happened? \n \n >> i don't know. maybe he felt he wasn't respected. again, i'm just guessing. there is something epic about that that it got so gnarly that stan said, okay, i'm out. that's how i roll. bye-bye. there's the door. same one you came in. \n \n >> reporter: in the first interview that aired monday, charlie promised he's clean now. \n \n >> look at me, duh. drug tests don't lie. \n \n >> reporter: when was the last time you did drugs? \n \n >> i don't know. i don't care. \n \n >> reporter: in the new interview he brought the proof. these are results of the drug test you just took. \n \n >> the word negative is printed like 18 trillion times. \n \n >> reporter: his family isn't convinced. in a rare interview his father martin spoke about it. \n \n >> he's an extraordinary man. if he had cancer, how would we treat him? the disease of addiction is a form of cancer. you have to have an equal measure of concern and love and lift them up. so that's what we do for him. \n \n >> reporter: has your father or brothers came to you and said, time to get back on track? \n \n >> i said, i'm not ready. i'm not interested in your rhetoric now. i appreciate your love and compassion if that's what you call it. but i'm 45 years old. i'm not interested in people treating me like a 12-year-old. \n \n >> reporter: even your own father? \n \n >> yeah. my own dad. come on captain bullard, greatest film ever made. he's entitled. but i have evolved beyond it. \n \n >> reporter: devolving some say into a dangerous spiral for our viewers who saw this monday morning. duh, winning. tiger blood. adonis dna. i'm tired of pretending i'm not a total rock star from mars. he's saying war lock, tiger's blood. what do you say when you see it? \n \n >> i'm entertained as hell. i'm laughing with my goddesses, with my friends. everyone's like, did they expect a normal, conventional, boring interview? no, man. we're shaking the tree. we're shaking all the trees. \n \n >> reporter: someone asked me is he delusional, crazy, a nars cyst, a nice guy , how would you describe yourself? \n \n >> i am grandiose because i live a grandiose life. i'm tired of being aw shucks. that's not me. b.s., that is me. thanks for recognizing it. i support it. what's wrong with that? for years there were actors i thought were so arrogant. i look back and go, wow, they were just uber confident. they were just projecting the image they believed to be true. now i get it. \n \n >> reporter: what do you want to say to the fans? there are a lot of fans worried about you. \n \n >> don't be worried. celebrate this movement. i love and i'm so grateful that you have supported me and the show for so long. i will not let you down. trust me. \n \n >> reporter: charlie sheen didn't hold back at all. as soon as the interview aired on \"today\" people started tweeting me. charlie seems manic, i'm sad for his kids. wow, i couldn't sit there like you did. i'd have to pop that ego of his. \n \n >> wow. i don't come from a place of ego. \n \n >> reporter: somebody said, what did charlie smell like? he sounds like he smokes a carton a day. \n \n >> whatever. \n \n >> reporter: does that hurt you? \n \n >> no. it's sad for them. get a job. charlie seems manic, i'm sad for his kids. i'm sad you have time to write about this and you may not ever have kids because you're obviously -- i don't want to get into it. one woman wrote, i agree with him. \n \n >> well, she's awake. the others -- [ snoring ] \n \n >> reporter: charlie says he's happy and feeling better than ever. \n \n >> that's nice. \n \n >> reporter: playing basketball with friends, working out and spending more time with the goddesses. \n \n >> our life is awesome. \n \n >> reporter: confident all the free time is temporary saying he'll return to the show soon as the star. do you support charlie and his master plan to go back to work? do you agree with everything he's done? \n \n >> completely. i'm behind charlie 100% in whatever he would like to do. \n \n >> i told charlie i'm on the bus. i don't care where the bus is going. that's how we live. what do you want to do today? done. let's do it. \n \n >> i keep pressing the truth. that will flush everybody into the light and we'll have a dialogue and fix it. it's going to be good. everybody's going to win. because they followed guess who's plan. mine. \n \n >> reporter: for the second straight day we called cbs for reaction. they had no comment. today would have been the first day back at work for the crew of \"two and a half men\" on the warner brothers lot just a couple of blocks from here. instead they are home waiti iing see what happens like charlie sheen . i spent a lot of time with him. no question he's not normal, but he likes it that way. the question is what's next. he assured me drugs and alcohol are out of his life for now and for good but addiction experts say it's not that easy to go cold turkey , matt and to stay in it. that's the challenge for charlie sheen . maybe not even he realizes how difficult it is to sustain going forward. \n \n >> i guess a lot of us will stay tuned . jeff, thank you very much. let's ||||| Despite being suspended from his job and engaging in a public war of words with CBS and the producers of \"Two and a Half Men,\" Charlie Sheen said he loves his life, surrounded by his twin boys and two 24-year-old girlfriends. \n \n \"It's perfect. It's awesome. Every day is just filled with just wins. All we do is put wins in the record books,\" the 45-year-old actor said. \"We win so radically in our underwear before our first cup of coffee, it's scary. People say it's lonely at the top, but I sure like the view.\" \n \n Sheen, who has long had a penchant for prostitutes and porn stars, lives with two women whom he calls his \"goddesses\": Natalie Kenly, a graphic designer and Rachel Oberlin, a porn star. \n \n \"You've read about the goddesses, come on. They're an international sensation. These are my girlfriends. These are the women that I love that have completed the three parts of my heart,\" Sheen said. \n \n \"It seems crazy to everybody else, but for us it works,\" Kenly said about their abnormal arrangement. \n \n \"Natty and Charlie have their own special connection, I have my own connection with Charlie and then Natty and I also have our own relationship,\" said Oberlin, who is also known as adult film star Bree Olson. \n \n The embattled actor opened up his Beverly Hills home, which he now shares with his two girlfriends and his twin sons with soon-to-be ex-wife Brooke Mueller, to ABC News this weekend. \n \n On Thursday, CBS announced that it had canceled the rest of the season of the hit comedy because of Sheen's \"statements, conduct and condition,\" after the actor's scathing rant against Chuck Lorre on the radio program \"Alex Jones Show.\" \n \n CLICK HERE to watch the full \"20/20\" special -- \"Charlie Sheen: In His Own Words.\" \n \n Sheen Jokes About Polygamy \n \n Kenly, who started dating Sheen around October, said she \"fell in love with his brain\" and can't see her life without him; Oberlin said she would love to marry the star. Sheen said it was \"too soon to tell,\" but that today he has no plans to marry again. \n \n \"I tried marriage. I'm 0 for 3 with the marriage thing. So, being a ballplayer -- I believe in numbers. I'm not going 0 for 4. I'm not wearing a golden sombrero,\" he said. \n \n Flanked by two blondes, Sheen called Hugh Hefner \"an amateur\" and joked about starting a polygamous marriage with the \"wedge,\" his nickname for himself, Oberlin and Kenly. \n \n \"Maybe the three of us will get married. I don't know,\" he said sarcastically. \"I'm gonna say this. It's a polygamy story. All my guy friends are gonna like throw tomatoes at me. It's like an organic union of the hearts.\" \n \n Sheen's current arrangement with the \"goddesses\" is far from traditional. Oberlin said they don't always sleep in the same bed together, but \"land wherever we land.\" Sheen said the unorthodox setup is even better than a marriage. \n \n \"We have a few rules here. Nobody panics. There's no judgment. You park your judgment at the door. Nobody dies. And -- enjoy every moment. What did I miss? Drink chocolate milk,\" Sheen said. \"We just have fun. There's a ton of laughter in this house. A ton of love in this house. There's a ton of nobility in this house.\" \n \n \"It's not a wild scene with jealous girls and ex-wives and all this kind of stuff. It all very ... we love Charlie,\" Kenly said. \n \n In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News, Sheen responded to all his recent headline-making actions, including his public feud with CBS, his feelings about Chuck Lorre and his future. \n \n Sheen said he's now clean and the star passed a series of drug tests, conducted by RadarOnline.com, proving there was no marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines or alcohol in his blood or urine. \n \n Sheen did not hold back on any front. He was forthcoming on his affinity for porn stars, saying \"it's exciting\" and \"you already know what you're getting before you meet them.\" \n \n \"They're the best at what they do and I'm the best at what I do,\" he said. \"And together it's like, it's on. Sorry, Middle America. Yeah, I said it.\" \n \n CLICK HERE to see photos of Sheen through the years \n \n On his penchant for prostitutes, Sheen said it allows him to simplify things. \n \n \"Who wants to deal with all the small talk and nonsense? And you're paying for something that eliminates that. And I don't know. It makes sense to me,\" he said. \"As long as you're not lying to anybody. As long as you're not lying to people, I think whatever you're doing, there's no children involved in, then you're OK. But people are going to judge it, because they're so jealous.\" \n \n Kenly on Sheen's Twin Boys: 'I Would Take a Bullet for Them' \n \n \"The wedge\" told ABC News that their partying days were a thing of the past and that Sheen's nearly 2-year-old twin boys Max and Bob, are the priority. \n \n \"We've got the kids here. They take precedence over anything else,\" said Kenly, who was once a nanny. She said she enjoys helping Sheen care for the boys while mom Brooke Mueller is not around: \"I love those boys. I would take a bullet for them.\" \n \n Sheen said he would unleash a violent side that was \"unlike anything you'll ever see\" to \"protect his family.\" \n \n Despite his love for his children, Sheen said he was not worried about his kids being negatively affected by his lifestyle choices or recent headline-making actions. \n \n \"I'm not gonna worry about it, or I can say, 'Hey, kids, your dad's a rockstar. Look at his experiences. Look at what he survived.' Bang. There are some of your lessons, but the real lessons are gonna be in the future,\" Sheen said. \n \n Sheen is a father to five children -- 26-year old daughter Cassandra, who was recently married, and four kids who are minors, including the twin boys and two daughters, Sam and Lola. who are under custody of his ex-wife Denise Richards. \n \n Sheen said he doesn't spend enough time with his daughters, who are ages 5 and 6, to have his more controversial behaviors, like a highly-publicized weekend bender, have an impact on them. \n \n \"I don't see them enough to have that influence, but that was yesterday and today it could be different. I don't know,\" he said. \"They'll wake up one day and realize how cool dad is. And, you know, signs all the checks on the front, not the back. And you know, we need him and we need his wisdom and his bitchin'-ness.\" \n \n Sheen on CBS Battle, Feud With Chuck Lorre \n \n After eight successful seasons of \"Two and Half Men,\" Sheen said he felt underappreciated and unloved, especially when CBS executives and the show's creator Chuck Lorre arrived on set. \n \n \"We have an expression down there that the fun stops at 1:00. That's when they roll in. And they just puke all over it. And it's all about judgment and there's no real gratitude. And that has to change,\" Sheen said. \n \n \"If they can't change that, they're not welcome in my perfect work environment,\" he said. \"And they're not welcome to be in the presence of what I'm delivering. Because they just need to take a step back and say, 'Wow, wow, look what this guy's doing for us, for all of us.'\" \n \n With the show puling in an estimated $160 million in advertising revenue this season alone, Sheen, who reportedly made $1.8 million per episode, said he made CBS and Lorre, very rich. \n \n \"The numbers don't lie. Chuck [Lorre] was on his way back. He had a $48 million, four-year deal or something. He had three failed pilots. And they were ready to just like write him that final check and just be like, 'Thanks, dude, we tried. But it didn't work out.' And then I walk in and deliver the lottery,\" Sheen said. \n \n Sheen told ABC News that from the start, he did not get along with Lorre. \n \n \"It was a fake friendship. I never felt respected in a way that I should have been. ... I showed up and this dude won the lottery. And so I always felt like, 'Why am I being treated like an unwelcome relative and being given cold coffee at, like 8 PM in the middle of the fourth inning?'\" \n \n In one of Sheen's outbursts on the radio program \"Alex Jones Show\" that ultimately led to the show's suspension for the rest of the season, he took aim at Lorre, saying that he must have embarrassed him \"in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that his un-evolved mind cannot process.\" Later, he also challenged Lorre to a fight, saying, \"If he wins, then he can leave MY show,\" according to TMZ. \n \n Sheen told ABC News he issued Lorre this \"challenge\" because the producer was trying to destroy his family. \n \n \"If you destroy my family then I will deal with you with violent hatred. Sorry, it's my code. And it's not like it has to be delivered in a way that's, like, you know, all obvious and -- and like, you know, radio speak. But yeah, there's some wrongs to be righted,\" Sheen said. \n \n Monday, Warner Bros. agreed to pay the \"Two and Half Men\" crew for the four weeks of work they will miss due to the show's cancellation, according to TMZ.com. Crew members reportedly told TMZ that it was Lorre who prompted Warner Bros. to take these steps. \n \n Despite his hatred for Lorre, Sheen said he does want to resume work on the show and may be prepared to talk to Lorre to get the show back. \n \n \"I don't know if Chuck and I can ever work together again. But maybe guys just sit in a room and just go, 'Look, we hate each other. Let's continue to make some great television.' Maybe that's possible. I don't know,\" Sheen said. \"I'm not gonna get violent on the guy. I'm not stupid. I go to jail, I lose all my power.\" \n \n CBS and Lorre had no comment. \n \n Even after Sheen's fall from grace, the public opinion on Sheen -- in the form of ratings -- still seems high. Almost as high, perhaps, as his own opinion of himself. \n \n Sheen told ABC News that he had \"billions\" -- not \"millions\" -- of fans that tune in and rally around him because he is so honest. \n \n \"I think the honesty not only shines through in my work, but also my personal life. And I get in trouble for being honest,\" he said. \"I'm extremely old-fashioned. I'm a nobleman. I'm chivalrous.\" \n \n CLICK HERE to watch the full \"20/20\" special -- \"Charlie Sheen: In His Own Words.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Another day, another absolute glut of Charlie Sheen stories. The latest: In a just-published interview given to GQ last month\u2014before he went on a rant against his boss, but after he trashed his hotel room\u2014Sheen explains his philosophy on life (and, apparently, partying): \"You enjoy every moment. ... Enjoy every sober moment. Enjoy every loaded moment. Just enjoy every moment. It's not a rehearsal, you know?\" GQ also talked to those who know Sheen; porn star Kacey Jordan talks about the night they smoked $20,000 worth of cocaine. \"That night I knew: This is the most self-destructive person I have ever met,\" she says. Longtime friend Sean Penn has a more optimistic view of Sheen: He tells GQ, \"I think to a large degree he's saying, 'Guys, we're only going to be here once, so lighten the f*** up.'\" But another good friend says, \"The people closest to him wish we had a solution. Charlie apparently is in his own downward spiral.\" One person is apparently tired of all this: Sheen's publicist, who once blamed a Sheen hospitalization on an \"allergic reaction,\" has resigned, E! reports. More of Sheen's recent interviews were on TV today. On Good Morning America he talked about the two girlfriends he lives with, calling it \"a polygamy story\" and saying Hugh Hefner is \"an amateur\"\u2014presumably when it comes to dating multiple women at once. On Today, he said he loves his live-in \"goddesses\" because \"these women don't judge me.\" Videos in the gallery. Believe it or not, that's still not all. Click for: The person who might replace Sheen on Two and a Half Men, boss Chuck Lorre's \"uncensored thoughts\" in response to the situation, and how Sheen offended armless people."}
{"document": "Story highlights Trump issued support for the bill even before he won the election \n \n Some of Trump's top advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, are vocally opposed to abortion \n \n Washington (CNN) The House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday that would criminalize abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for instances where the life of the mother is at risk and in cases involving rape or incest. \n \n The bill passed the House by a vote of 237 for and 189 against, largely on party lines. \n \n The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which is similar to legislation that failed in 2013 and 2015 , has support from the White House this time around. \n \n The divisive issue of abortion has once again been brought to the forefront of national conversations since President Donald Trump assumed office. Trump issued support for the bill even before he won the election. In a letter dated September 2016 that was sent to anti-abortion leaders inviting individuals to join the campaign's \"Pro-Life Coalition,\" Trump said he was committed to \"signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide,\" as one of four points. \n \n The White House reiterated its support in a statement of administration policy issued Monday: \"The administration strongly supports H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and applauds the House of Representatives for continuing its efforts to secure critical pro-life protections.\" \n \n Read More ||||| House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif., center) and Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash., left), responds to a question during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Oct. 3, 2017. (Thew/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock/Thew/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock) \n \n The House on Tuesday approved a bill banning most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, advancing a key GOP priority for the third time in the past four years \u2014 this time, with a supportive Republican in the White House. \n \n The bill, known as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, is not expected to emerge from the Senate, where most Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans can block its consideration. But antiabortion activists are calling President Trump's endorsement of the bill a significant advance for their movement. \n \n The White House said in a statement released Monday that the administration \"strongly supports\" the legislation \"and applauds the House of Representatives for continuing its efforts to secure critical pro-life protections.\" \n \n [Trump\u2019s budget proposal aims to cut all federal funds to Planned Parenthood] \n \n The bill provides for abortions after 20 weeks gestation only when they are necessary to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. Under the bill, abortions performed during that period could be carried out \"only in the manner which, in reasonable medical judgment, provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive\" and would require a second physician trained in neonatal resuscitation to be present. \n \n \"It's past time for Congress to pass a nationwide law protecting unborn children from the unspeakable cruelty of late-term abortion,\" said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. \n \n Trump first supported a 20-week abortion ban in September 2016, during the final stretch of the presidential campaign when he was working to consolidate conservative support. Antiabortion activists argue the bill is justified by emerging scientific research indicating that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks, though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has not endorsed those findings. \n \n [Donald Trump took 5 different positions on abortion in 3 days] \n \n The vast majority of abortions are performed earlier in pregnancy, according to federal statistics, but activists have long focused attention on what they call \"late term\" abortions. \n \n In a letter circulated to antiabortion activists by the Susan B. Anthony List, Trump pledged to sign a 20-week abortion bill into law if he became president, which he said \"would end painful late-term abortions nationwide.\" \n \n In that letter, Trump also promised to defund Planned Parenthood, nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who are opposed to abortion, make the Hyde Amendment permanent law and \"advance the rights of unborn children and their mothers when elected president.\" \n \n Trump rarely discussed abortion on the campaign trail and did little to promote his stance on the 20-week abortion bill, with his campaign declining to even authenticate the September 2016 letter. \n \n The House passed the bill 237 to 189. Two Republicans opposed the bill, and three Democrats supported it. \n \n Similar bills passed a Republican-controlled House in 2013 and 2015 but did not emerge from the Senate. Democratic leaders did not bring the bill up for a vote in 2013, and when GOP leaders brought it up in 2015, it did not clear a key procedural vote. \n \n Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, called the bill a \"waste of precious time\" Tuesday. \n \n \"Let me be clear: This bill is as dead on arrival in the Senate,\" she said, \"just like it was the last time Republicans tried to pander to their extreme base by playing this particular political game with women's health.\" \n \n Abortion rights groups and Democratic lawmakers panned the legislation ahead of its passage, arguing it is based on faulty science and contains no exception if a pregnancy would threaten a mother's health. They also said the rape and incest exceptions are too narrow and that the bill is likely unconstitutional under existing Supreme Court rulings. \n \n Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, characterized the bill as an attempt \"to mollify an agitated base and avoid Donald Trump's ire at the lack of legislative action under Republican leadership.\" \n \n \"Women making these difficult decisions need medical professionals, not tone deaf legislation,\" she said in a statement. \n \n Read more at PowerPost", "summary": "\u2013 A bill outlawing most abortions after 20 weeks cleared the House of Representatives on Tuesday, mostly along party lines, in the third time that House Republicans have passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, CNN reports. While the bill is expected to founder in the Senate, as it did on previous attempts in 2013 and 2015, this time it the has backing of President Trump. A White House statement says the administration \"strongly supports\" the measure \"to secure critical pro-life protections.\" The bill would criminalize abortions after 20 weeks except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the mother's life. Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, circulated a September 2016 letter in which then-candidate Trump promised to support the bill, per the Washington Post. \"It's past time \u2026 to pass a nationwide law protecting unborn children from the unspeakable cruelty of late-term abortion,\" Dannenfelser says. GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham pledged to introduce companion legislation in the Senate, but the chances of Republicans garnering the 60 votes needed to pass it are low, the Hill reports. Asked about the bill, GOP Whip Sen. John Cornyn said, per CNN, \"That's not a near-term priority.\" Several states have already passed similar measures, which opponents called unconstitutional. \"This dangerous, out-of-touch legislation is nothing more than yet another attempt to restrict women's access to safe, legal abortion,\" Planned Parenthood said. (One of the bill's backers urged his mistress to get an abortion, texts show.)"}
{"document": "ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid Email cannot be used. Try another or register with your social account \n \n A gas consultant who officially changed his name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger today said: \"I\u2019ve got no regrets at all\". \n \n Sam Smith, from Muswell Hill, changed his name by deed poll to reflect his love of the food after a night in the pub. \n \n He told the Standard that the Burger King favourite was the first thing that popped into his head when friends convinced him to do go ahead with the stunt. \n \n Mr Cheeseburger explained: \u201cIt was the culmination of probably too many drinks in the pub where there was a conversation about names. \n \n \u201cBacon Double Cheeseburger was pretty much the first thing that came up. Everyone loves bacon don\u2019t they? \n \n \u201cIt was largely the most ridiculous thing we could think of. My friends were quite supportive of anything that makes me look silly, as good friends are.\u201d \n \n He made an application to the UK Deed Poll Service and, perhaps unfortunately, was drinking with the same friends when the paperwork arrived a few weeks later for him to sign, making the name change official. \n \n Mr Cheeseburger added that he was lucky his colleagues had a sense of humour. \n \n The 33-year-old, who said he proudly signs off his work emails as \"B D Cheeseburger\", said he particularly got a kick out of booking into hotels on business trips. \n \n My fianc\u00e9e is fairly reluctant about marrying a Cheeseburger \n \n He explained: \u201cI spend a lot of time in the Far East and most people out there wouldn\u2019t know Bacon isn\u2019t a standard British first name. But in Europe people think it's pretty weird. \n \n \u201cWhat people call me is up to them but that's my name legally speaking now. My mum was furious but my dad thinks it\u2019s hilarious. He\u2019s more than happy to use my new name.\u201d \n \n But this fianc\u00e9e Isabella, is less happy and he admitted another name change might be needed ahead of their wedding. \n \n He said: \u201cMy fianc\u00e9e is fairly reluctant about marrying a Cheeseburger. That\u2019s something we\u2019re discussing a lot. No girl ever dreams of spending her big day marrying a man called Bacon. \n \n \u201cBut I\u2019ve got no regrets at all. It\u2019s been a very fun experience and it\u2019s made a lot of people laugh.\u201d \n \n His was revealed as one of a host of strange things people have chosen to change their names to in the past year. \n \n Mr Cheeseburger is one of a record-breaking 85,000 people who changed their name last year. ||||| We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter? \n \n Yes ||||| Have you ever had a really delicious meal and then wished you could find some way to properly honor the glorious food you\u2019ve just consumed? Well, this man in the U.K. apparently once ate a bacon double cheeseburger so delicious that he decided to honor it by literally changing his own name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger. \n \n That\u2019s dedication. \n \n This man used to be known as Simon Smith, according to The Times. \n \n \u201cA name is the least important part of your personality,\u201d the 33-year-old London resident reportedly told the Sunday People. \u201cIt\u2019s given to you by someone else.\u201d \n \n The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now \n \n So how did he choose his new identity? It was simply the first thing he thought of. Last year, he officially changed his name by deed poll. We can only assume that he really, really loves bacon double cheeseburgers and is not a vegetarian trying to be ironic. \n \n Contact us at editors@time.com. ||||| Simon Smith from north London is one of the many people each year who decide to change their names by deed poll. \n \n More unusually, he chose to change his name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger. \n \n You would think a man who uses his name to pay tribute to fast food wouldn't be overly bothered by references to his past moniker. \n \n You would be wrong. \n \n London newspaper The Evening Standard interviewed Mr Cheeseburger about his decision to adopt a beefy new moniker (it had a lot to do with being in the pub), but it seems they were paying so much attention to his delicious new name they forgot to check his birth name. \n \n They mistakenly called him Sam Smith, which according to Mr Cheeseburger, would be a ridiculous name. \n \n Sorry Sam. \n \n Perhaps the hassle was worth it though, it looks like he could be going on a beefy tour of Britain's burger restaurants. \n \n So does his new name cause him problems with work or travel? \n \n \"Surprisingly no,\" Mr Cheeseburger tells Newsbeat. \n \n He currently works as a consultant for the oil and gas industry and says: \"My work speaks for itself... people keep hiring me.\" \n \n It's not Bacon Double Cheeseburger on his CV though. \n \n \"I usually drop that bombshell after the contracts have been signed,\" he says. \n \n Despite his hassle-free name change, he does have a warning for anyone who fancies changing their name to Chicken Caesar Salad. \n \n \"On the side of beer bottles it says drink responsibly for a reason, think carefully before you do it.\" \n \n Despite all of that, people do still call him Bacon. \"My dad included,\" he adds. \n \n What is a deed poll? \n \n Anyone over 18 can start using a new name at any time but to apply for official documents such as a passport or driving licence you'll need a legal document called a deed poll. \n \n For a fee you can put your name on public record by \"enrolling it\" at The Royal Courts of Justice. \n \n Alternatively you can make your own deed poll, but some record-holders will only accept a new name that's been 'enrolled' using the official forms. \n \n The process is slightly different if you were born in Scotland; you apply to the National Records of Scotland who will charge a recording fee. \n \n How much does it cost? \n \n Making your own deed poll is free, but the more widely accepted official method of enrolling your new name at the Royal Courts of Justice costs \u00a336. \n \n Specialist agencies or solicitors will also charge a fee to make a deed poll for you. \n \n In Scotland a change of name is subject to a recording fee of \u00a340, but families who are all changing their name together can pay an additional \u00a310 per family member instead of paying the full fee for each person. \n \n For more stories like this one you can now download the BBC Newsbeat app straight to your device. For iPhone go here. For Android go here.", "summary": "\u2013 We get that if your name is Simon Smith, you might long for more exotic nomenclature. But this British bloke admits his recent name change was \"the culmination of probably too many drinks in the pub,\" per the Evening Standard. Smith, now officially known as Mr. Bacon Double Cheeseburger, says he and his pals were chatting about switching up names when his Burger King-inspired moniker was suggested. \"It was largely the most ridiculous thing we could think of,\" says the 33-year-old, whom Time calls a \"hero.\" \"My friends were quite supportive of anything that makes me look silly, as good friends are.\" He filled out the required application, and when the final papers arrived for him to sign, he was\u2014\"perhaps unfortunately,\" the Standard notes\u2014drinking with the same group of friends. They prodded him to seal the deal, for which he now says he has \"no regrets.\" Reaction to his new name has been mixed: He says his mom was \"furious,\" his dad thought it was \"hilarious,\" and his fiancee\u2014well, she'll probably make him change it back before the wedding, per the Standard. He travels a lot for work to the Far East, where he says they don't realize \"Bacon\" isn't a valid first name, but he concedes people he meets in Europe think it's \"pretty weird.\" And he does keep his original name on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, preferring to \"drop that bombshell [only] after the contracts have been signed.\" He's still prickly about his erstwhile appellation: Cheeseburger took the Standard to task for reporting he was previously known as Sam Smith, tweeting, \"You got my name wrong, it was SIMON SMITH. FFS. Sam Smith would be a ridiculous name.\" Whatever his former name, the man now known as Cheeseburger is reaping at least one perk: Burger joints are offering him free bacon double cheeseburgers if he provides proof of the name change, the BBC reports."}
{"document": "\"It's a safe space where like-minded folks can hear things they already agree with from someone whose opinions they already know.\" \n \n No, wait, \"It's just as good as \"House of Cards,\" with even more threatening monologues into the camera.\" \n \n Stephen Colbert defined the Sarah Palin Channel, an obvious target for his show, in many ways last night, perhaps most simply as, \"It's exactly what she's always done, only \u2014 mmm, nothing else.\" \n \n Stephen Colbert didn't only make fun of the Sarah Palin Channel \u2014 which can be found at SarahPalinChannel.com if you pay the $9.95 monthly charge. He also proposed himself as the channel's primary competition, announcing the \"Stephen Colbert's Angry Echo Chamber,\" which will discuss the important issues of the day, as well as the night, like, \"where did the sun go.\" And all for $9.94. \n \n This was a joke, obviously, but Colbert is no half-hearted troll. He also purchased TheSarahPalinChannel.com. If you go to the Web site, the Tumblr announces itself as \"The only Sarah Palin Channel on the internet with a definite article in the address!\" \n \n Source: TheSarahPalinChannel.com \n \n Your move, Sarah Palin. ||||| OKAY. \n \n SHAKE IT OFF, COLBERT. \n \n YOU'RE A PRO. \n \n MOVE ON. \n \n MOVE ON. \n \n THAT'S ENOUGH DEATH ANDDESTRUCTION. \n \n LET'S TURN TO SOMETHING THATEVIDENTLY WILL NEVER DIE AND \n \n CANNOT BE DESTROYED. \n \n SARAH PALIN. \n \n (LAUGHTER)(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) \n \n I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A HUGE FAN OFSARAH PALIN. \n \n SHE'S A STRONG LEADER WITH APROVEN HISTORY OF SELFLESSNESS. \n \n IN THE MIDST OF HER 2008CAMPAIGN, SHE TOOK TIME TO HELP \n \n OUT A STRUGGLING SENIOR WITHSEVERELY IMPAIRED JUDGMENT. \n \n (LAUGHTER)AND THIS WEEK, IN HER CONTINUING \n \n QUEST TO REMIND AMERICA OF HEREXISTENCE, PALIN ANNOUNCED A NEW \n \n PROJECT. \n \n >> HELLO AND WELCOME TO A NEWPROJECT. \n \n THIS IS A NEWS CHANNEL THATREALLY IS A LOT MORE THAN NEWS. \n \n ARE YOU TIRED OF THE MEDIAFILTERS? \n \n WELL, I AM. \n \n I ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, SO WE'REGONNA DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. \n \n WE'RE GONNA MAKE THIS EASY TOO. \n \n YOU CAN WATCH OUR CHANNEL RIGHTHERE ON YOUR COMPUTER, TABLET OR \n \n EVEN ON YOUR SMARTPHONE. \n \n WE'LL TALK ABOUT THE ISSUES THATTHE MAINSTREAM MEDIA WON'T TALK \n \n ABOUT AND WE'LL LOOK AT THEIDEAS THAT -- MMM -- I THINK \n \n WASHINGTON DOESN'T WANT YOU TOHEAR. \n \n >> STEPHEN: YES, THE ALL SARAHPALIN CHANNEL! \n \n IT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE'S ALWAYSDONE, ONLY -- MMM -- NOTHING \n \n ELSE. \n \n (LAUGHTER)'CUZ, FOLKS, IT'S 24-7 \n \n PALIN-TAINMENT STREAMED RIGHT TOYOUR PHONE, WITH THE HELP OF \n \n \"TAPP,\" WHICH IT TURNS OUT IS AMEDIA COMPANY AND NOT, AS I \n \n FIRST ASSUMED, THE NAME OF ONEOF HER CHILDREN. \n \n (LAUGHTER)AND LIKE THE WOMAN HERSELF, THE \n \n SARAH PALIN CHANNEL IS ALL ABOUTSARAH PALIN. \n \n >> WE'LL ALSO SHARE SOME OF THEFUN THAT GOES ON IN THE PALIN \n \n HOUSEHOLD AND A LOT OF OURADVENTURES IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS \n \n TRYING TO JUST GET US FROM POINTA TO POINT B AND, BELIEVE ME, IT \n \n IS FUN BECAUSE IT'S REAL LIFE. \n \n >> STEPHEN: YEAH, IT'S FUNBECAUSE IT'S REAL LIFE. \n \n THAT'S WHY I ALWAYS TIV0THAT EXCITING STARING CONTEST ON \n \n THE MIRROR CHANNEL. \n \n (LAUGHTER)THAT SHOW IS AMAZING -- HOW IS \n \n IT \"ALWAYS\" A TIE?! \n \n HE'S GOOD. \n \n (LAUGHTER)THIS IS ALL PART OF SARAH'S \n \n CONTINUING MISSION TO PROTECTOUR FREEDOMS AT ANY COST. \n \n SPECIFICALLY, \"$9.95 A MONTH.\" \n \n (LAUGHTER)SURE, THAT'S MORE THAN NETFLIX. \n \n BUT IT'S JUST AS GOOD AS HOUSEOF CARDS -- WITH EVEN MORE \n \n THREATENING MONOLOGUES INTOCAMERA. \n \n (LAUGHTER)THIS CHANNEL OFFERS YOU \n \n SOMETHING MORE, BY OFFERING YOULESS. \n \n AS THE SITE NOTES, WE FEEL THATTHE COMMUNITY WOULD FEEL MORE \n \n SECURE KNOWING EVERYONEWATCHING, UPLOADING VIDEOS AND \n \n PARTICIPATING IN THE DISCUSSIONSAND VIDEO CHATS WAS A \n \n CONTRIBUTING MEMBER.\" \n \n THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S A SAFE SPACEWHERE LIKE-MINDED FOLKS CAN HEAR \n \n THINGS THEY ALREADY AGREE WITHFROM SOMEONE WHOSE OPINION THEY \n \n ALREADY KNOW. \n \n A PLACE WHERE WE PALIN-HEADS CANGATHER AND ASK THE IMPORTANT \n \n QUESTIONS. \n \n AMONG THE MOST POPULAR,APPARENTLY, IS \"WHAT IS YOUR \n \n CANCELLATION POLICY?\"(LAUGHTER) \n \n BECAUSE WE PALIN FANS WANT TO BEJUST LIKE HER AND QUIT HALFWAY \n \n THROUGH OUR COMMITMENT. \n \n (LAUGHTER)BUT IF $9.95 SOUNDS TOO RICH \n \n RICH FOR YOUR BLOOD, SIGN UP FORMY NEW PREMIUM WEB \n \n CHANNEL -- \"STEPHEN COLBERT'SANGRY ECHO CHAMBER .\" \n \n FOR JUST $9.94, IT'S A COMMUNITYOF PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU, IF YOU \n \n HAVE A VALID CREDIT CARD. \n \n WE'LL DISCUSS THE WASHINGTONISSUES OF THE DAY -- AND THE \n \n ISSUES OF THE NIGHT, LIKE WHEREDID THE SUN GO? \n \n (LAUGHTER)PLUS, \"STEPHEN COLBERT'S ANGRY \n \n ECHO CHAMBER\" GIVES YOU 24-7ACCESS TO EVERYTHING I DO. \n \n LIKE FOOTAGE OF ME MAKING ANDEATING A B.L.T. \n \n (LAUGHTER)IS THAT WHAT I SPENT YOUR TEN \n \n BUCKS ON? \n \n THE ANSWER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU. \n \n (LAUGHTER)AND YOU MIGHT EVEN SEE YOUR NAME \n \n ON MY CHANNEL WHEN I DEPOSITYOUR CHECKS IN AN A.T.M.! \n \n (LAUGHTER)AND SARAH PALIN'S CHANNEL ONLY \n \n TAKES YOU FROM POINT A TO POINTB -- BUT YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ALL \n \n THE WAY TO POINT C, POINT D,THEN BACK TO POINT B WHEN I \n \n REALIZE I LEFT MY SUNGLASSESTHERE. \n \n (LAUGHTER)THAT'S REAL-LIFE FUN! \n \n AND REMEMBER, SARAH PALIN'SCHANNEL IS \n \n SARAPALINCHANNEL.COM, NOTTHESARAHPALINCHANNEL.COM. \n \n WE BOUGHT THAT ONE TODAY. \n \n (CHEERING)AND IT'S FREE! \n \n (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK!", "summary": "\u2013 For those who don't want to pay $9.95 per month for Sarah Palin's new online TV channel, Stephen Colbert proposed an alternative on last night's Colbert Report: his $9.94 \"Angry Echo Chamber,\" undercutting the \"24/7 Palintainment\" package by a penny. He was just joking with that offer, notes the Washington Post, but the real punchline came when he announced that he had bought the URL TheSarahPalinChannel.com. The official URL for Palin's show is SarahPalinChannel.com. Colbert's website description? \"The only Sarah Palin Channel on the Internet with a definite article in the address!\" As for the actual Palin channel, Colbert offers this praise: It's \"just as good as House of Cards, with even more threatening monologues in the camera.\""}
{"document": "He once led a six-day takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, and mounted an armed 71-day occupation of the town of Wounded Knee, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Wounded Knee was the scene of the last major conflict of the American Indian Wars, in which 350 Lakota men, women and children were massacred by United States troops in 1890. \n \n Photo \n \n While his protests won some government concessions and drew national attention and wide sympathy for the deplorable social and economic conditions of American Indians, Mr. Banks achieved few real improvements in the daily lives of millions of Native Americans, who live on reservations and in major cities and lag behind most fellow citizens in jobs, housing and education. \n \n To admirers, Mr. Banks was a broad-chested champion of native pride. With dark, piercing eyes, high cheekbones, a jutting chin and long raven hair, he was a paladin who defied authority and, in an era crowded with civil rights protests, spoke for the nation\u2019s oldest minority. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n To his critics, including many American Indians, Mr. Banks was a self-promoter, grabbing headlines and becoming a darling of politically liberal Hollywood stars like Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando. His severest detractors, including law-enforcement officials, said he let followers risk injury and arrest while he jumped bail to avoid a long prison sentence and did not surrender for nearly a decade. \n \n Mr. Banks and Mr. Means first won national attention for declaring a \u201cDay of Mourning\u201d for Native Americans on Thanksgiving Day in 1970. Their band seized the ship Mayflower II, a replica of the original in Plymouth, Mass., and a televised confrontation between real Indians and costumed \u201cPilgrims\u201d made the American Indian Movement leaders overnight heroes. \n \n In 1972, the two organized cross-country car caravans on \u201cTrails of Broken Treaties.\u201d They converged on Washington with 500 followers to protest Indian living standards and lost treaty rights, occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs and held out for nearly a week, destroying documents and the premises, until the government agreed to discuss Indian grievances and review treaty commitments. \n \n Photo \n \n In 1973, after a white man killed an Indian in a saloon brawl and was charged not with murder but with involuntary manslaughter, Mr. Banks led 200 American Indian Movement protesters in a face-off with the police in Custer, S.D. It became a riot when the slain man\u2019s mother was beaten by officers. After he left town, Mr. Banks, who said he had merely tried to ease tensions, was charged with assault and rioting. \n \n It was the last straw. \u201cWe had reached a point in history where we could not tolerate the abuse any longer, where mothers could not tolerate the mistreatment that goes on on the reservations any longer, where they could not see another Indian youngster die,\u201d he told the author Peter Matthiessen. \n \n Weeks later, the siege that made Mr. Banks and Mr. Means famous across America began when 200 Oglala Lakota and A.I.M. followers with rifles and shotguns occupied Wounded Knee. About 300 United States marshals, F.B.I. agents and other law-enforcement officials cordoned off the area with armored cars and heavy weapons, touching off a 10-week battle of nerves and gunfire. \n \n Amid wide news media coverage, the significance of the battlefield was not lost on many Americans. Dee Brown\u2019s best-selling book \u201cBury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West\u201d (1970) had recently explored the record of massacres and atrocities against Native Americans on the expanding frontier, undermining one of the nation\u2019s fondest myths. \n \n Proclaiming a willingness to die for their cause, Mr. Banks and Mr. Means demanded the ouster of Richard Wilson, the elected leader of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, whom they called a corrupt white man\u2019s stooge. The government refused. Shootings punctuated the days of stalemate, leaving wounded on both sides. Two Indians were killed, and a federal agent was shot and paralyzed. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Sign Up for the Race/Related Newsletter Join a deep and provocative exploration of race with a diverse group of New York Times journalists. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n When it was over, Mr. Banks and Mr. Means were charged with assault and conspiracy. After a federal trial, with the defense raising historic and current Indian grievances, a judge dismissed the case for prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal wiretaps and evidence that had been tampered with. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n By then, Mr. Banks was a pre-eminent spokesman for Native Americans. He mediated armed conflicts between Indians and the authorities in various states. But his own legal troubles were not over. \n \n Charged with riot and assault with a deadly weapon for his role in the 1973 melee in Custer, he was found guilty in 1975. Facing up to 15 years in prison, he jumped bail and fled to California. \n \n With 1.4 million signatures on a petition supporting Mr. Banks, Gov. Jerry Brown granted him asylum in 1976, rejecting extradition to South Dakota by saying his life might be in danger if he were sent back. Mr. Banks later became chancellor of Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University, a small two-year college for Indians in Davis, Calif. \n \n Deprived of California sanctuary when Governor Brown was succeeded by a Republican, George Deukmejian, in early 1983, Mr. Banks found a new refuge on an Onondaga reservation near Syracuse. Federal officials said he would be arrested only if he left the reservation. But in 1984, weary of his confined life, he returned to South Dakota voluntarily and was sentenced to three years in prison. \n \n Photo \n \n Paroled in 1985 after serving only 14 months, he moved to the Pine Ridge Reservation to work as a drug addiction and alcoholism counselor. He also turned his life around, embracing sobriety, giving talks on public service and organizing cross-country events that he called Sacred Runs, which became popular among supporters of Native Americans in later years. \n \n \u201cWe were the prophets, the messengers, the fire starters,\u201d Mr. Banks said in an autobiography, \u201cOjibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement\u201d (2005, with Richard Erdoes). \u201cWounded Knee awakened not only the conscience of all Native Americans, but also of white Americans nationwide.\u201d \n \n Dennis James Banks was born on the Leech Lake Reservation on April 12, 1937. He never knew his father. His mother abandoned him to his grandparents. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n When he was 5, he was taken from his family and sent to a series of government schools for Indians that systematically denigrated his Ojibwa (Chippewa) culture, language and identity. He ran away often, until, at 17, he returned to Leech Lake. \n \n Unable to find work, he joined the Air Force and was stationed in Japan, where he married a Japanese woman, had a child with her and went absent without leave. Arrested and returned to the United States, he never saw his wife or child again. After being discharged, he moved to Minneapolis, drifted into crime, was arrested in a burglary and went to jail for two and a half years. \n \n Photo \n \n Released in 1968, he founded the American Indian Movement with an Ojibwa he had met in prison, Clyde Bellecourt, and others to fight the oppression and endemic poverty of Native Americans. He became chairman and national director as the group, based in Minneapolis, forged alliances and grew rapidly. After two years it said it had 25,000 members. \n \n Within a year A.I.M., with its flair for guerrilla tactics, joined a lengthy occupation of Alcatraz Island, the former federal prison site in San Francisco Bay. \n \n After his fugitive years, Mr. Banks had a modest movie career. He had roles in Franc Roddam\u2019s \u201cWar Party\u201d (1988), Michael Apted\u2019s \u201cThunderheart\u201d (1992), Michael Mann\u2019s \u201cThe Last of the Mohicans\u201d (1992, with Russell Means), and Georgina Lightning\u2019s \u201cOlder Than America\u201d (2008), which explored the devastating effects of Indian boarding schools like those Mr. Banks had been forced to attend. \n \n Mr. Banks also appeared in documentaries: \u201cWe Shall Remain, Part V: Wounded Knee\u201d (2009), a Ric Burns \u201cAmerican Experience\u201d television film directed by Stanley Nelson; \u201cA Good Day to Die\u201d (2010), directed by David Mueller and Lynn Salt; and \u201cNowa Cumig: The Drum Will Never Stop\u201d (2011), directed by Marie-Michele Jasmin-Belisle. \n \n Besides his wife and child in Japan, Mr. Banks had many children with other women. In addition to Ms. Banks Rama, he is survived by 19 children, 11 with the surname Banks: Janice, Darla, Deanna, Dennis, Red Elk, Tatanka, Minoh, Tokala, Tiopa, Tacanunpa and Arrow. The others are Glenda Roberts, Beverly Baribeau, Kevin Strong, D. J. Nelson-Banks, Bryan Graves, and Pearl, Denise and Kawlija Blanchard. Mr. Banks is also survived by more than 100 grandchildren, Ms. Banks Rama said. \n \n Mr. Banks was the 2016 vice presidential nominee of the California Peace and Freedom Party, which identified itself as socialist and feminist. The party\u2019s presidential candidate was Gloria La Riva. As a single-state ticket, they won 66,000 votes. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n In recent years, Mr. Banks lived with some of his children in Kentucky and Minnesota. He was an honorary trustee of the Leech Lake Tribal College, a two-year public institution in Cass Lake, Minn. Mr. Means, who also appeared in movies and wrote a memoir, died on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 2012 at age 72. \n \n In 1990, both men joined a ceremony at the Pine Ridge Reservation commemorating the centenary of the Wounded Knee massacre. \n \n \u201cMaybe we opened up some eyes, opened some doors,\u201d Mr. Banks told The Los Angeles Times. \u201cAnd it was at least an educational process here. Fifteen years ago, there was no newspaper here, no radio station. Now there\u2019s more community control over education.\u201d ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. \n \n This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| Angered over a long history of violated treaties, mistreatment, and discrimination, 200 members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupy the tiny hamlet of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. \n \n Former Sioux and Ojibwa convicts attempting to stop police harassment of Indians in the Minneapolis area founded the American Indian Movement in 1968. Borrowing some tactics from the antiwar student demonstrators of the era, AIM soon gained national notoriety for its flamboyant protests. Many mainstream Indian leaders, though, denounced the youth-dominated group as too radical. In 1972, a faction of AIM members led by Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier sought to close the divide by making alliances with traditional tribal elders on reservations. They had their greatest success on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, after a group of young whites murdered a Sioux Indian named Yellow Thunder. Although Yellow Thunder\u2019s attackers only received six-year prison sentences, this was widely seen as a victory by the local Sioux accustomed to unfair treatment by the racist Anglo judicial system. AIM\u2019s highly visible publicity campaign on the case was given considerable credit for the verdict, winning the organization a great deal of respect on the reservation. \n \n AIM\u2019s growing prestige and influence, however, threatened the conservative Sioux tribal chairman, Dick Wilson. When Wilson learned of a planned AIM protest against his administration at Pine Ridge, he retreated to tribal headquarters where he was under the protection of federal marshals and Bureau of Indian Affairs police. Rather than confront the police in Pine Ridge, AIM decided to occupy the symbolically significant hamlet of Wounded Knee, the site of an 1890 massacre of a band of unarmed Sioux by the U.S. Cavalry. Wilson, with the backing of the federal government, responded by besieging Wounded Knee. \n \n During the 71 days of the siege, federal officers and AIM members exchanged gunfire almost nightly. Two Native Americans were killed and a federal marshal permanently paralyzed by a bullet wound. The leaders of AIM finally surrendered after a negotiated settlement was reached. In a subsequent trial, the judge ordered their acquittal because of evidence that the FBI had manipulated key witnesses. AIM emerged victorious and succeeded in shining a national spotlight on the problems of modern Native Americans. \n \n The troubles at Wounded Knee, however, were not over. A virtual civil war broke out between the opposing Indian factions on the Pine Ridge reservation, and a series of beatings, shootings, and murders left more than 100 Indians dead. When two FBI agents were killed in a 1975 gunfight, the agency raided the reservation and arrested AIM leader Leonard Peltier for the crime. The FBI crackdown coupled with AIM\u2019s own excesses ended its influence at Pine Ridge. Peltier was convicted of killing the two FBI agents and sentenced to life in prison. Peltier\u2019s supporters, however, continue to maintain his innocence and seek a presidential pardon to this day. ||||| Dennis Banks, one of the country's most influential American Indian activists, was a key figure in the 1970s standoff with federal agents at Wounded Knee. The American Indian Movement he helped found drew attention with a string of high-profile occupations. \n \n But some who worked closely with Banks saw him more as a thoughtful intellectual than a strident fighter. Away from the media spotlight, he worked to preserve American Indian culture, promote wellness on Indian reservations and export traditional products such as wild rice to markets as far-flung as Japan. \n \n Banks died Sunday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester from complications following open-heart surgery, his family said. He was 80. \n \n \"Someone who has such courage as Dennis Banks was everything to us,\" said Winona LaDuke, the prominent American Indian advocate who considers Banks a major inspiration. \"He was a leader in our community, not just to talk but to be there for the community.\" \n \n In a moving post on Banks' Facebook page signed by his children and grandchildren, his family said Banks \"started his journey to the spirit world\" just after 10 p.m. Sunday. His children sang traditional songs and prayed over him as he took his last breaths. He had developed pneumonia after surgery 10 days earlier. \n \n \"We felt like he was improving, but the pneumonia came on real fast,\" Tashina Banks, one of Banks' 20 children, said as she traveled Monday afternoon in a family caravan with her father's body from Rochester to a funeral home in Buffalo. \n \n Dennis Banks \n \n The family said Banks will be buried Saturday in his home community of Leech Lake in northern Minnesota. \n \n Banks, or \"Nowa Cumig\" in his native language, was born April 12, 1937, on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. At age 5, he was placed at a boarding school in southwestern Minnesota. At 17, he joined the military and served in Japan. \n \n In 1968, Banks was among the founders of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, which started out as a protest against police treatment of American Indians in south Minneapolis and spread nationwide. Under Banks' leadership, marches and takeovers became AIM's signature tactics. \n \n Banks participated in the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, the San Francisco Bay Area island that had housed a federal prison. In November 1972, he led AIM in a takeover of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs building in the nation's capital, a protest dubbed \"The Trail of Broken Treaties.\" \n \n Laura Waterman Wittstock, then a reporter for the American Indian Press Association in Washington, D.C., said AIM's grass roots organizing riveted the Washington press corps. In Banks, the movement had a thoughtful spokesman. \n \n \"I was impressed with his intelligence and his ability to articulate clearly what he was doing,\" she said. \n \n Banks and other AIM members made their biggest mark in 1973, when federal agents clashed with hundreds of protesters occupying Wounded Knee in southwestern South Dakota, the site of an 1890 massacre of Indians by federal troops. \n \n Protesters and federal authorities were locked in a standoff for 71 days. Two tribal members were killed and a federal agent seriously wounded. Banks and fellow AIM activist Russell Means were charged in 1974 for their roles in the uprising. \n \n After a trial in federal court in St. Paul that lasted several months, a judge threw out the charges on grounds of government misconduct. \n \n Bill Means, Russell Means' brother, said the two activists helped craft their defense with their lawyers. They used the courtroom and regular news conferences to launch an indictment of the federal authorities' tactics. \n \n \"What we did in the 1960s and early 1970s was raise the consciousness of white America that this government has a responsibility to Indian people,\" Banks once said. \n \n Banks' refusal to shun confrontation made him a divisive figure both in the mainstream and among some reservation officials, recalled Jim Parsons, a retired Star Tribune reporter who covered Banks \u00adextensively. \n \n \"He was being a militant, disturbing the status quo,\" Parsons said. \"AIM was controversial even on the reservation because they were challenging the power of the local tribal chiefs.\" \n \n Banks spent 18 months in prison in the 1980s after being convicted of rioting and assault for a protest in Custer, S.D., earlier in 1973. He avoided prosecution for several years because California Gov. Jerry Brown refused to extradite him, and the Onondaga Nation in New York gave him sanctuary. \n \n LaDuke said following media coverage of the Wounded Knee trial was a formative experience; as an 18-year-old Harvard University student five years later, she joined AIM and worked for the organization. Banks eventually became a close friend. She said she will remember his humor and kindness, and a joyful dance they shared at a traditional ceremony in northern Wisconsin several years ago. \n \n \"He was probably badass, as they say, but I didn't really see that side of him,\" she said. \n \n Fighter, thinker: Some saw Banks as strident; others lauded his intelligence and thoughtfulness. \n \n Although Banks kept a lower profile in recent years, friends say he remained active in advocacy until his death. In 2010, Banks joined other Ojibwe from the Leech Lake and White Earth bands who tested their 1855 treaty rights by setting out nets illegally on Lake Bemidji a day before Minnesota's fishing season opener. \n \n LaDuke said Banks, who launched a successful wild rice and maple syrup business, pitched in to oppose the genetic engineering of wild rice. To nurture pride in native traditions, he started canoe races on the Mississippi, securing a trip to Japan as a prize. LaDuke ran into him at the Dakota Access pipeline protests in western North Dakota last year. \n \n He also organized caravans that stopped at Indian reservations across the country to raise awareness about various issues, most recently the unsolved murders and assaults of native women. \n \n \"Dennis was one of the greatest defenders of Indian rights and human rights of this generation\" said Means. \n \n Services in various locations around the state begin Wednesday, with a wake at noon at the American Indian Center, 1530 E. Franklin Av., in Minneapolis. Another wake will be held Thursday and Friday at Banks' home near Federal Dam. \n \n A traditional burial will be Saturday at Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig Cemetery at Battle Point on the Leech Lake Reservation. The time for that rite is also pending.", "summary": "\u2013 Dennis Banks, one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, died on Oct. 29 at the age of 80. Banks, a member of the Chippewa tribe who was born on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, died of complications from pneumonia 10 days after undergoing open-heart surgery, the Star Tribune reports. He came to prominence in 1968, with the advent of the American Indian Movement, a political force that raised awareness about Native American issues through the use of marches and sit-ins and sometimes-violent confrontations with authorities. In its heyday the group occupied Alcatraz prison and took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC, for six days. Banks and his organization are perhaps most famous for their 1973 standoff with federal agents at the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, the New York Times reports. On Feb. 27, 1973, 200 AIM followers and Oglala Lakota staged an armed occupation of the town of Wounded Knee, SD, and weathered a 10-week siege by US marshals and FBI agents. Two of the protestors were killed and one federal agent shot and paralyzed. Banks was charged with assault and conspiracy, but a federal judge dismissed the case, citing government misconduct. A Facebook message signed by his children and grandchildren said those present at Banks' death \"proudly sang him the AIM song as his final send off.\""}
{"document": "Video (02:37) : Frigid weather is headed our way. Paul Douglas lets us know how long it will stay. \n \n The forecast high of zero degrees for the Vikings-Seahawks game on Sunday at TCF Bank Stadium would make it the coldest home playoff game in team history and among the frostiest in NFL history. \n \n There have been only nine games in league history where the high temperature during the game never got above zero. \n \n The Vikings\u2019 coldest playoff game at Met Stadium was 9 degrees in 1970 against San Francisco. Their coldest game, -2 against Chicago, was the sixth most frigid in NFL history. \n \n The coldest NFL game was the \u201cIce Bowl,\u201d the league\u2019s title game between Green Bay and Dallas at Lambeau Field on New Year\u2019s Eve in 1967. The temperature was -13 and wind chills hit -48. \n \n NBC broadcaster Cris Collinsworth, who will be calling Sunday\u2019s game, likes to refer to the coldest game by windchill in league history. Collinsworth played for the Bengals when they beat San Diego on Jan. 10, 1982 at Riverfront Stadium for the AFC title when the temp was -9 and wind chills hit -59. \n \n COLDEST VIKINGS HOME GAMES \n \n -2 vs. Chicago, Dec. 3, 1972 (wind north 11 mph) \n \n 0 vs. Green Bay, Dec. 10, 1972 (wind SW 9 mph) \n \n 5 vs. Los Angeles, Nov. 29, 1964 (wind NW 12 mph) \n \n 9 vs. Chicago, Dec. 5, 1970 (wind north 25 mph) \n \n 9 vs. San Francisco*, Dec. 27, 1970 (wind north 10 mph) \n \n 11 vs. Cleveland*, Jan. 4, 1970 (wind NW 8 mph) \n \n 12 vs. Carolina, Nov. 30, 2014 (wind NW, 17 mph) \n \n 12 vs. Los Angeles*, Dec. 26, 1976 (wind NW 13 mph) \n \n 13 vs. N.Y. Giants, Dec. 27, 2015 (wind NW 8 mph) \n \n 15 vs. San Francisco, Dec. 4, 1977 (wind East 15 mph) \n \n *playoff game ||||| EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- The Minnesota Vikings' first outdoor home playoff game in more than 39 years could be the coldest in their history, with temperatures projected to hit a high of 1 degree Sunday. \n \n Editor's Picks PFF: Four matchups to watch in wild-card round Will the Steelers exploit Bengals CB Dre Kirkpatrick? Can the Vikings' OTs hold up against the Seahawks' pass rush? Steve Palazzolo examines the key matchups that could sway each wild-card game. \n \n Before the Vikings face the Seattle Seahawks in what is forecast to be one of the coldest games in NFL history, they are taking steps to help fans brave frigid weather during a playoff game for the first time in two generations. \n \n The Vikings announced Thursday that they will provide hand warmers at entry gates Sunday, and Caribou Coffee will provide free coffee in the Vikings' fan zone southwest of TCF Bank Stadium. The University of Minnesota will also open Mariucci Arena -- where the Gophers' men's hockey team plays -- as a warming house for fans beginning three hours before kickoff. \n \n The team said it will allow non-battery-operated blankets in the stadium and encouraged fans to bring Styrofoam, cardboard or newspapers to place under their feet. TCF Bank Stadium, which was built in 2009, has bleacher seating in the corners and end zones. \n \n \"We know Minnesotans are resilient when it comes to cold weather and unified when it comes to the Vikings, so we view this Sunday's game as a rallying moment,\" Vikings president Mark Wilf said in a statement. \"At the same time, we want our fans to be smart and safe when they are supporting the team, and we are taking a few extra steps to assist in that effort this Sunday.\" \n \n According to Accuweather.com, the \"RealFeel\" for Sunday's game will be minus-23 degrees. \n \n The coldest game Minnesota has played at TCF Bank Stadium was during Week 13 of the 2014 season when it was 12 degrees at kickoff. AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt \n \n The coldest home game in Vikings history was Dec. 3, 1972, with a temperature of minus-2 at kickoff. The field at Metropolitan Stadium that day was \"like painted concrete,\" Vikings Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller said Thursday morning. \n \n If the temperature is below zero at kickoff Sunday, it will be one of the six coldest playoff games in NFL history. The last playoff game with a subzero temperature at kickoff was the 2007 NFC Championship Game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants, when it was minus-1 at Lambeau Field. \n \n The Vikings' frigid day at their temporary home on the University of Minnesota campus could also be their last; they will move back indoors next year, when U.S. Bank Stadium is scheduled to open in downtown Minneapolis.", "summary": "\u2013 For those cynical fans who believe hell will freeze over before the Minnesota Vikings win a championship, your time might have finally arrived. The forecast is calling for some incredibly cold temperatures when the Vikings take on the Seattle Seahawks in the first round of the NFL playoffs on Sunday. The Minnesota Star-Tribune reports the temperature at the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium at game time is supposed to be right around zero degrees\u2014at the warmest. If that holds true, it would be one of the 10 coldest games in NFL history. ESPN is a little more optimistic, calling for a whopping high of 1 degree. Though the network also points out it will feel like -23 degrees with the wind chill. The Vikings, who are waiting for their new stadium to be built, are playing an outdoor home playoff game for the first time in nearly 40 years, ESPN reports. The stadium will be providing free hand warmers and coffee, and fans are encouraged to bring blankets and cardboard or newspaper to put under their feet. According to the Star-Tribune, the coldest game in NFL history is known as the \"Ice Bowl.\" Green Bay and Dallas played for the 1967 championship with the temperature hovering around -13 degrees (with a wind chill of -50 degrees). And while it won't get that cold Sunday, the inevitable Seahawks victory might make it feel that way for Vikings fans."}
{"document": "Published on Nov 3, 2017 \n \n Rosie O'Donnell explains the origins of her long-running feud with Donald Trump and her plans to get a Robert Mueller tattoo. \n \n \u00bb Subscribe to Late Night: http://bit.ly/LateNightSeth \n \n \u00bb Get more Late Night with Seth Meyers: http://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-se... \n \n \u00bb Watch Late Night with Seth Meyers Weeknights 12:35/11:35c on NBC. \n \n \n \n LATE NIGHT ON SOCIAL \n \n Follow Late Night on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LateNightSeth \n \n Like Late Night on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LateNightSeth \n \n Find Late Night on Tumblr: http://latenightseth.tumblr.com/ \n \n Connect with Late Night on Google+: https://plus.google.com/+LateNightSet... \n \n \n \n Late Night with Seth Meyers on YouTube features A-list celebrity guests, memorable comedy, and topical monologue jokes. \n \n \n \n NBC ON SOCIAL \n \n Like NBC: http://Facebook.com/NBC \n \n Follow NBC: http://Twitter.com/NBC \n \n NBC Tumblr: http://NBCtv.tumblr.com/ \n \n NBC Pinterest: http://Pinterest.com/NBCtv/ \n \n NBC Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NBC \n \n YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nbc \n \n NBC Instagram: http://instagram.com/nbctv \n \n \n \n Rosie O'Donnell Tells the Origin Story of Her Feud with Donald Trump- Late Night with Seth Meyers \n \n https://youtu.be/8M57Tt0uEM0 \n \n \n \n \n \n Late Night with Seth Meyers \n \n http://www.youtube.com/user/latenight... ||||| Many have turned their backs on Donald Trump following his comments about immigration, but one former controversial beauty queen feels torn. \n \n Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner made headlines during her year wearing the crown after reports surfaced that the she was underage drinking and eventually tested positive for cocaine. \n \n Instead of stripping the title from the pageant queen, Trump offered her a second chance and allowed her to enter rehab, so his recent choice of words took Conner by surprise. \n \n Donald Trump's public feuds \n \n \"He did a huge service for me and he really helped me out a lot,\" she shared with the Daily News. \"Because I feel like he took such a strong step forward for the recovery movement by sending me to treatment and breaking the stigma in that way but when we throw around words like rapists and druggies it's extremely irresponsible because it adds to the stigma of addiction.\" \n \n Miss USA Tara Conner gives her response to the interview question on stage during the Miss Universe 2006 pageant. (Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images) \n \n \"If you're gonna make such a strong comment on a race or even just people in general maybe back that up with: how are you gonna help people in recovery and make that more of an option for people who are struggling with addiction and alcoholism, instead of just adding to the stigma?\" \n \n Regardless of her distaste for his word choice, the former Miss USA admits if she saw him now she would just feel gratitude. \n \n \"I would be very gracious for what he has done for me and my life because he helped change my life, I will forever be grateful for that,\" she explained. \n \n The former Miss USA, who the media referred to as \"Mess America,\" says she has been sober for 8 \u00bd years, but still struggles with the disease every day. \n \n \"I still have my days where I wake up and feel unhealthy and that's when I have to use the tools that I've been given or that I've learned so that I can try to get back in the healthy chair because you don't just get sober and you graduate and you're fine, it's a disease I'm gonna have for the rest of my life, but I have to make that choice every day that I wake up,\" she shared. \n \n Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| \u201cDo you see I\u2019m a little edgy?\u201d Rosie O\u2019Donnell asked Seth Meyers midway through her interview on Late Night Thursday to promote her role in the new Showtime series SMILF. \u201cI spend like pretty much 90 percent of my waking hours tweeting hatred towards this administration.\u201d \n \n \u201cThat is a two-way street,\u201d Meyers pointed out, noting that Donald Trump has been targeting O\u2019Donnell for a very long time. Perhaps most famous was the moment during the first Republican primary debate when Trump responded to Megyn Kelly\u2019s question about his history of misogynistic statements by saying, \u201cOnly Rosie O\u2019Donnell.\u201d \n \n \u201cOver a decade,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \n \n It all started back when O\u2019Donnell was co-hosting The View. As she explained, there was a young woman who had recently been crowned \u201cJunior Miss Trump Atlantic City Pageant Sexist Winner,\u201d as O\u2019Donnell put it, when she was \u201ccaught\u201d by the New York Post kissing a woman at a bar downtown. Trump held a press conference and announced that he had forgiven her for her transgressions. \n \n \u201cWhat is he, the pimp and she\u2019s the prostitute?\u201d O\u2019Donnell remembered saying at the time. \u201cHe\u2019s the moral arbiter of 20-year-old behavior now, right?\u201d From there, she went on to talk about how he has been \u201cbankrupt four times, that he got all his money from his father, and that he notoriously cheats private contractors out of their money.\u201d \n \n After she said all that on The View, Trump \u201cwent batshit crazy.\u201d \n \n \u201cSo, you know, as bad as everyone feels and they have felt since November 8th, I know for me, I\u2019ve been in a severe depression,\u201d O\u2019Donnell told Meyers. \u201cAlthough, I\u2019d like to say, today after your show I\u2019m going to get a Bob Mueller tattoo. Because I love him!\u201d \n \n When Meyers described Mueller as a \u201csevere\u201d man, O\u2019Donnell said, \u201cHe looks to me like Superman. Like Captain America. Like justice has finally arrived back on our shores! And we are going to right ourselves again!\u201d \n \n \u201cI will say that if Trump gets indicted, it would be really great if Mueller let you serve the papers,\u201d Meyers replied. \n \n O\u2019Donnell said that when Trump first rode down that escalator to announce his campaign she was \u201claughing her ass off\u201d because she thought it \u201cwould never happen.\u201d Even her therapist assured her that Trump could never actually win the election. \n \n How wrong they were.", "summary": "\u2013 Head to the Trump Twitter archive, type in \"Rosie,\" and you can see in scathing detail the online manifestation of the longtime feud between the president and Rosie O'Donnell. But did we ever really know what started it? O'Donnell offered her take Thursday night on Late Night With Seth Meyers, after the host pointed out that Trump had been going after O'Donnell for what seems like forever, per the Daily Beast. \"Over a decade,\" O'Donnell confirmed, before revealing that she believed the brouhaha all started after something she said on TV when she was co-hosting The View. O'Donnell notes that after Tara Conner, Miss USA 2006, was caught engaging in underage drinking and tested positive for cocaine use that year, Trump announced at a presser he would forgive her. Rosie remembers thinking, \"What is he, the pimp and she's the prostitute? He's the moral arbiter of 20-year-old behavior now, right?\" And so she scoured the internet (she says she went on Wikipedia) and found some \"easily accessible\" nuggets\u2014including that Trump went \"bankrupt four times, that he got all his money from his father, and that he notoriously cheats private contractors out of their money\"\u2014and then shared them on The View. And that, she says, is when Trump went \"bats--- crazy.\" O'Donnell and Meyers also dished on the Robert Mueller Russia investigation, with Meyers noting, \"I will say that if Trump gets indicted, it would be really great if Mueller let you serve the papers.\" O'Donnell replied, \"I have put in that request by tweet. I'm waiting to hear.\""}
{"document": "But that has not always been the case. In Colorado, the federal government has largely allowed the state-regulated medical-marijuana industry to operate, and supporters said they hoped the government would take a similar laissez-faire stance as the new laws took effect. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t see D.E.A. agents sweeping into Colorado and Washington and enforcing drug laws that were previously enforced by local agencies,\u201d said Norm Stamper, a former Seattle police chief who campaigned for the Washington measure despite a personal preference for dry martinis over pot brownies. \u201cIt would be extremely poor politics. The will of the people has been expressed.\u201d \n \n Although elected officials, parents\u2019 groups and top law enforcement figures opposed the measures, they nevertheless won support with voters who saw little harm with regulating marijuana similarly to the way alcohol is. Colorado\u2019s marijuana law passed with 54 percent support, and Washington\u2019s with 55 percent. \n \n Colorado and Washington are among 18 states with medical marijuana laws, but they become the first in the nation to approve the use for recreational purposes. A similar measure in Oregon failed on Tuesday. \n \n As soon as the laws are certified, it will be legal under Colorado and Washington law for adults 21 years and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. In Colorado, people will be able to grow as many as six plants. In Washington, users will have to buy their marijuana from state-licensed providers. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n \u201cThey can\u2019t arrest you for it, and they can\u2019t seize it,\u201d Mr. Stamper said. \u201cIt\u2019s yours.\u201d \n \n The measures will also set up regulations for industrial hemp, a fibrous plant that contains traces of the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana. \n \n The laws do not allow people to light up in public, and cities and counties will be able to block marijuana retailers, in much the same way that blue laws have restricted alcohol sales for decades. And it remains illegal to drive a motor vehicle while high on the drug. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Supporters say the laws will end thousands of small-scale drug arrests while freeing law enforcement to focus on larger crimes. They estimate that taxing marijuana will bring in millions of dollars of new revenue for governments, and will save court systems and police departments additional millions. \n \n Opponents warned that the law \u2014 despite its 21-year age minimum \u2014 would set Colorado and Washington on a collision course with the federal government and encourage teenagers to use marijuana. \n \n It is still unclear how much will change. The streets here in Denver and across Colorado are already lined with shops, their windows decorated with green crosses and pot leaves, advertising all-natural plant treatments and herbal health aids. \n \n \u201cColoradans are accustomed to having this stuff above ground, supervised by state authorities and having it regulated,\u201d said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supported legalization. \n \n To advocates, the real power of the measures\u2019 passage may be that they signal a change in the way voters think about drugs and drug policy in the United States. \n \n Brian Vicente, a leading campaigner for the Colorado initiative, summed it up this way: \u201cIt\u2019s a historic one, man.\u201d ||||| DENVER\u2014Now that measures legalizing some recreational marijuana for adults use have won approval in Colorado and Washington, state regulators and lawmakers must decide how to navigate federal opposition as they implement voters' desires. \n \n The measures flout federal law, under which marijuana sales and possession remain illegal. Oregon voters Tuesday rejected a similar pot-legalization measure. \n \n \"The... ||||| Colorado officials and marijuana advocates on Wednesday looked toward an imminent confrontation with the federal government one day after voters in the state endorsed a measure to legalize marijuana for recreational use. \n \n Gov. John Hickenlooper said he is trying to speak soon with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to learn how the Justice Department will respond to the legalization measure\u2019s passage. \n \n Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said, despite his opposition to legalization, he would work with the state legislature to implement the new law \u2014 which he doubted the federal government would allow to stand. Proponents of Amendment 64, the measure voters approved with nearly 55 percent support on Tuesday, said they were optimistic the federal government would \u201crespect the will of Colorado voters.\u201d \n \n And the Colorado U.S. attorney \u2014 the top federal prosecutor in the state \u2014 remained largely mum on how the conflict would play out. In a statement, local U.S. attorney\u2019s office spokesman Jeff Dorschner reiterated that the Justice Department\u2019s intent to enforce the federal law that makes all marijuana possession or sales a crime \u201cremains unchanged.\u201d \n \n \u201cMy sense is that it is unlikely the federal government is going to allow states one by one to unilaterally decriminalize marijuana,\u201d Hickenlooper said, adding, though, \u201cYou can\u2019t argue with the will of the voters.\u201d \n \n What lies ahead for Colorado \u2014 after it and Washington on Tuesday became the first states in the nation to buck federal law by legalizing marijuana for any purpose \u2014 is largely unknown territory. No state since the beginning of marijuana prohibition has rolled back restrictions on cannabis to the extent Colorado now has. \n \n Amendment 64 allows people 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants in their homes. The law won\u2019t take effect, though, until Hickenlooper issues a proclamation certifying the vote. That will likely take at least a month. By law, it doesn\u2019t have to happen until Jan. 5. \n \n Until then, all non-medical marijuana possession and cultivation in Colorado remain a crime. In other words, at least for a few more weeks, the time to puff has not yet come to pass. \n \n Amendment 64 also creates a system in which marijuana could be sold at specially regulated retail stores \u2014 which would be separate from medical-marijuana dispensaries. The details of that system must still be worked out by the state legislature and the Department of Revenue. The first recreational marijuana stores would likely not open until 2014, said Brian Vicente, one of Amendment 64\u2019s proponents. \n \n Before that happens, the federal government might choose to intervene by, among other options, filing a lawsuit arguing that the law\u2019s retail sales section violates the U.S. Constitution because it frustrates federal drug laws. \n \n \u201cColoradans should not expect to see successful legal challenges to the ability of the federal government to enforce its marijuana laws in Colorado,\u201d Suthers wrote in a statement. \u201cAccordingly, I call upon the United States Department of Justice to make known its intentions regarding prosecution of activities sanctioned by Amendment 64.\u201d \n \n The measure\u2019s supporters said they are optimistic the federal government will allow the law to stand, and they heralded their victory Tuesday as the first step in a nationwide push to end marijuana prohibition. \n \n \u201cThings are moving,\u201d Mason Tvert, one of the campaign\u2019s chief proponents, said. \u201cThey\u2019re moving quickly. We think the writing is on the wall.\u201d \n \n Amendment 64 \u2014 which polls showed hovering at around 50 percent support heading into Election Day \u2014 won with what even supporters said was a surprising amount of cushion. With roughly 1.28 million votes in its favor, it drew more support than President Barack Obama did in winning Colorado. \n \n It passed in more counties than it lost \u2014 33 to 31. It won in seven counties that voted for Republican Mitt Romney and lost in only one \u2014 Conejos \u2014 that voted for Obama. \n \n \u201cWe are at the tipping point on marijuana policy,\u201d Vicente said. \u201cThis is an area where our voters and our citizens are really leading.\u201d \n \n Drug-abuse prevention professionals, though, said Wednesday that Colorado is going down a dangerous path. They predicted marijuana legalization would increase pot use, especially among young people, and lead to higher rates of drugged driving and substance abuse. \n \n \u201cWe need to let people know it is not OK for youths to use marijuana,\u201d said Christian Thurstone, a substance-abuse treatment doctor at Denver Health medical center. \u201cWe need them to realize it\u2019s not OK for young people to drive under the influence of marijuana.\u201d \n \n John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold", "summary": "\u2013 Colorado and Washington state are now chill with citizens having a little pot\u2014but the drug is still very much illegal in Uncle Sam's eyes, leaving states to chart a difficult path. When it comes to medical marijuana, the feds have tended to crack down on large operations and leave small, personal growers alone; that track record may offer a model for enforcement under the new laws. For its part, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency says its stance \"remains unchanged,\" the New York Times notes. But \u201cI don\u2019t see DEA agents sweeping in ... and enforcing drug laws that were previously enforced by local agencies,\u201d says a former Seattle police chief. \"It would be extremely poor politics. The will of the people has been expressed.\u201d The new law could bring in $180 million in taxes and savings over three years, says a Colorado group: \"We want to be a model for the rest of the country on how to do this right.\" Washington advocates similarly say pot shops could bring in $500 million to $600 million in taxes annually. But thorny issues remain, including how to establish bank accounts for a business that's federally banned, the Wall Street Journal notes. \"This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through,\" says Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who the Denver Post reports has been in touch with US Attorney General Eric Holder regarding federal policy. \"That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don't break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.\""}
{"document": "A Bronx man is running for mayor of New York City 17 years after he hijacked a plane at JFK Airport with a handgun and a knife and ordered the pilots to fly to Antarctica. \n \n Aaron Commey is the Libertarian candidate for mayor and will be on the ballot in all five boroughs on Nov. 7. But on July 27, 2000, he was 22 years old and suffering from delusional disorder and paranoid schizophrenia when he walked onto a Boeing 757 bound for Las Vegas and rushed into the cockpit while brandishing a handgun. \n \n Commey told the pilots to clear out the plane\u2019s 150 passengers and crew members, according to reports from the time. He then remained in the plane for five hours while law enforcement and the pilots tried to negotiate. Commey asked, at different times, to be flown to Argentina or Antarctica. \n \n He later explained that he had planned to parachute into Antarctica to destroy the \u201cCabal,\u201d a secret organization that wanted to \u201ctake over the world through mass destruction.\u201d \n \n In the end, the plane never took off and nobody was injured, while Commey was arrested and charged with five crimes, including attempt to commit aircraft piracy. \n \n RELATED: Who's who in the 2017 NYC mayoral race? \n \n In an interview with City & State this week, Commey admitted he didn\u2019t have a typical candidate biography. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a valid question \u2026 \u2018Well, how can we trust you, when you\u2019re this guy who tried to hijack a plane?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI am not the same person that I was. I was definitely severely mentally ill. And in addition to recovering from my mental illness without medication, I am a completely different person in terms of how I approach situations and I\u2019m committed to nonviolence.\u201d \n \n In September 2003, Commey was found not guilty on all counts by reason of insanity. But he would remain incarcerated in federal prison until his release in 2015. According to a legal filing, he was assigned to a medical center run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for treatment. In 2004 he was transferred to Federal Medical Center, Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, where former Rep. Anthony Weiner is scheduled to report next month to serve a 21-month sentence. \n \n \u201cI spent about 15 years in prison, was never convicted,\u201d Commey said. \u201cAnd it shaped me into the person I am today.\u201d \n \n Commey said that government officials and judges refused to let him go for years, despite having doctors say he had fully recovered. \u201cExperiencing my own personal injustice, seeing injustice happen to other guys,\u201d he said, \u201cthat\u2019s one of the things that had driven me to wanting to get involved to try to change the system.\u201d \n \n It also turned him into a Libertarian. \u201cIt showed me a side of government a lot of people think of in the abstract, but feeling it up close and personal made it all that more real to me,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there was really only one party I saw that was tackling that aspect of government.\u201d \n \n Commey is an extreme long shot in the mayor\u2019s race. He has not been active on the campaign trail, and has raised almost no money, putting up about $2,300 of his own funds while getting just $495 from donors. He has not been included in any major polls. In 2013, Libertarian candidate Michael Sanchez got just 446 votes in the mayoral election, or 0.16 percent of the total. \n \n Commey\u2019s website, which includes both scenes of New York and videos of the Philadelphia skyline, does not go into detail about his past, but mentions \u201cexperience overcoming his own trials and tribulations with the justice system and mental health issues.\u201d \n \n The candidate\u2019s unusual history has not been widely reported, but Commey had openly spoken about the hijacking attempt, his mental illness and incarceration in an interview with The Black Business School and Libertarian sources like Think Liberty TV and Lions of Liberty. \n \n But as a mayoral candidate, the one-time air pirate thought his past would get more attention. \n \n \u201cI was shocked, because I expected this to be the first thing out the gate and like nobody said anything,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m like, wow, OK. I\u2019ll tell the story when the opportunity arises, but I really thought people were going to have much more of a reaction to it.\u201d ||||| NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A New York City mayoral candidate says he's \"shocked\" that so little attention has been paid to his arrest for trying to hijack an airliner at gunpoint 17 years ago. \n \n In July 2000, Aaron Commey (KOH'-may) boarded a National Airlines plane in New York and ordered the pilots to fly to Argentina or Antarctica. It never took off and nobody was injured. \n \n He was acquitted by reason of insanity in 2003 and was released from a prison medical facility in 2015. \n \n The Libertarian candidate tells the news magazine City & State New York that it's reasonable for voters to wonder if he's suited for office. \n \n He says he has fully recovered and is \"committed to nonviolence.\" \n \n Commey says he has experienced and witnessed injustice and wants to change the system.", "summary": "\u2013 A New York City mayoral candidate says he's \"shocked\" that so little attention has been paid to his arrest for trying to hijack an airliner at gunpoint 17 years ago. In July 2000, Aaron Commey (it's pronounced KOH-may) boarded a National Airlines plane in New York and ordered the pilots to fly to Argentina or Antarctica, per the AP. It never took off and nobody was injured. He was acquitted by reason of insanity in 2003 and was released from a prison medical facility in 2015. The Libertarian candidate tells the news magazine City & State New York that it's reasonable for voters to wonder if he's suited for office and that he's surprised the issue has gotten so little attention. \"I was shocked, because I expected this to be the first thing out the gate and like nobody said anything.\" Commey, who was 22 at the time and suffering from delusional disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, says he has fully recovered and is \"committed to nonviolence.\" Commey says he has experienced and witnessed injustice and wants to change the system."}
{"document": "Seeing is believing \n \n The home of over 5.1 million full archive pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News print editions \n \n Search and browse our historical collection to find news, notices of births, marriages and deaths, sports, comics, and much more \n \n Dates range from 1860 to today for The Philadelphia Inquirer and 1960 to today for the Philadelphia Daily News ||||| Story highlights A 7-year-old boy was caught with 9 bags of heroin in his pants pocket at school \n \n DA: The boy's grandmother \"lost track\" of the heroin while she was babysitting \n \n The DA faults school district for not doing enough to inform authorities, parents \n \n The Pennsylvania school district says it contacted local police \n \n Rather than a bagged lunch, a Pennsylvania first-grader brought bags of heroin into school -- giving some to at least one classmate before teachers caught him with a pocket full of drugs, authorities say. \n \n Two days later, the boy's 56-year-old grandmother was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of children and drug offenses for allegedly losing track of the heroin while babysitting, according to a local district attorney's office. \n \n Chester County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Tom Hogan expressed outrage over any child bringing a drug as potent as heroin into an elementary school. He also lashed out at the boy's school district for not doing more to inform parents as well as authorities, including his office. \n \n \"Any exposure to heroin for a young child is likely to result in death,\" Hogan said in a statement released Monday. \"The (grandmother) is lucky that she was not responsible for the death of her own grandson or somebody else's child.\" \n \n According to a criminal complaint detailed by Hogan's office, Pauline Bilinski-Munion was babysitting her grandson and a 1-year-old baby last Thursday at a residence in Modena, Pennsylvania. Bilinski-Munion had \"brought heroin into the house and lost track of it,\" according to the district attorney's office, which referred to her as \"a known heroin user.\" \n \n The next day, the 7-year-old brought several bags of heroin with him into Caln Elementary School. Teachers overheard the child talking about the bags, and later found nine bags of what proved to be heroin -- with each bag stamped, \"Victoria's Secret\" -- in the boy's pants pocket, the prosecutor's office said. \n \n The child initially claimed he found the heroin in the school yard, only to later admit he'd gotten them from home. The drugs were then handed over to the Coatesville Area School District Police. \n \n Another child's mother later claimed that she'd found an additional bag of heroin, with the same \"Victoria's Secret\" wording, on her 7-year-old as they were walking late Friday afternoon in a nearby mall, authorities said. \n \n What happened next is a matter of dispute. \n \n The school district didn't respond to repeated CNN calls for comment. But CNN affiliate KYW reported that, in a statement, the district \"immediately contacted Caln Township, Coatesville city and (the) South Coatesville Police Departments.\" \n \n Yet Hogan faulted the school system for what he characterized as its \"late and vague notification to parents about a 'dangerous and illegal' substance,\" and failing to alert his office, which didn't start investigating until hearing about the story in the media on Saturday. \n \n \"The school district didn't call 911, didn't call the DA's office, did not freeze all the kids in place, they did not call in emergency personnel to check all the kids to make sure they were OK,\" he told KYW. \"They did not check to see if there was heroin anywhere else around.\" \n \n Following her arrest Sunday, Bilinski-Munion was charged and held with bail set at $25,000. Efforts by CNN to reach her relatives have been unsuccessful, and it wasn't immediately known who is representing her in court.", "summary": "\u2013 Babysitting her grandson, a Pennsylvania grandmother misplaced her heroin\u2014and it turned up in the 7-year-old's pockets at school a few days later, CNN reports. So says the district attorney, who warns that \"any exposure to heroin for a young child is likely to result in death.\" The boy\u2014who was carrying nine bags of the stuff, each stamped \"Victoria's Secret\"\u2014allegedly gave some to a classmate, whose mom found it, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The grandmother \"is lucky that she was not responsible for the death of her own grandson or somebody else's child,\" DA Tom Hogan says. Indeed, heroin \"can be ingested through the skin,\" a police rep says. Now, Pauline Bilinski-Munion has been arrested and charged over drugs and endangering children's welfare. She's not the only one facing Hogan's ire: He also says the school \"didn't call 911, didn't call the DA's office, did not freeze all the kids in place ... [or] call in emergency personnel to check all the kids to make sure they were OK.\" The school offered only a \"late and vague notification to parents about a 'dangerous and illegal' substance,\" Hogan says. The school, however, says it contacted police immediately."}
{"document": "The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice. In September 2011, it killed US citizen Anwar Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, along with US citizen Samir Khan, and then, in circumstances that are still unexplained, two weeks later killed Awlaki's 16-year-old American son Abdulrahman with a separate drone strike in Yemen. \n \n Since then, senior Obama officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and John Brennan, Obama's top terrorism adviser and his current nominee to lead the CIA, have explicitly argued that the president is and should be vested with this power. Meanwhile, a Washington Post article from October reported that the administration is formally institutionalizing this president's power to decide who dies under the Orwellian title \"disposition matrix\". \n \n When the New York Times back in April, 2010 first confirmed the existence of Obama's hit list, it made clear just what an extremist power this is, noting: \"It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.\" The NYT quoted a Bush intelligence official as saying \"he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president\". When the existence of Obama's hit list was first reported several months earlier by the Washington Post's Dana Priest, she wrote that the \"list includes three Americans\". \n \n What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch - with no checks or oversight of any kind - but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president's underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president - at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as \"Terror Tuesday\" - then chooses from \"baseball cards\" and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark. \n \n In fact, The Most Transparent Administration Ever\u2122 has been so fixated on secrecy that they have refused even to disclose the legal memoranda prepared by Obama lawyers setting forth their legal rationale for why the president has this power. During the Bush years, when Bush refused to disclose the memoranda from his Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that legally authorized torture, rendition, warrantless eavesdropping and the like, leading Democratic lawyers such as Dawn Johnsen (Obama's first choice to lead the OLC) vehemently denounced this practice as a grave threat, warning that \"the Bush Administration's excessive reliance on 'secret law' threatens the effective functioning of American democracy\" and \"the withholding from Congress and the public of legal interpretations by the [OLC] upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government.\" \n \n But when it comes to Obama's assassination power, this is exactly what his administration has done. It has repeatedly refused to disclose the principal legal memoranda prepared by Obama OLC lawyers that justified his kill list. It is, right now, vigorously resisting lawsuits from the New York Times and the ACLU to obtain that OLC memorandum. In sum, Obama not only claims he has the power to order US citizens killed with no transparency, but that even the documents explaining the legal rationale for this power are to be concealed. He's maintaining secret law on the most extremist power he can assert. \n \n Last night, NBC News' Michael Isikoff released a 16-page \"white paper\" prepared by the Obama DOJ that purports to justify Obama's power to target even Americans for assassination without due process (the memo is embedded in full below). This is not the primary OLC memo justifying Obama's kill list - that is still concealed - but it appears to track the reasoning of that memo as anonymously described to the New York Times in October 2011. \n \n This new memo is entitled: \"Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen Who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa'ida or An Associated Force\". It claims its conclusion is \"reached with recognition of the extraordinary seriousness of a lethal operation by the United States against a US citizen\". Yet it is every bit as chilling as the Bush OLC torture memos in how its clinical, legalistic tone completely sanitizes the radical and dangerous power it purports to authorize. \n \n I've written many times at length about why the Obama assassination program is such an extreme and radical threat - see here for one of the most comprehensive discussions, with documentation of how completely all of this violates Obama and Holder's statements before obtaining power - and won't repeat those arguments here. Instead, there are numerous points that should be emphasized about the fundamentally misleading nature of this new memo: \n \n 1. Equating government accusations with guilt \n \n The core distortion of the War on Terror under both Bush and Obama is the Orwellian practice of equating government accusations of terrorism with proof of guilt. One constantly hears US government defenders referring to \"terrorists\" when what they actually mean is: those accused by the government of terrorism. This entire memo is grounded in this deceit. \n \n Time and again, it emphasizes that the authorized assassinations are carried out \"against a senior operational leader of al-Qaida or its associated forces who poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.\" Undoubtedly fearing that this document would one day be public, Obama lawyers made certain to incorporate this deceit into the title itself: \"Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen Who is a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaida or An Associated Force.\" \n \n This ensures that huge numbers of citizens - those who spend little time thinking about such things and/or authoritarians who assume all government claims are true - will instinctively justify what is being done here on the ground that we must kill the Terrorists or joining al-Qaida means you should be killed. That's the \"reasoning\" process that has driven the War on Terror since it commenced: if the US government simply asserts without evidence or trial that someone is a terrorist, then they are assumed to be, and they can then be punished as such - with indefinite imprisonment or death. \n \n But of course, when this memo refers to \"a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaida\", what it actually means is this: someone whom the President - in total secrecy and with no due process - has accused of being that. Indeed, the memo itself makes this clear, as it baldly states that presidential assassinations are justified when \"an informed, high-level official of the US government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the US\". \n \n This is the crucial point: the memo isn't justifying the due-process-free execution of senior al-Qaida leaders who pose an imminent threat to the US. It is justifying the due-process-free execution of people secretly accused by the president and his underlings, with no due process, of being that. The distinction between (a) government accusations and (b) proof of guilt is central to every free society, by definition, yet this memo - and those who defend Obama's assassination power - willfully ignore it. \n \n Those who justify all of this by arguing that Obama can and should kill al-Qaida leaders who are trying to kill Americans are engaged in supreme question-begging. Without any due process, transparency or oversight, there is no way to know who is a \"senior al-Qaida leader\" and who is posing an \"imminent threat\" to Americans. All that can be known is who Obama, in total secrecy, accuses of this. \n \n (Indeed, membership in al-Qaida is not even required to be assassinated, as one can be a member of a group deemed to be an \"associated force\" of al-Qaida, whatever that might mean: a formulation so broad and ill-defined that, as Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller argues, it means the memo \"authorizes the use of lethal force against individuals whose targeting is, without more, prohibited by international law\".) \n \n The definition of an extreme authoritarian is one who is willing blindly to assume that government accusations are true without any evidence presented or opportunity to contest those accusations. This memo - and the entire theory justifying Obama's kill list - centrally relies on this authoritarian conflation of government accusations and valid proof of guilt. \n \n They are not the same and never have been. Political leaders who decree guilt in secret and with no oversight inevitably succumb to error and/or abuse of power. Such unchecked accusatory decrees are inherently untrustworthy (indeed, Yemen experts have vehemently contested the claim that Awlaki himself was a senior al-Qaida leader posing an imminent threat to the US). That's why due process is guaranteed in the Constitution and why judicial review of government accusations has been a staple of western justice since the Magna Carta: because leaders can't be trusted to decree guilt and punish citizens without evidence and an adversarial process. That is the age-old basic right on which this memo, and the Obama presidency, is waging war. \n \n 2. Creating a ceiling, not a floor \n \n The most vital fact to note about this memorandum is that it is not purporting to impose requirements on the president's power to assassinate US citizens. When it concludes that the president has the authority to assassinate \"a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaida\" who \"poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the US\" where capture is \"infeasible\", it is not concluding that assassinations are permissible only in those circumstances. \n \n \n \n To the contrary, the memo expressly makes clear that presidential assassinations may be permitted even when none of those circumstances prevail: \"This paper does not attempt to determine the minimum requirements necessary to render such an operation lawful.\" Instead, as the last line of the memo states: \"it concludes only that the stated conditions would be sufficient to make lawful a lethal operation\" - not that such conditions are necessary to find these assassinations legal. The memo explicitly leaves open the possibility that presidential assassinations of US citizens may be permissible even when the target is not a senior al-Qaida leader posing an imminent threat and/or when capture is feasible. \n \n Critically, the rationale of the memo - that the US is engaged in a global war against al-Qaida and \"associated forces\" - can be easily used to justify presidential assassinations of US citizens in circumstances far beyond the ones described in this memo. If you believe the president has the power to execute US citizens based on the accusation that the citizen has joined al-Qaida, what possible limiting principle can you cite as to why that shouldn't apply to a low-level al-Qaida member, including ones found in places where capture may be feasible (including US soil)? The purported limitations on this power set forth in this memo, aside from being incredibly vague, can be easily discarded once the central theory of presidential power is embraced. \n \n 3. Relies on the core Bush/Cheney theory of a global battlefield \n \n The primary theory embraced by the Bush administration to justify its War on Terror policies was that the \"battlefield\" is no longer confined to identifiable geographical areas, but instead, the entire globe is now one big, unlimited \"battlefield\". That theory is both radical and dangerous because a president's powers are basically omnipotent on a \"battlefield\". There, state power is shielded from law, from courts, from constitutional guarantees, from all forms of accountability: anyone on a battlefield can be killed or imprisoned without charges. Thus, to posit the world as a battlefield is, by definition, to create an imperial, omnipotent presidency. That is the radical theory that unleashed all the rest of the controversial and lawless Bush/Cheney policies. \n \n This \"world-is-a-battlefield\" theory was once highly controversial among Democrats. John Kerry famously denounced it when running for president, arguing instead that the effort against terrorism is \"primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world\". \n \n But this global-war theory is exactly what lies at heart of the Obama approach to Terrorism generally and this memo specifically. It is impossible to defend Obama's assassination powers without embracing it (which is why key Obama officials have consistently done so). That's because these assassinations are taking place in countries far from any war zone, such as Yemen and Somalia. You can't defend the application of \"war powers\" in these countries without embracing the once-very-controversial Bush/Cheney view that the whole is now a \"battlefield\" and the president's war powers thus exist without geographic limits. \n \n This new memo makes clear that this Bush/Cheney worldview is at the heart of the Obama presidency. The president, it claims, \"retains authority to use force against al-Qaida and associated forces outside the area of active hostilities\". In other words: there are, subject to the entirely optional \"feasibility of capture\" element, no geographic limits to the president's authority to kill anyone he wants. This power applies not only to war zones, but everywhere in the world that he claims a member of al-Qaida is found. This memo embraces and institutionalizes the core Bush/Cheney theory that justified the entire panoply of policies Democrats back then pretended to find so objectionable. \n \n 4. Expanding the concept of \"imminence\" beyond recognition \n \n The memo claims that the president's assassination power applies to a senior al-Qaida member who \"poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States\". That is designed to convince citizens to accept this power by leading them to believe it's similar to common and familiar domestic uses of lethal force on US soil: if, for instance, an armed criminal is in the process of robbing a bank or is about to shoot hostages, then the \"imminence\" of the threat he poses justifies the use of lethal force against him by the police. \n \n But this rhetorical tactic is totally misleading. The memo is authorizing assassinations against citizens in circumstances far beyond this understanding of \"imminence\". Indeed, the memo expressly states that it is inventing \"a broader concept of imminence\" than is typically used in domestic law. Specifically, the president's assassination power \"does not require that the US have clear evidence that a specific attack . . . will take place in the immediate future\". The US routinely assassinates its targets not when they are engaged in or plotting attacks but when they are at home, with family members, riding in a car, at work, at funerals, rescuing other drone victims, etc. \n \n Many of the early objections to this new memo have focused on this warped and incredibly broad definition of \"imminence\". The ACLU's Jameel Jaffer told Isikoff that the memo \"redefines the word imminence in a way that deprives the word of its ordinary meaning\". Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller called Jaffer's objection \"an understatement\", noting that the memo's understanding of \"imminence\" is \"wildly overbroad\" under international law. \n \n Crucially, Heller points out what I noted above: once you accept the memo's reasoning - that the US is engaged in a global war, that the world is a battlefield, and the president has the power to assassinate any member of al-Qaida or associated forces - then there is no way coherent way to limit this power to places where capture is infeasible or to persons posing an \"imminent\" threat. The legal framework adopted by the memo means the president can kill anyone he claims is a member of al-Qaida regardless of where they are found or what they are doing. \n \n The only reason to add these limitations of \"imminence\" and \"feasibility of capture\" is, as Heller said, purely political: to make the theories more politically palatable. But the definitions for these terms are so vague and broad that they provide no real limits on the president's assassination power. As the ACLU's Jaffer says: \"This is a chilling document\" because \"it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen\" and the purported limits \"are elastic and vaguely defined, and it's easy to see how they could be manipulated.\" \n \n 5. Converting Obama underlings into objective courts \n \n This memo is not a judicial opinion. It was not written by anyone independent of the president. To the contrary, it was written by life-long partisan lackeys: lawyers whose careerist interests depend upon staying in the good graces of Obama and the Democrats, almost certainly Marty Lederman and David Barron. Treating this document as though it confers any authority on Obama is like treating the statements of one's lawyer as a judicial finding or jury verdict. \n \n Indeed, recall the primary excuse used to shield Bush officials from prosecution for their crimes of torture and illegal eavesdropping: namely, they got Bush-appointed lawyers in the DOJ to say that their conduct was legal, and therefore, it should be treated as such. This tactic - getting partisan lawyers and underlings of the president to say that the president's conduct is legal - was appropriately treated with scorn when invoked by Bush officials to justify their radical programs. As Digby wrote about Bush officials who pointed to the OLC memos it got its lawyers to issue about torture and eavesdropping, such a practice amounts to: \n \n \"validating the idea that obscure Justice Department officials can be granted the authority to essentially immunize officials at all levels of the government, from the president down to the lowest field officer, by issuing a secret memo. This is a very important new development in western jurisprudence and one that surely requires more study and consideration. If Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had known about this, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.\" \n \n Life-long Democratic Party lawyers are not going to oppose the terrorism policies of the president who appointed them. A president can always find underlings and political appointees to endorse whatever he wants to do. That's all this memo is: the by-product of obsequious lawyers telling their Party's leader that he is (of course) free to do exactly that which he wants to do, in exactly the same way that Bush got John Yoo to tell him that torture was not torture, and that even it if were, it was legal. \n \n That's why courts, not the president's partisan lawyers, should be making these determinations. But when the ACLU tried to obtain a judicial determination as to whether Obama is actually authorized to assassinate US citizens, the Obama DOJ went to extreme lengths to block the court from ruling on that question. They didn't want independent judges to determine the law. They wanted their own lawyers to do so. \n \n That's all this memo is: Obama-loyal appointees telling their leader that he has the authority to do what he wants. But in the warped world of US politics, this - secret memos from partisan lackeys - has replaced judicial review as the means to determine the legality of the president's conduct. \n \n 6. Making a mockery of \"due process\" \n \n The core freedom most under attack by the War on Terror is the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process. It provides that \"no person shall be . . . deprived of life . . . without due process of law\". Like putting people in cages for life on island prisons with no trial, claiming that the president has the right to assassinate US citizens far from any battlefield without any charges or trial is the supreme evisceration of this right. \n \n The memo pays lip service to the right it is destroying: \"Under the traditional due process balancing analysis . . . . we recognize that there is no private interest more weighty than a person's interest in his life.\" But it nonetheless argues that a \"balancing test\" is necessary to determine the extent of the process that is due before the president can deprive someone of their life, and further argues that, as the New York Times put it when this theory was first unveiled: \"while the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.\" \n \n Stephen Colbert perfectly mocked this theory when Eric Holder first unveiled it to defend the president's assassination program. At the time, Holder actually said: \"due process and judicial process are not one and the same.\" Colbert interpreted that claim as follows: \n \n \"Trial by jury, trial by fire, rock, paper scissors, who cares? Due process just means that there is a process that you do. The current process is apparently, first the president meets with his advisers and decides who he can kill. Then he kills them.\" \n \n It is fitting indeed that the memo expressly embraces two core Bush/Cheney theories to justify this view of what \"due process\" requires. First, it cites the Bush DOJ's core view, as enunciated by John Yoo, that courts have no role to play in what the president does in the War on Terror because judicial review constitutes \"judicial encroachment\" on the \"judgments by the President and his national security advisers as to when and how to use force\". And then it cites the Bush DOJ's mostly successful arguments in the 2004 Hamdi case that the president has the authority even to imprison US citizens without trial provided that he accuses them of being a terrorist. \n \n The reason this is so fitting is because, as I've detailed many times, it was these same early Bush/Cheney theories that made me want to begin writing about politics, all driven by my perception that the US government was becoming extremist and dangerous. During the early Bush years, the very idea that the US government asserted the power to imprison US citizens without charges and due process (or to eavesdrop on them) was so radical that, at the time, I could hardly believe they were being asserted out in the open. \n \n Yet here we are almost a full decade later. And we have the current president asserting the power not merely to imprison or eavesdrop on US citizens without charges or trial, but to order them executed - and to do so in total secrecy, with no checks or oversight. If you believe the president has the power to order US citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it's truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable. \n \n DOJ white paper ||||| It refers, for example, to what it calls a \u201cbroader concept of imminence\u201d than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland. \n \n The condition that an operational leader present an \u2018imminent\u2019 threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,\u201d the memo states.", "summary": "\u2013 The Obama administration's rationale for when it's OK to kill US citizens is fundamentally un-American, writes Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian. For example, the Justice Department memo says the US is justified in going after terrorists\u2014based on the assertions of US officials supposedly in the know about who is or isn't a terrorist. Where's the due process? \"The distinction between (a) government accusations and (b) proof of guilt is central to every free society, by definition, yet this memo\u2014and those who defend Obama's assassination power\u2014willfully ignore it.\" The memo has at its core the \"Bush/Cheney worldview,\" writes Greenwald in his lengthy critique. \"If you believe the president has the power to order US citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it's truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable.\" Read Greenwald's full column here. At Salon, David Sirota thinks the memo makes clear that the \"ever-expanding drone war\" is so out of control that not even the Constitution can rein it in. It is, in short, \"too big to curtail.\" Read Sirota's column here."}
{"document": "Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter \n \n / Updated / Source: TODAY By Scott Stump \n \n During last year's trial in which graduating senior Owen Labrie was charged with sexually assaulting a younger student at the prestigious St. Paul's School, his accuser was shielded in anonymity by law. \n \n Chessy Prout, who was 15 years old at the time of the incident, has now decided to publicly reveal her identity in order to speak out about the crime. \n \n \"I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,'' Prout told Savannah Guthrie in an exclusive interview that aired on TODAY Tuesday. \n \n Labrie, 20, was acquitted on three counts of felony sexual assault in August 2015 and convicted on three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault, felony illegal use of computer services and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. He is currently appealing the verdict. \n \n Labrie had been accused of raping Prout during a ritual called the \u201cSenior Salute\u201d at the prestigious boarding academy in Concord, New Hampshire. The ritual involves seniors trying to have sex with younger girls in the school before graduating. \n \n \"It's been two years now since the whole ordeal, and I feel ready to stand up and own what happened to me and make sure other people, other girls and boys, don't need to be ashamed, either,'' Prout said. \n \n Prout says the criminal trial, which made national headlines, could have been avoided. \n \n \"We had been prepared to just receive an apology letter,'' she said. \"We had been prepared to finish this and just move forward with our lives and let them move forward with their lives, but, you know what, in the pursuit of justice I would've done anything.\" \n \n Prout took the stand and testified for three days during the trial. \n \n \"It was something that was necessary,'' she said. \"Although it was scary and although it was pretty difficult...I wouldn't be where I am today without having been able to speak up for myself during that time,'' she said. \n \n RELATED: Prout\u2019s family files suit against St. Paul\u2019s School \n \n In October 2015, Labrie was sentenced to a year in jail, but was initially free while the appeal of the verdict was pending. Labrie was ordered to adhere to a curfew from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. at his mother\u2019s house in Vermont, but was found by a judge to have violated the curfew in March and taken into custody to begin serving his jail sentence. \n \n However, he was freed on bail again in May after a New Hampshire judge gave him another chance to live at his mother\u2019s house as long as he wears a GPS monitor as he awaits his appeal. Labrie is also currently registered as a sex offender in New Hampshire pending his appeal. \n \n Chessy Prout with her family during Savannah Guthrie's exclusive interview. TODAY \n \n \"I hope he learns,'' Prout said. \"I hope he gets help. And that's all I can ever hope for in any sort of process like this. Because if he doesn't learn, he will do it to another young woman.\" \n \n While Labrie was convicted on misdemeanor charges, the jury acquitted him of the more serious felony sexual assault charges. \n \n \"They said that they didn't believe that he did it knowingly, and that frustrated me a lot because he definitely did do it knowingly,'' Prout said. \"And the fact that he was still able to pull the wool over a group of people's eyes bothered me a lot and just disgusted me in some way.\" \n \n St. Paul's School had long been part of Prout's family, as her father, Alex, is a graduate along with her older sister, Lucy. Chessy was adamant about returning to school in the wake of the trial, but said previous male friends would no longer speak to her. \n \n On one occasion, she claims a pair of senior football players organizing a Powder Puff football game said, \"We're only directing this at the upper formers because we're not allowed to look at lower formers anymore.\" \n \n \"I looked at them like this and thinking that that had to be approved by the rector of the school,'' Prout said. \"And they let those boys go up there and make a joke about consent and the age. I said to myself, 'That's it, I don't have to deal this anymore. \n \n \"I tried my best to go back to my school and try to have a normal life again. But if they're going to treat this topic as a joke, this is not a place I want to be.\" \n \n In June, the Prouts filed a civil lawsuit against the school, arguing that it failed to protect children entrusted to its care. St. Paul's School issued the following statement to TODAY: \n \n \"As was the case when the survivor was a student here and subsequently, the School admires her courage and condemns unkind behavior toward her. We feel deeply for her and her family. We have always placed the safety and well-being of our students first and are confident that the environment and culture of the school have supported that. We categorically deny that there ever existed at the School a culture or tradition of sexual assault. However, there\u2019s no denying the survivor\u2019s experience caused us to look anew at the culture and environment. This fresh look has brought about positive changes at the School.\" \n \n On Aug. 15, attorneys for St. Paul\u2019s School made a request that Prout's identity be publicly released. The school argued that her family is attacking its reputation \u201cfrom behind a cloak of anonymity,\u201d according to court documents. \n \n \"Unfortunately, it seems like the school's reputation became more important than supporting our daughter,'' Prout's mother, Susan, told Guthrie. \n \n \"There was just no recognition that I had gone through something like this,'' Chessy said. \"And that is one of the reasons why we're pushing for change.\" \n \n In response NBC News' specific question about programming, the school says they: \n \n Employ developmentally appropriate education models designed to prevent and reduce risky adolescent behavior. \n \n Implement healthy boundary and bystander intervention programming for adults and students. \n \n Engage external teams of experts to examine the health of the student culture. \n \n Bring in leading experts to train the faculty on adolescent relationships, consent, sexuality, and culture. \n \n Created an Associate Head of School position for the purpose of integrating and advancing healthy culture initiatives. \n \n Continually assess and strengthen our advising system and the role of the head of house. \n \n Regularly review and clarify rules governing student behavior. \n \n Regularly review and upgrade our security systems. \n \n Led a nationally recognized symposium on the influence of technology on adolescent relationships \n \n Prout is now working with the non-profit Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment (PAVE) organization, which \"works both to shatter the silence and prevent sexual violence through social advocacy, education and survivor support.\" PAVE is launching a new site, I Have the Right To, on Tuesday in the wake of Prout's interview. \n \n TODAY \n \n \"I want other people to feel empowered and just strong enough to be able to say, 'I have the right to my body. I have the right to say no,''' Prout said. \n \n Prout has been grateful for the support of her family during the trial and its aftermath. \n \n \"I just can't imagine how scary it is for other people to have to do this alone, and I don't want anybody else to be alone anymore,'' she said. \n \n Follow TODAY.com writer Scott Stump on Twitter. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A teen who was sexually assaulted during a game of sexual conquest at a prestigious New Hampshire prep school said Tuesday in her first public comments that she is no longer ashamed or afraid and she hopes to be a voice for others. \n \n Chessy Prout spoke in an interview on NBC's \"Today\" show about what happened to her at St. Paul's School in 2014 when she was a 15-year-old freshman. \n \n \"It's been two years now since the whole ordeal, and I feel ready to stand up and own what happened to me and make sure other people, other girls and boys, don't need to be ashamed, either,\" said Prout, now 17 and about to start her senior year at a different school. \n \n The Associated Press normally does not identify victims of sexual assault, but Prout has now spoken publicly about the case. \n \n Former St. Paul's student Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, was arrested in 2014, days after graduating from the Concord school. Prosecutors alleged he assaulted the girl as part of a competition known as the Senior Salute in which some seniors sought to have sex with underclassman. \n \n Labrie was convicted last year of misdemeanor sex assault charges and a felony charge of using a computer to lure the student. He was acquitted on three counts of felony sexual assault. \n \n Labrie was sentenced to a year in jail, but he remains free pending appeal. \n \n Prout's parents have sued the school, arguing it should have done more to protect their daughter. The school has denied it could have prevented the assault, but it has since taken steps to \"prevent and reduce risky adolescent behavior.\" \n \n In the interview, Prout said she sometimes gets panic attacks and hides in her closet and rocks on the floor. She wants to use the experience to help others. \n \n \"I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,\" she said.", "summary": "\u2013 A year after her sexual assault at St. Paul's School made headlines, Chessy Prout says she's tired of hiding. \"I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,'' she tells Today of the May 2014 assault. Prout was just 15 when she was sexually assaulted at the prestigious New Hampshire school while on a date with senior Owen Labrie, who is out on bail while appealing his conviction of misdemeanor sexual assault. Prout says she was \"disgusted\" that Labrie\u2014acquitted of felony sexual assault charges\u2014convinced a jury that he didn't knowingly rape her \"because he definitely did do it knowingly,\" but says she hopes he learns from his crime. \"Because if he doesn't learn, he will do it to another young woman.\" Prout\u2014who also described having panic attacks and hiding in her closet, per the AP\u2014has teamed up with nonprofit Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment and says she wants to encourage \"other people to feel empowered and just strong enough to be able to say, 'I have the right to my body. I have the right to say no.''' In an effort to bring about change, she's also filed a civil case against St. Paul's, which accused her of attacking the school \"from behind a cloak of anonymity\" and filed a request that her identity be released. The school denies \"a culture or tradition of sexual assault\" existed there but says Prout's case has already \"brought about positive changes,\" including new faculty training and updates to security systems. (Read Prout's testimony here.)"}
{"document": "NASHVILLE \u2014 Newt Gingrich again avoided the intense campaigning in Michigan Monday, opting instead to spend the day in Nashville appealing to Tennessee voters in advance of Super Tuesday. \n \n The former House speaker participated in a health care roundtable, a rally on the steps of the Tennessee statehouse, and attended a fundraiser in Franklin. His wife, Callista Gingrich, appeared at the Tennessee chapter of \u201cWomen With Newt.\u201d The events weren\u2019t retail politics in the traditional sense as they took place in law firms and with state lawmakers at the Tennessee statehouse. \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset \n \n Gingrich also got a boost from former Tennessee senator and 2008 presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Thompson appeared with Gingrich at the Nashville rally and hosted a fundraiser for him. \n \n Gingrich stressed his Southern ties to Tennessee, which borders Georgia, which he represented in Congress for over two decades. \n \n \u201cAs a Georgian, I guess I\u2019ve been coming in and out of Tennessee for a very, very long time,\u201d Gingrich said at his lunch event. \n \n A strong performance in Tennessee is central to Gingrich\u2019s strategy going forward \u2014 he is staking his campaign on a strong finish in the Southern states that vote on Super Tuesday. \n \n Tennessee is the third-largest prize on Super Tuesday \u2014 which is one week away \u2014 with 58 delegates. Gingrich\u2019s campaign did not file the full slate of delegates in here, though that lack of delegates now won\u2019t affect his share of the vote on primary night (Rick Santorum didn\u2019t file any delegates here either). \n \n In Milner, Ga., on Sunday, Gingrich said he \u201chope[d] to do very well\u201d in Tennessee, in addition to winning Georgia, doing well in Oklahoma and \u201csurpris[ing] people\u201d in Idaho\u2019s caucuses. \n \n Gingrich is hoping his presence in Tennessee will help him gain momentum here, despite the fact that he\u2019s at the end of the pack in recent polling. In a Vanderbilt University poll released Monday, Gingrich came in fourth with 10 percent. Rick Santorum led the pack with 33 percent, followed by Mitt Romney at 17 percent and Ron Paul at 13 percent. \n \n Gingrich\u2019s day wasn\u2019t without a few stumbles. He got only a small crowd at his rally outside the Tennessee statehouse, and the event was interrupted by Occupy protesters, who shouted things like \u201cEnd the war on women!\u201d and \u201cPalestinians are not an invented people!\u201d \n \n Gingrich responded by using a line he\u2019d just used about President Barack Obama: \u201cIn terms of being out of touch with reality\u2026\u201d ||||| NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said today the unrest the United States was seeing in Afghanistan was just \"the tip of the iceberg.\" \n \n \"We're not going to fix Afghanistan. It's not possible. These are people who have spent several thousand years hating foreigners,\" Gingrich said. \"And what we've done by staying is become the new foreigners. And this is a real problem.\" \n \n Gingrich said that in his judgment, the problems the U.S. faces in the Middle East are too big and complicated for military solutions. \n \n \"There's some problems where what you have to do is say 'You know, you're going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life because I'm not here - you clearly don't want to hear from me how to be unmiserable,'\" Gingrich said. \n \n Gingrich was critical of President Obama last week for apologizing to Afghanistan after the burning of copies of the Koran sparked mass protests. Gingrich said the president should not have apologized since two Americans were killed. \n \n Today, Gingrich also took a swipe at Afghan president Hamid Zarzai. \"My prediction is, the Karzai government is playing us for fools,\" Gingrich said. \"So my view is that we need to be, we need to have a president who is prepared to tell the truth about who is trying to kill us.\"", "summary": "\u2013 That's harsh. After blasting President Obama for apologizing for the burning of Korans at Bagram, Newt Gingrich now has some advice for Afghanistan: \"Live your own miserable life.\" It's past time for America to quit that nation, Gingrich groused. We\u2019re \"not going to fix Afghanistan. It\u2019s not possible,\" Gingrich expounded on the stump in Tennessee, reports ABC News. \"These are people who have spent several thousand years hating foreigners. There\u2019s some problems where you have to say, \u2018You know, you\u2019re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life because you clearly don\u2019t want to hear from me how to be unmiserable.'\" If you're still unclear about where he stands, Gingrich hammered President Hamid Karzai for \"playing us for fools.\" Gingrich dodged Michigan campaigning and focused instead on Tennessee yesterday. A strong showing in the state on Super Tuesday is key to his continued participation in the race, notes Politico."}
{"document": "Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n The former White House chef whose body was found late Sunday, after a week-long search in the New Mexico mountains, died from drowning, state police said Tuesday. \n \n Medical examiners ruled 61-year-old Walter Scheib's death as accidental after police saw no signs of foul play, according to a news release. The circumstances surrounding how he died were not immediately known. \n \n Related: Body of Former White House Chef Missing in New Mexico Mountains Found \n \n Scheib's body was found off of the Yerba Canyon hiking trail near Taos in northern New Mexico, where he set off on a solo hiking trip June 13, state police said. After an extensive search, rescue crews found him submerged in a mountain drainage that was flowing with runoff. He was wearing a windbreaker jacket, running pants and tennis shoes. \n \n Scheib served as a White House executive chef under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush after he first caught the attention of Hillary Clinton at a West Virginia resort. He also appeared on Food Network's \"Iron Chef America\" in 2006. ||||| Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Scheib that she wanted to bring a healthier, lighter, American style of cooking to the White House, and he obliged, seeking out small producers to deliver high-quality ingredients to the table. \n \n For his first state dinner, in honor of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan, he served an appetizer of quail with corn custard and a tomato-cumin sauce with a Southwestern accent. The entree was grilled Arctic char and lobster sausage with wild mushroom risotto, braised fennel, vegetable ragout and a roasted garlic and lime sauce. Field greens, with goat cheese and basil baked in phyllo and a port wine dressing, followed. The wines were American, and so was the service: individually arranged plates rather than large banquet-style platters. \n \n \u201cIf there is a way to get the fat out without making the taste or texture suffer, we do it,\u201d Mr. Scheib said in an interview before serving a state banquet for Boris N. Yeltsin, the Russian president, in September 1994. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n The job was a heady experience for him, and he relished it. \u201cI get to do every day what most chefs get to do once or twice in their life, if they\u2019re lucky,\u201d he told The New York Times in 1998. \u201cPeople will have to pry me out of here with a crowbar.\u201d \n \n In fact, Mr. Scheib was fired in 2005, after finding himself out of sync with the Bush administration\u2019s food philosophy and with Laura Bush\u2019s social secretary, Lea Berman. He was replaced by Cristeta Comerford, an assistant chef he had hired. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to find a way to satisfy the first lady\u2019s stylistic requirements, and it has been difficult,\u201d Mr. Scheib told The Times after his dismissal. \u201cBasically, I was not successful in my attempt.\u201d \n \n In a statement posted on the website of the Clinton Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton said that \u201cvisitors from around the world loved his delicious and creative meals.\u201d \n \n They added, \u201cWalter used his immense talents not only to represent the very best of American cuisine to visiting leaders, but to make a difference in people\u2019s lives across the country through his support of numerous charities.\u201d \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Walter S. Scheib III was born on May 3, 1954, in Oakland, Calif., and grew up in Bethesda, Md., where he attended Walter Johnson High School. His mother, a keen cook, watched Julia Child on television and reproduced dishes like paella valenciana and bouillabaisse for her family. \n \n After briefly studying at the University of Maryland, he attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., graduating in 1979. He immediately found work at the Capital Hilton in Washington and rose to executive chef within three years. He left the Hilton in 1986 to become the executive chef of the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Florida, and four years later was hired as executive chef at the Greenbrier, where he directed a staff of 200. \n \n Behind his back, his wife, Jean, submitted his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 to the White House after Mr. Chambrin left. After preparing a tryout meal for Mrs. Clinton and her staff, he won the job of executive chef. \n \n Because of his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, Mr. Scheib was pegged as an administrator rather than a creative chef, a description that stung. \u201cI\u2019m not going to respond to anyone who hasn\u2019t spoken to me before or eaten my cooking,\u201d he said in an interview before his first state dinner. \u201cI think I\u2019m pretty creative.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n At the same time, he admitted that the White House, where he oversaw five full-time and 20 part-time workers, should not be confused with a four-star restaurant. \u201cThese are not Escoffier dinners,\u201d Mr. Scheib said in 1998 before a dinner in honor of Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. \u201cYou can spin it any way you want, it\u2019s still a banquet. How you serve 240 people and have them not think it\u2019s another rubber-chicken-circuit dinner, that\u2019s the job.\u201d \n \n He enjoyed warm relations with the Clintons. He gave Chelsea Clinton cooking lessons before she left for college. He dedicated his cookbook memoir, \u201cWhite House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen,\u201d which was written with Andrew Friedman and published in 2007, to Mrs. Clinton. \n \n The Bush years were trickier. \u201cPresident Bush liked things simple,\u201d Mr. Scheib told Highlights magazine in 2012. \u201cNo soup, salad, greens or \u2018wet fish,\u2019 such as poached. If it wasn\u2019t baked or fried, he wasn\u2019t interested.\u201d \n \n Mrs. Bush, he recalled for The Times, told him, \u201cWalter, we would like our food to be flavorful, generous and identifiable.\u201d \n \n Mr. Scheib, whose marriage ended in divorce, is survived by two sons, Walter and Jim, and his father, Walter Scheib Jr. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available. \n \n After leaving the White House, Mr. Scheib started a catering and events business, the American Chef, that combined meals and demonstrations with his reminiscences of life in the White House kitchen. \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve had 11 great years under two administrations,\u201d he told Nation\u2019s Restaurant News in 2005, \u201cand I was lucky enough to be there while American cuisine was changing dramatically and got to do it on the biggest stage.\u201d ||||| Taos, NM (87571) \n \n Today \n \n A mix of clouds and sun with gusty winds. High 59F. Winds SW at 20 to 30 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.. \n \n Tonight \n \n A clear sky. Low 28F. SSW winds shifting to NE at 10 to 20 mph.", "summary": "\u2013 The death of former top White House chef Walter Scheib appears to have been a tragic hiking accident, according to authorities in New Mexico. An autopsy of the 61-year-old determined that the cause of death was drowning, and officials say there was no sign of foul play, NBC News reports. Police say a search and rescue dog detected Scheib's body around 25 yards from the Yerba Canyon Trail outside Taos. Scheib apparently made it to the 12,115-foot summit of Mount Lobo but ran into trouble during stormy weather on the way back down, reports the Taos News, which describes the trail as \"challenging in the best of times.\" \"Hillary and I are saddened by the tragic passing\" of Scheib, who used \"his immense talents not only to represent the very best of American cuisine to visiting leaders, but to make a difference in people's lives across the country through his support of numerous charities,\" Bill Clinton said in a statement. Scheib spent 11 years at the White House but was fired in 2005 after falling out of favor with the Bushes, the New York Times reports. \"President Bush liked things simple,\" Scheib recalled in an interview with Highlights magazine a few years ago, per the Times. \"No soup, salad, greens, or 'wet fish,' such as poached. If it wasn't baked or fried, he wasn't interested.\""}
{"document": "FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, for the third day... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, for the third day of his confirmation hearing to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Christine Blasey Ford, the... (Associated Press) \n \n WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation for the Supreme Court is taking an uncertain turn as Republican senators express concern over a woman's private-turned-public allegation that a drunken Kavanaugh groped her and tried to take off her clothes at a party when they were teenagers. \n \n The White House and other Kavanaugh supporters had dismissed the allegation of sexual misconduct when it was initially conveyed in a private letter. With a name and disturbing details, the accusation raised the prospect of congressional Republicans defending President Donald Trump's nominee ahead of midterm elections featuring an unprecedented number of female candidates and informed in part by the #MeToo movement. \n \n The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee appeared nonetheless committed to a vote later this week despite Christine Blasey Ford's account in The Washington Post. Kavanaugh, she said, pinned her to a bed at a Maryland party in the early 1980s, clumsily tried to remove her clothing and put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. Kavanaugh repeated his previous denial that such an incident ever took place. \n \n A split seemed to be emerging among the GOP. \n \n As Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, called for a delay in the vote, two committee Republicans \u2014 all 11 on the GOP side are men \u2014 Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said they wanted to hear more from Ford. Flake went as far as to say he was \"not comfortable\" voting for Kavanaugh for the time being. A potential \"no\" vote from Flake would complicate the judge's prospects. A Republican not on the committee, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, said the vote should be postponed until the committee heard from Ford. Contacted Sunday by CNN, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, wouldn't say if the vote should be postponed. \n \n Some Senate Republicans, along with the White House, see no need to postpone voting over what they consider uncorroborated and unverifiable accusations, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly. \n \n A committee spokesman said late Sunday that its chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, was trying to arrange separate, follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Ford, but just for aides to Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., before Thursday's scheduled vote. Critics have already accused the GOP of fast-tracking the process to get Kavanaugh on the court by Oct. 1, the first day of the fall term. \n \n The allegation against Kavanaugh first came to light late last week in the form of a letter that had been for some time in the possession of Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and one of its four female members. On Sunday, The Washington Post published an interview with Ford, who after months of soul-searching decided to go public. \n \n \"I thought he might inadvertently kill me,\" said Ford, 51, a clinical psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California. \"He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.\" She told the Post that she was able to escape after a friend of Kavanaugh's who was in the room jumped on top of them and everyone tumbled. \n \n Through the White House, Kavanaugh, 53, a federal appeals judge in Washington, said Sunday: \"I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.\" \n \n Senate Republicans, along with the White House, see no need to postpone voting over what they consider uncorroborated and unverifiable accusations, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly. \n \n In considering their options Sunday, Republicans largely settled on the view that Ford's story alone was not enough to delay Kavanaugh's confirmation. \n \n Grassley could invite Ford to testify, likely in closed session before Thursday. Kavanaugh would also probably be asked to appear before senators. The panel would also likely seek testimony from Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's friend and classmate who Ford says jumped on top of her and Kavanaugh. Judge has denied that the incident happened. \n \n Republicans have not settled on the strategy, the person familiar with the situation said, but were weighing options, including doing nothing. \n \n Republicans say the allegations have already cast a shadow over Kavanaugh but that it does not appear to be enough to change the votes in the narrowly divided 51-49 Senate. Key will be the views of Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. \n \n The White House has accused Feinstein of mounting an \"11th hour attempt to delay his confirmation.\" The White House has also sought to cast doubt about Ford's allegation by noting that the FBI has repeatedly investigated Kavanaugh since the 1990s for highly sensitive positions he has held, including in the office of independent counsel Ken Starr, at the White House and his current post on the federal appeals court in Washington. \n \n Kavanaugh's nomination had already sharply divided the Senate along party lines. But the allegations of sexual misconduct, particularly coming amid the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, coupled with Ford's emergence could complicate matters, especially as key Republican senators, including Collins and Murkowski, are under enormous pressure from outside groups who want them to oppose Kavanaugh on grounds that as a justice he could vote to undercut the Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in the U.S. \n \n Ford told the Post that Kavanaugh and a friend \u2014 both \"stumbling drunk,\" she says \u2014 corralled her in a bedroom when she was around 15 and Kavanaugh was around 17. She says Kavanaugh groped her over her clothes, grinded his body against hers and tried to take off her one-piece swimsuit and the outfit she wore over it. Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand when she tried to scream, she says, and escaped when Judge jumped on them. \n \n Kavanaugh attended a private school for boys in Maryland while Ford attended a nearby school. \n \n In the interview, Ford says she never revealed what had happened to her until 2012, when she and her husband sought couples therapy. Ford's husband, Russell Ford, said he recalled his wife using Kavanaugh's last name and expressing concern that Kavanaugh \u2014 then a federal judge \u2014 might someday be nominated to the Supreme Court. \n \n Sixty-five women who knew Kavanagh in high school defended him in a separate letter, circulated by Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, as someone who \"always treated women with decency and respect.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report. \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Darlene Superville and Lisa Mascaro on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap and http://www.twitter.com/LisaMascaro \n \n ___ \n \n This story has been corrected to show the name is Dianne, not Diane. ||||| Washington (CNN) Debra Katz, the lawyer for a woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, said Monday that her client would be willing to testify in public to the Senate Judiciary Committee. \n \n \"The answer is yes,\" Katz, who represents Christine Blasey Ford, said on CNN's \"New Day.\" \n \n Ford's willingness to testify before Congress marks both a major development from a woman previously reluctant to face the brunt of public scrutiny and a significant pressure point on Kavanaugh's nomination, which could decide the balance of the nation's top court for a generation. \n \n Ford is the author of a private letter sent to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein alleging that during a party in their high school years, Kavanaugh pushed her into a bedroom, tried to remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. Kavanaugh said in a statement that he \"unequivocally\" denies the allegation. \n \n After her allegations surfaced over the past week, Ford opted to come forward publicly in an article The Washington Post published Sunday. \n \n Read More ||||| Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake is one of 11 Republicans on the narrowly divided Senate Judiciary Committee. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo Kavanaugh Confirmation Flake opposes quick vote on Kavanaugh, putting confirmation in doubt And Bob Corker urges the vote on the Supreme Court nominee to be postponed. \n \n Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court hit a serious roadblock Sunday night, as GOP Senate Judiciary Committee member Jeff Flake said he is uncomfortable voting to advance Kavanaugh's nomination later this week after the nominee's sexual assault accuser went public. \n \n Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is not a member of the committee but whose vote is critical to Kavanaugh's confirmation, similarly said late Sunday that the committee should pause. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Flake (R-Ariz.) said he needs to hear more about the allegations raised publicly by Christine Blasey Ford on Sunday in a Washington Post article, and said other Republicans share his view. Flake is one of 11 Republicans on the narrowly divided panel and without his support, the committee cannot advance his nomination. However, GOP leaders could try to bring Kavanaugh\u2018s nomination directly to the Senate floor. \n \n \"If they push forward without any attempt with hearing what she's had to say, I'm not comfortable voting yes,\" Flake said. \"We need to hear from her. And I don't think I'm alone in this.\" \n \n Asked if the committee vote should be delayed to hear out Ford, Corker replied: \"I think that would be best for all involved, including the nominee. If she does want to be heard, she should do so promptly.\" Republicans control just 51 seats in the Senate, so the comments of the two retiring senators are highly consequential. \n \n Later Sunday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a moderate who had yet to say how she will vote, echoed the notion that the vote might need to be delayed. \u201cIf there is real substance to this, it demands a response,\u201d she told CNN. \n \n Flake declined to address whether Kavanaugh should withdraw his nomination: \"I'm not responding to that question at all.\" The retiring Arizona Republican has long been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump, refusing to support his campaign in 2016 and often critiquing his policies and rhetoric. In return, Trump has repeatedly mocked Flake. \n \n Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. \n \n Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is also seeking more information on Ford's account that Kavanaugh groped her, tried to pull off her clothes and covered her mouth when she tried to scream at a party in Maryland more than three decades ago. A spokesman for Grassley said that given the new information about Kavanaugh and Ford revealing her identity after the allegations were first revealed anonymously, \"Grassley is actively working to set up ... follow-up calls with Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford ahead of Thursday\u2019s scheduled vote.\" \n \n It remains unclear whether Ford wants to appear before the committee or whether Grassley wants her to testify. Flake said he was not sure what forum would be appropriate: \"I don't know what she's comfortable with ... we need to hear from her.\" \n \n Another Judiciary Committee Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, echoed Flake's view that Ford should be heard by the Senate if she wants to. He did not, however, call for the panel vote to be delayed: \u201cIf the committee is to hear from Ms. Ford, it should be done immediately.\" \n \n But Democrats on the Judiciary panel promptly signaled their resistance to Grassley's proposal for follow-up conversations, pressing instead for a fuller inquiry into the allegation. \"There's a lot of information we don\u2019t know and the FBI should have the time it needs to investigate this new material,\" Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said through a spokesman. \"Staff calls aren\u2019t the appropriate way to handle this.\u201d \n \n Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, an undecided Republican moderate, spoke to Kavanaugh on Friday after the allegations were raised anonymously. She told CNN that Kavanaugh \"denied\" the allegations and said she was discussing whether the hearing should go forward with her Senate colleagues. \n \n Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had planned to confirm Kavanaugh before the new session of the Supreme Court on Oct. 1, but a spokesman offered no new timetable on Sunday afternoon. \n \n Ford wrote a letter to a Democratic congresswoman detailing the incident, which were then passed along to Feinstein and gradually leaked out over the past week. Feinstein said on Sunday afternoon that Ford's allegations \"bear heavily on Judge Kavanaugh\u2019s character.\" She is one of a growing number of Democrats calling on the nomination process to be stopped and a Thursday committee vote to be delayed. \n \n \"To railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court,\" said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). \n \n Ford told the Post that at the time of the alleged assault she thought Kavanaugh \"might inadvertently kill me.\" \n \n \"He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing,\" she said. \n \n poster=\"http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201807/3793/1155968404_5807576973001_5807596031001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404\" true \n \n Ford, 51, is a professor at Palo Alto (Calif.) University and she graduated from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md., in 1984. (Kavanaugh graduated from Georgetown Prep in 1983.) She told the Washington Post she took a polygraph regarding the incident, which the paper reviewed, and she passed. \n \n Republicans are now left wondering whether Grassley will move forward with a committee vote this week without hearing testimony from Ford. And it is still unclear if undecided moderates Collins or Murkowski will support Kavanaugh, though GOP leaders have been supremely confident in his confirmation prospects until Sunday. \n \n Judiciary Committee Republicans sent out a memo criticizing \"Democrats' tactics and motives\" and calling on Feinstein to release \"the letter she received back in July so that everyone can know what she\u2019s known for weeks.\" And four people close to the White House said they expected Republicans to question the accuser's vague memories and why Feinstein, up for reelection in November with the Democratic base hungry for anti-Trump fodder, sat on the accusation for months. \n \n Three of those people also said they expect the president to go after Kavanaugh's accuser rather than to turn on the judge. They noted that Trump has done so before, not just denouncing his own accusers but also attacking those of others, notably, failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. \n \n A lawyer close to the White House said the nomination will not be withdrawn. \n \n \u201cNo way, not even a hint of it,\u201d the lawyer said. \u201cIf anything, it\u2019s the opposite. If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something.\u201d \n \n The White House issued the same statement on Kavanaugh's behalf that it did last week: \"I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.\u201d The White House began hearing rumors of the new allegations last week, and White House counsel Don McGahn received a redacted version of the letter Friday and sent it to Capitol Hill, according to a person familiar with the events. \n \n On Sunday morning before Ford's story emerged, Senate Republicans pledged to move forward with President Donald Trump\u2019s pick, in part because Ford's allegations have been anonymous until now. Just hours before Ford went public, Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-La.) of the Senate Judiciary Committee predicted Kavanaugh will win narrow confirmation. \n \n \u201cThey\u2019ve had this stuff for three months; if they were serious about it, they should have told us about it,\u201d Kennedy said on \u201cFox News Sunday.\u201d \u201cI think every Republican will vote for Judge Kavanaugh. I think at least two, and maybe more, Democrats will\u201d vote for him. \n \n Kavanaugh needs 50 votes to be approved, meaning GOP leaders are relying on either Murkowski or Collins to break the logjam. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) was just appointed to the Senate to replace the late John McCain, giving the GOP one more pro-Kavanaugh vote. \n \n Ford had no intention of going public with her accusations and requested them to be confidential. She told the Post that she escaped after Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh's, jumped on top of them. Judge has denied that the incident occurred. \n \n Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who has not met with Kavanaugh, plans to bring up the claims if he is able to sit down with the nominee this week and said on CNN that his Democratic colleagues should have brought up the matter earlier in the confirmation process, at least in private meetings. \n \n \"These disturbing allegations deserve a thorough vetting and the American people deserve answers. We have to hit pause on this process until we have more information,\" Jones said on Twitter after Ford went public. \n \n Jones is among a small group of undecided Democrats, a list that also includes Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. \n \n Donnelly, Heitkamp and Manchin voted for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch last year. Manchin is requesting a second meeting with Kavanaugh. \n \n Kavanaugh has passed numerous FBI background checks, but the letter was only added to his file after Feinstein referred it to the Department of Justice. Now, senators will all have access to the letter now that it has been added to background files. \n \n \u201cI support Mrs. Ford\u2019s decision to share her story, and now that she has, it is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation. This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee,\" Feinstein said Sunday afternoon. \n \n Elana Schor, Darren Samuelsohn and Eliana Johnson contributed to this report. ||||| Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is sworn in during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Sept. 4 in Washington. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) \n \n The White House on Sunday stood by Brett M. Kavanaugh after a woman publicly accused him of sexual assault decades ago, an allegation that triggered the most concrete signs yet of Republican resistance to President Trump\u2019s Supreme Court nominee. \n \n With the nomination suddenly in doubt, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) was working to arrange follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who said he assaulted her when the two were in high school. \n \n Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.), Republicans who are retiring at the end of this term, joined Democrats in urging a delay in the vote until the committee hears from Ford. The panel is scheduled to vote Thursday afternoon on Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination. \n \n The Washington Post published a story Sunday afternoon that included an interview with Ford. The report marked the first time her identity had been revealed publicly and her first public comments about the allegation. \n \n Ford told The Post that one summer in the early 1980s, \u00adKavanaugh and a friend \u2014 both \u201cstumbling drunk,\u201d Ford alleges \u2014 corralled her in a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County, Md. \n \n While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth. \n \n Kavanaugh \u201ccategorically and unequivocally\u201d denied the accusation in a statement, and the White House maintained on Sunday that it is not withdrawing its nomination. The developments marked the latest chapter of a contentious battle over Trump\u2019s nominee that has grown increasingly divisive as it approaches its final stages. \n \n In an interview with The Post, Flake said that Ford \u201cmust be heard\u201d before a committee vote. \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve made it clear that I\u2019m not comfortable moving ahead with the vote on Thursday if we have not heard her side of the story or explored this further,\u201d said Flake, who is one of the committee\u2019s 21 members. Republicans hold an 11-to-10 majority on the panel, and Flake\u2019s opposition to a vote could stall the nomination. \n \n Flake would not specify what form the communication with Ford should take or how he would vote. But he emphasized the significance of the allegations. \n \n \u201cFor me, we can\u2019t vote until we hear more,\u201d he said. \n \n In a statement to The Post, Feinstein said: \u201cI agree with Senator Flake that we should delay this week\u2019s vote. There\u2019s a lot of information we don\u2019t know and the FBI should have the time it needs to investigate this new material. Staff calls aren\u2019t the appropriate way to handle this.\u201d \n \n In a statement, Corker said a delay \u201cwould be best for all involved, including the nominee. If she does want to be heard, she should do so promptly.\u201d \n \n Senate Republicans hold a 51-49 majority and cannot afford the loss of two or more senators voting for Kavanaugh\u2019s confirmation unless they can pick up Democratic votes. \n \n Judiciary Committee spokesman Taylor Foy said in a statement that \u201cgiven the late addendum to the background file and revelations of Dr. Ford\u2019s identity, Chairman Grassley is actively working to set up such follow-up calls with Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford ahead of Thursday\u2019s scheduled vote.\u201d \n \n Republicans reached out to Democrats on Sunday to try to schedule separate calls for Monday with Kavanaugh and Ford. But Democrats had not agreed, officials familiar with the back-and-forth said, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) demanded that the FBI reopen its background investigation of Kavanaugh, 53. \n \n Garrett Ventry, another spokesman for committee Republicans, said in response: \u201cDemocrats have chosen once again to call for delay.\u201d \n \n The allegation injects uncertainty into the prospects for Trump\u2019s second nominee for the court, roils the midterm elections \u2014 which have seen a record number of women seek elected office \u2014 and carries high-stakes implications for the court. \n \n If the White House withdrew the nomination or Kavanaugh bowed out, the Senate would not have enough time to confirm a justice before the new court session begins Oct. 1, leaving it with eight justices. The court operated with eight justices for about 14 months after the February 2016 death of Antonin Scalia and Republicans\u2019 subsequent refusal to consider Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama\u2019s pick. \n \n Any new nominee may have to wait until after the midterm elections, with increasing signs that Democrats could capture the Senate majority. Senate Republicans had argued that the position of red-state Democrats on Kavanaugh would be a factor in their reelection \u2014 an issue that would be moot if the nomination is scuttled. \n \n Republicans face a potential backlash from female voters, especially suburban women, if they press ahead despite the allegation. In 1991, outrage over the Senate confirmation of Clarence Thomas despite allegations of sexual misconduct from his former colleague Anita Hill was among the factors that led to the election of dozens of female candidates. \n \n Twenty-seven years later, the Senate is considering another Supreme Court nominee in the #MeToo era, which has seen a wave of allegations that have cost many prominent men in business, the media and Congress their jobs. \n \n Earlier Sunday, Republicans had signaled that they planned to try to confirm Kavanaugh by the end of the month. \n \n Foy issued a statement vouching for Kavanaugh\u2019s integrity and saying it was \u201cdisturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July.\u201d \n \n Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he agreed with the committee\u2019s concerns about the \u201csubstance and process\u201d regarding Ford\u2019s allegation \u2014 although he said he would \u201cgladly\u201d listen to her if she wanted to talk to lawmakers. \n \n \u201cIf the committee is to hear from Ms. Ford, it should be done immediately so the process can continue as scheduled,\u201d Graham, a member of the committee, said Sunday afternoon. \n \n Senate Democrats in leadership and on the committee swiftly called for a delay. \n \n \u201cTo railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. \n \n In a tweet after The Post\u2019s report, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) said it was \u201ca very brave step\u201d by Ford to come forward. \n \n \u201cIt is more important than ever to hit the pause button on Kavanaugh\u2019s confirmation vote until we can fully investigate these serious and disturbing allegations. We cannot rush to move forward under this cloud,\u201d said Jones, a potentially key swing vote who has not announced whether he will support Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination. \n \n A representative for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not comment. \n \n Hours before The Post\u2019s report was published Sunday, Jones, a centrist Democrat, and two Republican colleagues argued that the allegation against Kavanaugh \u2014 which at that point Ford had not confirmed publicly \u2014 should have been raised sooner in the Senate and predicted that it would not prevent the chamber from moving forward with Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination. \n \n In televised interviews, Jones, Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) expressed concerns that a letter outlining the allegation that Feinstein received was not shared with fellow lawmakers earlier in Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination process. \n \n Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that now that Ford has shared her story, \u201cit is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation. This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee.\u201d \n \n The FBI doesn\u2019t plan to investigate the allegation as a criminal matter, but Feinstein wants the bureau to review it as part of Kavanaugh\u2019s background check, a spokesman said. \n \n Feinstein also wrote an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday formalizing her opposition to Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination and briefly referencing her decision to share the letter\u2019s contents with the FBI. \n \n Many Democratic senators have declared their opposition to Kavanaugh, but not a single Republican has publicly opposed him. \n \n The two most closely watched Republican senators are Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), moderates who favor abortion rights and have broken ranks with their party in the past, including during the failed Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last year. \n \n Neither has said how she plans to vote on Kavanaugh. Representatives for the two senators did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday. \n \n Read more at PowerPost", "summary": "\u2013 Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court no longer appears to be a sure thing. After detailed accusations from a woman who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers were published Sunday, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he was \"not comfortable\" voting to advance the nomination until more is heard from the woman, Politico reports. \"We need to hear from her,\" Flake said of Christine Blasey Ford. \"And I don't think I'm alone in this.\" Sen. Lindsey Graham, another Republican on the committee, also said Sunday that Ford should be heard by the committee, if that is what she wants. Ford's lawyer told CNN on Monday that her client is willing to testify before the committee. \"The answer is yes,\" Debra Katz says. Responded White House rep Kellyanne Conway: \"She should be heard.\" A vote is scheduled for Thursday. Republicans have an 11 to 10 majority on the committee, meaning that if Flake won't vote to advance the nomination, it will be stalled unless a Democrat votes in favor. Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican not on the committee, has also called for a delay in the wake of the accusations, which Kavanaugh has denied. Republicans had hoped to have Kavanaugh confirmed by Oct. 1, but Senate Democrats say a delay in voting is now essential, the Washington Post reports. \"To railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court,\" Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. But a source tells the AP that most Senate Republicans\u2014and the White House\u2014see no need to postpone the vote."}
{"document": "These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| Kansas state government is on the verge of a financial windfall with the auctioning of thousands of sex toys seized by the revenue department for nonpayment of income, withholding and sales taxes, an official said Wednesday. \n \n Online shoppers for adult DVDs, novelty items, clothing and other products can participate in a bonanza shopping experience resulting from the four-county raid on a Kansas company known as United Outlets LLC. \n \n Owner Larry Minkoff, who was doing business under the Bang label, apparently resisted requests from the Kansas Department of Revenue for payment of $163,986 in state taxes. It is unclear how much he still owes the state, because those precise records aren\u2019t open to the public. \n \n Agents took action in July to seize business inventory at outlets in Topeka, Wichita, Junction City and Kansas City, Kan., under Minkoff\u2019s control. Two of the five business locations were in Topeka. \n \n In a negotiated arrangement between the state and owner, the merchandise was released back to Minkoff. \n \n He subsequently entered into a contract to sell the holdings at public auction and apply the money toward payment of taxes owed the state of Kansas. \n \n The contract is with equip-bid.com auction company. \n \n Consumers interested in the auction of \u201c1000s of items\u201d can examine the goods online or personally preview products Monday at a warehouse in Kansas City, Mo. The auction closes Tuesday. \n \n The online site lists about 400 lots \u2014 individual lots can contain dozens of items \u2014 that include the Pipedream Fantasy Love Swing, books, hundreds of DVDs, sex and drinking games, a wide assortment of sexually oriented equipment, carrying cases for devices, the Glass Pleasure Wand, bundles of lingerie and the Cyberskin Foot Stroker. \n \n One of the lots contained 50 \u201cpremium\u201d vibrators and a teddy bear. The bidding was at $10. \n \n Also available: two sets of sparkling sequin lounge pants, sizes large and small, as well as the Good Girl, Bad Girl Wrist Cuffs. \n \n \u201cWhat is different is the titillation factor of what we're selling,\u201d said Jeannine Koranda, spokeswoman for the Kansas revenue department. \u201cThis is an unusual lot of items.\u201d \n \n Typically, she said, the mundane relics of a business are gathered along with confiscation of bank accounts and on-site cash when agents execute tax warrants despite lengthy action to recover the debt. \n \n On Wednesday, attempts to contact Minkoff were unsuccessful. \n \n The state revenue department executes warrants on debt when other collection attempts, including multiple letters, telephone calls, letters of impending legal action, tax liens filed with the district court, bank levies and on-site till taps were unsuccessful in satisfying the debt. \n \n Only after exhaustion of other remedies does the state agency take action to close a business, Koranda said. \n \n Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said there was irony in disclosure of the sex toy sale, while political allies of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback denounced Democratic gubernatorial nominee Paul Davis for a recent report that Davis had been in a Kansas strip club 16 years ago at the same time law enforcement officers raided the nightspot. \n \n \u201cBrownback is so desperate to fill the massive hole in the state budget caused by his reckless income tax cuts that the state of Kansas is now in the porn business,\u201d the Topeka legislator said. \u201cThis is the same governor whose supporters spent this past week attacking his opponent for a strip club incident.\u201d \n \n Eileen Hawley, spokeswoman for the governor, said the state was taking steps necessary to sell business inventory and apply proceeds to taxes owed. \n \n \u201cWhile we do not agree with the type of business involved here, it was nonetheless a legal business that was closed due to failure to pay taxes,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cThe state cannot legally destroy the property. Returning the property to the owner would have rewarded the business that violated state tax law. This is the same process used by previous administrations.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 In the market for love, ahem, accessories? Try shopping with the state of Kansas, which is behind an online auction of a large volume of sex toys\u2014ranging from vibrators and handcuffs to a \"fantasy love swing\" and pornographic films\u2014in an effort to recoup the $163,986 an erotic chain store owes in back taxes. Department of Revenue agents began to seize the inventory at shops across the state in July after the owner of United Outlets LLC, aka Bang, failed to pay the delinquent bill, reports the Topeka Capital-Journal. Kansas Senate Democratic leader Anthony Hensley, who says allies of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback had just recently accused Democratic gubernatorial nominee Paul Davis of being in a strip club 16 years ago, says the governor is \"so desperate\" to balance the budget \"that the state of Kansas is now in the porn business.\" But a Brownback spokesperson says the state is simply selling business inventory to compensate for taxes owed\u2014a common and typically boring practice. A spokeswoman for the revenue department, meanwhile, tells the Kansas City Star that the state itself isn't selling the items because the property had been released back to the owner, who had contracted with the auction company to sell the items and pay the bill. (Meanwhile, how do sex toys and gun safety belong in the same story?)"}
{"document": "ST. LOUIS (AP) \u2014 A federal lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that police in Ferguson and St. Louis County used excessive force and falsely arrested innocent bystanders amid attempts to quell widespread unrest after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. \n \n The five plaintiffs in the suit in St. Louis include a clinical social worker who said she and her 17-year-old son were roughed up and arrested after not evacuating a McDonald's quickly enough. They also include a 23-year-old man who said he was shot multiple times with rubber bullets and called racial slurs by police while walking through the protest zone to his mother's home, and a man who said he was arrested for filming the disturbances. \n \n \"The police were completely out of control,\" said attorney Malik Shabazz of Black Lawyers for Justice, a group whose members sought to quell tensions at the nightly protests that stretched for more than week after Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, shot the unarmed Brown, who is black. \"In those initial days, it was virtually a police riot.\" \n \n The lawsuit seeks $40 million in damages and names Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, Ferguson officer Justin Cosma, several unnamed officers identified collectively as John Doe, and the city and county governments. \n \n Shabazz said the suit could be broadened to include additional plaintiffs. A St. Louis County police spokesman referred inquiries to County Counselor Patricia Redington, who said she had not seen the suit and declined comment. A public relations consultant working for the city of Ferguson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. \n \n In the immediate days after Brown's shooting, local police in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who refused to disperse and, at times, broke into nearby stores. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon eventually placed the State Highway Patrol in charge of securing Ferguson with a more relaxed approach. Nixon later imposed a curfew that was lifted after several nights of clashes between police and protesters, and called in the National Guard, whose members have since departed Ferguson. \n \n Plaintiff Tracey White said she and her son, a high school junior, were waiting for a ride from her husband at a West Florissant Avenue McDonald's after attending an Aug. 13 \"peace and love\" rally at a Ferguson church when several rifle-carrying officers told her she was being arrested because she would not \"shut up.\" White said she and her son were detained for five hours at the county jail on charges of failing to disperse, but she said she was not provided with any records reflecting that charge or a future court date. \n \n \"It was so horrifying,\" she said. \"We did nothing wrong.\" \n \n Dwayne Anton Matthews Jr. said he was confronted by eight officers that same night while walking to his mother's home after the bus route he normally takes stopped short of his destination because of the unrest. The suit alleges that after Matthews was shot multiple times with rubber bullets, he fell into a creek or sewer, where police officers \"pounced on him, slammed his face into the concrete and pushed his head under water to the point that he felt he was going to be drowned.\" \n \n Matthews, who styles his hair in long dreadlocks, told reporters at a Thursday press conference outside the St. Louis federal courthouse that he was called a \"coon\" and a \"mophead,\" among other racial slurs. \n \n Meanwhile, St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez told The Associated Press in an interview that Lt. Ray Albers resigned Thursday. Albers was the police officer shown on cellphone video pointing his rifle at demonstrators on Aug. 19 in Ferguson and threatening them. \n \n On the video, a man is heard saying, \"Oh my God! Gun raised!\" as the officer approaches. The officer walks near the man, gun pointed, and appears to threaten to kill him. A St. Louis County police sergeant forced the officer to lower the weapon and escorted him away. \n \n A message left on Albers' home phone Thursday was not returned. \n \n ___ \n \n Associated Press reporter Jim Salter in St. Ann, Missouri, contributed to this report. \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/azagier . ||||| Story highlights The office of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney declined comment \n \n A lawsuit accuses police of violating rights and making unjustified arrests \n \n Five people arrested in Ferguson, Missouri, are seeking $40 million in damages \n \n Police in Ferguson and St. Louis County are defendants in the federal lawsuit \n \n In a $40 million federal lawsuit, five people arrested recently in Ferguson, Missouri, accuse police of using \"wanton and excessive force\" and treating U.S. citizens \"as if they were war combatants.\" \n \n A complaint filed Thursday alleges that police officers from Ferguson and St. Louis County used unnecessary force and made unjustified arrests as they cracked down on protests after the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown earlier this month. \n \n The lawsuit lists Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, Ferguson officer Justin Cosma, several unnamed officers and the city and county governments as defendants. \n \n A St. Louis County police spokesman declined to comment Friday, referring inquiries to the county prosecuting attorney's office. The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney's office told CNN it has no comment on the lawsuit. \n \n The suit -- which includes accusations of intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision, and assault and battery -- details circumstances allegedly surrounding several arrests between August 11-13: \n \n -- Tracey White was about to buy an ice cream sundae at McDonald's when officers \"in what appeared to be army uniforms, carrying rifles and sticks and wearing helmets\" entered and ordered her to leave, according to the lawsuit. She was told to shut up, thrown to the ground and handcuffed after criticizing officers for the way they were treating her son, the lawsuit claims. \n \n JUST WATCHED Officer resigns after Ferguson incident Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Officer resigns after Ferguson incident 01:21 \n \n JUST WATCHED App: Audio near time of Ferguson shooting Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH App: Audio near time of Ferguson shooting 03:33 \n \n JUST WATCHED Hillary Clinton comments on Ferguson Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hillary Clinton comments on Ferguson 04:26 \n \n JUST WATCHED Police chiefs speak out on Ferguson Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Police chiefs speak out on Ferguson 07:34 \n \n -- Dewayne Matthews was walking to his mother's house when a group of officers in military uniforms shot rubber bullets at him, the lawsuit alleges. He fell into a creek or sewer, the suit says, where officers \"pounced on him, slammed his face into the concrete, and pushed his head into the water to the point that he felt he was going to be drowned.\" \n \n -- Kerry White was shooting footage and holding his camera out his car window when an officer snatched his camera, \"took out his memory card and threw it to the ground,\" the lawsuit says. \n \n -- Damon Coleman and Theophilus Green were peacefully protesting, the lawsuit says, when police in riot gear fired tear gas and what appeared to be stun grenades in their direction, then \"hurled racial epithets at them, while punching and kicking them the entire time.\" \n \n CNN has not independently confirmed details of the arrests. \n \n Police tactics to calm the crowds drew sharp criticism, including a rebuke from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. \n \n \"At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message,\" Holder said as the protests unfolded. \n \n As criticism of police tactics mounted, Gov. Jay Nixon Missouri tapped State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson to head up security in Ferguson on August 14. \n \n Belmar, the St. Louis County Police Chief, told reporters on Wednesday that he doesn't regret his agency's decisions to fire tear gas at protesters. That approach, he said, was much better than using nightsticks or dogs. \n \n Even though President Barack Obama has called for a review of military equipment sales to local police departments in light of the clashes between police and protesters in Ferguson, Belmar said that such equipment is often necessary. \n \n \"I never envisioned a day that we would ever see that kind of equipment used against protesters,\" he said. \"But I also never imagined a day in 28 years when we would see that kind of criminal activity spin out of peaceful demonstrations.\"", "summary": "\u2013 A Missouri man who says he was just trying to get to his mom's house and a woman who says she was waiting for a ride and a sundae at McDonald's with her teenage son are among the five plaintiffs who have filed a $40 million lawsuit against Ferguson and St. Louis County police alleging \"excessive force\" in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, reports the AP. The suit filed yesterday charges cops with \"intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision, and assault and battery\" and for treating local citizens \"as if they were war combatants,\" reports CNN. Tracey White says she was waiting for her husband to pick up her and her son, a high school junior, from McDonald's when police with rifles reportedly burst into the fast-food restaurant and arrested her because she wouldn't \"shut up,\" the suit says, according to the AP. Meanwhile, Dwayne Matthews Jr. says that his bus couldn't drop him off near his mom's house because of the protests and that he was confronted by eight cops as he was walking, shot with rubber bullets, face-slammed into concrete, pushed underwater \"to the point that he felt he was going to be drowned,\" and insulted with racial slurs. \"The police were completely out of control. \u2026 It was virtually a police riot,\" says attorney Malik Shabazz, adding that other plaintiffs may join the suit. (In related news: Ray Albers, a local officer who allegedly threatened protesters on camera with a rifle, resigned yesterday, reports the AP.)"}
{"document": "WASHINGTON \u2013 It was a good day for Bernie Sanders \u2013 and it came just when he needed one. \n \n In a string of victories Thursday morning for the insurgent Democratic presidential candidate, Sanders announced that his campaign had hit its goal of receiving 2 million individual campaign contributions, picked up the endorsement of the 700,000-member strong Communications Worker of America and earned a nod from the liberal group Democracy for America. \n \n It\u2019s a much needed boost for a candidate whose campaign\u2019s momentum seemed to stall a bit lately, and it comes just two days before the party\u2019s next presidential debate in the crucial state of New Hampshire. \n \n Introducing Sanders at a joint press conference at the union\u2019s headquarters here as \u201cthe next president of the United States,\u201d CWA President Chris Shelton said the union decided to back Sanders only after its members had made their preference overwhelmingly clear in an online poll. \n \n RELATED: Bernie Sanders visits a mosque, highlighting an ugly partisan divide \n \n \u201cThe executive board stayed out of this, we did not want to influence what our members decided, they decided this on their own,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cThis is absolutely a democratically come to decision.\u201d \n \n Sanders has lost out on endorsements from a string of other major unions, who sided instead with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. But Sanders and Shelton suggested that the leadership of the unions might be out of step with their membership. \n \n Close video Can Sanders slow Clinton\u2019s momentum? Hillary Clinton may be the prohibitive Democratic favorite, but Bernie Sanders just got a big boost to his campaign from the Communications Workers of America. CWA President Chris Shelton joins Chris Matthews. embed like save share group \n \n \n \n \n \n \u201cWhat we are seeing is a lot of grassroots support in union after union throughout this country, but that support has not necessarily trickled up to the leadership,\u201d Sanders said. \n \n \u201cI can\u2019t tell you what every member of the AFT or the NEA believes,\u201d he said, referring to two major teachers unions that backed Clinton. \u201cSo the answer is, what I would have hoped is that unions who believe in democracy would have done what the CWA did, which was to really bring a wide open process \u2026 I think we would have won a lot more union support than is currently the case.\u201d \n \n It\u2019s a complaint common among Sanders supporters in the labor movement. \n \n \u201cI believe that\u2019s the way it should be done because I think an endorsement coming from me or our executive board alone would have been an empty endorsement,\u201d added Shelton of his union\u2019s process. \n \n The unusual process did not include the executive board interviews common in other unions, though CWA officials did interview the candidates when they appeared at the AFL-CIO\u2019s summer meeting this year. CWA\u2019s immediate past president Larry Cohen, joined Sanders\u2019 campaign as a advisor shortly after stepping down this summer. \n \n Clinton is still ahead when it comes to organized labor, however, with 18 national labor unions and alliances in her column. \n \n \u201cHillary Clinton is humbled to have such tremendous support from labor unions who represent a diverse coalition of millions of hardworking union men and women across the country. She shares their commitment to fighting for an economy that works for every single American, not just those at the top,\u201d said Clinton spokesperson Jesse Ferguson Thursday. \n \n Sanders, who has sworn off super PACs, has faced questions over spending on his behalf from a super PAC affiliated with a nurses union that endorsed him. CWA has it\u2019s own super PAC and Shelton did not rule out using it to support Sanders. \u201cBernie doesn\u2019t want to it take it \u2013 OK, I respect that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll do everything I can to get the vote out to make sure he\u2019s the next president.\u201d \n \n Sanders said comparing a super PAC funded by wealthy donors to one funded by union dues is a \u201cfalse comparison.\u201d \n \n WATCH: Sanders on ISIS fight: Silicon Valley needs to play a role \n \n The endorsement came the same day as Sanders\u2019 campaign announced they had received 2 individual contributions, more than any non-incumbent presidential candidate in history. Just 261 of the campaign\u2019s donors given the legal maximum contribution of $2,700, the campaign touted. \u201cYou can\u2019t level the playing field with Wall Street banks and billionaires by taking their money,\u201d Sanders says in new TV advertisement touting the number. \n \n And shortly after Sanders left CWA, Democracy for America, the liberal organizing group that grew out of Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 presidential campaign, threw its support behind Sanders. (Dean has personally endorsed Clinton.) DFA\u2019s move was no major surprise, since the group tried to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 race, but it said nearly 90% of the members picked Sanders as their top choice. \n \n \u201cBernie Sanders is an unyielding populist progressive who decisively won Democracy for America members\u2019 first presidential primary endorsement because of his lifelong commitment to taking on income inequality,\u201d said DFA executive director Charles Chamberlain. \n \n Clinton has left few major endorsements still on the table after locking down support from huge swaths of Congress and among state elected officials in key states across the country, but allies say that\u2019s fine with them. \n \n Last week, the Vermont senator also earned the backing of the Working Families Party, a labor-backed liberal group and political party that started in New York and has since expanded to nine other states. \u201cThe political revolution Bernie Sanders has called for is already starting to take shape. Young people and grassroots activists are volunteering in droves for Senator Sanders. Now, important progressive groups are adding their voices. Combined, those are the ingredients of a winning campaign,\u201d said Working Families Party national director Dan Cantor Thursday. ||||| Sanders Passes 2 Million Donations, Nabs Two Endorsements \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Scott Olson/Getty Images Scott Olson/Getty Images \n \n With voting in the first presidential nominating contests just weeks away, Bernie Sanders is trying to make a push before the end of the year. \n \n His campaign announced that he has surpassed 2 million donations. The only other person to do that at this point in a presidential campaign was Barack Obama in 2011. (Clinton had 600,000 donations from 400,000 donors through the end of the third quarter \u2014 end of September.) \n \n Sanders has been raising the bulk of his money in small donations \u2014 71 percent of his donations were $200 or less in the third quarter. Clinton, on the other hand, has relied on larger donors \u2014 74 percent of contributions to her campaign were $1,000 or more, according to numbers from the Campaign Finance Institute. \n \n The reliance on small donations is certainly on message for Sanders, who has consistently blasted America's campaign finance system as being \"corrupt.\" \n \n \"What our vision of a political revolution has already accomplished is to show that we can run a strong and we believe winning campaign without a super PAC, without contributions from millionaires and billionaires,\" Sanders said in a message to supporters. \n \n The obvious downside is that small donations are harder to add up to big numbers. By the end of the third quarter, Clinton's campaign had raised more than double Sanders' campaign overall. \n \n Sanders also got two endorsements Thursday \u2014 one from the Communications Workers of America, a major union with 700,000 members, the other from the progressive group Democracy For America, which is chaired by Jim Dean, Howard's brother. (Howard Dean has endorsed Clinton.) DFA endorsed after nearly 90 percent of its members said they backed Bernie. \n \n That's in addition to a CNN/WMUR poll that showed Sanders leading in New Hampshire by 10 points \u2014 50 percent to 40 percent over Clinton. \n \n Clinton continues to hold large leads in national polls \u2014 but national polling won't determine the way forward in the campaign's immediate future. It's the early states that matter, and right now the two early contests \u2014 Iowa and New Hampshire \u2014 are a split decision. \n \n Things can change on a dime, as voters learned in 2008. Obama led Clinton by high single digits in every poll after his big win in Iowa, but Clinton wound up winning in a surprise. And her husband, Bill, was dubbed the \"Comeback Kid\" there. \n \n After Iowa, the contest moves on to New Hampshire, but it won't end there. The Clinton campaign sees a firewall in the South, where black voters are key. The Clintons have deep ties to the black community and Sanders is less known. But he's working on that and hopes a win in New Hampshire can be a springboard. \n \n A lot will shake out between Clinton and Sanders in the next few weeks, and the bigger key will be how the two camps come together. For all the talk of Donald Trump and his strength on the right, it's clear there's a very deep cadre of grass-roots support on the Democratic side, too.", "summary": "\u2013 While Bernie Sanders may not have [expletive] around and got a triple-double, Ice Cube's good day doesn't have anything on the one Sanders is having. NPR reports the Sanders campaign was already celebrating receiving 2 million donations when news came in Thursday that two major endorsements had gone their way. According to MSNBC, the Communications Workers of America endorsed Sanders after an \"overwhelming\" victory in an online poll of its 700,000 members. That was followed by Democracy for America\u2014a progressive group founded by Howard Dean's brother\u2014throwing its support behind Sanders, NPR reports. \"It\u2019s a much needed boost for a candidate whose campaign\u2019s momentum seemed to stall a bit lately,\" MSNBC states. The Sanders campaign announced hitting 2 million donations Wednesday night, the Washington Post reports. That's more than any other candidate from either party. In fact, Sanders is only the second presidential candidate ever to surpass 2 million donations\u2014and his campaign is confident he can break the 2.2 million record set by Obama's reelection campaign. The average donation to the Sanders campaign is $30. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has raised nearly double what Sanders has\u2014despite having only 600,000 donations at the end of September, according to NPR. Nearly 75% of donations to the Clinton campaign are $1,000 or more. A statement from the Sanders campaign states the 2 million donations show \"we can run a strong and we believe winning campaign without a super PAC, without contributions from millionaires and billionaires.\" (Check out a rapper interviewing Sanders.)"}
{"document": "FILE - In this March 10, 2008 file photo, journalists appear silhouetted against a Mayan temple, before covering the meeting of 'Indigenous People to Heal Our Mother Earth'' in Palenque, Mexico. Archaeologists... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 10, 2008 file photo, journalists appear silhouetted against a Mayan temple, before covering the meeting of 'Indigenous People to Heal Our Mother Earth'' in Palenque, Mexico. Archaeologists... (Associated Press) \n \n MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Archaeologists at the Mayan ruin site of Palenque said Monday they have discovered an underground water tunnel built under the Temple of Inscriptions, which houses the tomb of an ancient ruler named Pakal. \n \n Archaeologist Arnoldo Gonzalez said researchers believe the tomb and pyramid were purposely built atop a spring between AD 683 and 702. The tunnel led water from under the funeral chamber out into the broad esplanade in front of the temple, thus giving Pakal's spirit a path to the underworld. \n \n Attention has focused on the heavily carved stone sarcophagus in which Pakal was buried, and which some erroneously believe depict the Maya ruler seated at the controls of a spaceship. \n \n But Gonzalez said carvings on a pair of stone ear plugs found in the grave say a god \"will guide the dead toward the underworld, by submerging (them) into the water so they will be received there.\" \n \n Pakal, in other words, didn't fly off into space; he went down the drain. \"There is nothing to do with spaceships,\" Gonzalez said. \n \n The tunnel, which connects to another, is made of stone and is about two feet (60 centimeters) wide and tall. \n \n The director of archaeology for the National Institute of Anthropology and History, Pedro Sanchez Nava, said the theory makes sense in light of other pre-Hispanic peoples, such as those who lived at Teotihuacan, near Mexico City, where another water tunnel was found. \n \n \"In both cases there was a water current present,\" said Sanchez Nava. \"There is this allegorical meaning for water ... where the cycle of life begins and ends.\" \n \n The dig began in 2012, when researchers become concerned about underground anomalies detected with geo-radar under the area in front of the pyramid's steps. \n \n Fearing a hole or geological fault that could cause the pyramid to settle or collapse, they dug at the spot \u2014 and uncovered three layers of carefully fitted stone covering the top of the tunnel. \n \n Gonzalez said the same type of three-layered stone covering has been found in the floor of Pakal's tomb, within the pyramid. \n \n He said there appears to be no shaft or connection between the tomb and the tunnel, but adds the conduit hasn't been fully explored yet because it is too small to crawl through. \n \n Researchers had to send a robot with a camera down to view much of the underground horizontal shaft. \n \n Francisco Estrada-Belli, an assistant professor of archaeology at Boston University who was not involved in the dig, wrote, \"I believe that building a tomb over a canal certainly does fit with the belief that water and water bodies were entrances to the underworld.\" \n \n \"Several cases of temples (and the associated tombs) are known to be built over natural caves that may or may not have held water,\" Estrada-Belli wrote. \n \n Author Erich von Daniken suggested in his 1968 book \"Chariots of the Gods?\" that Pakal's stance in the engraving on the stone sarcophagus lid resembled the position of astronauts and that he appeared to be seated in a contraption with flames coming out of it and controls. \n \n Experts say that the \"flames\" are in fact depictions of the Maya's \"World Tree\" or \"Tree of Life,\" whose roots were believed to reach into the underworld. ||||| Mexico City (AFP) - Mexican archeologists have discovered a canal system under the pyramid containing the tomb of a Mayan ruler, suggesting the water tunnel could represent a symbolic path to the underworld. \n \n The Temple of the Inscriptions at the archaeological site of Palenque in the Mexican state of Chiapas. \u00a9 INAH/AFP MEXICO CITY \u2014 Mexican archaeologists have discovered a canal system under the pyramid containing the tomb of a Mayan ruler, suggesting the water tunnel could represent a symbolic path to the underworld. \n \n The hydraulic system was found under the Temple of the Inscriptions, which houses the seventh-century tomb of Pakal \"The Great\" in Palenque, the ancient Mayan city in southern Chiapas state, the National Anthropology and History Institute announced Monday. \n \n \"The presence of these canals is very important and very significant,\" said Arnoldo Gonzalez, the directory of archaeology in Palenque. \n \n An inscription in the tomb says that to be accepted in the underworld the dead must be submerged in the water of a god called Chaac. \n \n The underground network of canals has different levels and goes in different directions, and it was built \"well before\" the pyramid, according to the national anthropology institute. \n \n Water was still running through the main canal when it was discovered, suggesting that its source is a natural spring. \n \n But archaeologists have been unable to determine the length of the tunnel or where it begins. \n \n Gonzalez did not rule out the possibility that the canals were part of a drainage or water-supply system. \n \n \"We must also consider that the ancient Palenque residents designed the hydraulic system to metaphorically reproduce the path that led K'nich Janaab' Pakal to the waters of the underworld,\" Gonzalez said. \n \n The canal system was discovered with sonars. Archaeologists initially thought it could have been a fault line, but cameras mounted on small vehicles confirmed the existence of the system, which was built with large stones.", "summary": "\u2013 When researchers grew concerned about underground anomalies detected near the Mayan ruins of Palenque in Mexico, they began a dig to figure out whether the pyramid was in danger of collapse. This week, researchers announced that what they found was no anomaly but rather a small canal system, reports the AP. They now think the tomb of the ancient ruler Pakal was built atop a natural spring about 700 AD, with tunnels that directed water to the esplanade in front of the temple in the hope of giving Pakal's spirit a way into the underworld. In fact, an engraving at the site reads that the dead gain entrance to the underworld in such a manner via the god Chaac, who will \"will guide the dead toward the underworld by submerging [them].\" The site previously gained fame when author Erich von Daniken posited in his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? that Pakal looked like an astronaut at the helm of a spaceship on a carved stone sarcophagus. But archaeologist Arnoldo Gonzalez says the dig has turned up \"nothing to do with spaceships\" and that the \"flames\" of the so-called spaceship engine in fact depict the Mayan \"Tree of Life.\" The main underground tunnel is only two feet wide and two feet tall, and thus too small to crawl through, but the team is exploring it via robotic devices. AFP reports that water was still running through it, so the source is likely a spring, though it has not been found. Also possible is that the tunnels were part of a water-supply system built before the temple. (Mayans may have had a \"drought cult.\")"}
{"document": "Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n \n Tiger Woods\u2018 \u201cmistress No. 1,\u201d Rachel Uchitel, has landed a TV job on \u201cExtra.\u201d Uchitel, who was interviewed last night by the show\u2019s Mario Lopez, \u201cso impressed producers that she\u2019s been offered a job as a special correspondent,\u201d a rep told us. We\u2019re told she\u2019ll report for \u201cExtra\u201d on nightlife \u201chot spots.\u201d A show source added, \u201cShe won\u2019t talk about Tiger, but she talks about how she wants to find a husband and have kids. She only has a few real friends left whom she trusts. She is alone a lot and spends time with her two dogs. She seems very vulnerable.\u201d \n \n See the \u201cExtra\u201d video. ||||| 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": "\u2013 Apparently, being one of Tiger Woods' women-on-the-side is lucrative in more ways than one. Rachel Uchitel, aka Mistress No. 1, has scored a job as a special correspondent for Extra, where she'll report on hot nightlife spots. The gig came about after Uchitel impressed Extra producers during her exclusive interview last night, which you can watch here. \"She won't talk about Tiger, but she talks about how she wants to find a husband and have kids,\" a source tells the New York Post. \"She only has a few real friends left whom she trusts. She is alone a lot and spends time with her two dogs. She seems very vulnerable.\""}
{"document": "This morning, M.I.A. tweeted out writer Lynn Hirschberg\u2019s phone number in response to a piece in this weekend\u2019s Times Magazine. The tweet seemed to suggest that M.I.A. wasn\u2019t much of a fan of the piece. \n \n What was Ms. Hirschberg\u2019s reaction? \n \n \u201cI find it kind of interesting that she would cast the spotlight on the story in any way, shape or form,\u201d said Ms. Hirschberg. \u201cI can\u2019t say what she thinks of it. But it seems you would want it to go away.\u201d \n \n What did she think of the tweet? \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a fairly unethical thing to do, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s surprising,\u201d she continued. \u201cShe\u2019s a provocateur, and provocateurs want to be provocative.\u201d \n \n She also said that she found it \u201cinfuriating and not surprising.\u201d \n \n Ms. Hirschberg said she wouldn\u2019t change her phone number. \n \n \u201cThe messages have mostly been from people trying to hook up with M.I.A.,\u201d she said. \u201cIf she wants to get together with John at Bard next week, I have his number.\u201d \n \n Some people have already drawn comparisons between the M.I.A piece and Ms. Hirschberg\u2019s famous Vanity Fair takedown of Courtney Love from 1992. Any thoughts on that? \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t think the pieces have anything to do with each other,\u201d she said. \u201cI think M.I.A. is a completely different animal\u2014she\u2019s closer to Madonna than to Courtney.\u201d \n \n And wait! Breaking! M.I.A. has tweeted again. This time, she tweeted, \u201cNEWS IS AN OPINION! UNEDITED VERSION OF THE INTERVIEW WILL BE ON neetrecordings THIS MEMORIAL WEEKEND!!!\u201d \n \n \u201cI have no idea what she\u2019s talking about,\u201d said Ms. Hirschberg. \n \n The piece is Ms. Hirschberg\u2019s last at The Times Magazine under her current contract. She\u2019s becoming an editor-at-large at W. \n \n Follow John Koblin via RSS. ||||| Maya\u2019s tirade, typical in the way it moved from the political to the personal and back again, was interrupted by a waiter, who offered her a variety of rolls. She chose the olive bread. Maya\u2019s political fervor stems from her upbringing. Although she was born in London , her family moved back to Sri Lanka when she was 6 months old, to a country torn by fighting between the Tamil Hindu minority and the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. In the \u201970s, her father, Arular, helped found the Tamil militant group EROS (Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students), trained with the P.L.O. in Lebanon and spearheaded a movement to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of the country. EROS was eventually overwhelmed by a stronger and more vicious militant group, the Tamil Tigers . In their struggle for political control, the Tigers not only went after government troops and Sinhalese civilians but also their own people, including Tamil women and children. \u201cThe Tigers ruled the people under them with an iron fist,\u201d Ahilan Kadirgamar at Sri Lanka Democracy Forum told me. \u201cThey used mafia\u00adlike tactics, and they would forcefully recruit child soldiers. Maya\u2019s father was never with the Tigers. He stayed away.\u201d \n \n In 1983, when she was 8, Maya, her mother and her two siblings moved to London. Her father stayed in Sri Lanka. Throughout her music career, which began in 2004, and especially around the time of the Grammys, Maya has used the spotlight to call attention to Tamil grievances. She named her first album \u201cArular,\u201d after her father. Even though her father was not a Tiger, she also used tigers on her Web site and her album artwork and she favored tiger-striped clothing. This was not an accident. By the time her first album came out, the Tamil cause was mostly synonymous with the cause of the Tamil Tigers. Maya, committed to the cause, allied herself with the group despite its consistent use of terror tactics, which included systematic massacres of Sinhalese villagers. (In turn, government forces were known to retaliate against Tamil villages and were accused of supporting death squads.) \n \n Photo \n \n In the press, Maya was labeled a terrorist sympathizer by some; others charged her with being unsophisticated about the politics of Sri Lanka. \u201cPeople in exile tend to be more nationalistic,\u201d Kadirgamar said. \u201cAnd Maya took a very simplistic explanation of the problems between Sri Lanka\u2019s Sinhalese government and the Tamils. It\u2019s very unfair when you condemn one side of this conflict. The Tigers were killing people, and the government was killing people. It was a brutal war, and M.I.A. had a role in putting the Tigers on the map. She doesn\u2019t seem to know the complexity of what these groups do.\u201d \n \n But many of her fans didn\u2019t listen too closely to her lyrics, concentrating instead on the beat, the newness of the sound and her own multiculti, many-layered appeal. She was an instant indie darling (although \u201cArular\u201d sold only 190,000 copies in the United States ). Her songs were creative and abrasive in an intoxicating way, and it didn\u2019t hurt that Maya was absolutely great looking. She quickly became a style icon: like that of all great pop stars, her anger and spirit of revolution was mitigated by sex. \n \n \u201cMaya had all the pieces of the puzzle,\u201d Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Records, told me. \u201cWhen I met her, I thought, Who wouldn\u2019t want to sign her? Her politics didn\u2019t matter to me. The whole game is about waiting for that moment to move popular culture. Maya can move the needle. I want to go where she\u2019s going to take me.\u201d \n \n Iovine may have instinctively realized that in fusing style, music and controversy, Maya evoked Madonna . While Madonna has always been more interested in writing melodious, catchy pop songs and less interested in niche hipster credibility than Maya, they share a gift for grand self-invention. Like Madonna, Maya is not a trained musician but instead a brilliant editor, able to pick and choose and bend the talents of others to fit her goals. They share an enormous appetite and a discerning eye for the intertwined worlds of fashion, art and music. \u201cMadonna is the one,\u201d Maya said. \u201cMadonna did amazing songs. She had an amazing sense of style, without a stylist. And she was flawed, and sometimes she admitted it. I\u2019ll fight the fight for Madonna. I think she should send me some chocolates or something to thank me.\u201d \n \n Yet while Madonna stuck to sex and the Catholic church for her headlines, Maya is compelled by a violent separatist movement and the politics of resistance. Her allegiances have fueled her music and her rhetoric. In January 2009, while the civil war in Sri Lanka was raging, Maya repeatedly referred to the situation as a \u201cgenocide.\u201d \u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to be like Bono,\u201d Maya told me. \u201cHe\u2019s not from Africa \u2014 I\u2019m from there. I\u2019m tired of pop stars who say, \u2018Give peace a chance.\u2019 I\u2019d rather say, \u2018Give war a chance.\u2019 The whole point of going to the Grammys was to say, \u2018Hey, 50,000 people are gonna die next month, and here\u2019s your opportunity to help.\u2019 And no one did.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Her rhetoric rankles Sri Lankan experts and human rights organizations, who are engaged in the difficult task of helping to forge a viable model for national unity after decades of bitter fighting. \u201cMaya is a talented artist,\u201d Kadirgamar told me, echoing the sentiments of others, \u201cbut she only made the situation worse. What happened in Sri Lanka was not a genocide. To not be honest about that or the Tigers does more damage than good. When Maya does a polarizing interview, it doesn\u2019t help the cause of justice.\u201d \n \n Unity holds no allure for Maya \u2014 she thrives on conflict, real or imagined. \u201cI kind of want to be an outsider,\u201d she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry. \u201cI don\u2019t want to make the same music, sing about the same stuff, talk about the same things. If that makes me a terrorist, then I\u2019m a terrorist.\u201d \n \n Photo \n \n AFTER BUYING THEIR home in Brentwood, Maya and Bronfman, whom she met in New York shortly after the breakup of his band, the Exit, decided to build a recording studio in the house. \u201cIt was very grown-up,\u201d Maya recalled when we were in L.A. Bronfman, who is tall, soft-spoken and protective of his fianc\u00e9e, now works with Global Thermostat, a technology company that is working on ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and is a founder of Green Owl, an environmentally conscious record label and sustainable-clothing line. \u201cEveryone got so freaked out when they heard we bought the house,\u201d Maya continued. \u201cWhen we moved in, we imported all our English friends. Suddenly, everyone was living with us \u2014 eight people at once. For the first time, I had something called the comfort of your own house, and it turned into a commune: they all came for two days, and they never left. My producer, Blaqstarr, was living there. And then Cherry, who sings with me, was staying with us. And Rusko, who was also producing, was there all the time. My brother arrived. And in the end, we had three people to a room. We ended up buying a second house for everyone to live in.\u201d \n \n In August 2009, they started recording Maya\u2019s third album, which will be out in early July but still didn\u2019t have a title when I saw her in March. \u201cWe\u2019re one big, horrible family,\u201d Rusko said when I called him in Los Angeles, where he moved permanently, to talk about making the record. Blaqstarr also moved to L.A. \u201cWe follow Maya,\u201d he said. \u201cHer studio was like a biodome connected to her house. I lived in the studio. Everybody was hanging out; there was only one kitchen, and we\u2019d all meet up in the kitchen.\u201d \n \n When Richard Russell, the head of XL Recordings, Maya\u2019s British label, visited the house, he told her it reminded him of how the Rolling Stones recorded the classic album \u201cExile on Main St.\u201d in a villa in the South of France in the \u201970s. \u201cI told Richard I felt so disconnected from the world I had known,\u201d Maya recalled. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018The best music can come out of that.\u2019 It was certainly different. I\u2019d be writing lyrics upstairs, and Blaqstarr would be doodling downstairs, and I\u2019d hear bass lines through the floorboards. I\u2019d get inspired and leave the baby monitor on and go down to the studio. There is almost no cellphone reception at my house, and we couldn\u2019t always find our land lines. It was easy to shut the outside world out. And I was making music for me again.\u201d \n \n The album (\u201cI\u2019m thinking of naming the record Nano, because nano bombs are the hip thing\u201d) is still dominated by political lyrics, but the music is more melodic. On several tracks, Maya even sings. \u201cI had to try,\u201d Maya said. \n \n Diplo said, \u201cI made her sing.\u201d He was a producer of her first album as well as \u201cPaper Planes\u201d and was also Maya\u2019s boyfriend for several years. \u201cMaya is a big pop star now, and pop stars sing,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, making this record wasn\u2019t easy. In the past, we were a team. But Maya wanted to show us how much she didn\u2019t need us. In the end, Maya is postmodern: she can\u2019t really make music or art that well, but she\u2019s better than anyone at putting crazy ideas into motion. She knows how to manipulate, how to withhold, how to get what she wants.\u201d \n \n What Maya wants is nearly impossible to achieve: she wants to balance outrageous political statements with a luxe lifestyle; to be supersuccessful yet remain controversial; for style to merge with substance. \u201cIf you want to be huge, you have to give up a lot,\u201d Michelle Jubelirer, Maya\u2019s longtime lawyer, told me. \u201cMaya vacillates between wanting to be huge and maintaining her artistic integrity. That\u2019s her dilemma.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n On a crisp, sunny day in mid-April in London, Maya and her publicist, Jennie Boddy, were in a car being driven to the home of a Sri Lankan wedding photographer. Instead of doing standard publicity photos to promote her still nameless album, Maya had the idea of using a photographer she found in the phone book who worked, as many Sri Lankan photographers do, in an almost Bollywood style, by inserting a simple picture, in this case of Maya, into dozens of fantastic, almost surrealistic tableaus. A few days ago, Maya hatched this plan, which like most Maya plans was inventive, artistic and, in an unsettling way, combined the high with the low. \u201cI\u2019ve had my eye on some jewelry from Givenchy forever,\u201d Maya told me, as we inched our way in bumper-to-bumper traffic. \u201cIt is millions of dollars\u2019 worth of gold jewelry. To wear it for these pictures, Givenchy had to send a bodyguard. I liked the idea of a photographer shooting me in his council flat in all this gold, knowing that the jewelry requires a bodyguard.\u201d She paused. She was wearing opaque brown stockings, very small, tan leather shorts that laced up the front, high-heeled ankle boots and a fluorescent yellow bra that periodically flashed through a loose, open-knit Phat Farm sweater topped by an oversize dark brown jacket. Maya\u2019s nearly black hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head, her nails were colored in an elaborate checkerboard pattern and she had applied a dark indigo powder to her eyebrows. It was an exotic mix: her body was downtown and her face was uptown. \u201cAll of what I\u2019m wearing is American,\u201d Maya said. \u201cIf I was a terrorist, I wouldn\u2019t be wearing American clothing.\u201d She paused. This may have been a joke, but Maya rarely laughs. She speaks carefully, slowly, with a kind of deadpan delivery. Like a trained politician, she stays on message. It\u2019s hard to know if she believes everything she says or if she knows that a loud noise will always attract a crowd. \n \n Photo \n \n Maya had flown to London nearly a month before and was living with Ikhyd at her mother\u2019s apartment an hour outside the city. Initially, she came to see her mom and work on the album art and the first video, for the song \u201cBorn Free,\u201d which is, strangely, not the first single. But she needed to renew her U.S. visa, and until her immigration lawyer could resolve the matter, Maya was stuck in London. \u201cI want to be back in New York by May 3,\u201d she said, staring out the window. \u201cI\u2019m invited to the Met Ball, and all my girlfriends say: \u2018Oh, the Met Ball! I want to go to the Met Ball!\u2019 \u201d The annual Met Ball for the Costume Institute is a yearly black-tie gala held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . It is co-hosted by Anna Wintour , the editor of Vogue. \u201cI\u2019m going with Alexander Wang\u201d \u2014 the fashion designer \u2014 \u201cand I wanted to wear a dress made out of a torn-up American flag,\u201d Maya added. Wang made a hand-crocheted, gold-metallic dress over a black leather bodice instead. \n \n Maya has a complicated relationship with America. When she was recording \u201cKala,\u201d in 2007, her second album (named after her mother), her request for an artist\u2019s visa was initially denied. (Maya maintains it was because of her song lyrics; the State Department is not obliged to give applicants a reason for denying them entry.) She had wanted to make a more classic hip-hop record in Baltimore , where Blaqstarr then lived, or with Timbaland in L.A. but instead, recorded it all over the world. She traveled to Liberia , India , Angola, Trinidad and Jamaica (\u201cwhere they have the cutest boys\u201d). \u201cKala\u201d is layered with sounds like tribal beats, dance hall and the lush musical productions of Bollywood. One track, \u201c Bird Flu ,\u201d combines 30 of India\u2019s top drummers in a crazy rush of rhythm. Maya was finally granted a visa and recorded \u201cPaper Planes\u201d in New York, but came back to England so that two sets of twins from Brixton could sing the backing vocals. She felt this inclusion made a kind of political statement at a time when England was spending millions of pounds on weapons and war. However incoherent the reason, the chorus of \u201cPaper Planes\u201d is contagious. \u201cI never thought the song was political,\u201d Diplo told me. \u201cMostly, Maya was making fun of American rapper culture. \u2018Paper Planes\u2019 was making fun of being what American kids are into, of being \u2018gangsta.\u2019 \u201d \n \n She also recorded a song, \u201cO Saya,\u201d with A. R. Rahman , a composer and perhaps the most powerful producer in India, that ended up on the \u201cSlumdog Millionaire\u201d soundtrack. \u201cO Saya\u201d was nominated for an Academy Award, and in 2009, she was to perform on the awards show. \u201cIt was after Ikhyd was born,\u201d Maya recalled, \u201cand they told me they\u2019d wheel in a bed and let me perform the song in bed.\u201d She paused. She declined their offer when she found out that the televised song would be edited down to a minute. \u201cIt was too little time.\u201d \n \n Maya rolled down her window and pointed. \u201cThat church saved my life,\u201d she said, as we drove past a church in East London. \u201cChrist Church! That\u2019s the last time I got to be a high-school dropout: I should have been in school, and a youth worker at the church, who had been in prison, grabbed me and slammed me against the wall one day and said: \u2018What is the matter with you? If you stay around here, you\u2019ll end up living in one of these apartments with six babies before you\u2019re 20.\u2019 I used to be hanging about, getting into trouble. He changed my life.\u201d \n \n After leaving Sri Lanka in 1983, her mother moved Maya and her brother and sister to Phipps Bridge Estate, a housing project, or council flat, in South London. It was rough. \u201cWe lived in a notoriously racist area called Mitcham,\u201d Maya said. \u201cIt\u2019s where all the skinheads lived. I was shot at for being a Tamil in Sri Lanka, and then, everyone was calling me a Paki in London, and I\u2019m not even Pakistani. My mom sat me down and said, \u2018When they call you that, tell them to sod off.\u2019 \u201d \n \n When Maya arrived, she knew only two words in English, she says: \u201cMichael\u201d and \u201cJackson.\u201d She learned English from the radio, television and newspapers. Her mother, Maya claims, got a job as a seamstress, hand-sewing on medals for the royal family. \u201cShe worked for the queen for 25 years,\u201d Maya said, as the car finally emerged from traffic. \u201cAnd now, they\u2019ve taken my mom\u2019s U.S. visa away. A 65-year-old woman is counted as a terrorist, and America supports that.\u201d \n \n When she was a child, Maya sat under the table while her mother sewed and caught fabric scraps as they fell. \u201cThe first thing I made was a bra,\u201d Maya said. \u201cTwo circles in pinky red, blue straps.\u201d Her father remained in Sri Lanka (whenever they saw each other, he was introduced to Maya as her uncle, so that the children wouldn\u2019t inadvertently reveal his identity). Maya claims that she has not seen him in years. Diplo told me a different story. \u201cI met her dad in London with her,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was very interested in sustainable living and was teaching in London. But he wasn\u2019t a good father.\u201d Whatever the truth is, Maya has gone from trumpeting her father\u2019s revolutionary past in order to claim that lineage to playing down his politics to support a separate narrative. \u201cHe was with the Sri Lankan government,\u201d she now maintained, when I saw her in Los Angeles. \u201cHe\u2019s been with them for 20 years. They just made up the fact that he is a Tiger so they can talk crap about me.\u201d (Her father could not be reached for comment.) \n \n Photo \n \n Maya has always been interested in having a political agenda, no matter how murky. In 1993, Maya applied to Central Saint Martin\u2019s College of Art and Design in London; she had decided to become a filmmaker. \u201cI never thought I\u2019d go there,\u201d she says now. \u201cSomeone mentioned it to me once \u2014 they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, my god, there are so many good-looking people there.\u2019 One day, I was standing outside of it, and I decided I needed to go there. I wanted to make documentaries about people who didn\u2019t have a voice. I wanted to be the messenger.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n During her interview for the school, Maya says, she told the admissions officer that if he didn\u2019t accept her application, she would become a prostitute or a crackhead or the best criminal in the world. \u201cI said to him, \u2018Don\u2019t make me do it,\u2019 \u201d she says now, smiling. \u201c \u2018If you don\u2019t let me in, there\u2019s only one option: I become a hooker.\u2019 He said, \u2018That is emotional blackmail.\u2019 It might have been, but I couldn\u2019t stand that one person had that much power over my life, that if he said yes or no, it would change everything.\u201d \n \n He eventually said yes; that in Maya he saw rebellion and that art colleges need rebellion, or at least that\u2019s how she remembers the reaction. For four years, she concentrated on directing movies, but she was not patient enough for the form. \u201cFilm is not instant enough for the person I am,\u201d she said. Maya switched to videos (which were faster), and her classmate, Justine Frischmann of the band Elastica, asked her, in 2000, to create the artwork and a video for the band\u2019s second album, \u201cThe Menace.\u201d Frischmann and Maya became roommates, and when the two went on vacation to a small island off Saint Vincent in the Caribbean , Maya began tinkering with Frischmann\u2019s Roland MC-505 Groovebox. \u201cI was bored,\u201d Maya recalled. \u201cAnd I saw the machine. I\u2019m tone deaf and not very musical, but I like dancing, if that counts. I\u2019ve got rhythm. Justine had disappeared for about six hours, and I waited and waited, and I finally thought, I\u2019ll just make something. The second song I made was \u2018Galang,\u2019 and I didn\u2019t plan on singing it myself. When we got back, I scouted girls to sing it, and I would tell them, \u2018This is how you do it: \u201cGalangalang a lang lang,\u201d \u2019 and none of them could do it right. So I thought, I need to do it myself.\u201d \n \n If she was reluctant, her nervousness didn\u2019t last long: \u201cGalang,\u201d original and addictive, became her calling card. In 2003, she put \u201cGalang\u201d and two other songs on a 12-inch record. Diplo, whom she had not yet met, was hosting and working as a D.J. at parties in Philadelphia . He was given \u201cGalang\u201d by an editor from i-D magazine in London. He began playing the song and talking up Maya. \u201cI was D.J.in g at a club called Fabric ,\u201d he told me, \u201cand when she walked in, I was playing \u2018Galang.\u2019 This was before she had a major record deal. She met me, and we started a relationship. Maya was into the whole terrorism gimmick at the time. It was all underground back then. In the beginning, she was trying to be different. She understood that no one was doing what she was doing.\u201d \n \n Even though she had a record out, Maya had never performed. \u201cIn 2004, I went onstage for the first time,\u201d she said. \u201cThey put a mike in my hand and pushed me out the door into the crowd. I did the three songs I had recorded and got out. It was the worst day of my life.\u201d But it didn\u2019t stop her: she has always been focused. \u201cMaya\u2019s got a lot of hustle,\u201d Richard Russell said admiringly. Russell\u2019s XL Recordings is a small but influential label in Britain that puts out an eclectic mix \u2014 Thom Yorke, the White Stripes , Devendra Banhart, Adele, the Horrors. The label\u2019s office is located near Portobello Road in what feels like a cluttered house, the front door nearly undetectable beneath a woodcutlike painting by the artist Stanley Donwood that depicts London being swallowed by a tidal wave. \n \n \u201cIn 2003, Maya turned up here and said, \u2018I heard you\u2019ve been looking for me,\u2019 \u201d Russell told me when I went to see him. \u201cShe decided that we were going to put out her music. And since Maya is able to will the universe and is an obvious force of nature, I found myself saying yes.\u201d \n \n He was impressed by \u201cGalang,\u201d but he was still hesitant. \u201cThere was a lot of cynicism about Maya,\u201d he said. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t a musician, and she had no basic musical craft. The label\u2019s ethic is music that\u2019s quite serious, and we work with people where music is not a way to become famous. It\u2019s everything they\u2019re about and, with Maya, people couldn\u2019t see beyond the fact that she wasn\u2019t a musician. Now, as much as I respect musicians, nothing takes the place of ingenuity and inspiration and originality. If you\u2019ve got that spark, something to say and you\u2019re determined enough, it might be quite interesting.\u201d \n \n Photo \n \n When Russell signed her, he imagined Maya as a kind of English answer to American hip-hop. Just as the Beatles and the Stones channeled American R & B, Russell said he felt that Maya would rework the sounds of rap music from the States. \u201cEngland is good at being mongrel,\u201d Russell said. \u201cMaya is a mixture of black American culture, Sri Lankan culture, art, fashion. We mix it up well here and sell it back. As a country, we\u2019ve always known how to do that. You see that in \u2018Galang\u2019: the different ethnicities, the art vibe, the Missy Elliot influence. Maya got it right and added to it.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Until she signed with XL, Maya was working as a clerk in a store called Euphoria. \u201cI was ringing up a sale when Richard called me to tell me he was going to put out my record,\u201d Maya said, as the car pulled up to a housing project in East London. \u201cI told him, \u2018You need me!\u2019 and he said, \u2018I don\u2019t need you, but I want you.\u2019 \u201d She smiled. \u201cThat was the right answer.\u201d \n \n RAVI THIAGARAJA, THE Sri Lankan photographer, answered the door of his flat and invited Maya in. Unlike most people, Maya is not tethered to her phone (\u201cI have an iPhone ,\u201d she told me, in her child-of-Godard mix of politics, paranoia and pop. \u201cI like to be very close to the C.I.A. , F.B.I. and Sri Lankan government. I want to be completely reachable at all times\u201d), but she\u2019s never far from her acid yellow Mac laptop, which is inscribed with the M.I.A. logo. Her life is there: song lyrics, ideas for her Web site, the secret video she\u2019s working on, photos of Ikhyd, unfinished artwork and more. As the photographer and his wife ushered us into the living room at the rear of the house, they wished Maya a happy Sri Lankan New Year. \u201cI had no idea it was today,\u201d she said, as she settled into a sofa and clicked open her laptop. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n \u201cWould you like some rice pudding?\u201d the photographer asked. Maya explained to me that rice pudding is the traditional celebratory food for the Sri Lankan New Year. Maya said no, and the photographer went to get the pictures. \n \n He handed Maya a disc, and she slid it into her computer. There were dozens of shots, each featuring Maya dripping in gold. She was wearing seven or eight thick gold bracelets on each wrist, heavy earrings and what appeared to be ropes of gold attached at the throat like a tight gold turtleneck. \u201cI wanted to look like an Iranian princess,\u201d Maya said. In the photos, the rest of her outfit was casual: a black hoodie, black T-shirt and black leggings. In each shot, Maya was carefully placed in a scene, like a gold-clad visitor from another planet. In shot after shot, she was perched on different thrones, posing with dancers, encased in a bubble ascending to heaven. Three Mayas were disco-dancing together on a fluorescent Day-Glo floor, two Mayas were facing each other in a heart, multiple Mayas were covered in cascading roses. She was positioned in front of a pyramid, in a pyramid and above a pyramid. In most of the shots, Maya appeared to be a very wealthy deity. \n \n Although she was pleased, Maya, in her editing mode, wanted more options. \u201cI love the car backdrop,\u201d she said. \u201cDo you have one with a yellow Porsche ?\u201d Maya studied her computer screen. \u201cThis could be a possible album cover,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019d love a calendar, if you can make one. Twelve months of these pictures.\u201d \n \n An hour passed, in which Maya reviewed dozens of other backdrop possibilities. When she\u2019s working, her concentration is total. She rejected a palace shot as being too much like something the Sex Pistols did and nixed a nature scene with a picket fence. It was hard to imagine what the initial photo shoot was like: this flat was so humble and the Givenchy jewelry was so Midas that the contrast, while striking, also seemed a little unkind. And yet, the pictures were fascinating and memorable. Maya\u2019s concept, though somewhat mocking (of both sides), was clever and original. She took an art form that is common in India and added her own flavor to it, which is, more or less, her gift as an artist. \n \n Photo \n \n \u201cAre you the singer?\u201d somebody said. A neighbor had come to use the photographer\u2019s computer and saw Maya sitting on the couch, studying her photos. \u201cUh-huh,\u201d Maya said, looking up. The neighbor seemed stunned. \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d he said. Maya smiled. \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t I be here?\u201d she replied. \n \n THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, at 9 p.m., Maya was at the Alpha Centauri recording studio, sitting in front of a huge soundboard, her computer open on her lap, listening to two versions of \u201cBorn Free,\u201d the track that begins her new album. The first \u201cBorn Free\u201d was mixed very loud and emphasized the hard drum sample from the band Suicide that anchors the song, while the second version was quieter and more rhythmic, less rock and more rap. \u201cI like the first cut,\u201d said Courcy Magnus, a producer from Philadelphia, who along with his producing partner, Kyle Edwards (who is based in Atlanta ), had flown to London to work with Maya. Although her still-untitled record was, technically, finished, there wasn\u2019t a song that popped out to Interscope, Maya\u2019s American label, as a perfect single. They loved the record, but as Diplo told me, \u201cAlbums now are a hit song and 11 other songs that are attached to it.\u201d The goal for Magnus and Edwards was to invent that hit. \n \n \u201cI need a beat for this song,\u201d Maya said. She played a short bit of music on her computer. It was a scrap of a song \u2014 classic and simple, almost pop. \u201cMelody is not something I do,\u201d Maya said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to do things I can\u2019t do.\u201d The producers nodded, eager to please. \u201cDo you want more creative drums?\u201d Edwards asked. \u201cMore percussion?\u201d Maya said nothing. She stared for a second. \u201cJay-Z should have been on this beat, and he would have had an amazing hit,\u201d she said finally. \u201cI felt like I was doing something that belonged to Jay-Z.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n The producers played her tracks that didn\u2019t have much to do with what Maya had played them. It was a beginning. \u201cProducers are important,\u201d Iovine had told me. \u201cEvery song starts with a beat and a sound and that usually comes from the producer. I run my company through record producers. I started out as a record producer. If I let myself go, that\u2019s where the wind takes me. But the trick is \u2014 and Maya is amazing at this \u2014 to fuse the style of the producer with the artist. Maya is a great judge of what works: she knows how to get the best from her producers.\u201d \n \n Each song is invented differently, but generally Maya likes to whittle her songs down from long jam sessions. \u201cWe recorded everything live at the house in L.A.,\u201d Rusko, who produced half the album, including the first single, \u201cXXXO\u201d (which he worked on with Blaqstarr), told me. \u201cWe\u2019d record 20-minute takes of Maya doing different vocals and 20 minutes of me doing different beats. On \u2018XXXO,\u2019 we tried all this stuff before we got the end result. Maya has ideas that can\u2019t be physically done. She wants this sound or that sound \u2014 the tracks already exist in her head. In the end, she has a plan for everything.\u201d \n \n Diplo wasn\u2019t allowed to work at the house (\u201cHer boyfriend really hates me,\u201d he said), so Maya and he recorded \u201cTell Me Why,\u201d perhaps the closest thing to a pop-radio song on the record, at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica. \u201cIt was my birthday; I was on mushrooms,\u201d he recalled. \u201cIt was a special atmosphere: I found the sample\u201d \u2014 a patch of music lifted from a song by the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers \u2014 \u201cand Maya actually whistled. I did 15 demos for her before she finally chose that track. Even if she hates my guts, she knows that we can do crazy stuff together. The sound on her records is unlike anyone else\u2019s, and we all take that very seriously.\u201d \n \n In London, the mood was different. Although she ended up working in the studio until 5 in the morning, Maya was concentrating on other aspects of the record \u2014 the top secret \u201cBorn Free\u201d video was set to go viral in a week; she still had to do the artwork for the album; and she had to decide what to call the album. She didn\u2019t seem particularly interested in creating a hit. \u201cIf we do another song, I want it to be something new,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd right now, my mind is on other things. \n \n Photo \n \n THE NEXT DAY, we were back in the car, on our way to East London to meet with Hermione de Paula, a design team that Maya wanted to hire to create some clothes for her to wear on tour this summer. \u201cI am so tired of stylists,\u201d Maya said. \u201cThey are ruining individual style. If Patti Smith was starting now or Debbie Harry , the stylists would try to dress them, to change them. Their style would be lost.\u201d Maya, who was wearing jeans made out of denim that had been quilted into a tribal pattern and a loose crocheted top in red, wanted the Hermione de Paula girls to incorporate her ideas with their existing designs that she had seen on their Web site. \u201cThey have a jumpsuit that I like,\u201d Maya said. \u201cBut instead of using their fabric, I want them to use a fabric that\u2019s made from a document I found.\u201d She took out her laptop and clicked on an official-looking typed letter that had been censored. Black bars erased certain words. \u201cI\u2019d like to turn this page into fabric,\u201d she said. \u201cI know someone who can do that. And then I want to take that fabric and make it into a jumpsuit. I\u2019d like to turn censorship into fashion.\u201d \n \n It doesn\u2019t stop there: Maya would like to build a stage show around the idea of censorship. When a patron enters the club \u2014 \u201cWe could only do this in small places,\u201d she acknowledged \u2014 every move would be limited. If you went to certain areas, alarms would go off and you might be asked to leave. \u201cI want to be like the government,\u201d Maya said. \u201cIt could be interesting.\u201d \n \n The censorship tour is doubtful \u2014 Maya is currently booked into large outdoor arenas. She finds performing stressful. In June 2008, she announced at the Bonnaroo festival that her performance there would be her \u201clast gig.\u201d But the record business in 2010 demands touring to ensure record sales, as well as secondary revenue, mainly from T-shirt sales. \u201cMaya has to perform live,\u201d Iovine told me. \u201cThat\u2019s the key to success today.\u201d Her tour also gives her an opportunity to spread her anti\u00adestablishment/\u200bconspiracy-theory message. \u201cI feel like art has a responsibility to make things visually interesting and stimulating,\u201d Maya said now, as we waited, as always, stuck in traffic. \u201cBut, at the same time, I like questions. I can\u2019t get a visa right now because of things I\u2019ve said. And that\u2019s wrong. If certain words are banned, then that has to be written up on every box of crayons or paints or on every pen. There needs to be a warning on everything I use to write with that says, \u2018Do not write these words, or we will put you in jail.\u2019 \u201d Maya paused. \u201cAnd if that\u2019s what America is, then the American people should know that.\u201d \n \n She paused again. \u201cAmerica also has no sense of humor,\u201d she continued. \u201cThere\u2019s this show in England about kids who want to be terrorists. It\u2019s brilliant! The kids are buying Ajax to make bombs and trying to think of new ways to do suicide bombings. It\u2019s really, really cool.\u201d She paused again. \u201cBecause I think that\u2019s funny, I\u2019ll probably be called a terrorist.\u201d She sighed. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n After nearly an hour of driving, we arrived at the designers\u2019 studio. The two women, who were dressed alike in black, loose-fitting tops and platform boots, greeted Maya like a long-lost sister. Their studio was cramped, and two small dogs were happily jumping about near a rack of clothes. Maya\u2019s eye immediately went to the jumpsuit. It was very fitted, with a high Peter Pan collar and cutouts that would reveal flesh on either side of the waist. The girls showed Maya one of their dresses, a slinky column in shades of gray. \u201cNo dresses,\u201d she said flatly. \u201cI want to invent an idea for this album, and that idea is based on a uniform. A jumpsuit is like a uniform.\u201d \n \n Maya seemed to be going for a combination of sexy and militaristic. She showed the girls her fabric ideas on her computer, and they were amenable. \u201c Nike is the uniform for kids all over the world,\u201d Maya said for no apparent reason. \u201cAnd African design has been killed by Nike. Africans no longer want to wear their own designs.\u201d The designers said they thought that was terrible. \u201cThe best sportswear is on Blackwater operatives,\u201d Maya continued, referring to the agents who were clandestine guns for hire in Iraq . The designers nodded, but they clearly had no idea what she was talking about. \u201cI want to have a uniform like theirs.\u201d \n \n The oddity of using a garment linked to mercenaries to convey a very different message seemed to elude Maya. As we got ready to leave, she became surprisingly strict with the designers. You are part of my team, she seemed to be saying. And, as part of the team, you must live up to my vision. \u201cI want everything on this album to be a collaboration,\u201d Maya said. The women looked both proud and nervous. They were now recruited. \n \n Photo \n \n ROMAIN GAVRAS, THE director of the video for \u201cBorn Free,\u201d arrived in London from Paris in April with the master version of the nine-minute minifilm. He was late, because of the ash cloud from Iceland that had engulfed Europe and closed down airports. Gavras had taken the train. All week, Maya was unusually secretive about the \u201cBorn Free\u201d video \u2014 she would mime zipping her lips whenever anyone asked her about it. Although she showed the video to Richard Russell at XL (\u201cPeople need to decide if they think it\u2019s valid,\u201d he told me when I asked him about it), she hadn\u2019t sent it to Interscope, even though she planned to release the video in America in four days. \u201cThe Interscope lawyers will want to send the video to a censorship board,\u201d she said now. Maya was sitting with Gavras, a tall, bearded man dressed completely in dark blue, from his knit ski hat to his jeans, in XL\u2019s conference room. \u201cI didn\u2019t really approve the video,\u201d she said jokingly. \u201cHe hijacked my song.\u201d \n \n Maya met Gavras, who is the son of the politically charged filmmaker Costa-Gavras (his 1969 film \u201cZ,\u201d which won the Academy Award for best foreign film, was a kind of antifascist thriller designed to expose corrupt tactics within the Greek government of the early \u201960\u2019s), when she played Paris a few years ago. \u201cHe hit on my friend,\u201d Maya recalled. Gavras is willfully notorious: in 2008, his video for the song \u201cStress,\u201d by the band Justice, depicted a Parisian street gang who steal, destroy tourists\u2019 cameras and beat up innocent bystanders. \u201cFor a few months, I was one of the most hated men in France,\u201d Gavras said at the time. \u201cIt was fun. It was an amazing free promo,\u201d he continued, adding that in France, \u201cyou can only get that much press if you have sex with children.\u201d \n \n Gavras had asked Maya if he could shoot the video for \u201cPaper Planes\u201d on the Mexican border. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand the lyrics,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought it was about illegal immigration.\u201d Maya was game, but Interscope vetoed his idea. \u201cInterscope won,\u201d Maya said. \u201cI don\u2019t want them to win this time.\u201d She paused. \u201cSo, do you want to see it?\u201d \n \n Unlike, say, her performance at the Grammys, which was a perfect fusion of spectacle (a nine-months-pregnant woman rapping in a see-through dress) with content (Maya\u2019s fervor was linked to the music), the video for \u201cBorn Free\u201d feels exploitative and hollow. Seemingly designed to be banned on YouTube , which it was instantly, the video is set in Los Angeles where a vague but apparently American militia forcibly search out red-headed men and one particularly beautiful red-headed child. The gingers, as Maya called them, using British slang, are taken to the desert, where they are beaten and killed. The first to die is the child, who is shot in the head. While \u201cBorn Free\u201d is heard in the background throughout, the song is lost in the carnage. As a meditation on prejudice and senseless persecution, the video is, at best, politically na\u00efve. \n \n \u201cThe video was more than fine with me,\u201d Jimmy Iovine told me later that night. Despite Maya\u2019s efforts, he had seen it. \u201cI didn\u2019t even have a blink.\u201d A canny showman, Iovine knew that the video would get attention, that Maya would get her visa (which she did) and that all the noise was good for business. He has a long history of driving record sales with violent imagery: in the 1990s, Interscope was home to Death Row Records, where Snoop Dogg , Dr. Dre and Tupac Shakur made millions rapping about all things gangsta. Iovine also appreciates the outrageous: Interscope\u2019s biggest artist is Lady Gaga , who has melded big-time theatricality with disco-based pop, a kind of love child of Elton John and Madonna. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n \u201cWith our video, we were really copying \u2018Telephone,\u2019 \u201d Maya says now, referring to Gaga\u2019s recent video with Beyonc\u00e9 . \u201cBoth our videos are road movies. We kill people, and they kill people. They start out in a prison, and we start out in a squat, hunting people down.\u201d Maya zipped her lips again. \u201cI can\u2019t talk about Gaga anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cAll I\u2019ll say is, it\u2019s upsetting when babies say ga-ga now. It used to be innocent. Now, they\u2019re calling her name.\u201d \n \n Maya feels that Gaga is not original, that she mostly borrows from the Abba playbook, and she gets annoyed when Gaga is compared to Madonna. \u201cYou can\u2019t really say that Gaga is culturally a change,\u201d Maya said. \u201cMadonna was truly unique.\u201d Gavras nodded. \u201cAnd Madonna was pretty,\u201d he said. \u201c Pop stars should be pretty.\u201d Maya flipped open her computer. \u201cDo you want to see this amazing parody of \u2018Telephone\u2019?\u201d she asked. \u201cIt\u2019s brilliant!\u201d Gavras stood behind Maya and watched. \u201cThis parody has three million hits,\u201d Maya said. \u201cThat\u2019s way more than I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d \n \n Downstairs at XL in a small recording studio, the producers Magnus and Edwards were working on Maya\u2019s potential hit song, and the XL publicists wanted her to concentrate on her European press. She had finally decided on a title for the record, which was meant to be an artistic rendering of her name. \u201cI need to figure out what to wear for a photo shoot for tomorrow,\u201d Maya said. \u201cI think we should go shopping.\u201d \n \n Gavras and Maya left XL and headed for Portobello Road, a few blocks away. As Maya pointed out the sights (\u201c Stella McCartney owns that building\u201d), she sorted through the racks of clothing that dozens of dealers had set up on the street. She didn\u2019t want to go back to the studio. \u201cI\u2019m in the visual part of my brain now,\u201d Maya said, as she held up an outsize yellow sweater. \u201cThe musical part of my brain is shut down.\u201d \n \n While Gavras talked on the phone, Maya walked ahead. She passed a small shop that sold Indian clothing and pottery, most of it cheaply made. There were sparkly shawls and gauze tunics crowding the window. \u201cI used to buy a lot here when I lived in London,\u201d Maya said. She spotted a tiger costume, complete with whiskered hood, hanging next to an orange sari. \u201cLook at that tiger!\u201d Maya said. \u201cI could wear that at the photo shoot tomorrow!\u201d She paused and considered the implications of dressing up as a tiger. \u201cIt\u2019s probably too much,\u201d she said finally. \u201cIt might seem like I was making a joke.\u201d ||||| 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": "\u2013 Maya Arulpragasam, aka MIA, must have really hated Lynn Hirschberg's piece about her in New York Times Magazine, because she's just plastered Hischberg's cell phone number on Twitter\u2014pretending it's her own. \u201cCALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE, ill b taking calls all day bitches ;),\u201d the radical rapper wrote. Hirschberg seems to be taking it in stride. \u201cIt's a fairly unethical thing to do, but I don't think it's surprising. She's a provocateur, and provocateurs want to be provocative,\u201d she told the New York Observer, adding that she doesn't plan to change her number. \u201cThe messages have mostly been from people trying to hook up with MIA. If she wants to get together with John at Bard next week, I have his number.\u201d"}
{"document": "", "summary": "\u2013 An animal welfare officer in Oregon is getting attention after her body-worn camera captured her rescuing a baby deer. The Eugene Police Department on Thursday made public a video and photo of Officer Shawni McLaughlin freeing a terrified fawn that got stuck in a backyard fence, the AP reports. In the video, McLaughlin wraps the fawn's head in a towel and lifts it from between two narrow fence posts as she gently talks to the deer. The fawn lies on the ground for a few seconds after being freed, apparently not aware it can walk. McLaughlin pets it before it springs up and runs away. An open sore can be seen on the fawn's left hip."}
{"document": "Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Reporting from close to Kobane, Paul Adams says fighting is \"raging\" on the Syrian side of the border \n \n Kurdish fighters are engaged in fierce gun battles with Islamic State (IS) in the Syrian border town of Kobane, as US-led coalition air strikes continue. \n \n In its latest report, the US Central Command said six air strikes had destroyed IS weaponry around Kobane. \n \n An official inside Kobane said the Kurdish forces were now pushing back the Islamic State fighters. \n \n Seizing Kobane would give the IS jihadists full control of a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border. \n \n This has been a primary route for foreign fighters getting into Syria, as well as allowing IS to traffic oil it has captured. \n \n Three weeks of fighting over Kobane has cost the lives of 400 people, and forced more than 160,000 Syrians to flee across the border to Turkey. \n \n At the scene: Paul Adams, BBC world affairs correspondent \n \n Image copyright Reuters Image caption Kurdish fighters have been emboldened by the latest coalition air strikes on Kobane \n \n The images are powerful enough, but the sound is sometimes overwhelming. At times today, it seemed the entire eastern side of Kobane was one vast street battle. It was relentless. Thick clouds of smoke drifted across the town as grenades exploded. \n \n And all day, another series of massive air strikes; each towering black cloud greeted with delighted cheering by Turkish Kurds who have come to watch, with mounting dread, the assault on their Syrian cousins across the fence. \n \n In groups large and small, they gather as close to the fence as they can get, shouting chants of defiance and solidarity. They are furious with Turkey for what they believe is Ankara's complicity in the rise of Islamic State. \n \n 'Retreat' \n \n A senior official in Kobane, Idriss Nassan, told news agencies the IS militants had suffered \"their biggest retreat since their entry into the city\" and that many had been killed. \n \n \"They are now outside the entrances of the city of Kobane. The shelling and bombardment was very effective and as a result of it, IS has been pushed from many positions.\" \n \n Image copyright AFP Image caption Armed men, believed to be Islamic State fighters, are seen in Kobane's streets \n \n Image copyright AFP Image caption Turkish armed forces patrol the border but have not crossed \n \n Image copyright EPA Image caption An image showing how close suspected IS militants (background) are to the Turkish forces \n \n Image copyright Getty Images Image caption More than 160,000 Syrians have fled three weeks of fighting in Kobane \n \n But he added: \"Kobane is still in danger and the air strikes should intensify in order to remove the danger.\" \n \n The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also said that IS fighters had withdrawn from several areas they had earlier controlled. \n \n The BBC's Paul Adams, close to the border, says that at one point a suicide truck bomb driven by a lone jihadi detonated in flames - the Kurds said they managed to blow it up before it reached its target. \n \n 'More savvy' \n \n US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday the US was \"deeply concerned about the people of Kobane\". \n \n But he said: \"Horrific as it is to watch the violence, it is important to keep in mind the US strategic objective\" - which, he added, was to deprive IS of command-and-control centres and the infrastructure to carry out attacks. \n \n Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Turkey's complicated relationship with the Kurds explained \n \n The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, told ABC News that IS was becoming \"more savvy\". \n \n \"We have been striking when we can... They don't fly flags and move around in large convoys the way they did. They don't establish headquarters that are visible or identifiable.\" \n \n Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm John Kirby said the battle against IS was \"going to be a long, difficult struggle not solved by military power alone\" and that it was a reality that \"other towns and villages - and perhaps Kobane - will be taken by IS\". \n \n The US Central Command listed the damage done by six coalition air strikes south and south-west of Kobane over Tuesday and Wednesday. \n \n It said an armoured personnel carrier, four \"armed vehicles\" and two artillery pieces were destroyed. \n \n There were three further air strikes on IS in other parts of Syria and five in Iraq. \n \n Image copyright AFP Image caption Kurds have protested over Turkey's role, including here in Istanbul \n \n Turkey meanwhile remains under intense pressure to do more to help the Kurdish forces in Kobane. \n \n At least 19 people have reportedly been killed in Kurdish protests over Turkey's role. \n \n Kurds are angry that Turkey has prevented fighters crossing the border to fight IS in Kobane. \n \n Last week Turkey's parliament also authorised military action against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria, but so far no action has been taken. \n \n What are Turkey's demands and can they be met? \n \n To set up a buffer zone on the Turkish border inside Syria, enforced by a no-fly zone to ensure security and ease the refugee influx into Turkey - analysts say this is unlikely as it would require warplanes to disable the Syrian government's air defence system. John Kerry said on Wednesday a buffer zone would need \"thorough examination\" \n \n Air strikes to target the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - the US state department insists that air strikes are to remain focused on Islamic State alone \n \n Turkey's fear of a reignited Kurdish flame ||||| Story highlights A U.S.-led coalition conducts nine airstrikes in Syria; three in Iraq \n \n ISIS claims to down an Iraqi military helicopter \n \n Air campaign alone won't defeat ISIS, former British official tells CNN \n \n U.S. officials: Main goal is to go after leadership and infrastructure, not save cities \n \n U.S. airstrikes \"are not going to save\" the key Syrian city of Kobani from being overtaken by ISIS, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby. \n \n \"I think we all should be steeling ourselves for that eventuality,\" he told reporters in a daily briefing Wednesday. \n \n \"We are doing everything we can to halt\" ISIS' progress against the town, but airstrikes alone cannot stop the Islamist militants, Kirby added. \n \n \"We've been very honest about the limits of air power here. The ground forces that matter the most are indigenous ground forces, and we don't have a willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria right now -- it's just a fact,\" he said. \n \n The greater U.S. strategy, Kirby said, is to degrade ISIS' ability to sustain itself. \n \n Just Watched Pentagon: Airstrikes won't save Kobani replay More Videos ... Pentagon: Airstrikes won't save Kobani 03:33 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Just Watched Why is Kobani so important to ISIS? replay More Videos ... Why is Kobani so important to ISIS? 01:30 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Just Watched American helps Kurds fight ISIS replay More Videos ... American helps Kurds fight ISIS 02:45 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Several senior U.S. administration officials said Kobani will soon fall to ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State. \n \n They downplayed the importance of it, saying the city is not a major U.S. concern. \n \n But a look at the city shows why it would mark an important strategic victory for the militants. ISIS would control a complete swath of land between its self-declared capital of Raqqa, Syria, and Turkey -- a stretch of more than 100 kilometers (62 miles). \n \n As Time.com put it, \"If the ISIS militants take control of Kobani, they will have a huge strategic corridor along the Turkish border, linking with the terrorist group's positions in Aleppo to the west and Raqqa to the east.\" \n \n Staffan de Mistura, U.N. special envoy for Syria, warned of the horrors ISIS could carry out against the people of Kobani -- horrors it has carried out elsewhere. \"The international community needs to defend them,\" he said. \"The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS.\" \n \n The terrorist group claimed it had downed at Iraqi army helicopter in Baiji. Photographs posted to an ISIS website show smoke and fire around an aircraft, which is then seen completely charred on the ground. \n \n A truck bomb driven by ISIS exploded near the center of Kobani. Two civilians and a fighter inside the city described it as huge. The target was a security forces building, they said. \n \n However, Kurdish official Idriss Nassan told CNN, the truck did not reach its intended target and detonated early. \n \n Coalition batters ISIS positions with airstrikes \n \n A U.S.-led coalition has been pounding ISIS positions in the region with airstrikes for a few weeks, conducting nine airstrikes in Syria and three in Iraq on Wednesday. \n \n In Syria, eight strikes near Kobani destroyed five ISIS armed vehicles, a supply depot, a command and control compound, a logistics compound, and eight occupied barracks, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. \n \n \"U.S. Central Command continues to monitor the situation in Kobani closely. Indications are that Kurdish militia there continue to control most of the city and are holding out against ISIL,\" it read. \n \n Overnight into Thursday, the Australian Air Task Group in the Middle East attacked its first target in Iraq: an ISIS facility. \n \n A former head of the British Armed Forces doubted the wisdom of coalition airstrikes -- alone. \n \n \"The rules of war are well-written on this, and well-established. I've been saying it, others have been said it,\" retired Gen. David Richards told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. \n \n \"Wars aren't ever going to be won from the air alone. They're a vital part of success, but don't expect a guy in an airplane to be able to seize and hold terrain,\" he said. \n \n At least 45 ISIS fighters have been killed in the strikes, though the number may be much higher, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gets information from sources on the ground. \n \n The most recent strikes, late Tuesday into Wednesday, included nine in Syria, the U.S. military said. Six were in the Kobani area and destroyed an ISIS armored personnel carrier, four armed vehicles and two artillery pieces, U.S. Central Command said. U.S. and coalition forces also conducted five airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, the military said. \n \n The primary goal of the aerial campaign is not to save Syrian cities and towns, the U.S. officials said. Rather, the aim is to go after ISIS' senior leadership, oil refineries and other infrastructure that would curb the terror group's ability to operate -- particularly in Iraq. \n \n Just Watched Woman: I am proud to fight, kill ISIS replay More Videos ... Woman: I am proud to fight, kill ISIS 02:53 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Just Watched ISIS forces enter Kobani, sources say replay More Videos ... ISIS forces enter Kobani, sources say 01:48 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Just Watched Kurds battle ISIS in key border town replay More Videos ... Kurds battle ISIS in key border town 01:49 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Saving Iraq is a more strategic goal for several reasons, the officials said. First, the United States has a relationship with the Iraqi government. By contrast, the Obama administration wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. \n \n Another reason: The United States has partners on the ground in Iraq, including Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters known as Peshmerga. \n \n According to a senior military official, U.S. military advisers are now working with Iraqi troops at the brigade level, not just in the joint command centers in Irbil and Baghdad. The advisers are not in combat situations, but the move means they are less removed than before, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. \n \n \"Our strikes continue alongside our partners. It remains a difficult mission. As I've indicated from the start, this is not something that is going to be solved overnight,\" President Barack Obama told reporters Wednesday. \n \n \"We're confident that we will be able to continue to make progress in partnership with the Iraqi government, because ultimately it's going to be important for them to be able to, with our help, secure their own country, and to find the kind of political accommodations that are necessary for long-term prosperity,\" he said. \n \n Local fighters apparently made some headway Wednesday morning, when some ISIS militants in Kobani were pushed back to the city's perimeter, Kurdish official Idriss Nassan said. \n \n The battles have been bloody. More than 400 people have been killed in the fight for Kobani since mid-September, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The opposition group said it has documented the deaths of 219 ISIS jihadists, 163 members of the Kurdish militia and 20 civilians. \n \n U.S. plan against ISIS: Iraq first, then Syria \n \n Map: Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) EXPAND IMAGE \n \n The United States' goal is to first beat back ISIS in Iraq, then eliminate some of its leadership and resources in Syria, the U.S. administration officials said. \n \n If all goes as planned, by the time officials turn their attention to Syria, some of the Syrian opposition will be trained well enough to tackle ISIS in earnest. \n \n Washington has been making efforts to arm and train moderate Syrian opposition forces who are locked in a fight against both ISIS and the al-Assad regime. \n \n Training Syrian rebels could take quite a long time. \n \n \"It could take years, actually,\" retired Gen. John Allen said last week. \"Expectations need to be managed.\" \n \n The United States also wants Turkey to do more, the officials said. The administration is urging Turkey to at least fire artillery at ISIS targets across the border. \n \n But the Turkish reluctance, the officials say, is wrapped up in the complex relationship with their own Kurds and the idea that they don't want to help any of the Kurds in any way. \n \n CNN iReporter Chelsea Smith sent photos, taken Tuesday night in Istanbul, showing clashes between police and protesters in the predominately Kurdish neighborhood of Tarlabasi. \n \n While outside the Parliament building in London on Wednesday, Kurdish activists protested for stronger action. \n \n \"We want more airstrikes. We want a clear message. There is a humanity that's threatened and the massacre is about to happen, and we have to act very immediately and prompt, and intensify our attacks on them,\" said Rebar Hajo, a protester, and member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria. \n \n Hundreds of strikes, millions of dollars \n \n The United States and its allies have made at least 271 airstrikes in Iraq and 116 in Syria. \n \n The cost? More than $62 million for just the munitions alone. \n \n The effect? Negligible, some say, particularly in Iraq. \n \n One by one, the cities have fallen to ISIS like dominoes: Hit, Albu Aytha, Kubaisya, Saqlawia and Sejal. \n \n And standing on the western outskirts of Baghdad, ISIS is now within sight. \n \n \"That's DAIISH right over there,\" said Iraqi Brig. Gen. Ali Abdel Hussain Kazim, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. \n \n The militants' proximity to the capital is cause for concern. If the terror group manages to infiltrate and launch attacks in Baghdad or its green zone, the results could be disastrous. \n \n Kazim said ISIS has not been able to move from eastern Anbar province to Baghdad. But another brigadier general said that's not even the biggest threat. \n \n The real danger to the Iraqi capital, Brig. Gen. Mohamed al-Askari said, is from ISIS sympathizers in the city. \n \n \"They are a gang,\" he said. \"They deploy among civilians. They disappear into the civilian population and camouflage themselves.\" \n \n READ: The group that could help beat ISIS \n \n READ: How ISIS makes $1 million a day ||||| A UN official warned of pending \"humanitarian tragedies\" and pleaded desperately with the world to intervene on behalf of Kurds trapped in a Syrian city near the Turkish border, as Islamic State fighters stood on the brink of taking it. \n \n Kurds from villages throughout northern Syria have fled to Kobani for a final stand as the terrorist group has marauded across huge swaths of land, leaving a trail of death and destruction. With the city under siege for three weeks, the black-clad fighters have begun to raise their flag over neighborhoods and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said the city was about to fall. \n \n \"The world has seen with its own eyes the images of what happens when a city in Syria or in Iraq is overtaken by the terrorist group called ISIS or Da'esh: massacres, humanitarian tragedies, rapes, horrific violence,\" De Mistura said. \"The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS. \n \n \"The world, all of us, will regret deeply if ISIS is able to take over a city which has defended itself with courage but is close to not being able to do so,\" De Mistura added. \"We need to act now.\" \n \n [pullquote] \n \n More On This... \n \n With the fighting taking place with view of the Turkish border, international pressure increased on Ankara to get involved militarily. Turkey has already taken in an estimated 200,000 refugees, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the coalition air campaign launched last month would not be enough to halt the Islamic State group's advance. \n \n \"Kobani is about to fall,\" Erdogan told Syrian refugees in the Turkish border town of Gaziantep, according to The Associated Press. \n \n Erdogan, whose troops are massed near the border but have so far not taken an offensive posture, called for greater cooperation with the Syrian opposition, which is fighting both the extremists and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. \n \n \"We asked for three things: one, for a no-fly zone to be created; two, for a secure zone parallel to the region to be declared; and for the moderate opposition in Syria and Iraq to be trained and equipped.\" \n \n The capture of Kobani would give ISIS control of a large swath of land bordering Turkey and eliminate a vital pocket of Kurdish resistance. It would also provide a link between the group's territory near the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo and its largest operations base at Raqqa in northeastern Syria. \n \n The Associated Press reported that warplanes believed to be part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, struck militant positions Tuesday. Journalists on the Turkish side of the border heard the sound of warplanes before two large plumes of smoke billowed just west of Kobani. A Fox News crew on the Turkish side of the border reported only one U.S. airstrike in the previous five days. \n \n Fighting continued into Tuesday morning on the outskirts of the town. One coordinator with the Kurdish defenders told The New York Times that their defenses benefited from the new round of airstrikes, but they were still outmatched by the more heavily armed militants. \n \n On Tuesday morning, the AP reported that occasional gunfire could be heard in Kobani, also known by the Arabic name Ayn Arab. A flag of the Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, was seen flying over a hill in the center of town. \n \n The Wall Street Journal reported that ISIS fighters had entered the eastern outskirts of the city on Monday after capturing more than 300 surrounding Syrian Kurdish villages in the previous three weeks. The paper also reported that the militants raised their black flag in two separate places, one on top of a civilian apartment building and another on a hilltop near a checkpoint at the city\u2019s eastern entrance. The flag at the checkpoint could be seen by reporters watching from across the border in Turkey. \n \n The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurds forced the jihadists to withdraw from the eastern part of the town in heavy clashes after midnight Tuesday, adding that five loud explosions were heard in the town as warplanes soared overhead. However, a local Kurdish militia commander estimated to The Journal that ISIS fighters were still a mile from the city center. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that ISIS had also taken over several buildings in the southwest of the city. \n \n Before the recent fighting began, the city had been a focal point for refugees fleeing Syria's three-years-long civil war. Between 160,000 and 180,000 people are believed to have fled into Turkey since the ISIS advance began. A Kurdish politician told Reuters that more than 2,000 Syrian Kurds, including women and children had been evacuated from the town in the midst of the fighting Monday. \n \n State Department officials told the Journal that U.S. officials will travel to Turkey later this week to discuss the status of the international coalition. Retired Marine Gen. John Allen, the White House's special envoy in the fight against ISIS, is among those traveling to Turkey. \n \n Despite U.S. pressure to become a full-fledged member of the coalition, and despite the Turkish parliament passing a law giving the government authority to conduct operations against ISIS in Syria or Iraq, Ankara has largely stayed on the sidelines. Fox News reported Monday that twenty Turkish tanks have been stationed on a hillside overlooking Kobani, ready to strike the city on short notice. However, Turkish authorities have mostly been preoccupied with attempting to control the flow of Kurdish refugees across the border and deal with their protests at the government's inaction. \n \n Also Tuesday, Turkish media reported that police in Istanbul and at least six other Turkish cities clashed with hundreds of demonstrators. The private Dogan news agency clashes broke out in several Istanbul neighborhoods overnight, as protesters set up barricades, hurled stones, fireworks and firebombs at police and set a bus on fire. One police officer was injured. \n \n Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse similar protests in the mostly Kurdish-populated cities of Diyarbakir, Batman, Van, Sirnak, Sanliurfa and Hakkari. \n \n Fox News' Greg Palkot and The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| Kurdish protesters wearing an apron calling for support to save the Syrian town of Kobani from being overrun by Islamic State group fighters during a demonstration outside the Parliament of Cyprus in... (Associated Press) \n \n ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 Kurdish protesters clashed with police in Turkey leaving at least 14 people dead and scores injured Tuesday as demonstrators in Brussels forced their way into the European Parliament, part of Europe-wide demonstrations against the Islamic State group's advance on a town on the Syrian-Turkish border. \n \n Turkey's private Dogan news agency reported 8 dead in the eastern city of Diyarbakir and that the other victims died in cities in the east as police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters who burned cars and damaged businesses. \n \n The activists are demanding more help for the besieged Kurdish forces struggling to hold onto the Syrian town of Kobani. Some European countries are arming the Kurds, and the American-led coalition is carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic extremists, but protesters say it isn't enough. \n \n A demonstrator in Cyprus urged the coalition to \"hit the jihadists harder\" so that Kurdish forces can hold the town. \n \n Tensions are especially high in Turkey, where Kurds have fought a 3-decade-long battle for autonomy and where Syria's violence has taken an especially heavy toll. \n \n Protests were reported in cities across Turkey on Tuesday, after Islamic State fighters backed by tanks and artillery engaged in heavy street battles with the town's Kurdish defenders. \n \n Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Istanbul and in the desert town of Kucuk Kenderciler, near Kobani on the Turkish side of the border. One person in Istanbul was hospitalized after being hit in the head by a gas canister, Dogan reported. \n \n Some protesters shouted \"Murderer ISIS!\" and accused Turkey's government of collaborating with the Islamic militants. \n \n Authorities declared a curfew in six towns in the southeastern province of Mardin, the Anadolu Agency reported. \n \n Hundreds of thousands of Kurds live elsewhere in Europe, and mobilized quickly via social networks to stage protests after the advance on Kobani. Some European Kurds have gone to the Mideast recently to join Kurdish forces. \n \n In Brussels on Tuesday, about 50 protesters smashed a glass door and pushed past police to get into the European Parliament. Once inside, some protesters were received by Parliament President Martin Schulz, who promised to discuss the Kurds' plight with NATO and EU leaders. \n \n In Germany, home to Western Europe's largest Kurdish population, about 600 people demonstrated in Berlin on Tuesday, according to police. Hundreds demonstrated in other German cities. Austria, too, saw protests. \n \n Kurds peacefully occupied the Dutch Parliament for several hours Monday night, and met Tuesday with legislators to press for more Dutch action against the insurgents, according to local media. \n \n The Netherlands has sent six F-16 fighter jets to conduct airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq, but says it does not see a mandate for striking in Syria. \n \n France, too, is firing airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq but not in Syria, wary of implications on international efforts against President Bashar Assad. \n \n \"We don't understand why France is acting in Kurdistan in Iraq and not Kurdistan in Syria,\" said Fidan Unlubayir of the Federation of Kurdish Associations of France. \n \n Kurds protested overnight at the French Parliament and plan another protest Tuesday. \n \n Kurds also staged impromptu protests against the Islamic State fighters in Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm. \n \n On Monday, protesters at the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus urged the international coalition to provide heavy weaponry to Kurdish fighters and forge a military cooperation pact with the Kurdish group YPG. \n \n ___ \n \n Angela Charlton reported from Paris. Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Raf Casert in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Jari Tanner in Tallinn and Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report. ||||| A divided House of Commons voted Tuesday in favour of sending Canadian aircraft and personnel to join coalition airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria targets. \n \n \"We do not take this step lightly. The threat posed by [ISIS] is real,\" said Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a statement released shortly after the motion passed by 157 votes to 134. \n \n \"If left unchecked this terrorist organization will grow and grow quickly. They have already voiced their local and international terrorist intentions and identified Canada as a potential target.\" \n \n Six CF-18 fighter-bombers, two CP-140 surveillance planes, one aerial tanker aircraft and 600 personnel have been tapped to join coalition airstrikes in Iraq for up to six months, pursuant to the motion before the Commons. \n \n Canadian CF-18s, like the one pictured, will take part in airstrikes in the Middle East. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press) \n \n Harper stressed Canadian troops would not be involved in ground combat against ISIS, also known as ISIL. \n \n Tories 'plunging Canada into a prolonged war': NDP \n \n In a written statement released after the vote, Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair accused the government of \"plunging Canada into a prolonged war without a credible plan to help victims of ISIL terror,\" and \"opening the door\" to getting Canada involved in the \"bloody\" Syrian civil war. \n \n Mulcair's New Democrats had proposed an amendment to overhaul the motion entirely and switch the focus to supplying arms to local fighters battling ISIS and increasing humanitarian support. \n \n That motion was defeated by a vote of 157 to 134, with all but two opposition MPs voting in favour, and the Conservatives voting against. \n \n Green Party MP Bruce Hyer and Brent Rathgeber, an Independent who used to sit with the Conservatives, voted with the government on both the NDP amendment and the main motion. \n \n \"In response to the Conservatives' ill-defined combat mission, New Democrats laid out a strong alternative action plan that would significantly increase Canada's humanitarian response to this crisis,\" Mulcair said. \n \n \"The Conservatives voted against smart and responsible measures that would save lives in Iraq right now.\" \n \n Moments after the vote, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to reaffirm that his party \"disagrees with [the government] on how Canada can best help confront threat of ISIL.\" \n \n \"Tonight we voted against motion to send our Forces to war,\" he noted. \n \n \"The members of the Canadian Armed Forces who will now go into harm\u2019s way have our full and unwavering support.\" \n \n \"Now the six months begin,\" tweeted Liberal foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau. \n \n Longtime Liberal MP Irwin Cotler abstains from vote \n \n Liberal MP Irwin Cotler abstained from the vote. \n \n The longtime MP released a statement explaining that he feels the government motion is unclear on Canada's involvement and did not share enough information for MPs to make an informed choice. \n \n \"In particular \u2014 and this is reason enough for me not to support the motion \u2014 I am deeply disturbed by the prime minister\u2019s statement that Canada would require the approval of the criminal Assad regime to carry out operations in Syria,\" he wrote. \n \n \"To allow the perpetrator of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide to green-light Canadian intervention is to turn R2P on its head,\" he said, referring to the doctrine of responsibility to protect, a principle in international law that a country can take action against another to safeguard civilians against mass atrocities. \n \n Assad, Cotler said, \"should be a criminal defendant, not a coalition partner.\" \n \n He added that the government \"has neither briefed nor consulted with the leaders of the opposition, nor has it shared more fulsome information about the mission that would have helped parliamentarians to make an informed choice.\" \n \n There is no requirement for the House of Commons to approve combat missions, but Harper promised this mission would be put up for debate when he first floated the idea of a new military role in Iraq.", "summary": "\u2013 The world has seen the \"massacres, humanitarian tragedies, rapes, horrific violence,\" and other atrocities that unfold when ISIS seizes a town\u2014and it needs to act now to stop the same happening in the Syrian border city of Kobani, a UN official warns. The UN special envoy for Syria warns that the city that Kurds from around the region have fled to is about to fall and ISIS flags have already gone up over some neighborhoods, Fox reports. \"The world, all of us, will regret deeply if ISIS is able to take over a city which has defended itself with courage but is close to not being able to do so,\" he says. In other developments: Fighting continued around Kobani overnight, with Kurdish fighters assisted by more airstrikes from the US-led coalition, reports the BBC. It's not clear which side currently has the upper hand, although the ISIS advance appears to have been halted. Senior American officials tell CNN that Kobani will probably fall soon, but that isn't a major US concern. The main US goal, they say, isn't saving Syrian cities from ISIS but going after its leadership and resources, especially in Iraq, say the officials, who would like Turkey to do more about the crisis just over its border. In Turkey, at least 14 people were killed and dozens more injured as Kurds protesting the country's failure to act against ISIS clashed with police in several cities, reports the AP. In Hamburg, Germany, more than a dozen people were injured when Kurdish protesters clashed with members of a hard-line Islamist group. The US has a new partner against ISIS: Lawmakers in Canada have voted 157 to 134 to send Canadian aircraft to join strikes against ISIS in Iraq, reports the CBC. \"If left unchecked, this terrorist organization will grow and grow quickly,\" Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. \"They have already voiced their local and international terrorist intentions and identified Canada as a potential target.\""}
{"document": "In one of the more surprising events of the U.K. chart year, 1980s pop favorite Rick Astley has scored his first U.K. No. 1 in 29 years with the album 50 (BMG). Meanwhile, Drake's \u201cOne Dance\u201d (Cash Money/ Republic/Universal), featuring Wizkid & Kyla, tops the singles chart for a remarkable tenth straight week. \n \n 50, which marks Astley's 50th birthday last February, is the singer's first studio album since 2005's Portrait, which reached No. 26. An Ultimate Collection release then hit No. 17 in 2008. In his pop heyday, Astley had hit No. 1 with his first album Whenever You Need Somebody in the wake of chart-topper \"Never Gonna Give You Up.\" The new album won a close sales race with British singer-songwriter Tom Odell's sophomore release Wrong Crowd (Columbia/Sony), finishing 3,700 combined sales ahead, according to the Official Charts Company. Odell's debut set Long Way Down debuted at No. 1 in the U.K. in July 2013. \n \n A busy week of new entries on the album chart also included a No. 3 start for Paul McCartney's new Pure McCartney collection on Concord. The release of a special edition of the Electric Light Orchestra's All Over The World \u2014 The Very Best Of retrospective (Legacy/Epic/Sony) brought it back to the top 75 at a new peak of No. 4. Drake's Views fell 2-5. British soul star Beverley Knight notched a fourth top 10 album (and first since 2007's Music City Soul) with Soulsville, her first for East West/Warner Music. Just beyond the top 10, veteran singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan came in at No. 11, his highest album ranking since A Stranger In My Own Back Yard reached No. 9 in 1974, with The Essential Collection (USM Media). \n \n Drake held off a strong challenge from \u201cThis Girl\u201d (3 Beat) by Kungs Vs. Cookin' On 3 Burners to record its tenth week at No. 1. The Kungs track had led the way earlier in the sales week, but \u201cOne Dance\u201d edged back into the lead and took the honors by a mere 1,773 combined chart sales. It's the first time a song has spent ten weeks at No. 1 in the U.K. since Rihanna's \u201cUmbrella\u201d did it in 2007. Justin Timberlake's \u201cCan't Stop The Feeling\u201d (RCA/Sony) fell 2-3 on the new chart, and \u201cThis Is What You Came For\u201d (Columbia/Sony) by Calvin Harris and Rihanna dipped 3-4. Another guest appearance by Rihanna, on Drake's \u201cToo Good,\u201d saw a 6-5 climb. The other new title within the top ten was \u201cSex\u201d (Spinnin') by Cheat Codes and Kris Kross Amsterdam. ||||| 29 years after achieving record-topping success with his debut record, singer Rick Astley has hit the UK album chart's number one spot. \n \n The singer's first release in over a decade, 50, won out against some stiff competition to claim the victory with Tom Odell's latest record and a new Paul McCartney compilation falling by the wayside. \n \n Speaking about the feat, Astley said: \"It's amazing, it's incredible. It's been a very, very, very long time.\" \n \n Astley's debut album Never Gonna Give You Up reached number one in 1987. \n \n \n \n His closest competitor this time around was Odell whose second record Wrong Crowd was number one at several stages throughout the week. \n \n The Official Charts Company has since revealed that Odell racked up more digital sales and streams while Astley sold more physical copies - ultimately outselling him by a mere 3,700. \n \n Most-watched videos on YouTube \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 10 show all Most-watched videos on YouTube \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 1/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Psy - 'Gangnam Style' \n \n 2/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Justin Bieber - 'Baby' \n \n 3/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull - 'On the Floor' Getty Images \n \n 4/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube 'Charlie Bit My Finger - Again!' Youtube \n \n 5/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett and GoonRock - 'Party Rock Anthem' \n \n 6/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Shakira - 'Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)' \n \n 7/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Eminem ft Rihanna - 'Love the Way You Lie' \n \n 8/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Psy - 'Gentleman' \n \n 9/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Miley Cyrus - 'Wrecking Ball' \n \n 10/10 Most-watched videos on YouTube Katy Perry - 'Roar' YouTube \n \n Astley continued: \"I like Tom Odell. I bought his last album and I'm going to buy this one as well, but I've held off from buying it this week!\" \n \n Paul McCartney compilation, Pure McCartney, entered the charts at number three. \n \n The singles chart sees Drake match Rihanna's record-breaking ten-week chart reign with \"One Dance.\" Rihanna earned the feat with \"Umbrella\" in 2007.", "summary": "\u2013 Looks like fans are never going to give him up or desert him. Almost 30 years after topping the charts with \"Never Going to Give You Up\"\u2014and almost a decade after \"rickrolling\" became a hazard of Internet use\u2014Rick Astley has scored another No. 1 in the UK with new album 50, the Independent reports. \"It's amazing, it's incredible,\" says the 50-year-old, who beat singer-songwriter Tom Odell to the top spot. \"It's been a very, very, very long time since this happened before, I'm ecstatic, I couldn't be happier.\" Astley's previous album, 2005's Portrait, never rose higher than No. 26, Billboard notes. (Even the White House rickrolled its followers at one point.)"}
{"document": "The Romney campaign stressed Monday that states should take the lead in responding to emergencies like hurricanes. But the campaign said Romney would not abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency. \n \n \u201cGov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,\u201d Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. \u201cAs the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.\u201d \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset Yard signs as missiles \n \n (PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy) \n \n A campaign official added that Romney would not abolish FEMA. \n \n The statement came after The Huffington Post highlighted Romney\u2019s comments from a June 2011 CNN primary debate in which Romney said states should take on a bigger role in responding to disasters. \u201cMitt Romney In GOP Debate: Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency, Send Responsibility To The States,\u201d read the Huffington Post\u2019s headline. \n \n \u201cFEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say, \u2018Do it on a case-by-case basis.\u2019 And there are some people who say, \u2018You know what, maybe we\u2019re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role.\u2019 How do you deal with something like that?\u201d debate moderator John King asked Romney during the debate, pointing to the May 2011 tornado that killed more than 150 people in Joplin, Mo. \n \n \u201cAbsolutely. And every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that\u2019s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that\u2019s even better,\u201d Romney responded. \n \n \u201cInstead of thinking in the federal budget, \u2018What we should cut?\u2019 we should ask ourselves the opposite question, \u2018What should we keep?\u2019 We should take all of what we\u2019re doing at the federal level and say, \u2018What are the things we\u2019re doing that we don\u2019t have to do?\u2019 And those things we\u2019ve got to stop doing,\u201d Romney continued. \n \n (PHOTOS: Political plans: Rock me like a hurricane) ||||| Back when he was being \u201cseverely conservative,\u201d Mitt Romney suggested that responsibility for disaster relief should be taken from the big, bad federal government and given to the states, or perhaps even privatized. Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he\u2019d care to reconsider. \n \n The absurd, and dangerous, policy prescription came in a GOP primary debate in June. Moderator John King said he had recently visited communities affected by severe weather and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency \u201cis about to run out of money.\u201d \n \n Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper\u2019s Style section. View Archive \n \n \u201cThere are some people . . . who say, you know, maybe we\u2019re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role,\u201d King said. \u201cHow do you deal with something like that?\u201d \n \n Romney replied: \u201cAbsolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that\u2019s the right direction. And if you can go further and send it back to the private sector, that\u2019s even better.\u201d \n \n Romney went on to express the general principle that, given the crushing national debt, \u201cwe should take all of what we\u2019re doing at the federal level and say, \u2018What are the things we\u2019re doing that we don\u2019t have to do?\u2019 \u201d \n \n King gave him a chance to back off: \u201cIncluding disaster relief, though?\u201d \n \n Romney didn\u2019t blink. \u201cWe cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cit is simply immoral . . . to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids.\u201d \n \n Now, with an unprecedented and monstrous storm bashing the East Coast, this glib exercise in ideological purity is newly relevant. Was Romney really saying that the federal government should abdicate the task of responding to natural disasters such as the one now taking place? Yes, he was. Did he really mean it? Well, with Romney, that\u2019s always another question. \n \n As the legendary Watergate source Deep Throat never actually said: \u201cFollow the money.\u201d \n \n The dishonest \u201csolution\u201d proposed by Romney and running mate Paul Ryan for the federal government\u2019s budget woes relies largely on a shell game: Transfer unfunded liabilities to the states. \n \n Most disastrously, this is what Romney and Ryan propose for Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor. The GOP plan would give the states block grants that would not begin to cover Medicaid\u2019s rising costs. Governors and legislatures would be forced to impose draconian cuts, with potentially catastrophic impact for millions of Americans. \n \n Medicaid\u2019s most expensive role \u2014 and thus, under Romney, the most imperiled \u2014 is to fund nursing-home care for seniors who classify as \u201cpoor\u201d only because they have exhausted their life savings. Transferring the onus of Medicaid and other programs to the states would save money only by making it impossible to provide services at current levels. \n \n For the hard-right ideologues who control the Republican Party, this would be a good thing. Our society has become too dependent on government, they believe, too \u201centitled\u201d to benefits; we are unwilling to \u201ctake personal responsibility and care for\u201d our lives, as Romney said in his secretly recorded \u201c47 percent\u201d speech. \n \n Romney\u2019s budget proposals would end all this coddling \u2014 except for the Pentagon and its contractors, who would get a big boost in federal largess, and of course, the wealthy, who would get a huge tax cut. \n \n So-called \u201cdiscretionary\u201d federal spending would be sharply reduced. This would include spending for such agencies as FEMA. So yes, even if Romney was just pandering to the right-wing base at that June debate, one consequence of his policies would be to squeeze funding for federal emergency relief. \n \n I guess having to survive a few hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes on our own would certainly foster personal responsibility. \n \n And by the way, why is it that we\u2019re having such a huge hurricane make landfall in such an unusual place at such a late date in the season? Is this another of those freakish once-in-a-century weather events that seem to be happening so often these days? \n \n I know it\u2019s impossible to definitively blame any one storm on human-induced atmospheric warming. But I\u2019m sorry, these off-the-charts phenomena are becoming awfully commonplace. By the time scientists definitively establish what\u2019s happening, it will be too late. \n \n As has been noted, the words \u201cclimate change\u201d were not spoken during the presidential debates. Hurricane Sandy wants to know why. \n \n eugenerobinson@washpost.com", "summary": "\u2013 There's something of a Sandy-related brouhaha swirling around comments Mitt Romney made in the ancient days of 2011: Seems that when asked during a Republican debate about disaster relief, Romney sounded like he wanted to gut FEMA, saying he'd shift responsibility for disaster management to the states\u2014or even private firms. Said Romney: \"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that\u2019s the right direction. And if you can go further and send it back to the private sector, that\u2019s even better.\" Asks Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post: \"Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he\u2019d care to reconsider.\" \"Even if Romney was just pandering to the right-wing base at that June debate, one consequence of his policies would be to squeeze funding for federal emergency relief.\" The New York Times editorial board echoes Robinson, asking, \"Does Mr. Romney really believe that financially strapped states would do a better job than a properly functioning federal agency?\" The Romney campaign took the opportunity to clarify its position, Politico reports: \"States should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions.\" But he wouldn't abolish FEMA: The states would act \"with help from the federal government and FEMA.\""}
{"document": "Contact: Blair Fannin, 979-845-2259, b-fannin@tamu.edu \n \n Julie Larson Bricher, 503-409-9421, julie.bricher@gmail.com \n \n COLLEGE STATION \u2013 A study led by a team of Texas A&M University System researchers found school meals paired with popular vegetables are less likely to wind up in garbage bins. \n \n A team led by Texas A&M AgriLife Research and the Institute for Obesity Research and Program Evaluation at Texas A&M University measured food waste in three elementary schools in Bryan and Dallas. The schools are participants in the U.S. Department of Agriculture National School Lunch Program both in pre- and post-implementation of the new standards. \n \n The study was funded by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education and is published in the journal, Food and Nutrition Sciences. It can be found at http://bit.ly/1JEbPjz . \n \n \u201cOur research team looked at whether there is a relationship between consumption of certain entrees and vegetables that would lead to plate waste,\u201d said Dr. Oral Capps Jr., an AgriLife Research economist and professor of agricultural economics. \u201cWe found that popular entrees such as burgers and chicken nuggets, contributed to greater waste of less popular vegetables.\u201d \n \n Conversely, entrees paired with potatoes \u2013 served as tator tots, oven-baked French fries, and wedges \u2013 experienced the least amount of overall waste, Capps said. \n \n \u201cOur study shows that optimizing entr\u00e9e-vegetable pairings in schools meals has the potential to positively impact vegetable consumption, which is especially important for those students relying on school meals for their energy and nutrient needs,\u201d Capps said. \n \n The data were collected by a team of \u201cplate waste warriors,\u201d Texas A&M students who were paid by the hour, Capps said. Each wore a different colored apron that is associated with the assigned waste bin in which the entr\u00e9e is discarded. A minimum of eight workers was needed at each school during the lunch periods, which were typically 10:45 a.m. through 1 p.m. The A&M students gathered the trays containing leftover portions. \n \n Leftovers were separated into different waste bags and each bag was weighed on a scale for plate-waste measurement. When students went through the lunch line, a sticker was placed on the food tray to identify the vegetable and entr\u00e9e chosen. Students on the free lunch program were are also evaluated for plate waste. The tray with the corresponding sticker was weighed and recorded to help calculate overall food waste. \n \n Joining Capps on the research team was Dr. Peter Murano, associate professor from the department of nutrition and food science, founder and former director of the Institute for Obesity Research and Program Evaluation at Texas A&M; Ariun Ishdorj, assistant professor in the department of agricultural economics at Texas A&M; and Maureen Storey, president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research and Education. ||||| ABSTRACT \n \n Plate waste, defined as the quantity of edible food left uneaten after a meal, is a challenge for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The new nutrition standards in the NSLP of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) were implemented at the beginning of school year (SY) 2012-2013. School foodservice authorities were concerned that the new standards would result in increased plate waste and reduced participation, especially by students who paid full prices for lunch. There are many reasons for plate waste, including students\u2019 dislike of the foods served, the composition of meals, the environment in which students are eating, the lack of time to eat, or perhaps other factors. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between entr\u00e9e/vegetable \u201cpairings\u201d and plate waste by elementary school students pre- and post-implementation of the new school meal standards. Plate waste was measured to determine which entr\u00e9e/vegetable pairs produced the least amount of waste. Plate waste of 144 and 305 entr\u00e9e/vegetable pairings was analyzed, pre- and post-implementation, respectively. Our results indicated that more nutritious meals were offered during the post-implementation period. The new school meal standards led to no significant changes in entr\u00e9e plate waste, but vegetable plate waste increased by 5.6%. As such, increases in the combined entr\u00e9e/vegetable plate waste were evident from 40.4% pre-implementation to 43.5% post-implementation. The top five vegetables in terms of popularity were all starchy vegetables, the majority of which were potatoes in various processed forms. The least popular vegetables were dark-green leafy vegetables, such as steamed broccoli, both pre- and post-implementation. Chicken nuggets were the most popular entr\u00e9e and were wasted the least. Understanding the dynamics of food pairings and providing desirable entr\u00e9e and vegetable pairings can help reduce waste from school lunches. ||||| It seems like an age-old problem \u2014 kids not eating their vegetables \u2014 and it is. Little ones, more interested in macaroni and cheese than saut\u00e9ed spinach, are still leaving the latter largely untouched. The proof is both anecdotal \u2014 what parent hasn't tussled with this? \u2014 and borne out in data. Nine out of 10 children, after all, still don't eat enough vegetables, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). \n \n The problem has been blamed, at least in part, for the deteriorating diets of American youth. It has also been on clear display ever since the government updated, in 2013, its nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program. Children, suddenly confronted with vegetables on every plate (as required as part of the change), have responded not by eating them but by leaving them on their plates -- untouched. \n \n It's a poignant example of how kids are really good at making really bad decisions about food. And it has proved pretty frustrating for health and nutrition advocates, who can't seem to find a reasonable way to get children to eat more healthfully at school. \n \n But it turns out there might be an ingenious solution hiding beneath everyone's nose. \n \n Researchers at Texas A&M University, looking for patterns in food consumption among elementary school children, found an interesting quirk about when and why kids choose to eat their vegetables. After analyzing plate waste data from nearly 8,500 students, it seems there's at least one variable that tends to affect whether kids eat their broccoli, spinach or green beans more than anything: what else is on the plate. \n \n Kids, in short, are much more likely to eat their vegetable portion when it's paired with a food that isn't so delicious it gets all the attention. When chicken nuggets and burgers, the most popular items among schoolchildren, are on the menu, for instance, vegetable waste tends to rise significantly. When other less-beloved foods, like deli sliders or baked potatoes, are served, the opposite seems to happen. \n \n \"Pairings of entr\u00e9es and vegetables are an important consideration when assessing plate waste among elementary school children,\" the researchers note. \n \n Indeed, the effect can work the other way around. The study found that children tend to eat less of their entree when popular vegetables (mostly starchy fried vegetables, like tater tots and french fries, which many wouldn't classify as vegetables) are offered. When the entree is paired with steamed broccoli \u2014 the vegetable children eat the least of on average \u2014 kids instead eat more of the main dish. \n \n And that interrelationship can be useful in reducing the amount of food wasted at schools, which has been a persistent problem. \n \n But these observations are probably more useful as a gauge for how appetizing vegetable are in different contexts than as a subscription for what pairings will lead to the least amount of food waste. Kids' favorite meals, after all, aren't particularly healthy. What's more, they, too, lead to considerable waste. The most popular pairing \u2014 hamburger and tater tots \u2014 still results in about 26 percent waste on average, according to the study. \n \n The notion that food pairings can significantly affect the attractiveness of certain foods isn't new. Traci Mann, who teaches psychology at the University of Minnesota and has been studying eating habits, self-control and dieting for more than 20 years, believes that it can, in fact, be crucial. One of the simplest ways to eat better is to make it easier to eat better. That involves a strategy Mann calls \"get alone with a vegetable,\" which is similar in that it shows how important context can be. She described the strategy earlier this year: \n \n Normally, vegetables will lose the competition that they're in \u2014 the competition with all the other delicious food on your plate. Vegetables might not lose that battle for everyone, but they do for most of us. This strategy puts vegetables in a competition they can win, by pitting vegetables against no food at all. To do that, you just eat your vegetable first, before any of the other food is there. Eat them before other food is on your plate, or even at your table. And that way, you get them when you're hungriest and unable to pick something else instead. \n \n She also noted that it's been effective with kids: \n \n We've actually tested this in a lot of ways. And it works unbelievably well. We tested it with kids in school cafeterias, where it more than quadrupled the amount of vegetables eaten. It's just about making it a little harder to make the wrong choices, and a little easier to make the right ones. \n \n Of course, persuading schools to serve vegetables by themselves could be too tall a task. Asking them never to serve foods kids adore might be, too. But understanding how something as simple as what a vegetable is served with can have a sizable impact on whether a child eats it is a pretty useful thing. At school, and at home. ||||| The amount of whole fruit* children, 2-18 years old, ate increased by 67% from 2003 to 2010 and replaced fruit juice as the main contributor of fruit to children\u2019s diets. Experts recommend that most fruit come from whole fruit, rather than juice. The amount of vegetables children ate did not change from 2003 to 2010. Moreover, in 2007- 2010, children did not meet recommendations for the amount of fruit and vegetables they should eat. \n \n About 60 million US children are enrolled in child care** or school, where their experiences with food can affect their health and lifelong food choices. Since 2010, new national efforts like Let\u2019s Move! and new school nutrition standards support healthy eating. \n \n Child care, schools, and school districts can support these efforts by: \n \n Meeting or exceeding current federal nutrition standards for meals and snacks. \n \n Serving fruit and vegetables whenever food is offered. \n \n Training staff to make fruit and vegetables more appealing and accessible. \n \n Offering nutrition education and hands-on learning opportunities, such as growing, tasting, and preparing fruit and vegetables. \n \n *Includes all forms of fruit (fresh, frozen, canned, and dried) except juice. \n \n **Includes child care centers, day care homes, Head Start programs, preschool, and pre-kindergarten", "summary": "\u2013 Researchers from Texas A&M may have found an easier way to get kids to eat their vegetables than trying to convince them Spider-Man actually got his powers from green beans: Just pair veggies with other foods they don't like that much. The Washington Post reports nine out of 10 kids don't eat enough vegetables, and the problem of wasted veggies is only getting worse since the National School Lunch Program started requiring vegetables on every plate. After looking at \"plate waste data\" from 8,500 elementary school students, researchers discovered veggie waste increases with popular entr\u00e9es, such as burgers or chicken nuggets, and decreases with entr\u00e9es kids don't like all that much, such as deli sliders, the Post reports. \u201cOur study shows that optimizing entr\u00e9e-vegetable pairings in schools\" results in more vegetables being eaten, researcher Dr. Oral Capps Jr. says in a press release. The study, published in August, implies schools are better off pairing popular entr\u00e9es with the most popular veggies, such as fries and tater tots (the research was funded by a potato lobby), while saving the steamed broccoli for something else. On the latter point, cafeterias might have to get creative. One psychologist tells the Post that schools have found success in serving vegetables on their own, thus eliminating the competition. \"We tested it with kids in school cafeterias, where it more than quadrupled the amount of vegetables eaten.\" (Or, just do what Congress did and declare pizza a vegetable.)"}
{"document": "Fossil by fossil, scientists over the last 40 years have suspected that their models for the more immediate human family tree \u2014 the single trunk, straight as a Ponderosa pine, up from Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens \u2014 were oversimplified. The day for that serious revision may be at hand. \n \n The discovery of three new fossil specimens, announced Wednesday, is the most compelling evidence yet for multiple lines of evolution in our own genus, Homo, scientists said. The fossils showed that there were at least two contemporary Homo species, in addition to Homo erectus, living in East Africa as early as two million years ago. \n \n Uncovered from sandstone at Koobi Fora, badlands near Lake Turkana in Kenya, the specimens included a well-preserved skull of a late juvenile with a relatively large braincase and a long, flat face, which has been designated KNM-ER 62000 (62000 for short). It bears a striking resemblance to the enigmatic cranium known as 1470, the center of debate over multiple lineages since its discovery in the same area in 1972. \n \n If the 62000 skull showed that 1470 was not a single odd individual, the other two specimens seemed to provide a vital piece of evidence that had been missing. The specimen 1470 had no mandible, or lower jaw. The new finds included an almost complete lower jaw (60000) \u2014 considered to be the most complete mandible of an early Homo yet found \u2014 and a part of another lower jaw (62000). \n \n The fossils were collected between 2007 and 2009 by a team led by Meave and Louise Leakey, the mother-and-daughter paleoanthropologists of the Koobi Fora Research Project and members of the famous African fossil-hunting family. Dr. Meave Leakey is the wife of Richard Leakey, a son of Louis and Mary Leakey, who produced the early evidence supporting Africa\u2019s central place in early human origins. Mr. Leakey divides his time between Stony Brook University on Long Island, where he is a professor of anthropology, and the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya. \n \n After looking \u201clong and hard\u201d for fossils to confirm the intriguing features of 1470\u2019s face and show what its teeth and lower jaw were like, Dr. Meave Leakey said this week, \u201cAt last we have some answers.\u201d \n \n The real crux of matter, said Susan C. Ant\u00f3n of New York University, a member of the team, is how the discovery shapes the interpretation of 1470\u2019s place in the early world of Homo. \u201cThese fossils are anatomically like 1470, and we now have some teeth,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are more certain that 1470 was not a one-off, and not everything 1470 is big.\u201d \n \n In their first formal report, Dr. Leakey and her colleagues wrote in the journal Nature, \u201cThese three specimens will greatly aid the reassessment of the systematics and early radiation of the genus Homo.\u201d \n \n They, however, chose not to assign the fossils to any existing or new species until more analysis is conducted on contemporary hominids. The 1470 specimen was two million years old; the new face and fragmentary jaw are 1.9 million to 1.95 million years old; the better-preserved lower jaw is younger still, at 1.83 million years old. \n \n Fred Spoor, a member of the discovery team who directed the laboratory analysis, said in a news teleconference that the research showed clearly that \u201chuman evolution is not this straight line it was once thought to be.\u201d Instead, East Africa, he said, \u201cwas quite a crowded place, with multiple species\u201d with presumably different diets. \n \n Dr. Spoor is a paleoanthropologist at University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The lab work was supported by the institute. The fieldwork was financed by the National Geographic Society, and the dating of the fossils, mainly by Craig S. Feibel of Rutgers University, was supported by the Leakey Foundation. \n \n Although a few specialists in human origins questioned whether the still sparse evidence was sufficient to back the new conclusions, Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, who was not involved in the new discovery, concluded, \u201cThis new material certainly substantiates the idea, long gathering ground, that multiple lineages of early Homo are present in the record at Koobi Fora.\u201d \n \n Dr. Tattersall continued, \u201cAnd it supports the view that the early history of Homo involved vigorous experimentation with the biological and behavioral potential of the new genus, instead of a slow process of refinement in a central lineage.\u201d \n \n Bernard Wood of George Washington University, who has studied the early Homo fossil record, wrote in a companion article in Nature, \u201cIn a nutshell, the anatomy of the specimens supports the hypothesis of multiple early Homo species.\u201d ||||| Our family tree may have sprouted some long-lost branches going back nearly 2 million years. A famous paleontology family has found fossils that they think confirm their theory that there are two additional pre-human species besides the one that eventually led to modern humans. \n \n A team led by Meave Leakey, daughter-in-law of famed scientist Louis Leakey, found facial bones from one creature and jawbones from two others in Kenya. That led the researchers to conclude that man's early ancestor had plenty of human-like company from other species. \n \n These would not be Homo erectus, believed to be our direct ancestor. They would be more like very distant cousins, who when you go back even longer in time, shared an ancient common ancestor, one scientist said. \n \n But other experts in human evolution are not convinced by what they say is a leap to large conclusions based on limited evidence. It is the continuation of a long-running squabble in anthropology about the earliest members of our own genus, or class, called Homo _an increasingly messy family history. And much of it stems from a controversial discovery that the Leakeys made 40 years ago. \n \n In their new findings, the Leakey team says that none of their newest fossil discoveries match erectus, so they had to be from another flat-faced relatively large species with big teeth. \n \n The new specimens have \"a really distinct profile\" and thus they are \"something very different,\" said Meave Leakey, describing the study published online Wednesday in Nature. \n \n What these new bones did match was an old fossil that Meave and her husband Richard helped find in 1972 that was baffling. That skull, called 1470, just did not fit with Homo erectus, the Leakeys contended. They said it was too flat-faced with a non-jutting jaw. They initially said it was well more than 2.5 million years old in a dating mistake that was later seized upon by creationists as evidence against evolution because it indicated how scientists can make dating mistakes. It turned out to be 2 million years old. \n \n For the past 40 years, the scientific question has been whether 1470 was a freak mutation of erectus or something new. For many years, the Leakeys have maintained that the male skull known as 1470 showed that there were more than one species of ancient hominids, but other scientists said it wasn't enough proof. \n \n The Leakeys' new discoveries are more evidence that this earlier \"enigmatic face\" was a separate species, said study co-author Fred Spoor of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The new bones were found between 2007 and 2009 about six miles (10 kilometers) away from the old site near the fossil-rich Lake Turkana region, Leakey said. \n \n So that would make two species _ erectus and the one represented by 1470. \n \n But it's not that simple. The Leakey scientific team contends that other fossils of old hominids _ not those cited in their new study _ don't seem to match either erectus or 1470. They argue that the other fossils seem to have smaller heads and not just because they are female. For that reason, the Leakeys believe there were three living Homo species between 1.8 million and 2 million years ago. They would be Homo erectus, the 1470 species, and a third branch. \n \n \"Anyway you cut it there are three species,\" study co-author Susan Anton, an anthropologist at New York University. \"One of them is named erectus and that ultimately in our opinion is going to lead to us.\" \n \n Both of the species that Meave Leakey said existed back then went extinct more than a million years ago in evolutionary dead-ends. \n \n \"Human evolution is clearly not the straight line that it once was,\" Spoor said. \n \n The three different species could have been living at the same time at the same place, but probably didn't interact much, he said. Still, he said, East Africa nearly 2 million years ago \"was quite a crowded place.\" \n \n And making matters somewhat more confusing, the Leakeys and Spoor refused to give names to the two non-erectus species or attach them to some of the other Homo species names that are in scientific literature but still disputed. That's because of confusion about what species belongs where, Anton said. \n \n Two likely possibilities are Homo rudolfensis _which is where 1470 and its kin seem to belong _ and Homo habilis, where the other non-erectus belong, Anton said. The team said the new fossils mean scientists can reclassify those categorized as non-erectus species and confirm the earlier but disputed Leakey claim. \n \n But Tim White, a prominent evolutionary biologist at the University of California Berkeley, is not buying this new species idea, nor is Milford Wolpoff, a longtime professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. They said the Leakeys are making too big a jump from too little evidence. \n \n White said it's similar to someone looking at the jaw of a female gymnast in the Olympics, the jaw of a male shot-putter, ignoring the faces in the crowd and deciding the shot-putter and gymnast have to be a different species. \n \n Eric Delson, a paleoanthropology professor at Lehman College in New York, said he buys the Leakeys' study, but added: \"There's no question that it's not definite.\" He said it won't convince doubters until fossils of both sexes of both non- erectus species are found. \n \n \"It's a messy time period,\" Delson said. \n \n ___ \n \n Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears", "summary": "\u2013 The discovery of three new fossils, unveiled today, illuminate and confirm a line of human evolution that is more complicated than scientists once thought. The groundbreaking bones, about 2 million years old and unearthed in Kenya, prove that there were at least two Homo species\u2014in addition to Homo erectus\u2014living simultaneously with each other before the dawn of modern Homo sapiens, reports the New York Times. \u201cHuman evolution is not this straight line it was once thought to be,\" says one paleoanthropologist, and East Africa \u201cwas quite a crowded place, with multiple species.\" The fossils were found between 2007 and 2009 (by the mother-daughter Leakey team) and appear to hold the key to a mystery dating back to 1972, when a peculiar, unidentifiable skull, dubbed 1470, was located in the same area. The new fossils, which are remarkably similar to 1470, provide strong evidence that 1470 was not merely an odd-looking ancient human but a different offshoot of the Homo genus. (The AP notes that that the discovery by the famed Leakeys is being met with some skepticism in the field.)"}
{"document": "Robbie Rogers became the first openly gay man to play in a U.S. professional league when he made his debut with Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer on Sunday. \n \n FILE - In July 4, 2009 file photo, United States' Robbie Rogers kicks against Grenada in a CONCACAF Gold Cup match at Qwest Field in Seattle. Rogers is eligible to make his debut with the Los Angeles... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Nov. 14, 2009 file photo, Robbie Rogers, of the United States, eyes the ball during a friendly soccer match against Slovakia in Bratislava, Slovakia. Rogers is joining the Los Angeles Galaxy... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009 file photo, Columbus Crew's Robbie Rogers celebrates after scoring against the San Jose Earthquakes during the second half of an MLS soccer match in San Francisco.... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE- In this July 23, 2009 file photo, Honduras' Walter Martinez, left, strips the ball from United States' Robbie Rogers during the first half of a CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal soccer game in Chicago.... (Associated Press) \n \n Rogers entered as a substitute in the 77th minute with the Galaxy leading the Seattle Sounders 4-0, which turned out to be the final score. \n \n \"I guess this is a historic thing, but for me it was just a soccer game,\" Rogers said. \n \n Nerves began getting the best of Rogers in the hours before he left home for the stadium, not because he was anxious about being the first openly gay player but because he was rusty after time out of the sport. \n \n He called his sister for reassurance. \n \n \"I just needed to hear someone's voice,\" Rogers said. \"We were talking about my dog. Just get my mind off things.\" \n \n He received loud cheers from the crowd of 24,811 as he ran onto the pitch, with fans chanting his name. Rogers ran by teammate Landon Donovan, who slapped his hand and patted him on the back as he took his position. \n \n \"Because of the nature of the way sports has been for so many years _ the macho culture that's been embraced by everybody _ it's of interest to everybody,\" Donovan said. \"Now, hopefully, the hype about it is over and he can get back to being a soccer player, which is what he wants to do.\" \n \n Rogers spent the past two seasons in England with Leeds United and a loan spell at Stevenage. \n \n Initially he retired from the sport after coming out on a blog post in February, but has been training with the Galaxy since last month at the invitation of coach Bruce Arena. \n \n \"In a lot of ways the easy part is over,\" Arena said. \"Now the difficult part remains, which is getting him positioned to play. Our expectations for Robbie are not anything big in the near future. Hopefully, he'll get back to the way we think he can be.\" \n \n The loudest chants of \"Robbie, Robbie\" were for Robbie Keane, who had his first hat trick for the Galaxy. His three goals, including two on penalties, and another by Sean Franklin gave the Galaxy a 4-0 lead at halftime. ||||| Story highlights Galaxy provide historic moment as Robbie Rogers takes field for 13 minutes in rout \n \n Rogers becomes the first openly gay male athlete to compete in Major League Soccer \n \n Former winger for U.S. national team came out in February as he announced retirement \n \n NBA player Jason Collins has not played since he came out last month \n \n Robbie Rogers became the first openly gay male athlete to play in a pro American sporting match Sunday when he took the field for Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy during a rout of the Seattle Sounders. \n \n Not to be overlooked in the landmark moment is Rogers' prescience. In remarks to ESPN before the game, he said, \"I'm hoping I can come on and it's 4-0 and I can just enjoy myself.\" \n \n Which is exactly what happened. With 13 minutes remaining in the game, Rogers came in as a substitute for midfielder Juninho with the Galaxy up by four goals. \n \n Emphatic applause erupted from the stands at the Home Depot Center. \n \n Before the game, Los Angeles native Jason Collins, a pro basketball player who announced last month that he was gay, tweeted Rogers to say good luck. \n \n Rogers said after the game that the experience was \"perfect, really perfect.\" \n \n \"The first training session the Galaxy ever had on the Home Depot Center pitch, I was here training,\" he said. \"I've kind of been on this huge journey to kind of figure out my life, and now I'm back here, I think kind of where I'm supposed to be.\" \n \n Bleacher Report: Twitter reacts \n \n Rogers was introduced as the newest member of the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday, making him the first openly gay male athlete in Major League Soccer and ending his brief retirement. \n \n The Galaxy signed Rogers to a multiyear contract after acquiring him from the Chicago Fire, which held his rights, in exchange for midfielder Mike Magee. \n \n Just Watched April 2013: Rogers on why he came out replay More Videos ... April 2013: Rogers on why he came out 04:57 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Just Watched Ex-soccer star: Gay but lived stereotype replay More Videos ... Ex-soccer star: Gay but lived stereotype 02:41 PLAY VIDEO \n \n Rogers, a former winger for the U.S. national team, had retired from soccer in February at age 25, announcing then that he is gay. However, he still had the passion for the game. He trained with the Galaxy for about a month before making the comeback official. \n \n \"After I finally got in here, everything was completely normal, as it should be,\" Rogers said at his introductory news conference. \"Getting back on the pitch was amazing.\" \n \n Opinion: Lust in the locker room -- get over it? \n \n But even though he still enjoys the game, deciding to come back was not easy for Rogers, who said he was afraid to share the secret about his sexual orientation for 25 years. \n \n \"I kept my secret because I thought I couldn't be both a soccer player and a gay athlete,\" Rogers said. \"I figured it out that it's not true, but I felt that way. So I was afraid to put myself back into a situation where I felt like I was kind of an outcast or just different than people.\" \n \n In his career, Rogers also has played for MLS club Columbus Crew from 2007 to 2011, winning the MLS Cup in 2008. He also briefly played for English club Leeds United. \n \n Los Angeles head coach Bruce Arena believes that Rogers will make an impact on the field with his play. \n \n \"We've been searching for the last year or two for a player that has the skills to be a flank player, play wide and add a little speed to our club, take on players and a good crosser off the ball with both of his feet,\" Arena said. \"He offers qualities that we've been looking for, so we're hopeful that in time, Robbie will demonstrate the kind of qualities that he has previously in this league.\" \n \n Rogers isn't the only trailblazer for male gay athletes in American professional sports. Twelve-year NBA veteran Collins announced he was gay, but he has not played a game since he made the announcement. He is currently a free agent. \n \n Opinion: When celebrities share secrets, good things happen", "summary": "\u2013 The Los Angeles Galaxy's Robbie Rogers made history yesterday as the first openly gay man to play in a US professional league. The 26-year-old winger\u2014who came out of the closet after retiring briefly in February, was cheered and the crowd chanted his name as he came on as a substitute in the Galaxy's 4-0 win over the Seattle Sounders, the AP reports. \"I kept my secret because I thought I couldn't be both a soccer player and a gay athlete,\" Rogers tells CNN. \"I figured it out that it's not true, but I felt that way. So I was afraid to put myself back into a situation where I felt like I was kind of an outcast or just different than people.\" The NBA's Jason Collins became the first active male athlete in an American professional team sport to come out of the closet last month, but Rogers is the first to actually play a game after coming out."}
{"document": "Rapper Kanye West got boos and jeers from the audience at \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d after he went on a pro-President Trump rant during the closing credits of the season premiere. \n \n West, wearing a red \u201cMake American Great Again\u201d hat and with the show\u2019s cast standing behind him, launched into the screed off camera, but it was caught on video by comedian Chris Rock. \n \n \u201cI wanna cry right now, black man in America, supposed to keep what you\u2019re feeling inside right now,\u201d he sang as he paced the stage. \n \n He continued: \u201cThe blacks want always Democrats you know it\u2019s like the plan they did, to take the fathers out the home and put them on welfare. Does anybody know about that? That\u2019s a Democratic plan.\u201d \n \n Then he turned to his support of Trump. \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s so many times I talk to like a white person about this and they say, \u2018How could you like Trump? He\u2019s racist.\u2019 Well, if I was concerned about racism I would\u2019ve moved out of America a long time ago.\u201d \n \n A smattering of applause was quickly drowned out by boos in the audience. \n \n Rock could be heard on the video saying, \u201cOh, my God.\u201d \n \n West appeared on the show\u2019s 44th season opener as a last-minute replacement for Ariana Grande, who canceled. ||||| Since the news has been happening at such a lightning-fast clip, Saturday Night Live was presented with the daunting task of playing summer catch-up. Host Adam Driver gamely committed to the sketches, but more focus was drawn by Pete Davidson\u2019s tabloid romance with Ariana Grande and Kanye West, well, being Kanye West. \n \n Cold open \n \n In what was the highlight of the evening, Matt Damon made a special appearance as Brett Kavanaugh, \u201cthe proudest, drunkest virgin you\u2019ve ever seen!\u201d Damon perfectly mastered Kavanaugh\u2019s blustery shouting, which included the poorly thought-out declaration: \u201cI don\u2019t know the meaning of the word stop.\u201d \n \n The show failed to maintain the energy of that cold open, which also included a surprise cameo by SNL alum Rachel Dratch (and a cardboard cutout of Alyssa Milano). \n \n Monologue \n \n \u201cAdam designated Driver,\u201d star of Girls and the Star Wars films, was hosting SNL for the second time. Without a project to promote, the opening monologue was a little unfocused \u2014 Driver pretended to tease new Star Wars spoilers before he was interrupted by SNL cast members talking about how they spent their summers. Spoiler alert: they all involved work and travel. That is, of course, with the exception of Pete Davidson. \n \n \u201cActually, you\u2019re the only one whose summer I want to hear about!\u201d Driver said to Davidson, who simply winked at the camera. \n \n Worst sketch \n \n Driver played a divorced dad trying to get into popular online game Fortnite in order to relate to his son more. Although seeing his incompetence play out with live actors was amusing, the joke (\u201cadults are bad at technology!\u201d) was more than a little one-note. \n \n Weekend Update \n \n Though there was plenty to talk about, hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost focused the majority of their \u201cWeekend Update\u201d jokes on Thursday\u2019s Brett Kavanaugh Senate hearing. \n \n \u201cYou\u2019re not really helping yourself in a drunken assault case when you yell about how much you love drinking and how strong you were at the time,\u201d Jost cracked in reference to how Kavanaugh kept repeating how much he liked beer, and how his calendar detailed how often he worked out. Jost had a follow-up joke about how weird it was that the judge still had his high school calendar: \u201cYou know when most people throw out their calendar from 1982? 1983.\u201d \n \n Meanwhile, Che reminded viewers that the hearing was essentially a job interview for Kavanaugh. \u201cTypically, when you\u2019re asked about your sexual assault and your drinking at a job interview, you don\u2019t get the damn job. You can\u2019t just pick another dude from your Illuminati lizard meetings,\u201d he said. \u201cAre Republicans so pro-life that you don\u2019t even have a Plan B for this?\u201d \n \n The segment was rounded out with an always welcome appearance from Kate McKinnon\u2019s Ruth Bader Ginsberg, with her signature Gins-burns and dance moves. RBG couldn\u2019t resist pulling out her own 1982 calendar, which had entries like \u201cturn 100,\u201d break glass ceiling,\u201d and \u201cdo laps in a bird bath.\u201d Her current calendar features one simple daily reminder: \u201cDon\u2019t die.\u201d \n \n Pete Davidson also dropped by the Update desk to offer an update on his whirlwind romance with singer Ariana Grande, revealing no one can believe the two are an item. \n \n \u201cRemember when that whole city pretended this kid was Batman because he was sick? That\u2019s what this feels like,\u201d he laughed. \n \n When Jost asked what their prenup situation was, Davison replied, \u201cObviously, I wanted one. God forbid we split up and she takes half my sneakers. Look, I\u2019m totally comfortable being with a successful woman. I think it\u2019s dope. I live at her place. She pays like 60 grand for rent and all I have to do is like stock the fridge\u2026 yeah.\u201d \n \n A joke about switching Grande\u2019s birth control with Tic Tacs to make sure she\u2019d stick around fell flat, but Davidson pulled the crowd back in with a bit on how he doesn\u2019t make royalties on her music, including the song named after him. \n \n \u201cIf we break up \u2014 we won\u2019t, we will \u2014 but in like 10 years, if god forbid that ever happens, there will be a song called \u2018Pete Davidson\u2019 playing in speakers at K-Mart, and I\u2019ll be working there.\u201d \n \n Best short \n \n Jealous of the attention Pete has been getting over his pop-star paramour, Kyle Mooney decides to steal Pete\u2019s look \u2014 from his bleach blond hair to his colorful wardrobe. Kyle also enlists talk show host Wendy Williams as his own hot celebrity girlfriend. Eventually, Pete engages Kyle in a fight \u201cSNL-style,\u201d which turns out to be a renaissance/gladiator battle on stage. While it felt worthwhile to acknowledge Pete\u2019s omnipresent fame that emerged during the SNL hiatus, a winking reference in the monologue, a \u201cWeekend Update\u201d appearance, and a short felt like overkill. \n \n Most committed host moment \n \n Props to Adam Driver for donning old-age makeup in a \u201cCareer Day\u201d sketch to become Abraham A. Parnassus, the elderly parent of one of the students and attempts to bestow his wisdom of being a ruthless oil baron upon the class: \u201cCrush your enemies! Grind their bones into dirt!\u201d \n \n Weirdest moment \n \n Kanye West dressed as a bottle of Perrier to perform \u201cI Love It\u201d with Lil Pump, who was dressed as a bottle of Fiji water. I don\u2019t even know what to say about that. \n \n Up next \n \n Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean\u2019s 8 star Awkwafina will host next weekend\u2019s episode, with Travis Scott as musical guest.", "summary": "\u2013 Saturday Night Live opened its 44th season with no shortage of material by the way of Brett Kavanaugh's hearings Thursday, Kanye West and his name change, and Pete Davidson's engagement over the summer to Ariana Grande. A lengthy cold open reimagined the Kavanaugh hearings, with Matt Damon as the blustery Supreme Court nominee and a guest appearance by Rachel Dratch. But EW notes that the rest of the Adam Driver-hosted season premiere failed to maintain that energy, calling it \"lackluster.\" Kavanaugh was also a hot topic on Weekend Update, with Kate McKinnon appearing as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Michael Che suggesting that the Senate GOP \"just pick another dude from your Illuminati lizard meetings.\" West, er, Ye, meanwhile, drew jeers when he went on a pro-President Trump rant, reports the New York Post."}
{"document": "Billionaire Donald J. Trump, an early presidential favorite among tea party activists, has a highly unusual history of political contributions for a prospective Republican candidate: He has given most of his money to the other side. \n \n The real estate mogul and \u201cCelebrity Apprentice\u201d host has made more than $1.3 million in donations over the years to candidates nationwide, with 54 percent of the money going to Democrats, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal disclosure records. \n \n Recipients include Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), former Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell, and Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Obama who received $50,000 from Trump during his recent run to become Chicago\u2019s mayor, records show. Many of the contributions have been concentrated in New York, Florida and other states where Trump has substantial real estate and casino interests. \n \n The donations provide another view into the odd political spectacle surrounding Trump, who may be the most unlikely of possible GOP presidential hopefuls in an already eclectic field. Although candidates such as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have spent years carefully crafting and plotting a White House run, the tycoon and fixture of the New York tabloids has leapt onto the scene with loud proclamations and surprisingly strong poll numbers among likely Republican voters. \n \n The iconoclastic developer and television personality is attempting to appeal to social conservatives, even with a record of failed marriages and earlier statements in favor of abortion rights. His attacks on Obama have focused on conspiracy theories about the president\u2019s birth in Hawaii that make many Republican leaders nervous. And Trump is considering a run for the nomination in an increasingly conservative Republican Party, despite years of donations to prominent Democrats. \n \n None of which has stopped him from forging ahead with a potential candidacy, including a scheduled trip on Wednesday to the early primary state of New Hampshire. \n \n The Democratic recipients of Trump\u2019s donations make up what looks like a Republican enemies list, including former senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and the late liberal lion Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). \n \n The biggest recipient of all has been the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee of New York, which has taken in more than $125,000 from Trump and his companies. Overall, Trump has given nearly $600,000 to New York state campaigns, with more than two-thirds going to Democrats. \n \n His representatives did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. But Trump said in a recent interview that he had relatively few Republican options in an overwhelmingly blue state. \n \n \u201cEveryone\u2019s Democratic,\u201d he told Fox News in an interview about his potential candidacy. \u201cSo what am I going to do \u2014 contribute to Republicans? One thing: I\u2019m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1 percent of the vote?\u201d \n \n His Democratic generosity is hardly confined to New York, however. Trump has given more than $250,000 to federal candidates and campaigns, including more than $100,000 to the party\u2019s House and Senate campaign committees. He donated $10,400 to Reid, including for his 2010 battle with Sharron Angle, the GOP nominee and tea party favorite. \n \n Ron Bonjean, a GOP consultant and former Capitol Hill aide, said that \u201cit will be hard for him to spin his way out of direct campaign contributions\u201d to Reid and other Democrats. \n \n \u201cIn a Republican primary, it shows where your loyalty lies,\u201d said Bonjean, who has not signed on with a GOP presidential candidate. \u201cHe may be giving this money to Democrats because it helps his business, but it will be a big deal to Republican primary voters.\u201d \n \n While favoring Democrats, Trump has donated more than $600,000 to Republicans as well, including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the party\u2019s 2008 presidential nominee, whom Trump first supported in 1998. \n \n He gave $95,000 to the Republican Governors Association for its record-breaking electoral push in 2010, and he has donated more than $80,000 to the three national GOP political committees in the past two decades. Individual Republicans supported by Trump include former congressman Tom DeLay (Tex.), former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and former senator George Allen (Va.). \n \n The data collected by The Post for this article does not include donations to outside interest groups. Last year, for instance, Trump gave $50,000 to American Crossroads, which supported Republican candidates in the midterm elections. \n \n GOP political consultant Alex Castellanos said Trump\u2019s contribution pattern is similar to the approach of many business leaders and corporations that divide their donations between the two parties. But to get through a Republican primary season, he added, \u201cit doesn\u2019t help to have that record.\u201d \n \n One of Trump\u2019s biggest Democratic beneficiaries was Rendell, who received $32,000 from the mogul during his 2002 primary and general election campaigns to become Pennsylvania\u2019s governor. Rendell, who favors abortion rights, was challenged in the Democratic primary by Bob Casey Jr., who opposes abortion. \n \n When he considered a run for president in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate, Trump said he supported abortion rights. But he said last week that he now opposes the procedure except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother\u2019s health is at risk. \n \n In Pennsylvania, Rendell favored allowing slots gambling, and Trump waged a long and ultimately fruitless battle to secure a casino license in the state after the practice was legalized. He publicly lashed out at Rendell when an independent gaming board rejected the license application, calling Pennsylvania \u201ca little too political of a state for me.\u201d \n \n The tycoon benefited from a Rendell decision to lift a moratorium on water development rights in Philadelphia, allowing a planned Trump Tower project to proceed. The luxury development has since been put on hold amid the economic downturn. \n \n Rendell did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment Tuesday. \n \n Former congressman Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Trump\u2019s close ties to some Democrats would be \u201ca huge obstacle, but it\u2019s not insurmountable.\u201d Trump, he added, would not be running as a \u201cpurity\u201d candidate. \n \n \u201cRepublicans are looking for a savior,\u201d Davis said. \u201cHere\u2019s a guy who has succeeded outside politics and articulates the right vision. Sometimes that works. . . . It\u2019s a long shot, but it\u2019s not out of the bounds of possibility.\u201d ||||| HANNITY: Recently, you said that if you don't get the nomination that you would run as an independent. You are asking Republicans -- \n \n TRUMP: I didn't say that. I said I would certainly think about that. Because the question is what happens if you don't get the nomination? And this was also before the new polls came out that showed me leading. But they said, what happens if you don't get? Would you consider running? I said yes, I would consider running as an independent. \n \n HANNITY: All right. But if you do that, that would be the greatest gift to Barack Obama and -- \n \n TRUMP: Unless I won. No, no, unless I won. \n \n HANNITY: In reality though, if you are a conservative and you didn't get the nomination you are running against another conservative, you split the vote, Barack Obama sails into the presidency. \n \n TRUMP: Unless I thought I could win as an independent. I wouldn't do that, because if I lost, I get a tremendous amount of votes and I would take them all from the Republican Party, which would be terrible. So, unless I thought I could win, really win as an independent, I would not do that. Because I wouldn't want to come in second or third place and Obama ends up winning. \n \n HANNITY: OK. So, if you thought that it would hurt the chances of defeating Obama, you would not do it? \n \n TRUMP: The only way I would run is, would be if I didn't get the Republican nomination and felt through polls and lots of other things that are pretty good and pretty scientific. And seem to work over the years, I've been watching lots of polls, and they seem to be pretty accurate, amazingly, right? If I thought I could win absolutely win as an independent I would do it. If I didn't, it would be devastating because you wouldn't have a Republican in. So, I would have a real problem unless I really felt certain, pretty certain of victory. \n \n HANNITY: You described yourself a conservative. What does it mean for you when you say, that you are a conservative person? How do you describe that? \n \n TRUMP: Well, I think I have great values. I think I really have a great solid strong value. I love this country. I feel so strongly about this country. I love people that work. This weekend I'm making a speech in Boca Raton, Florida, and there was supposed to be like 200 people before it was announced that I was speaking. And now I hear they have thousands -- they had to lead the hall, it is going to be in some park, where they have thousands and thousands of people coming, which really makes me feel good. \n \n But I really relate to the Tea Party people. Somebody was asking me, in fact every reporter asks me, what do you think of the Tea Party? I said, I think they are great. They are workers. They love the country. \n \n And you know, their greatest service has been -- and this is very simple -- they've made everyone think. They were the first that brought up the deficit. People, we were just riding this deficit, borrowing more and more money, they were the first ones that really made both Democrats and Republicans think. So, I think the Tea Party has served an unbelievable and performed an unbelievable function. \n \n HANNITY: How do you describe, some Republicans are saying, wait a minute he wants the Republican nomination, years gone by, you have donated to people like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, other Democrats. Why? \n \n TRUMP: I get along with everybody. And, you know, can I be honest, you are a pretty conservative guy. \n \n HANNITY: Yes. \n \n TRUMP: Don't you think it is time -- I get along with everybody. I get along -- I also have plenty of enemies as you probably know. \n \n HANNITY: Rosie. \n \n TRUMP: My worst enemy will be Obama, probably. Well, you said Rosie, I didn't. But the fact is, I get along with people. I also come from a place that is almost exclusively Democratic. \n \n HANNITY: New York. \n \n TRUMP: I'm in New York. OK. I mean, the Republicans don't even think they have a chance. And, you know, maybe I would have a chance, OK? But they don't even think about New York. \n \n So, I've lived in New York. This building, this great tower and many other towers I own, they are in New York. Everyone is Democratic. So, what am I going to do, contribute to Republicans? Am I going to contribute to, I mean, one thing I'm not stupid. Am I going to contribute to a Republican for my whole life when they get, they run against some Democrat. And the most they can get is one percent of the vote? \n \n So, I think more importantly, and this question will always be asked. I mean, I've contributed to Schumer, I contributed -- I've known Schumer for many, many years. And I have a good relationship with him. The fact is, that I think it is time maybe that we all do get along. \n \n (END VIDEO CLIP) \n \n (COMMERCIAL BREAK) \n \n HANNITY: And welcome back to \"Hannity.\" We continue with more of my interview with Donald Trump. \n \n (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) \n \n HANNITY: Who were the people that you might be running against? You mentioned you like Mike Huckabee. You know, the other candidates, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich. \n \n TRUMP: I sort of like them all. You know, I have a problem. They've treated me so nicely. I have such a problem, everyone said such nice things. I saw Santorum said something nice. \n \n HANNITY: Newt Gingrich did, Sarah Palin did. \n \n TRUMP: The all did. Newt Gingrich last month joined my club in Washington. A little before he heard about this in all fairness, but I already have his money. \n \n HANNITY: He said something nice about in a speech this weekend. \n \n TRUMP: Well, that is very nice. I mean, so, I wish I didn't like them, does that make sense to you? \n \n HANNITY: Well you're all going to have to debate each other. \n \n TRUMPP They are all saying these nice things about me. I have a hard time. So, the truth is, I watched Pawlenty the other day. I don't know him but he said these wonderful things about Donald Trump. And I can't now say, oh gee, this and that. \n \n HANNITY: Well, look, you're all... \n \n TRUMP: The good news is I don't think Barack Obama is going to be saying nice things and that's a positive. \n \n (CROSSTALK) \n \n Look, I think I'm a great negotiator. I think I will do a better job than anybody because I'm really a great negotiator. I know how to negotiate. I know how people are ripping us off. I know why they're ripping us off and I know how to solve the problem. \n \n And as far as yesterday is concerned and what is going on over the last couple of days, the numbers aren't as bad as you are thinking, because what is happening is, if you take away $300 billion where China is ripping us and you take away Colombia and you take away virtually every nation in the world, who is making a huge -- let's use the word profit on the United States. When you start equalizing that, not even to make money of them, just to neutralize it, China shouldn't be making $300 billion on us, this year.", "summary": "\u2013 If Donald Trump officially decides to enter the Republican race, he'll probably have to explain why he has donated to so many Democrats. Of the more than $1.3 million in political donations he's made over the years, 54% has gone to Democrats, the Washington Post reports. Those include such big names as Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Charles Schumer, and Ted Kennedy. Of course, many of Trump's contributions have been in states where he has significant real estate interests. In a recent Fox News interview, Trump explained that New York is overwhelmingly Democratic; the Post notes that more than two-thirds of his donations in the state have gone to Dems. \u201cSo what am I going to do\u2014contribute to Republicans? One thing: I\u2019m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1% of the vote?\u201d Even though he has also given more than $600,000 to Republicans, \"it will be hard for him to spin his way out of\" the Democratic contributions, says a GOP consultant. (Click to read Trump's thoughts on how intelligent Obama is\u2014or isn't.)"}
{"document": "A child who was said to have been cured of human immunodeficiency virus last year has developed an HIV infection and been put back on antiretroviral drugs after remaining off of them for 27 months, dashing hopes of a new treatment for infants. \n \n Doctors announced Thursday that traces of HIV were detected in the child last week during regular testing that she undergoes every six to eight weeks. \n \n Continue reading below \n \n The discovery was disappointing, doctors said on a conference call, because they hoped the aggressive treatment regimen that helped abate the child\u2019s HIV could lead to a cure in infants. \n \n \u201cIt felt very much like a punch to the gut,\u201d said Dr. Hannah B. Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center who treats the girl. \u201cIt was disappointing from the scientific standpoint because we had been hopeful it would lead to bigger and better things, but mainly for the sake of the child who is back on medicine and expected to remain on medicine for a very long time.\u201d \n \n Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who is part of the girls\u2019 medical team, said during a conference call that tests show the child is responding well to drug therapy. \n \n RELATED | Evan Horowitz: Studies show many studies are false \n \n HIV hides in so-called reservoirs of the body, and the viral material there often remains dormant as long as a patient is receiving antiretroviral drugs. But as soon as the drugs are stopped, the viral strains can become active and replicate in the body. \n \n Outside experts said the findings are still critical in advancing HIV treatment. Though more research is needed, the \u201cMississippi baby\u201d case shows that early, aggressive therapy can be effective in reducing reservoirs in the body, especially because she remained free of replicable HIV for more than two years \u2014 a landmark finding. \n \n Continue reading below \n \n The child\u2019s mother delivered her in a rural Mississippi hospital in 2010 but did not know she was infected with HIV. She did not undergo treatment during her pregnancy, so the baby was transferred to University of Mississippi Medical Center when she was about 30 hours old after doctors thought she could have been infected. \n \n Gay used a three-drug regimen instead of the typical one or two drugs for a newborn. The child showed undetectable levels of HIV after a month but continued to take antiretroviral drugs until she was 18 months old. Her mother then stopped bringing her to the hospital and ceased the drug treatment. \n \n When the child returned to the hospital five months later, Gay and Luzuriaga ran a battery of tests and found some viral genetic material but no replicable strains lying in reservoirs, leading them to believe the girl had been \u201cfunctionally cured.\u201d \n \n The case is familiar for Dr. Timothy Henrich, a Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital infectious diseases associate physician. Henrich led a team of Boston researchers studying two patients who had become HIV-free after undergoing bone marrow transplants for cancer but were later found to have detectable levels of the disease. \n \n \u201cIt was almost a little bit of PTSD and d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu for me,\u201d Henrich said. \u201cWhen I first read the news, my heart sank. . . . The most difficult thing I had to do as part of our study was tell [the patients] the virus had returned.\u201d \n \n The discovery that the Mississippi baby has developed viremia \u2014 an active infection \u2014 highlights how much more there is to learn about these reservoirs, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. \n \n Some outside experts doubted whether the child ever had been infected with HIV, when doctors announced she had been cured last year. The girl\u2019s doctors said discovering viremia shows she was infected, but they effectively eliminated the HIV in the child, even if not permanently. \n \n \u201cThis was unprecedented,\u201d Dr. Deborah Persaud, professor of infectious disease at Johns Hopkins Children\u2019s Center and the lead author of the original report on the baby last year, said of the child successfully staying off antiretroviral drugs for 27 months. \u201cThe most important finding is indeed, this child was, without a doubt, infected with HIV.\u201d \n \n There is only one person believed to have been cured of HIV. In 2009, German doctors reported that Timothy Ray Brown, an American known as the \u201cBerlin patient,\u201d received a bone marrow transplant from a patient with a rare genetic mutation that is thought to provide resistance to HIV. \n \n The Berlin patient was an exceptional case because of the rare mutation that came from the marrow donor, Henrich said. \n \n Even with very low levels of viral material, there is always the risk HIV can reemerge at detectable levels. \n \n The Mississippi case \u201cwas a seminal study that was very important and did teach us a lot and is still teaching us a lot,\u201d Henrich said. \u201cIt\u2019s still worthwhile to pursue this research.\u201d \n \n Related coverage: \n \n \u2022 Baby born with HIV may be cured \n \n \u2022 Evan Horowitz: Studies show many studies are false ||||| Story highlights Mississippi baby \"cured\" of HIV is now showing signs of the virus \n \n Baby was given high doses of three antiretroviral drugs shortly after birth \n \n Baby born with HIV in California was given the same treatment \n \n A Mississippi baby scientists thought was \"functionally cured\" of HIV now has detectable levels of the virus in her blood, her doctors say. \n \n The news is disappointing for a case the scientific community hailed just last year as a potential game changer in the fight against AIDS. \n \n \"It felt like a punch to the gut,\" Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said of seeing signs of the virus on test results earlier this month. \n \n \"It was extremely disappointing from both the scientific standpoint ... but mainly for the sake of the child who is back on medicine and expected to stay on medicine for a very long time.\" \n \n Media outlets around the world covered the Mississippi case when it was first made public in March 2013. CNN updated its story again in October when researchers announced the toddler was still HIV free \n \n JUST WATCHED Baby \"cured\" of HIV, are adults next? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Baby \"cured\" of HIV, are adults next? 03:51 \n \n JUST WATCHED AIDS researchers look for a cure Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH AIDS researchers look for a cure 03:07 \n \n JUST WATCHED Doctor explains finding baby HIV-free Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Doctor explains finding baby HIV-free 05:47 \n \n The child was born to a mother who received no prenatal care and was not diagnosed as HIV-positive herself until just before delivery. \"We didn't have the opportunity to treat the mom during the pregnancy as we would like to be able to do, to prevent transmission to the baby,\" Gay said last year. \n \n Doctors administered high doses of three antiretroviral drugs 30 hours after the girl was born in case she was infected. They hoped to control the virus, which was not detectable at the time. The child remained on antiretroviral drugs for approximately 18 months. Her mother then stopped administering the drugs for an unknown reason. \n \n A few months later, doctors said the little girl had no evidence of the life-threatening disease in her blood . They announced that the girl was the first child to be \"functionally cured\" of HIV. A \"functional cure\" is when the presence of the virus is so small, lifelong treatment is not necessary and standard clinical tests cannot detect the virus in the blood. \n \n However, during a routine doctor visit early this month, tests detected HIV antibodies in the now 4-year-old child. Her T-cell count was also low, indicating a weakened immune system. More than two years after being taken off the medication, doctors started her again on antiretroviral therapy. \n \n She will need to be on these medications for life -- or until scientists find a cure for HIV. \n \n \"Certainly, this is a disappointing turn of events for this young child, the medical staff involved in the child's care, and the HIV/AIDS research community,\" NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a statement. \"Scientifically, this development reminds us that we still have much more to learn about the intricacies of HIV infection and where the virus hides in the body.\" \n \n Despite the setback, researchers are optimistic about using this early treatment method on infants infected with HIV. A clinical trial aimed at studying the effect will be amended to include this new information, they said, before it begins recruiting participants. \n \n \"We\u00b4ve always known that the search for an HIV cure wasn't going to be easy,\" Fran\u00e7oise Barre-Sinoussi, president of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement. \"Cases like this are hugely important for informing researchers on where to focus their efforts.\" \n \n Current treatment methods \n \n Researchers have long known that treating HIV-positive mothers while they are pregnant is important for the health of the child because they pass antibodies on to their babies that can protect them from disease. \n \n All HIV-positive moms will pass on those antibodies, but only 30% will transmit the actual virus, said Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at the University of Massachusetts who worked closely with Gay. And HIV-positive mothers who are given appropriate treatment pass on the virus in less than 2% of cases. \n \n \"So all babies are born antibody-positive, but only a fraction of babies born to HIV-positive women will actually get the virus, and that fraction depends on whether the mom and baby are getting antiviral prophylaxis (preventive treatment) or not.\" \n \n Newborns are considered high-risk if their mothers' HIV infections are not under control or if the mothers are found to be HIV-positive when they're close to delivering. \n \n JUST WATCHED Ryan Lewis on his mother's battle with HIV Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ryan Lewis on his mother's battle with HIV 03:59 \n \n JUST WATCHED HIV returns in transplant patients Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH HIV returns in transplant patients 00:31 \n \n JUST WATCHED Magic Johnson on HIV/AIDS, gay son Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Magic Johnson on HIV/AIDS, gay son 05:00 \n \n Usually, these infants would get antiviral drugs at preventive doses for six weeks to prevent infection, then start antiretroviral therapy, or ART, if HIV is diagnosed. \n \n ART is a combination of at least three drugs used to suppress the virus and stop the progression of the disease. \n \n But they do not kill the virus. \n \n In March, doctors announced that another child born with HIV appeared to be free of the virus after receiving similar treatment to the Mississippi baby. The case report was presented at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston. \n \n The girl was delivered at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach, California, last summer to a mother with HIV who had not received antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy. Doctors gave the baby high doses of three drugs -- AZT, 3TC and Nevirapine -- four hours after birth. Eleven days later, the virus was undetectable in her body and remained undetectable eight months later. \n \n \"Taking kids off antiretroviral therapy intentionally is not standard of care,\" said Dr. Deborah Persaud at the time, a virologist with Johns Hopkins Children's Center who has been involved in both cases. \n \n On Thursday Persaud said the California baby is still on antiretroviral treatment and doing well, said Persaud. \n \n \"At this time, there is no plan to stop treatment.\" ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated \n \n A baby who doctors had hoped may have been cured of HIV infection is infected again, doctors reported on Thursday \u2014 a disappointing blow to hopes that it might be possible to stop infection in its tracks. \n \n The child, now 4, had been regularly tested for the AIDS virus and now the virus has not only returned, but showed signs of damaging her immune system, researchers said. \n \n \"It felt very much like a punch to the gut,\" said Dr. Hannah Gay of the University of Mississippi, who has been treating the child. \n \n Sign up for top Health news direct to your inbox. \n \n \u201cThe baby has now rebounded with clearly detectable HIV viremia,\u201d said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). \n \n \u201cCertainly, this is a disappointing turn of events for this young child, the medical staff involved in the child\u2019s care, and the HIV/AIDS research community.\u201d \n \n The Mississippi baby was born a little premature to a mother discovered to have HIV only when she was in labor. The mom had not ever been treated for HIV. Within 30 hours of birth the baby was re-tested and had clear evidence of HIV infection. \n \n Unusually, she then got a cocktail of three drugs at a dose normally reserved for more advanced cases. It worked really well \u2014 pushing her virus down to what\u2019s called undetectable levels. \n \n \"It felt very much like a punch to the gut.\" \n \n The baby and her mom, who doctors have never named, got regular care and treatment from Gay at University of Mississippi Medical Center until she was 15 months old. Then, like so many children, she disappeared off the doctors\u2019 radar screens. The mother brought her back briefly at 18 months but disappeared again but she missed at least eight months' worth of drugs. When Gay caught up to her again, the baby was still well, despite having received no treatment. \n \n Now, at age 4, she has shown evidence of infection for the first time since she was born. \n \n In 2013, a second child was born in Long Beach, Calif. to a woman who doctors knew was not taking her HIV medication. The infant was treated immediately and the virus is now barely detectable. \n \n The U.S. government is looking for more babies to test the treatment, but Fauci said NIAID may have to adjust the new study. \"We are going to take a very careful look at that study,\" Fauci told reporters. \n \n They'll be studying the child's blood and her immune system. \n \n \u201cTypically, when treatment is stopped, HIV levels rebound within weeks, not years.\u201d \n \n It's not a total loss, the researchers said. The child was able to get through the toddler years without having to take the cocktail of drugs usually used to control the virus. \n \n \u201cThe fact that this child was able to remain off antiretroviral treatment for two years and maintain quiescent virus for that length of time is unprecedented,\u201d said Dr. Deborah Persaud of John Hopkins Children\u2019s Center in Baltimore and one of the two pediatric HIV experts involved in the case. \u201cTypically, when treatment is stopped, HIV levels rebound within weeks, not years.\u201d \n \n The early treatment may have at least slowed the virus down, the researchers speculated. \n \n \u201cHow can someone be off therapy for 27 months\u2026and yet the virus remains suppressed?\u201d Fauci asked. The baby may have had a special immune response, he said. \n \n \u201cScientifically, this development reminds us that we still have much more to learn about the intricacies of HIV infection and where the virus hides in the body,\u201d Fauci added. \u201cThe NIH remains committed to moving forward with research on a cure for HIV infection.\u201d \n \n There was evidence the virus had started damaging the child\u2019s immune system as it came back. She had fewer than the normal number of CD4 T-cells \u2013 the infection-fighting cells that HIV targets and kills. \u201cWe know that the CD4 T-cells dropped a bit with the re-emergence of virus but they have started to come up very nicely with the initiation of treatment,\u201d Gay said. \n \n \u201cFor now, the child needs antiretroviral treatment,\u201d Persaud said. But she hopes research will find a better way to control the virus. \u201cThese children can live to their 30s and 40s,\u201d she pointed out. The hope is to extend that as doctors learn more. \n \n The human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS has only been common since the early 1980s. There\u2019s no cure and no vaccine yet. \n \n One of the many ways the AIDS virus is transmitted is during birth. An infected mother can infect her baby. But giving both mother and baby a few doses of two HIV drugs \u2014 AZT and nevirapine \u2014 can reduce this transmission by 99 percent. \n \n In 2010, 162 babies were born with HIV in the 46 states where monitoring is done, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. CDC says about 1.2 million people in the U.S.are infected with HIV and about 50,000 new infections are diagnosed each year. \n \n Some experts had questioned whether the child had truly been born infected. \u201cThe one thing we did learn throughout all of this was there was some doubt the baby was infected. The baby clearly was infected,\u201d Fauci said. \n \n The case still suggests that a cure is possible, advocacy groups said. \"The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation expresses disappointment in this setback but remains hopeful that the scientific breakthrough that allowed the child\u2019s HIV levels to remain undetectable for more than two years will continue to help researchers understand how to control HIV and ultimately develop a cure,\"the group said in a statement.", "summary": "\u2013 For more than two years, it seemed too good to be true. And now it turns out that a Mississippi baby thought to have been cured of HIV wasn't cured after all, reports NBC News. The girl, now 4, tested positive last week and is back on antiretroviral drugs. The case made international headlines last year: After the baby was born to a mother with HIV, doctors put her on aggressive drug treatment just 30 hours after birth. The mother, however, stopped giving her daughter the drugs at 18 months. The baby missed several months of treatment, and when doctors finally saw her again, they were stunned to discover that she had barely detectable levels of HIV. In effect, she was \"functionally cured,\" recounts CNN. That remained the case until last week. \u201cIt felt very much like a punch to the gut,\u201d says Dr. Hannah B. Gay, who treats the girl. \u201cIt was disappointing from the scientific standpoint because we had been hopeful it would lead to bigger and better things, but mainly for the sake of the child who is back on medicine and expected to remain on medicine for a very long time.\u201d HIV hides in reservoirs of the body, and antiretroviral drugs keep it in check there, explains the Boston Globe. Its reemergence in this case shows that doctors have much to learn about those reservoirs, says Anthony Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It's not all bad news, though: The girl got to be a toddler without having to take a daily cocktail of drugs, and her case holds out hope of improving on the treatment. (Doctors are keeping an eye on another \"functionally cured\" baby in California.)"}
{"document": "JASON CERONE/P-R PHOTOIn this scene from the Showtime series \"Escape from Dannemora,\" Eric Lange who plays Lyle Mitchell goes to Sansone's restaurant in Malone to meet his wife, Joyce, but she never shows up. The real Joyce Mitchell was just denied parole again.", "summary": "\u2013 A state board has denied parole to a tailor who played a key role in a prison break that's the subject of a Showtime miniseries being filmed in the northern New York region where it happened. Joyce Mitchell will remain behind bars for at least two more years for passing tools to killers Richard Matt and David Sweat, enabling their escape from the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora in June 2015, per the AP. The subsequent three-week manhunt ended with Matt shot dead and Sweat captured near the Canadian border. Mitchell's lawyer tells the Plattsburgh Press-Republican the parole board denied her release Friday. Patricia Arquette plays Mitchell in Showtime's Escape at Dannemora, being produced by Ben Stiller. Penelope Ann Miller starred as Mitchell in a Lifetime movie that aired in April. (In 2015, Mitchell was sentenced to serve up to seven years on a contraband charge.)"}
{"document": "EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) \u2014 Nine people, including seven adults and two young children, were found dead at three separate crime scenes in what Edmonton's police chief on Tuesday called a \"senseless mass murder.\" \n \n Edmonton City Police Chief Rod Knecht speaks about multiple homicides that took place at different scenes over night in Edmonton, Alberta, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. Police have confirmed the deaths of six... (Associated Press) \n \n Police investigate the scene where multiple deaths occurred overnight in Edmonton, Alberta, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jason Franson) (Associated Press) \n \n Edmonton City Police Chief Rod Knecht speaks about multiple homicides that took place at different scenes over night in Edmonton, Alberta, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. Police have confirmed the deaths of six... (Associated Press) \n \n Edmonton City Police Chief Rod Knecht speaks about multiple homicides that took place at different scenes over night in Edmonton, Alberta, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. Police have confirmed the deaths of six... (Associated Press) \n \n Police investigate a scene where a car rammed a truck and damaged a restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. Edmonton City Police Chief Rod Knecht spoke Tuesday about multiple... (Associated Press) \n \n Edmonton City Police Chief Rod Knecht arrives to speak about multiple homicides that took place at different scenes over night in Edmonton, Alberta, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. Police have confirmed the deaths... (Associated Press) \n \n Chief Rod Knecht told a news conference the killings were the result of domestic violence. The victims included a woman found Monday night by officers who were responding to a weapons complaint at a south Edmonton home. \n \n The bodies of three more women, two men, a boy and a girl were discovered a few hours later at a home in the northeast part of the city where officers had checked on reports of a suicidal male earlier in the evening. \n \n None of the victims was identified, but Knecht said the public was not in danger. \n \n \"This series of events are not believed to be random acts,\" he said. \"These events do not appear to be gang-related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence.\" \n \n A man matching the description of the suicidal male was found dead in a restaurant in the Edmonton bedroom community of Fort Saskatchewan on Tuesday morning, Knecht said. \n \n \"Our homicide investigators have established associations and linkages between these homicides,\" he said. \n \n Police would not elaborate on the connection between the deaths. ||||| Click here for a mobile version of the ScribbleLive \n \n A suicidal male is being blamed for the deaths of eight people \u2014 including five adults and two children found in a north Edmonton home \u2014 marking the largest mass homicide in the city\u2019s history. \n \n The violence began around 6:52 p.m. Monday when police were called to a home near Haswell Court and 16 Avenue in southwest Edmonton and found a middle-aged woman deceased. Police believe a man entered the residence and shot the woman before fleeing the scene. \n \n An hour-and-a-half later, officers were called to a home near 83 Street and 180 Avenue to check on the welfare of an emotionally unstable man, but he wasn\u2019t there. \n \n \u201cAccording to the family, the male seemed depressed and overly emotional,\u201d said Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht, adding there was nothing suspicious at the home at the time. \n \n \u201cThe family was concerned that the male may be suicidal.\u201d \n \n Police did an exterior check of the house, checking the door and looking in windows, but did not gain entry. The vehicle connected to the slayings was not at the residence. \n \n Police left the home, but later returned around 12:23 a.m. after receiving further information. Inside, they found the bodies of three female adults, two male adults, and two young children \u2014 one male and female \u2014 shot dead. \n \n Two hours later, city cops headed out to the VN Express Restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan, where they discovered a black SUV that matched the description of the vehicle believed to be associated to the first slaying in southwest Edmonton. \n \n RCMP later shut down the downtown core of Fort Saskatchewan around 9 a.m. Several witnesses in the area watched police blow out the front door and a large window of the restaurant. A police dog was also sent into the business, along with a police-controlled robot. \n \n RCMP found a male deceased in the restaurant from what appeared to be an apparent suicide. Police said it\u2019s the same suicidal male Edmonton detectives had been looking for earlier. \n \n \u201cIt is a tragic day for Edmonton and our thoughts go out to the community as we all come to terms with the senseless mass murder of eight people,\u201d said Knecht. \u201cThis series of events are not believed to be random acts and there is no risk to the broader public,\u201d said Knecht, adding homicide detectives have established links between the two homicide locations. \u201cThese events do not appear to be gang related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence.\u201d \n \n One of the two people listed as the owners of the north Edmonton home is 53-year-old Phu Lam, who is known to police and believed to be responsible for the slayings. Lam is also believed to be an owner of the restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan. \n \n Neighbours of the north Edmonton home said the young Vietnamese couple lived there with their two children, aged eight and one-and-a-half. The couple were prone to acts of domestic violence. One neighbour saw police at the home at least three times in the past two years. \n \n Police had been called to the north side house twice in the last two years, and they say the suspect has a criminal record dating back to 1987. \n \n Police have identified Cindy Duong, 37, as the victim of the southside homicide. The victims of the north side slaying have not been identified, but the five adult victims were between the ages of 25 and 50 and the two children were younger than 10 years old. \n \n The weapon used in the homicides was a 9mm handgun that was purchased legally in B.C. and stolen in 2006. \n \n Knecht said help is available for officers who attended the scenes, though he said officers have handled the situation professionally. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s been described as chaotic. It\u2019s horrific,\u201d Knecht said. \n \n \u201cIn my 39 years of policing I have never seen anything like it.\u201d \n \n More details will become available after the eight autopsies are conducted on Jan. 1. \n \n Up until Monday, the city had recorded 28 homicides, including a man shot by police in May. Six people were killed in a mass murder near Edmonton in 1956, but the city has seen nothing similar since. \n \n pamela.roth@sunmedia.ca \n \n -with files from Kevin Maimann \n \n Need some help? Crisis Support Centre \n \n Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week \n \n 780-482-HELP (4357) \n \n Alberta Mental Health Crisis Response Team \n \n Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week \n \n 780-342-7777 \n \n To locate the family violence emergency shelter nearest you, call: \n \n Alberta Council of Women\u2019s Shelters \n \n 1\u2011866\u2011331\u20113933 (toll free) \n \n For information about agencies that offer services and support to people impacted by family violence, call: \n \n Family Violence Info Line \n \n 780-310\u20111818 (toll free, 24 hours) \n \n \u200b ||||| The killings of six adults and two children in Edmonton were committed by a suspect with a stolen 9mm handgun, police chief Rod Knecht said in a news conference Tuesday night. \n \n The victims were found in two separate residences in Edmonton Monday night. The man police believe responsible was found dead by suicide in a restaurant in the nearby city of Fort Saskatchewan on Tuesday morning. Knecht said the man had a criminal record dating back to 1987. \n \n \"It appears to be an extreme case of domestic violence gone awry,\" he said, stressing that there was no evidence of gang links. He said the slayings were planned and deliberate. \n \n Police investigate at a restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., on Tuesday. The scene is said to be related to multiple deaths that occurred in a north Edmonton home overnight. (Jason Franson/Canadian Press) \n \n Knecht said the first body found by police, now identified as Cyndi Duong, 37, was found by police officers responding to a weapons complaint in south Edmonton around 6:53 p.m. Monday. A man entered the home and shot the woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene, he said. \n \n Police then received a call to check on the welfare of a man at a home located at 83rd Street and 180 Avenue in north Edmonton. \n \n \"According to family, the male seemed depressed and overly emotional,\" Knecht said. \"The family was concerned that the male may be suicidal.\" \n \n When police arrived, the man wasn't there, Knecht said. Then at 12:23 a.m., police went back to the home and discovered the bodies of seven people: three women, two men and two children \u2013 a boy and a girl. \n \n The adults found dead were between the ages of 25 and 50, with the children under the age of 10. \n \n At 2:20 a.m., police went to a restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan. There they found a vehicle matching the description of the one owned by the suicidal male. The SUV was the same vehicle seen in the south Edmonton neighbourhood on Monday night, and was missing from the north Edmonton home. \n \n The man was found dead inside when police entered the restaurant at 8:45 a.m. Tuesday. Knecht said the man died in an apparent suicide. He said police are not looking for other suspects in the slayings. \n \n Autopsies on the remaining victims and the suspect are scheduled for Jan. 1. \n \n Police have not described the relationships between the victims and the man who committed suicide. Knecht said this was the biggest mass murder in Edmonton since six people were slain in 1956. \n \n The gun used in the slaying was registered in British Columbia in 1997 and stolen from Surrey in 2006. Knecht said the suspect had a business interest in the restaurant where he was found dead. \n \n The suspect was known to Edmonton Police. Knecht said officers had gone to the north Edmonton home twice: once this year, and once in November 2012, where a man was charged with domestic violence, sexual assault and uttering threats. \n \n Knecht also explained why police didn't enter the north Edmonton home when police were first called there. He said officers walked around the house but couldn't get in. \n \n \u201cThey looked in windows, they checked a door and they weren\u2019t able to get a response,\" he said. \n \n Later, they received a call from someone which gave them grounds to enter the home. That's when they found the seven bodies. \n \n \"It was chaotic. It's horrific,\" Knecht said. \n \n \"This is a horrific event for the city \u2026 in my 39 years of policing, I've never seen anything like it.\" \n \n Neighbours heard fighting \n \n People in Fort Saskatchewan became aware of the police presence early Tuesday morning. The downtown core of the city northeast of Edmonton was closed. The area has reopened, but police tape remained around the VN Express Vietnamese and Chinese Restaurant. \n \n A small memorial was set up outside the north Edmonton where five adults and two children were killed Monday night. (Leah Larocque/CBC News ) \n \n A Mercedes SUV with a smashed side window was parked outside. \n \n Fort Saskatchewan resident Bonnie Peet first noticed police around 6 a.m. \n \n \u201cMy whole road in front of my place was blocked off, so I knew something was going on and then it got lighter out ...and you see police going up and down the alleys,\" she said. \n \n Another resident said that a helicopter could be heard circling overhead early Tuesday morning. \n \n A woman who works at a restaurant across the street said she saw police drive a tactical unit through the restaurant door. \n \n People who live next to the home in north Edmonton say a woman, a grandmother and two school-aged children lived there. The neighbours said they heard domestic arguments inside the home next door. Once they heard a man and woman fighting in the street. \n \n \"We knew the ex-husband didn't live there anymore,\" neighbour Murray Schermack said. \n \n Resident Maria Melo said it's the kind of community where people say hi to one another. \n \n Investigators remain on scene at the north Edmonton home where seven bodies were found. (Lydia Neufeld/CBC) \n \n \"We don't visit or nothing, but it's just a good neighbourhood,\" she said.\"It's so sad to hear about that family. It's really very sad.\" \n \n In the Haddow community in south Edmonton, where the first person was killed, residents expressed concern for the children who lived in the home. The three children often played with others in the neighbourhood. \n \n Police said they are in a safe place. \n \n \"We're all disturbed by it and wondering about how the family is doing,\" Frank Engley said. \n \n RCMP are also investigating a death in an industrial area near Sherwood Park where a body was found in a burned-out vehicle on Tuesday morning. It does not appear to be related to the other crimes.", "summary": "\u2013 A killing spree in Canada has left nine people dead at three separate locations in or near Edmonton, reports the CBC. Authorities think one man killed six adults and two children in a domestic dispute before committing suicide. Edmonton police found the first victim, a middle-aged woman, inside a home while responding to a weapons complaint at the address yesterday evening. Shortly after midnight, after getting multiple calls about a potential suicidal male at a separate address, they found the bodies of seven more victims\u2014identified only as three women, two men, a boy, and a girl, reports the AP. (Police had gone to the home earlier, about 8:30pm, but left after getting no answer and seeing nothing suspicious.) After 2am, police spotted the vehicle of the suicidal man outside a restaurant in nearby Fort Saskatchewan. Officers found the man dead inside when they entered about 9am today, reports the Edmonton Sun. Police haven't identified any of the victims or spelled out the relationships between them and the shooter. \"These events do not appear to be gang-related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence,\" says Edmonton's police chief."}
{"document": "The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule Wednesday requiring companies to reveal the pay gap between the chief executive officer and their typical worker, handing a new weapon to groups protesting rising income inequality. \n \n The commission voted 3 to 2 to mandate the disclosure. The agency had delayed progress on the rule for years, with SEC Chair Mary Jo White facing attacks from unions and Democratic lawmakers in recent months for failing to get it done. \n \n The disclosure is required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which hasn\u2019t stopped it from splintering the five-member commission. Republican commissioners and business groups argue it\u2019s meant to embarrass CEOs and won\u2019t be useful to investors. \n \n White and the SEC\u2019s two Democrats, Luis Aguilar and Kara Stein, approved the rule. Democrats have said the metric will be helpful to shareholders who are deciding how to vote on executive pay packages. \n \n \u201cWhile there is no doubt that this information comes with a cost, the final rule recommended by the staff provides companies with substantial flexibility in determining the pay ratio while remaining true to the statutory requirements\u201d of Dodd-Frank, White said at the meeting. \n \n Company Discretion \n \n The SEC required companies to disclose the median compensation of all its employees, excluding the CEO, and publish a ratio comparing that figure to the boss\u2019s total pay. Companies would have to report the pay ratio beginning in 2017. \n \n In a nod to businesses such as Exxon Mobil Corp. that oppose the effort, the SEC will require the metric to be updated only once every three years and will allow companies to exclude as much as five percent of their foreign workers from the calculation. \n \n The SEC gave allowed for some discretion in determining the median pay of workers. Companies can use sampling to estimate the figure, rather than calculating it by tallying data from all of the payrolls across the company. \n \n \u201cThese decisions were designed to facilitate compliance with the rule in a manner that is reasonable and workable\u201d for companies, Aguilar said. \n \n \u2018Peculiar\u2019 Decision \n \n Even so, Republicans and business groups still oppose the requirement and said the SEC ignored some of their recommendations to improve it. Groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable are expected to sue the agency over the rule. \n \n \u201cWe will continue to review the rule and explore our options for how best to clean up the mess it has created,\u201d the chamber\u2019s David Hirschmann said in a statement Wednesday. \n \n Republican lawmakers have sponsored legislation that would repeal the provision in Dodd-Frank that underpins the SEC\u2019s rule. Commissioner Michael Piwowar, a Republican who opposed the measure, said he found White\u2019s decision to move forward \u201cpeculiar\u201d given that opposition in Congress. \n \n Commissioner Daniel Gallagher, another Republican, said the vote shows how the agency\u2019s rulemaking agenda has been hijacked by \u201cideologues\u201d and partisans who want to shame businesses into reducing CEO pay. \n \n \u201cA majority of the commission has opted for a hugely expensive rule over a much less expensive rule,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cI can only conclude that there is no reasoned basis for the commission\u2019s action.\u201d \n \n Average Pay \n \n Average CEO pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies by revenue surged 997 percent from 1978 to 2014, while the compensation of non-supervisory employees rose 10.9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a research group that advocates for workers. \n \n While CEOs earned about 30 times what the typical employee did in 1978, corporate chiefs\u2019 pay had jumped to more than 300 times their employees\u2019 compensation as of 2014, the institute said. ||||| \"SEC rules are not meant to serve as an ideological bulletin board for whatever political party happens to be in power,\" the Chamber of Commerce said in a letter to the commission opposing the rule. \"But that is precisely what the authors of the CEO pay ratio rule had in mind; it is intended to help carry the income inequity message.\" ||||| Companies must start disclosing the pay gap between their top boss and rank-and-file employees under one of the most significant postcrisis rules addressing executive pay, launching a period of uncertainty for companies over whether the disclosure will rile up shareholders, employees and the broader public. \n \n The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted 3-2 to approve the measure, with the panel\u2019s two Republican members opposing it. \n \n Required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, the CEO pay-ratio rule emerged as a major flash point because it tied corporate disclosure policy to divisive political debates about income inequality and executive pay. \n \n Companies will have to explain large pay gaps to investors, and face new challenges explaining to workers why they make so much less than the boss and, possibly, why they are less richly rewarded than their peers or competitors. \n \n Steven Seelig, a senior regulatory adviser for Towers Watson & Co., a human-resources consultancy, said the SEC rule means rank-and-file workers will be able to see how they stack up against the median employee at their firm and at other firms. \u201cThis is going to raise all sorts of questions as to whether that person believes they\u2019re paid fairly both internally\u2026and [compared] to competitors,\u201d he said. \n \n Related Video The SEC is set to approve a contentious ruling that would disclose the pay gap between rank-and-file employees and CEOs. WSJ\u2019s Joann Lublin joins Lunch Break\u2019s Tanya Rivero. Photo: Getty \n \n The pay-ratio measure is one of several Dodd-Frank provisions that aim to empower shareholders to better understand and challenge executive-pay practices at major U.S. companies. The SEC earlier this year unveiled another proposal designed to make it easier for investors to judge whether top executives\u2019 compensation is in line with the company\u2019s financial performance. The commission previously greenlighted new \u201csay on pay\u201d rules directing firms to submit executive-compensation packages regularly to a nonbinding shareholder vote. \n \n But the pay-ratio rule has sparked greater controversy\u2014and the SEC\u2019s action is likely to trigger a new round of partisan and legal warfare. Corporate advocates such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce could challenge the measure in court, while Republicans in Congress greeted the SEC\u2019s action with promises to move quickly on legislation repealing the Dodd-Frank mandate. \n \n \u201cWe will continue to review the rule and explore our options for how best to clean up the mess it has created,\u201d said David Hirschmann, head of the Chamber\u2019s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. \n \n The issue is also ripe for attention on the 2016 campaign trail, where populist issues such as inequality and corporate behavior and profits have flourished. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has decried the pay disparity between CEOs and average workers, and in a major July speech criticized the SEC for taking so long in finishing the pay-ratio rule. \n \n \u201cI hope that shining a spotlight on the disparity will help working families,\u201d Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who is challenging Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said in a written statement. \n \n David Larcker, director of the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at Stanford University\u2019s business school, said, \u201cYou have an incredibly important and complicated issue that\u2019s being reduced down to one ratio.\u201d \n \n While debates about income inequality are ones the country should have, he said, \u201cI just worry that the focus is going to be so much on that ratio without doing the deep dive into it and saying what does it actually mean and is it conceivable that it could be appropriate. I think the numbers are going to be electrifying for a large chunk of workers out there.\u201d \n \n The SEC\u2019s action kicks off a transition period for companies likely to be colored by uncertainty over how the requirement, which starts with compensation paid in 2017, will influence not only shareholders but their own executives and employees. Some analysts say public pressure over big pay gaps could lead talented chief executives to find other posts, for instance. \n \n MaryAnn G. Miller, chief human-resources officer of technology distributor Avnet Inc., expects the rule will require careful preparation to limit the effect on employee morale. \u201cIt will consume a fair amount of management\u2019s time at the outset,\u2019\u2019 she said in an interview on Wednesday. But overall, the rule won\u2019t be \u201cvery impactful to the business,\u201d she added. \n \n Staffers at Avnet likely will worry more about how much less they make than the median employee than the CEO-worker ratio, Ms. Miller said. \u201cThat will be the bigger issue.\u2019\u2019 The firm has 19,000 employees in 53 countries. Avnet CEO Rick Hamada collected about $5.9 million in compensation during fiscal 2014. \n \n \u201c I don\u2019t think the pay ratio is going to impact CEO pay. The level of [CEO] pay is really based on the market for talent. \u201d \u2014Charlie Tharp, head of the Center on Executive Compensation \n \n Activist hedge funds have also been making an issue out of CEO pay, though from a different vantage point. These investors, who take stakes in companies and push for financial or strategic changes, don\u2019t have a populist take on compensation and generally are happy to compensate executives for market-beating results. Rather, what concerns them is when CEOs are paid if they don\u2019t, in the activist\u2019s view, deliver for shareholders. \n \n Chip maker Qualcomm Inc. recently agreed to revamp its executive-pay practices as part of a settlement with activist hedge fund Jana Partners LLC. Qualcomm will tie bonuses more closely to shareholder returns, after Jana complained that prior yardsticks of revenue and operating income had encouraged scattershot growth. \n \n The pay-ratio rule, which covers larger public companies with exemptions for some smaller and foreign-owned firms, includes fewer concessions than were sought by companies. It allows firms to exclude up to 5% of their non-U.S. workers from the new pay-ratio. Firms had pushed to exclude a larger percentage of foreign workers, which would likely have resulted in a narrower pay gap for some multinational firms. \n \n In general, firms only have to recalculate the pay ratio every three years. SEC staff estimated that the initial cost of complying with the rule for companies, collectively, will be about $1.3 billion\u2014though they said the cost could be somewhat lower than that figure. \n \n Supporters include congressional Democrats and labor unions that pushed for the measure, saying the ratio disclosure will provide shareholders with pertinent information on how their money is being spent. \n \n Opponents contend the requirement at best provides no meaningful insight to investors and at worst offers a misleading picture of a company\u2019s pay practices. \n \n The rule appears to be an attempt at a middle ground between what unions and the corporate community sought. For instance, the AFL-CIO had urged the SEC to bar companies from making adjustments in its calculations to turn part-time or seasonal workers into full-time equivalents. \n \n The commission\u2019s endorsement of that approach \u201cis a good thing,\u2019\u2019 said Heather Slavkin Corzo, director of the labor federation\u2019s Office of Investment, in an interview on Wednesday. \n \n Some in the business community sought to play down the significance of the new requirement. \n \n Affected businesses will spend more time explaining \u201cto employees at all levels how they set pay,\u2019\u2019 said Charlie Tharp, head of the Center on Executive Compensation, a Washington advocacy group for large employers. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t think the pay ratio is going to impact CEO pay,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cThe level of [CEO] pay is really based on the market for talent.\u2019\u2019 \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t sense this is going to be a big deal for investors,\u2019\u2019 Mr. Tharp added. \n \n \u2014Liz Hoffman contributed to this article. \n \n Write to Victoria McGrane at victoria.mcgrane@wsj.com and Joann Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com.", "summary": "\u2013 Those worried about income inequality will soon have some tangible new figures at their disposal: The SEC today ruled that public companies must start revealing the pay gap between the CEO and a typical worker, reports the Los Angeles Times. Specifically, companies have to disclose median employee compensation\u2014the figure at which half their workers earn more and half earn less\u2014and compare it to the CEO's salary starting in 2017, reports Bloomberg. The ratio must be updated every three years. The rule, mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law but never put in place, \"should provide a valuable piece of information to investors\" and help observers gauge how companies manage \"human capital,\" says SEC Commissioner Kara Stein, per the Wall Street Journal. She and two fellow Democrats voted in favor, while the two Republicans on the commission voted against it. The rule is \"pure applesauce,\" said GOP commissioner Daniel Gallagher, echoing Antonin Scalia's line about ObamaCare."}
{"document": "The post from a popular Twitter page called \"Yes, You're Racist\" points to Pete Tefft of Fargo. \n \n It's sparked thousands of retweets and likes, as well as many threats of violence. \n \n RELATED: \n \n Local family members also report being harassed. \n \n The 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville turned deadly this weekend when a man drove a car into a crowd that was protesting the white nationalists. \n \n One woman died and at least 19 others were hurt. \n \n In February, Tefft responded to flyers in downtown Fargo that called him a Nazi. \n \n In an video interview with The Forum, he said he was interested in political action to further pro-white interests. \n \n Statement by Jacob Scott, Pete Tefft's nephew: \n \n \"In brief, we reject him wholly \u2013 both him personally as a vile person who has HIMSELF made violent threats against our family, and also his hideous ideology, which we abhor. We are all bleeding-heart liberals who believe in the fundamental equality of all human beings. Peter is a maniac, who has turned away from all of us and gone down some insane internet rabbit-hole, and turned into a crazy nazi. He scares us all, we don't feel safe around him, and we don't know how he came to be this way. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father.\" \n \n \"Several members of our family have been being harassed or threatened by random strangers, due to our connection with Peter. I know in particular that Peter's sister... has been contacted or threatened at her workplace, under the assumption that she must be a nazi or endorse nazism. We also have some relatives who live in..., who have randomly found themselves attacked, including a... year old girl, my cousin, named... who has supposedly been messaged online by at least one random stranger in a threatening manner. Our relatives were calling us in a panic earlier today, demanding we delete all Facebook photos that connect us to them, etcetera.\"RELATED: ||||| We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter? \n \n Yes", "summary": "\u2013 The father of a self-described white nationalist who marched at Saturday\u2019s \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally in Charlottesville, Va., says his son is no longer welcome home. Pearce Tefft of Fargo, ND, posted the open letter on INFORUM Monday, writing that his son Peter\u2019s values are not shared by his family. \u201cI, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son\u2019s vile, hateful, and racist rhetoric and actions,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.\u201d Peter was first identified by Twitter user Yes, You\u2019re Racist in a grainy screengrab from a video taken during the rally, but he's also been interviewed by news outlets about his beliefs. Pearce said that Peter\u2019s family members originally stayed silent about Peter\u2019s white nationalist beliefs, but ultimately realized that was a mistake. \u201cIt was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now,\u201d Pearce writes, adding that unless his son renounces his \u201chateful beliefs,\u201d he \u201cis not welcome at our family gatherings any longer.\u201d Peter Tefft's nephew also denounced Peter in a statement to WDAY: \u201cHe scares us all, we don\u2019t feel safe around him, and we don\u2019t know how he came to be this way.\u201d Pearce ended his letter with a powerful response to a joke his son made about putting anti-fascists in ovens, writing: \u201cPeter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.\u201d"}
{"document": "Hayes, who has spoken frankly about growing up in public housing and being the daughter of a drug addict, acknowledged her unlikely journey and the history-making quality of her campaign. She noted that she jumped into the race \u201c102 days ago, with no money and no network.\u201d ||||| Tim Pawlenty stands with his wife, Mary, background left, and running mate Michelle Fischbach as he concedes his run for governor at his election night gathering at Granite City Food and Brewery, Tuesday,... (Associated Press) \n \n ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) \u2014 Democrats embraced diversity Tuesday in a primary night of firsts, while Republicans in Minnesota rejected a familiar face of the GOP old guard in favor of a rising newcomer aligned with President Donald Trump. \n \n In Vermont, Democrats rallied behind the nation's first transgender nominee for governor. Minnesota Democrats backed a woman who would be the first Somali-American member of Congress. And in Connecticut, the party nominated a candidate who could become the first black woman from the state to serve in Congress. \n \n Still, Democrats in Minnesota also backed a national party leader who is facing accusations of domestic violence. He has denied the allegations, yet they threaten to undercut enthusiasm in his state and beyond. \n \n On the other side, Trump tightened his grip on the modern-day Republican Party as the turbulent 2018 primary season lurched toward its finale. A one-time Trump critic, former two-term Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, lost a comeback attempt he was expected to win. \n \n All but 10 states picked their candidates for November's general election by the time the day's final votes were counted. While the full political battlefield isn't quite set, the stakes are clear: Democrats are working to topple Republican control of Congress and governors' offices across the nation. \n \n Four states held primaries Tuesday: Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Kansas' gubernatorial primary, which was held last week, was finalized when Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer conceded defeat. \n \n In Minnesota, Republican County Commissioner Jeff Johnson defeated Pawlenty, who once called Trump \"unhinged and unfit\" and was hoping to regain his old post. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, endorsed just this week by Trump, won the right to seek a third term. \n \n The president's pick for Kansas governor, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, scored a delayed victory against Colyer, who became the first incumbent governor to fall this season. \n \n In Vermont, Democrat Christine Hallquist won the Democratic nomination in her quest to become the nation's first transgender governor. The former chief executive of Vermont Electric Cooperative bested a field of four Democrats that included a 14-year-old. \n \n While she made history on Tuesday, Hallquist faces a difficult path to the governor's mansion. Republican incumbent Phil Scott remains more popular with Democrats than members of his own party in the solidly liberal state. \n \n Vermont Democrats also nominated Sen. Bernie Sanders, who hasn't ruled out a second presidential run in 2020, for a third term in the Senate. The 76-year-old democratic socialist won the Democratic nomination, but he is expected to turn it down and run as an independent. \n \n Democrats appeared particularly motivated in Wisconsin, where eight candidates lined up for the chance to take on Walker. \n \n Walker's strong anti-union policies made him a villain to Democrats long before Trump's rise. State schools chief Tony Evers, who has clashed with Walker at times, won the Democratic nomination and will take on Walker this fall. \n \n Once a target of Trump criticism, Walker gained the president's endorsement in a tweet Monday night calling him \"a tremendous Governor who has done incredible things for that Great State.\" \n \n Trump also starred, informally at least, in Wisconsin's Senate primaries as Republicans try to deny Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin a second term. \n \n Longtime state lawmaker Leah Vukmir, who was backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, won the Republican primary, even after struggling to explain footage recently unearthed from 2016 in which she called Trump \"offensive to everyone.\" \n \n Tuesday's primaries served as a test of Democratic enthusiasm in the upper Midwest, a region that has long been associated with liberal politics but has been trending red. Trump won Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state since 1984. \n \n It was much the same in Minnesota, where Trump lost by less than 3 percentage points in a state that hasn't backed a Republican presidential contender since 1972. \n \n Nearly twice as many Minnesota Democrats as Republicans cast ballots in their parties' respective gubernatorial primaries. \n \n Pawlenty had been considered the heavy favorite in a two-person Republican contest for his old job. But he struggled to adapt to a GOP that had changed drastically since he left office in 2011 and flamed out early in a 2012 presidential bid. \n \n The former two-term governor strained to live down his October 2016 comment that Trump was \"unhinged and unfit for the presidency,\" remarks that incensed many Republican voters in Minnesota and beyond. Johnson, his underfunded opponent, circulated Pawlenty's critique far and wide, telling voters that he was a steadfast supporter of the president. \n \n Johnson will face Democratic Rep. Tim Walz, who won a three-way race for his party's nomination. \n \n Three Minnesota women won Senate nominations, including incumbent Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. \n \n Smith, who had been appointed to replace disgraced Democrat Al Franken, will face Republican state Sen. Karin Housley, ensuring a woman will hold the seat once held by Franken, who left Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward women. \n \n Nationwide, a record number of women are running this year for governor and Congress. \n \n Meanwhile, a new scandal threatened to dampen Democratic enthusiasm. \n \n Rep. Keith Ellison, the Democratic National Committee's deputy chairman, captured his party's nomination in the race to become the state's attorney general. That's after Ellison's candidacy was rocked by allegations over the weekend of domestic violence amid a broader national outcry against sexual misconduct by powerful men in business, entertainment and politics. \n \n Ellison has denied a former girlfriend's allegations that he dragged her off a bed while screaming obscenities during a 2016 relationship she said was plagued by \"narcissistic abuse.\" \n \n Also in Minnesota, Democrat Ilhan Omar, the nation's first Somali-American legislator, won her party's congressional primary in the race to replace Ellison. \n \n In Connecticut, Republican businessman Bob Stefanowski emerged from a field of five Republicans seeking to replace the unpopular outgoing governor, Democrat Dan Malloy. Former gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont won the Democratic nomination. \n \n Connecticut Democrats picked a former teacher of the year, Jahana Hayes, to run for the seat vacated by Rep. Elizabeth Etsy, who is leaving Congress after bungling sexual abuse claims levied against a former staffer. Hayes could become the first black woman from the state to serve in Congress. \n \n ___ \n \n Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin contributed to this report. ||||| Tony Evers speaks after his win in Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary election during an event at Best Western Premier Park Hotel in Madison on Tuesday. (Photo: Associated Press) \n \n MADISON - Tony Evers won an eight-way Democratic primary Tuesday, setting up a November showdown between the state's education chief and GOP Gov. Scott Walker. \n \n \"We\u2019re going to win because we're going to hold Scott Walker accountable for his reign of terror,\" Evers told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shortly after the Associated Press called the race for him based on unofficial returns. \n \n Walker handily won his own primary against a political unknown, Sun Prairie businessman Robert Meyer, who raised just $270 in the first half of the year. \n \n In a string of posts on Twitter, Walker touted the state's record-low unemployment rate, his cuts to income taxes and property taxes, and his program to shore up premiums for those who buy insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, \n \n CLOSE Gov. Scott Walker will face Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin will face state Sen. Leah Vukmir. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel \n \n \"Wisconsin is working \u2014 and we are moving the state forward with our bold reforms that are having a positive impact across the state,\" Walker wrote. \n \n Unemployment has hit a record low, and we\u2019ve been below the previous record low of 3 percent for 5 straight months. More people are working in Wisconsin than ever before. \u2014 Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) August 15, 2018 \n \n The primary came a day after President Donald Trump \u2014 who at times has criticized Walker \u2014 tweeted that the Wisconsin governor \"has done incredible things for that Great State\" and had Trump's \"complete & total Endorsement.\" \n \n Scott Walker of Wisconsin is a tremendous Governor who has done incredible things for that Great State. He has my complete & total Endorsement! He brought the amazing Foxconn to Wisconsin with its 15,000 Jobs-and so much more. Vote for Scott on Tuesday in the Republican Primary! \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018 \n \n As the primary wrapped up, the general election kicked off, with the state Republican Party making plans to spend nearly $500,000 on TV and digital ads attacking Evers that will begin airing Thursday. \n \n On Wednesday, Walker plans to visit La Crosse, Eau Claire, Schofield, Green Bay and Waukesha, while Evers will be in Madison, Appleton and Waukesha. Both are scheduled to travel the state later in the week, as well. \n \n With Trump in the White House and liberal enthusiasm rising, Democrats view Walker as vulnerable. \n \n Republicans see Walker as strongly positioned in part because of his huge financial advantage. At the end of July, Walker had $4.9 million in his campaign account, 31 times as much as Evers had at that point. \n \n RELATED: It's Tony Evers vs. Scott Walker: 5 takeaways from the 2018 Wisconsin primary election \n \n ELECTION RESULTS:Wisconsin and Milwaukee-area fall primary election \n \n FULL COVERAGE: 2018 Wisconsin Elections \n \n On the issues, the Democrats have been largely united, with most of them saying they would end the $4 billion taxpayer-funded incentive package for Foxconn Technology Group, legalize marijuana, expand access to health care, boost spending on roads and schools, and scale back Act 10, the 2011 law that all but eliminated collective bargaining for public workers. \n \n Those stances put them in agreement with one another but deeply at odds with Walker, who has championed the Foxconn deal, his tax cuts and the state's economy. Walker opposes legalizing marijuana, has sought to overturn Obamacare and has fought with his fellow Republicans to prevent gas taxes from going up to fund roads. \n \n \"He's got a bad record on roads, you name it,\" Evers said. \"I'm equally concerned that we as Democrats provide a positive vision for the future and it starts with education and it intersects with all other areas and we\u2019re going to take it to him.\" \n \n Jon Thompson, a spokesman for the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement that Democrats had chosen a \"far-left, big-government politician committed to raising taxes and opposing job creation.\" \n \n \u201cAs the state\u2019s top education official, Evers has consistently failed Wisconsin students, and opposed Governor Walker\u2019s successful efforts to spur job growth throughout the state,\" his statement said. \n \n Evers established himself early on as the front-runner, though there were so many undecided voters that it seemed possible one of his challengers could overtake him. But no one else was able to consolidate support. \n \n In a Marquette University Law School poll last month, 31% of likely Democratic voters backed Evers and 38% were undecided. \n \n DATA ON DEMAND: Contributions to the 2018 candidates for governor \n \n Following Evers in that poll were firefighters union President Mahlon Mitchell (6%); state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma (6%); former state Democratic Party Chairman Matt Flynn (5%); Madison Mayor Paul Soglin (4%); liberal activist Mike McCabe (3%); former state Rep. Kelda Roys of Madison (3%); and attorney Josh Pade (0%). \n \n Since then, Evers, Flynn, Mitchell, Soglin and Roys began running ads. \n \n Buy Photo A voter makes his way to vote at South Shore Terrace on Tuesday. (Photo: Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) \n \n All the Democrats were expected to spend virtually all their money to get through the primary, which will widen their financial gap with Walker, at least temporarily. \n \n Recognizing that, the Democratic Governors Association set up a plan to provide the nominee with post-primary advice and a financial network that Evers can now quickly tap. That won\u2019t eliminate the fundraising gap, but Democrats hope it will mitigate it enough that Evers can withstand an expected avalanche of GOP ads. \n \n \"We know they are going to carpet bomb us \u2014 that is his M.O.,\" Evers said of Walker. \"He likes to divide people.\" \n \n RELATED: Dems plan to quickly pivot to general election to avoid being caught flat-footed in Wisconsin governor's race \n \n The primary came two days after Trump put Walker and other Republicans in an awkward spot by tweeting that he thought a boycott of Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson Inc. would be \"great\" because the company is moving some production overseas. \n \n The company says it is doing so because of new European tariffs that came in response to Trump's tariffs. Trump has disputed that, saying the company would have shifted jobs overseas even without the tariffs. \n \n Walker said Monday he opposed a Harley boycott but supported Trump's goal of eventually eliminating tariffs. The break with Trump on the boycott didn't appear to hurt his standing with Trump, who praised Walker on Twitter less than five hours later. \n \n Evers cast Walker as beholden to Trump in his victory speech. \n \n \"Donald Trump will no longer have a doormat here in Wisconsin,\" Evers said. \n \n RELATED: Scott Walker and GOP Senate candidates say they oppose a Harley boycott after avoiding the issue \n \n Evers, first elected in 2009, was the only Democrat in the field who has held statewide office. His background in education gives him a chance to go after Walker on an issue that Democrats see as a weak spot for the governor. \n \n His current title could cut the other way as well. Walker\u2019s team, for instance, has noted that Evers called Walker\u2019s last state budget \u201ckid-friendly,\u201d possibly limiting how effective Evers could be in arguing against Walker\u2019s funding for schools. \n \n Democratic candidates for Wisconsin governor: (Top row, left to right) Tony Evers, Paul Soglin, Josh Pade and Kathleen Vinehout. (Bottom row, left to right) Kelda Roys, Mike McCabe, Mahlon Mitchell and Matt Flynn. (Photo: handouts from candidates) \n \n Flynn told Evers at a forum last week that Walker would \"have you for lunch\" because of his \"kid-friendly\" comment. \n \n But on Tuesday, Flynn praised Evers and said he would work with him to defeat Walker. Other Democratic candidates joined in trying to unite the party. \n \n Evers did not go as far as his Democratic opponents on some issues. For instance, he is the only Democrat to oppose making the state\u2019s technical colleges free. And unlike many of his colleagues, he did not embrace legalizing marijuana outright, saying he would do so only if voters approved of the idea in a statewide referendum. \n \n Buy Photo Arline Jasinski feeds her ballot as poll worker Richard Koehler looks on at Franklin City Hall. (Photo: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) \n \n Lieutenant governor \n \n In the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, former state Rep. Mandela Barnes of Milwaukee appeared on track to defeat Sheboygan businessman Kurt Kober. \n \n Barnes will be paired with Evers on the November ballot. Incumbent Republican Rebecca Kleefisch did not have a challenger in the primary. \n \n State treasurer \n \n Businessman Travis Hartwig beat Jill Millies in the Republican primary for state treasurer. \n \n The Democratic primary hadn't been called as of 10:20 p.m. Competing in that race were businesswoman Sarah Godlewski, former communications director for the Office of the state Treasurer Cynthia Kaump and former Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass. \n \n Secretary of state \n \n Secretary of State Doug La Follette easily withstood a challenge in the Democratic primary from Madison Ald. Arvina Martin. \n \n La Follette will face Republican businessman Jay Schroeder in November. Schroeder beat U.S. Air Force veteran Spencer Zimmerman. \n \n Max Bayer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report. \n \n For complete election coverage, subscribe to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. \n \n Support local journalism SUBSCRIBE \u00d7 \n \n Read or Share this story: https://jsonl.in/2MtmvO7 ||||| [Read more about Republican governors in Democratic states.] \n \n Mr. Scott\u2019s popularity fell, however, especially among conservatives, after he signed gun control measures this year. Still, a poll in July by public media organizations in the state found two-thirds of Vermonters supported the law, and nearly half of Democrats had a favorable opinion of Mr. Scott. Only 18 percent of Democratic respondents in the same poll said they had a favorable opinion of Ms. Hallquist, and 55 percent did not yet know who she was. \n \n That may change now that Ms. Hallquist is the nominee, and she is likely to draw national attention \u2014 and fund-raising dollars \u2014 because of the historic potential of her candidacy. \u201cShe\u2019ll raise more money and her message will get out there more,\u201d said Eric Davis, an emeritus professor at Vermont\u2019s Middlebury College. \u201cEven if she doesn\u2019t get elected governor, the greatest contribution of her campaign could be to raise awareness about the issues transgender people face.\u201d \n \n Before she ran for governor, Ms. Hallquist spent 12 years as the chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative, an in-state power utility that she helped to bring back from near ruin. Her transition from male to female took place in 2015, while she was at the helm of the company, and was the subject of a documentary film made by her son. \n \n As a candidate, she made it part of her stump speech, drawing knowing laughs from her female supporters at a fund-raiser this summer as she talked about what it was like to experience life as a woman for the first time. \n \n \u201cI remember the first time after transitioning, a stranger walking by told me to smile \u2014 I\u2019m like, \u2018Who the heck are you to tell me to smile?\u2019\u201d Ms. Hallquist said. \u201cWhat my transition has taught me is just how far we have to go.\u201d ||||| Despite a late-breaking accusation of abuse from an ex-girlfriend, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) has won the Democratic nomination for attorney general. With 34 percent of precincts reporting, he was running far ahead of four other candidates, including Mark Pelikan, a young attorney who won the party endorsement at its summer convention. \n \n Ellison is likely to face Republican Doug Wardlow, a former state legislator, for a job that no Republican has won since the 1970s. Republicans had planned to invest in the race even before this weekend, when Kate Monahan, whom Ellison had dated until 2016, shared social media posts that accused the congressman of emotional and physical abuse. ||||| U.S. Sen. Tina Smith beat Richard Painter, once the ethics chief in a Republican White House, in the DFL primary election Tuesday, setting up the state\u2019s first U.S. Senate race with two women nominees. \n \n State Sen. Karin Housley, who won the Republican nomination, will face Smith in the fall. \u201cIt\u2019s inspiring for all young women out there that they can make a difference,\u201d Housley said of the historic matchup. \n \n Smith agreed. \u201cIt is a year when women feel particularly enthusiastic about stepping into the public arena, and I think that\u2019s a good thing,\u201d she said in an interview. \n \n Two women who won primaries Tuesday in Wisconsin also will square off in that state\u2019s U.S. Senate race. A record-breaking 19 women have won major-party nominations for the U.S. Senate this year, according to Rutgers University\u2019s Center for American Women in Politics. \n \n The Minnesota winner on Nov. 6 will finish the final two years of former DFL Sen. Al Franken\u2019s term. He resigned in January amid sexual misconduct allegations. The race is crucial; Senate Republicans have a one-vote edge. \n \n Smith\u2019s victory was \u201ca testament to the trust that Minnesota voters have in Tina to represent their interests,\u201d DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement. \n \n Sen. Tina Smith \n \n Chris Hansen, director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Housley \u201chas what it takes to end left-wing Democrat Tina Smith\u2019s brief career\u201d in the Senate. \n \n Sen. Amy Klobuchar won the Democratic nomination easily over four little-known opponents. In her bid for a third term, she\u2019ll face state Rep. Jim Newberger of Becker, who has served three terms in the state Legislature. He defeated three Republican candidates in the primary. \n \n Smith attributed her win to the fact that she \u201creally listened to people.\u201d She\u2019ll employ the same strategy against Housley, she said. \u201cThe way elections are won in Minnesota is by talking to people and sharing what\u2019s on their minds,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt sounds so simple, but it really is the thing that works.\u201d \n \n Housley said she\u2019ll continue in the fall campaign to work hard and talk about jobs, the economy, trade issues\u2019 effect on farmers, and immigration. \u201cI will continue to support our elders,\u201d she added. \n \n She\u2019s confident about her chances against Smith. \u201cI am going to win,\u201d she said. \n \n Smith, 60, was appointed to the seat by Gov. Mark Dayton, whom she had served as lieutenant governor since 2015. Before that, she was the DFL governor\u2019s chief of staff. She was endorsed by the DFL. \n \n Housley, 54, is from St. Marys Point. She was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2012 and in 2014 lost a race for lieutenant governor. \n \n Painter, 56, who announced in April that he was leaving the Republican Party, is a University of Minnesota law professor. He was the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. \n \n Painter said his campaign helped call attention to ethics issues and to single-payer health care, which he endorsed. \u201cWe got a lot of attention around the country,\u201d he said in an interview. He\u2019ll resume teaching, Painter said. Asked if he\u2019d consider running for office again, he said, \u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019ll think about it.\u201d \n \n Voters interviewed at the polls Tuesday said their decisions in the Smith-Painter race turned on support for his animosity toward President Donald Trump \u2014 whom he said should be impeached \u2014 or doubts about whether his DFL conversion was genuine. \n \n In late July, the DFL\u2019s Martin publicly questioned whether Painter is actually a Democrat. Martin described Painter\u2019s candidacy as \u201ca craven act of desperation\u201d because he is out of sync with the Republican Party. At the time, Painter said the DFL assault proved he was \u201ca true threat to win this election.\u201d \n \n West Foster, 24, of Minneapolis, who works for a nonprofit group, voted for Smith. \u201cI vote as far left as I can, and I\u2019m not too impressed with Republicans \u2014 whether they say they are or not,\u201d he said. \n \n Paul Nelson, 50, a self-employed contractor in Minneapolis, was tempted by Painter, but he voted for Smith. \u201cI\u2019m a party guy,\u201d he said. \n \n When Housley and Smith meet in November, Trump\u2019s policies and the senator\u2019s record will be the top issues. \n \n Smith has pledged to \u201cstand up\u201d to Trump. However, she has said she doesn\u2019t think voters \u201cwant to hear us only talking about what we don\u2019t like about this president.\u201d \n \n Housley has tried to establish some distance between her views and style and those of the president. For example, she said this summer that she disagreed with his decision to separate immigrant families. \n \n Painter\u2019s candidacy forced Smith to focus on wooing DFL voters. Meanwhile, GOP-endorsed Housley \u2014 who faced two candidates in the primary \u2014 made Smith her sole target. \n \n Housley made frequent references to the \u201cfailed Dayton-Smith administration,\u201d citing MNsure and the beleaguered vehicle registration system. \n \n Cook Political Report, which handicaps campaigns, rates the race as a likely Demo\u00adcratic win. So do Inside Elections and the University of Virginia\u2019s Center for Politics. All three groups are nonpartisan. \n \n The fall campaign is sure to become an expensive national battlefield, with outside TV ads flooding the airwaves and national interest groups\u2019 money flowing into the race. \n \n As of June 30, Smith had raised $4.8 million and Housley had collected $1.8 million. \n \n Retired nurse Patricia Cohen, 75, voted in Minneapolis for Smith and Klobuchar because of their support for abortion rights. \u201cThere\u2019s an assault on women\u2019s privacy and the right to plan their families,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me that\u2019s one of the defining issues of our time.\u201d \n \n Kerry Riley, 41, a photographer and wardrobe stylist from Minneapolis, said her vote for Smith was less vital than showing up to vote \u2014 especially in the current political climate. \u201cYou have to,\u201d she said.", "summary": "\u2013 In a historic moment for the transgender rights movement, former power company exec Christine Hallquist won the Democratic primary for Vermont governor Tuesday, becoming the first transgender candidate from a major party to win a gubernatorial primary. Hallquist, who transitioned from male to female in 2015, was chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative before entering politics, the New York Times reports. Annise Parker of the LGBTQ Victory Fund praised the victory as a \"defining moment,\" though she added that Hallquist won \"not because of her gender identity, but because she is an open and authentic candidate ... who speaks to the issues most important to voters.\" In other results: Vermont also nominated Sen. Bernie Sanders to seek a third term, the AP reports. He won the Democratic primary, but is expected to run as an independent again. In Minnesota, Sen. Tina Smith defeated Richard Painter, George W. Bush's former ethics counsel, in the Democratic primary, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. In November, she will face Republican state Sen. Karin Housley in a race to decide who will finish the last two years of former Sen. Al Franken's term. Rep. Keith Ellison has won the Democratic primary for Minnesota attorney general despite allegations of domestic violence involving an ex-girlfriend that surfaced days before the election, the Washington Post reports. He placed far ahead of the other four candidates in the race, and is expected to face Republican former state lawmaker Doug Wardlow in November. In Wisconsin, Democrat Tony Evers won an eight-way gubernatorial primary and promised to end Republican Gov. Scott Walker's \"reign of terror,\" the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Walker, who is seeking a third term, cruised to victory in the GOP primary. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who once called President Trump \"unhinged and unfit for the presidency,\" was trying to get his old job back but lost the GOP primary to pro-Trump candidate Jeff Johnson, the AP reports. Former National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes won the Democratic primary for the House seat being vacated by scandal-plagued Rep. Elizabeth Esty, the Hartford Courant reports. If she wins in November, Hayes will be the first black Democrat from New England elected to the House."}
{"document": "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. ||||| 1 of 2 View Caption \n \n Chris Detrick | Tribune file photo A bill advanced to the full House on Monday would limit liability of gun makers and manufactu Scott Sommerdorf | Tribune file photo Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, is proposing legislation that would create a pilot progr ||||| Gun-safety courses could be offered to students as young as 13 in Utah if a state senator succeeds in adding a voluntary course to next year\u2019s curriculum. \n \n Sen. Todd Weiler, a Republican representing the city of Woods Cross, has proposed a pilot program in Utah schools that would provide eighth-grade students with information on firearm safety and violence prevention. Late last month, he introduced State Bill 43, \u201cFirearm Safety and Violence Prevention in Public Schools,\u201d and the state\u2019s financial analysts are considering the proposal. \n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s always helpful for children and adults to think through what you would do in a situation before you encounter it,\u201d Mr. Weilertold The Salt Lake Tribune. \u201cUnfortunately, it is probably a necessary reality in the society we live in these days.\u201d \n \n If his colleagues in the Legislature agree, Utah could green-light the senator\u2019s plan to put $75,000 toward a program that would teach mostly 13- and 14-year-olds what to do if they ever come across a firearm. \n \n \u201cEven if someone doesn\u2019t have a gun in their home,\u201d Mr. Weiler told The Tribune, \u201codds are very likely that a neighbor or a friend\u2019s parents do.\u201d \n \n No actual firearms would be used in the course, and students would need a parent or guardian\u2019s signature before they could participate, he said. \n \n After a wave of mass shootings, however, the class wouldn\u2019t end with basic firearm dos and don\u2019ts, the senator said. In addition, Mr. Weiler said, students would be taught how to respond in the event they end up face to face with a gunman. \n \n Late last month, authorities in Plain City, Utah, arrested a 16-year-old who was suspected of bringing a gun to school to shoot a classmate. \n \n \u201cIf we\u2019re going to talk about guns while we\u2019re in school, I think it would be silly not to be able to mention something about an active-shooter situation,\u201d he said. \n \n If the plan is approved, the state attorney general\u2019s office would hammer out the details of the course in collaboration with the State Board of Education and the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee. Mr. Weiler\u2019s proposal, as written, calls for getting the pilot program off the ground during fiscal 2017. \n \n President Obama announced Tuesday a suite of executive actions he is implementing on a federal level in an attempt to curb gun violence nationwide. \n \n \u201cHundreds of law enforcement officers have been shot to death protecting their communities,\u201d the White House said in a statement Monday. \u201cAnd too many children are killed or injured by firearms every year, often by accident.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Utah's eighth-graders may soon add gun safety and active shooter preparation to their traditional math and English classes. Republican Sen. Todd Weiler introduced the \"Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention in Public Schools\" bill last month, the Washington Times reports. If passed, it would require schools to teach gun safety and what to do in case of a shooter to all eighth-graders. \"I think it's always helpful for children and adults to think through what you would do in a situation before you encounter it,\" Weiler tells the Salt Lake Tribune. \"Unfortunately, it is probably a necessary reality in the society we live in these days.\" The bill would be funded with $75,000 from the state attorney general's office. If passed, it would be implemented in 2017, the Times reports. The program wouldn't teach 13-year-olds to use guns; instead instructing them what to do if they come across a gun, the Tribune reports. \"There will be no guns in the classrooms,\" Weiler says. \"It's more, if you happen to encounter a gun, this is what you should and shouldn't do.\" He says the bill was inspired by how many children accidentally shoot someone. According to the Times, the White House made a similar point in a statement Monday: \"Too many children are killed or injured by firearms every year, often by accident.\u201d The active-shooter preparation would be secondary to gun safety, Weiler tells the Tribune. \"If we're going to talk about guns while we're in school, I think it would be silly not to be able to mention something about an active shooter situation,\" he says."}
{"document": "The father of a student killed during February's school shooting in Parkland, Fla., put a bulletproof vest on the \u201cFearless Girl\u201d statue in New York on Friday to protest mass shootings in America. \n \n Manuel Oliver, whose son, Joaquin \u201cGuac\u201d Oliver, was one of 17 people killed inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine\u2019s Day, placed the vest on the statue to create \u201c#FearfulGirl,\u201d according to a statement. \n \n The vest stayed on the statue for one hour before it was peacefully removed. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n \u201cThe Fearless Girl is undeniably brave, but bravery isn\u2019t bulletproof,\u201d Oliver's group, Change the Ref, said in a Friday statement. \n \n The sculpture by Kristen Visbal was placed in front of the \u201cCharging Bull\u201d last year before International Women\u2019s Day 2017, and has since become a popular tourist attraction. \n \n Officials said earlier this year that it will be moved to a safer location for spectators, away from its crowded original location on Broadway Avenue. \n \n Manuel Oliver has made several art installations in the wake of the Parkland shooting to protest gun violence, including depicting President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump pauses Missouri campaign rally after woman collapses Fox News hosts join Trump on stage at Missouri campaign rally Nate Silver in final midterm projections: 'Democrats need a couple of things to go wrong' to lose the House MORE as a ringleader of a circus outside the annual National Rifle Association convention in May. \n \n He unveiled a life-size, 3D-printed sculpture of his son in Times Square last week to protest the legality of 3D-printed guns. \n \n The figure is dressed how Joaquin Oliver was dressed on the day he died and was personalized with accessories to depict his character. \n \n \u201cYou won\u2019t see me in line in Washington, D.C. waiting to talk to a legislator to try to tell him what\u2019s going on with my family,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d rather do this,\u201d he said of his art. ||||| In New York\u2019s Times Square today, artist Manuel Oliver unveiled what he calls the world\u2019s first \"3D-printed activist,\" a life-size rendition of his son, Joaquin. Oliver said the piece is a statement to combat the use of 3D printers to make firearms. \n \n Joaquin was one of the victims in the Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen students and faculty were killed that day when a former student allegedly opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle. \n \n ABC News \n \n After his death, Joaquin\u2019s parents, Manuel and Patricia, founded the nonprofit \u201cChange the Ref\u201d to empower young people to get involved in issues impacting the country. In an interview with ABC News, Manuel said the nonprofit\u2019s name came from a conversation he had with Joaquin a few months before he was shot. \n \n Instagram \n \n Joaquin had been frustrated with a series of bad calls a referee made during a basketball game. This inspired Joaquin and his father to call the recreational league to ask to have the referee switched for someone who would judge the game more fairly. Since his son's death, Manuel and Patricia have extended that ideology beyond the basketball court. \n \n ABC News \n \n \"This is the first time since February that I can see an image of my son standing next to me. Not a good feeling, but the idea here is to make it a powerful moment for the rest of you,\" Manuel said at the event today. \n \n ABC News \n \n Manuel went on to say that even though he and his wife can't do anything to bring their son back, their work is \"for the rest of the families who can still do something about it.\" \n \n ABC News \n \n This installation was a statement against gun violence and to encourage voter turnout for the November midterm elections. ||||| New York City\u2019s \u201cFearless Girl\u201d statue was transformed into a \u201cFearful Girl\u201d on Friday morning in a powerful protest against gun violence. \n \n The bronze statue in Manhattan\u2019s financial district sported a new addition Friday morning: a bulletproof vest that read \u201c#FEARFULGIRL.\u201d The demonstration was created by Change the Ref, a gun control advocacy group founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin died in February in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. \n \n \u201cShe can\u2019t be fearless if she\u2019s afraid to go to school,\u201d CTR tweeted Friday morning with a photo of the statue wearing the bulletproof vest. \n \n Manuel Oliver told HuffPost that he and his wife put the vest on Kristen Visbal\u2019s iconic statue early Friday and stood next to her as people commuted to work and tourists swarmed the area. \n \n \u201cThey saw the girl with the bulletproof vest and they also saw us,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cSo, some of them will be realizing that there is a chance that it could happen to them. I really hope that society understands that they don\u2019t need to go through what we\u2019re going through.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 A New York City statue went from \"fearless\" to \"fearful\" Friday\u2014at least for an hour. Manuel Oliver, the father of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin \"Guac\" Oliver, 17, placed a bulletproof vest on the renowned \"Fearless Girl\" statue near Wall Street to protest America's mass shootings, the Hill reports. The vest, removed an hour later, read simply, \"#FearfulGirl.\" \"She can't be fearless if she's afraid to go to school,\" tweeted Change the Ref, a gun-control group started by Manuel and his wife Patricia Oliver, per Huffington Post. In October, Oliver unveiled a 3D-printed statue of his son holding a flower to protest 3D-printed firearms, ABC News reported. (The statue is slated to be moved later this year.)"}
{"document": "How the company, and Ms. Bresch, strikes that balance seems to be quickly changing. Generic drug companies once dealt almost exclusively in making cheap copies of pills and railed passionately against the anticompetitive tactics of brand-name competitors. Now, through a series of acquisitions and mergers, the handful of large generic companies that are left are increasingly investing in expensive brand-name drugs, and in doing so, are embracing many of the tactics they once scorned. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s like talking out of both sides of your mouth,\u201d said Dinesh Thakur, an advocate for generic drug quality. \u201cTo me, I think, it\u2019s opportunistic.\u201d \n \n In the interview, Ms. Bresch said the company\u2019s latest actions would do the most to help patients where it mattered, by reducing their out-of-pocket costs. And she said that the $600 list price was necessary for the company to recoup its investment in the EpiPen, which includes raising awareness for severe allergic reaction and making improvements to the way the product works. \n \n But she also sought to shift blame away from Mylan, saying that patients are feeling the pain in part because insurers have increased the amount that customers must pay in recent years. \n \n \u201cWhat else do you shop for that when you walk up to the counter, you have no idea what it\u2019s going to cost you?\u201d she said. \u201cTell me where that happens anywhere else in the system. It\u2019s unconscionable.\u201d \n \n To some, the company\u2019s response seemed to ring hollow. \u201cIt\u2019s a real challenge to understand how a management team sits around a board table and makes a decision to raise the price of a lifesaving medication over and over and over, and when the P.R. storm hits, decides to blame someone else for that price increase,\u201d said David Maris, an analyst for Wells Fargo. He had warned investors in June that Mylan\u2019s price increases on EpiPen and other drugs could soon draw unwanted media scrutiny. \n \n The company is not a stranger to controversy. Robert J. Coury, Mylan\u2019s chairman who served as chief executive until 2011, came under scrutiny in 2012 for using the company\u2019s corporate jet to travel to his son\u2019s music concerts. And last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that one of the board members had undisclosed ties to the land where the company built its new Pittsburgh offices. ||||| HERTFORDSHIRE, England and PITTSBURGH, Feb. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ, TASE: MYL) today announced that Mylan CEO Heather Bresch has been elected to serve as chair of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association's (GPhA) board of directors. GPhA is an association that represents the world's leading generic drug manufacturers and suppliers and plays a critical role in tackling key issues affecting the generics industry and shaping policies that help ensure patients have access to high quality, affordable medicines. \n \n Bresch said: \"In the decade since serving my last term as chair of GPhA, the generics industry has evolved significantly within an increasingly globalized market. Never has there been a greater need for our association to lead the way in shaping policy that expands access to high quality generic medicines and biosimilars, which is why I've committed to return to the role of chair and work with our industry's leaders to influence positive change to our healthcare system. \n \n \"The value that the generic drug industry brings to the U.S. healthcare system is indisputable. Today, generic drugs fill 88% of the prescriptions dispensed in the U.S., but consume only 28% of the total drug spending. Yet, the harsh reality is that some of the numerous challenges we currently face could limit patient access to generic medicine and debilitate our generics industry which serves as a critical solution to the nation's healthcare challenge. \n \n \"In today's political climate, no matter how strong each of us may be at an individual company level, it's important for us to stand strongly together with a unified voice for the good of our shared mission of advancing access to more affordable medicine. \n \n \"I would like to recognize GPhA's outgoing board officers Craig Wheeler, Doug Boothe and the dedicated staff at GPhA for the critical role they have played to date in continuing to advance our industry's efforts to improve healthcare in the U.S. I am energized by the vision and experience GPhA President and CEO Chip Davis is bringing to further the association's role in Washington and beyond, and I look forward to working with the team and our industry's executives in continuing these efforts.\" \n \n Bresch's term as chair of GPhA will last for one year. Previously, she served two one-year terms as the chair of the association in 2004 and 2005 and two one-year terms as vice chair in 2003 and 2006. \n \n Mylan is a global pharmaceutical company committed to setting new standards in healthcare. Working together around the world to provide 7 billion people access to high quality medicine, we innovate to satisfy unmet needs; make reliability and service excellence a habit; do what's right, not what's easy; and impact the future through passionate global leadership. We offer a growing portfolio of more than 1,400 generic and branded pharmaceuticals, including antiretroviral therapies on which nearly 50% of people being treated for HIV/AIDS in the developing world depend. We market our products in approximately 165 countries and territories. Our global R&D and manufacturing platform includes more than 50 facilities, and we are one of the world's largest producers of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Every member of our nearly 35,000-strong workforce is dedicated to creating better health for a better world, one person at a time. Learn more at mylan.com. \n \n SOURCE Mylan N.V. ||||| W.Va.U. embroiled in scandal over degree for gov's daughter MORGANTOWN, W.Va. \u0097 This is not how West Virginia University wanted to build its national reputation. Six months after his inauguration, President Mike Garrison is struggling to hold his administration together -- and keep his job -- amid a scandal that erupted after the school granted Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter a master's degree she didn't earn. Two top university officials resigned last weekend over their part in the episode. Major donors have canceled plans to donate millions. Members of the Faculty Senate are planning a no-confidence vote on Garrison next week. And critics inside and outside the university have demanded the president resign over what appears to be an instance in which political pull influenced the awarding of a degree. \"If you have smart officials, they know this would be one of the quickest ways to ruin the reputation of the university,\" said Thomas Morawetz, a professor and authority on ethics at the University of Connecticut law school. \"It is a serious violation of norms.\" With more than 27,000 students, West Virginia is the pride of a state where people say they \"bleed blue and gold.\" Mountaineer alumni include the governor and NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West. The university has helped generations of West Virginians -- many of them the sons and daughters of coal miners and steelworkers -- lift themselves up in a poor state. But it also perennially ranks among the nation's top party schools. Now some fear the scandal threatens the university's effort to improve its academic reputation and turn itself into a national research powerhouse. Garrison himself has made high-tech research a priority, successfully lobbying the state Legislature for a multimillion-dollar \"bucks for brains\" program. An editorial in the student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, said the administration has \"trivialized all degrees this university has awarded and will award.\" \"I suppose this is the price paid for attending a university with such an intimate connection to its state, a final reminder of how dirty West Virginia can be, and not just from the coal dust of economic fallout,\" student columnist Chad Wilcox wrote separately. The scandal cracked wide open last week after an investigative panel issued a report saying the university showed \"seriously flawed\" judgment last fall in retroactively awarding an executive master's of business administration degree to Heather Bresch, who attended the school in 1998 but did not earn enough credits. The panel said the business school gave Bresch credit for classes she didn't take, and assigned grades \"simply pulled from thin air,\" giving her special treatment because of who she is. The degree has since been rescinded. The governor, a Democrat, has denied exerting any pressure and said he first learned of the dispute only after it became a news story. Bresch told The Associated Press that she believes she did nothing wrong. Bresch, 38, is not only the governor's daughter. She is chief operating officer of generic drug maker Mylan Inc., a major West Virginia benefactor with a lab in Morgantown that employs about 2,000 people. Mylan was one of the companies that raised the money to create the Executive MBA program, which is for full-time executives. Mylan's chairman, Milan \"Mike\" Puskar, is a Manchin supporter and one of West Virginia's biggest contributors. The business school deanship is endowed in Puskar's name, and the football stadium was named for him after he donated $20 million in 2003. Bresch is also a friend and former high school and West Virginia classmate of Garrison. He, in turn, worked for Democratic former Gov. Bob Wise and was once a Mylan lobbyist. Now, Garrison -- who was a 38-year-old lawyer with much stronger political credentials than academic ones when he was tapped for the presidency -- finds himself the target of critics among the faculty, alumni and the state Republican Party. Garrison should resign, and \"he needs to take all his cronies with him,\" said GOP chairman Dr. Doug McKinney. \"They've shown there's entirely too much connection between the statehouse and the president's office.\" One philanthropic group, the McGee Foundation, has dropped plans to donate $1 million in cash and an additional $1 million worth of art, and other, smaller donors have threatened similar action, officials said. Garrison said this week that he will not resign. \"I was not involved in any way in the decision,\" he said. And the university Board of Governors -- which hired him and has the power to fire him -- issued a statement affirming its \"full support\" of Garrison. The governor also said he believes Garrison should not step down. The resignations of Provost Gerald Lang and R. Stephen Sears, dean of the business school, have not satisfied the most vocal of the critics, particularly since Lang and Sears will remain as tenured professors, with Lang earning nearly $200,000 a year and Sears almost $160,000. Lang presided over the meeting last October during which Sears made the final decision to grant the governor's daughter a degree. \"It's nice that the dean and provost were offered up as sacrificial lambs, but the cancer is still there,\" said Peter Kalis, a lawyer and 1972 graduate. He said Garrison and the chairman of the Board of Governors must go, too, if the university is to \"reclaim its independence and integrity.\" The scandal is not the first major crisis of Garrison's young administration: Football coach Rich Rodriguez abruptly left in December for a job at Michigan, complaining that the university broke a promise to give him greater control over the football program. Rodriguez and West Virginia are now locked in bitter public feud and a lawsuit over a penalty clause in his contract that says he owes the university $4 million for leaving early. Rodriguez claims Garrison had assured him privately that he would not enforce the clause; Garrison denies that. On Thursday morning, protesters showed up for a speech on campus by former President Clinton. \"Mountaineers always free; Mountaineers earn degrees; Garrison must go,\" read one sign. Another sign bore a drawing of a diploma and the words: \"Free while they last.\" ___ Tom Breen contributed to this report from Charleston, W.Va. (This version CORRECTS wording on protester's sign.) Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Enlarge by Dale Sparks, AP In this April 23, 2008 file photo, West Virginia University President Michael Garrison listens to a charge being read by West Virginia Board of Governors chairman Stephen Goodwin during open session at West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va. Garrison is facing public scrutiny over the handling of an MBA degree awarded to Heather Bresch, daughter of Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin. (AP Photo/Dale Sparks, File)", "summary": "\u2013 Is Mylan CEO Heather Bresch the next Martin Shkreli? Based on public reaction to the bloated costs of her company's EpiPen, the 671% pay raise she's reaped as those costs rose, and the recently publicized fact that her dad is a US Senator, the initial answer may seem to be \"yes.\" But the woman the New York Times calls America's \"new pharmaceutical villain\" refutes comparisons to the roundly reviled Shkreli, noting to the paper that Mylan's price spikes aren't in the \"same hemisphere\" as that of Shkreli's Daraprim and freely admitting hers is a for-profit business. \"I am not hiding from that,\" she says. And some note she has, to an extent, helped bring about positive change in the industry: The director of the Knowledge Ecology International NGO, for example, says Bresch helped his group fight TPP provisions that would have made it more difficult for people overseas to obtain certain drugs. The admittedly brash Bresch says high EpiPen prices are necessary to pay back the company for the expensive investment it's made in the device. She adds that the health insurance industry is also to blame, calling its raising of fees that consumers have to foot \"unconscionable.\" But the Times notes other questionable items swirling around Bresch\u2014including her receiving a since-rescinded MBA from West Virginia University without earning it, as well as Mylan's 2014 tax-sheltering move to the Netherlands. And some are calling her hypocritical, considering she was recently elected to head the board of directors of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, whose mission is to help patients gain access to affordable, high-quality meds, per a release. \"It's like talking out of both sides of your mouth,\" a generic drug advocate notes to the Times of the increasingly monopolistic practices of companies like Mylan. (We don't know how Sarah Jessica Parker feels about Bresch, but we know how she feels about Mylan.)"}
{"document": "Harshing on Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Lionsgate Films), the awkwardly titled Lee Daniels adaptation of an \"urban fiction\" best-seller, makes a critic feel almost as mean-spirited as Mary, the monstrously abusive mother of the film's eponymous heroine. Parked in front of the TV in the grim Harlem walk-up they share, Mary (played with a fearsome lack of vanity by stand-up comedian Mo'Nique) pelts her 16-year-old daughter, Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), with cruel insults, imperious commands, and, whenever possible, heavy airborne objects. \"I ain't done nothin'!\" Precious protests, and the movie is at pains to prove her right: For the first hour at least, Precious is less a person who does things than an object to which things are done. Her absentee father, seen only once in a nauseating flashback sequence, rapes her on a regular basis; at 16, she's pregnant with his second child. Her daughter, who has Down syndrome, lives with a coldly disapproving grandmother; their visits last just long enough to fool the welfare inspector into issuing Mary's next check. In addition to being obese, unloved, and dirt-poor, Precious is also illiterate, though the public school she attends is so bad that she's managed to camouflage that fact through the eighth grade. In short, this girl's life is so abysmal that you feel the least you can do is like the movie she's in. \n \n It's not that there isn't anything to like about Precious, which at its best resembles its heroine: observant, large-spirited, and brave. The director, Lee Daniels (Shadowboxer), puts on his hip boots and wades into grimmer territory than any recent film I can think of, and his fearless leading ladies, Mo'Nique and Sidibe, wade right in with him. But Daniels' methodical commitment to abjection, his need to shove the reality of Precious' life in our faces and wave it around till we acknowledge its awfulness, winds up robbing the audience (and, to some extent, the actors) of all agency. Daniels is not above cutting from an image of incestuous rape to a shot of greasy pork sizzling on the stove: Her father treats her like meat, get it? In its eagerness to drag us through the lower depths of human experience, Precious leaves no space for the audience to breathe or to draw our own conclusions. For a film about empowerment and self-actualization, it wields an awfully large cudgel. \n \n Precious is expelled from school when the news of her second pregnancy comes out, but the principal refers her to an alternative learning center, Each One Teach One, where an impossibly beautiful and patient teacher named Blu Rain (Paula Patton) leads a reading and writing workshop for dropout girls. Ms. Rain is an emissary from another world, where slender, caring, soft-spoken women (Ms. Rain, as it turns out, is a lesbian) sip wine and play Scrabble and, in Precious' words, \"talk like TV channels I don't watch.\" Precious' ability to read and write keeps pace with her growing belly as she slowly learns to trust Ms. Rain and her raucous, foulmouthed, but closeknit classmates. (All the Each One Teach One girls are deftly sketched and well-cast, as is an exasperated social worker played with surprising finesse by Mariah Carey.) But when Precious' baby finally arrives, she's forced to depend once more on her toxic disaster of a mother. As Precious carries the fragile newborn into that awful apartment, you want to rush the screen and lock her out to keep them safe, and the scene that follows shamelessly exploits that protective impulse. I don't like when children are used as decoys to lure a movie audience into a trap. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \n \n Seeded throughout Precious are brief dream sequences in which the stolidly joyless heroine imagines herself as a performer in a music video, a movie star on the red carpet, etc. Whether these are meant to be critiques of a mass culture that trades in escapist fantasy or simply pathos-ridden glimpses into Precious' impoverished mental life is never clear. But like the outlandish badness of the mother character, the overdetermined tawdriness of these scenes does the movie and its heroine a disservice. Daniels and his screenwriter, Geoffrey Fletcher, are so eager to wring uplift from Precious' story that they're willing to manipulate us to get it. Daniels and Fletcher no doubt intended for their film to lend a voice to the kind of protagonist too often excluded from American movie screens: a poor, black, overweight single mother from the inner city. But in offering up their heroine's misery for the audience's delectation, they've created something uncomfortably close to poverty porn. \n \n Slate V: The critics on Precious and other new releases \n \n Like Slate Culture on Facebook. Follow Slate on Twitter. \n \n Like This Story Follow Slate's Movies ||||| Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire \n \n November 4, 2009 \n \n Cast & Credits Precious Gabourey Sidibe \n \n Mary Mo'Nique \n \n Ms. Rain Paula Patton \n \n Nurse John Lenny Kravitz \n \n Ms. Weiss Mariah Carey \n \n Cornrows Sherri Shepherd \n \n \n \n Lionsgate presents a film directed by Lee Daniels. Written by Geoffrey Fletcher, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (for child abuse, including sexual assault, and pervasive language). \n \n \n \n Printer-friendly \u00bb \n \n E-mail this to a friend \u00bb \n \n Precious has shut down. She avoids looking at people, she hardly ever speaks, she's nearly illiterate. Inside her lives a great hurt, and also her child, conceived in a rape. She is fat. Her clothes are too tight. School is an ordeal of mocking cruelty. Home is worse. Her mother, defeated by life, takes it out on her daughter. After Precious is raped by her father, her mother, is angry not at the man, but at the child for \"stealing\" him. \n \n There's one element in the film that redeems this landscape of despair. That element is hope. Not the hope of Precious, but that of two women who want better for her. It's not that Precious \"shows promise.\" I think it's that these women, having in their jobs seen a great deal, can hardly imagine a girl more obviously in pain. \n \n \n \n That is the starting point for \"Precious,\" a great American film that somehow finds an authentic way to move from these beginnings to an inspiring ending. Gabourey \"Gabby\" Sidibe, a young actress in her debut performance as Precious, says, \"I know this girl. I know her in my family, I know her in my friends, I've seen her, I've lived beside this girl.\" \n \n \n \n We may have seen her, too, if we looked. People often don't really look. They see, evaluate, dismiss. \n \n \n \n Sidibe is heartbreaking as Precious, that poor girl. Three other actresses perform so powerfully in the film that academy voters will be hard-pressed to choose among them. Audiences may be hard-pressed to recognize them. The comedian Mo'Nique plays Mary, Precious' chain-smoking couch potato of a mother, treating her daughter like a domestic servant and turning a blind eye on years of abuse. Paula Patton is Ms. Rain, Precious' teacher, who is able to see through the girl's sullen withdrawal and her vulgarities, and wonder what pain it may be masking. Mariah Carey is Ms. Weiss, a social worker. \n \n \n \n This casting looks almost cynical on paper, as if reflecting old Hollywood days when stars were slipped into \"character roles\" with a wink. But Lee Daniels, the director, didn't cast them for their names, and actually doesn't use any of their star qualities. He requires them to act. Somehow he was able to see beneath the surface and trust that they had within the emotional resources to play these women, and he was right. Daniels began his career by producing \"Monster's Ball,\" in which Halle Berry shed her glamour and found such depths that she won an Oscar. Daniels must have an instinct for performances waiting to flower. \n \n \n \n Carey and Patton are equal with Sidibe in screen impact; the film holds the girl in the center of their attempt to save her future. Why would a teacher and a social worker go to such lengths to intervene? They must see tragic victims of abuse every day. \n \n \n \n Mary, the mother, is perhaps not a bad woman but simply one defeated by the forces she now employs against her daughter. Mo'Nique is frighteningly convincing. \n \n \n \n The film is a tribute to Sidibe's ability to engage our empathy. Her work is still another demonstration of the mystery of some actors, who evoke feelings in ways beyond words and techniques. She so completely creates the Precious character that you rather wonder if she's very much like her. \n \n \n \n You meet Sidibe, who is engaging, outgoing and 10 years older than her character, and you're almost startled. She's not at all like Precious, but in her first performance, she not only understands this character but knows how to make her attract the sympathy of her teacher, the social worker -- and ourselves. I don't know how she does it but there you are. \n \n \n \n My interview with \u201cGabby\u201d Sidibe. ||||| Precious Is the Diary of a Sad Black Woman Pushing the limits of taste, but locating the heart\u2014and hell\u2014of its heroine's struggle \n \n In her broad outlines, Claireece Precious Jones risks sounding like the epitome of ghetto clich\u00e9: an obese, illiterate 16-year-old; mother to a four-year-old Down syndrome daughter and now pregnant again; physically and psychologically abused by her mother; repeatedly raped by her father, who is, also, the father of her own two children. Precious\u2014as she prefers to be called\u2014is the central figure in the poet Sapphire's bestselling 1996 novel Push, an homage of sorts to The Color Purple (which it directly references and also mirrors in its diaristic style), set in the pre-gentrification Harlem of the mid-1980s. And it's a testament to Sapphire's affecting prose (written in Precious's own words and dialect) that her protagonist emerges as something more than a mere statistic or representative\u2014that we understand how Precious's story is, for all its commonalities with other abused black women, uniquely her own. \n \n Director Lee Daniels's film adaptation (which has been retitled Precious since its Sundance premiere, and also acquired two high-profile \"presenters\" in Tyler Perry and Oprah) is a somewhat blunter, but nevertheless effective object. Working from screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher's faithful adaptation, Daniels cultivates an aesthetic that is often more grotesque than artful, sometimes artfully grotesque (like a Courbet painting), and rarely delivered with less than a sledgehammer thwack. Bleak though it was on the page, the apartment shared by Precious (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) and her layabout welfare mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), here appears like a Lenox Avenue Grey Gardens, with a television perpetually tuned to The $100,000 Pyramid and curtains that don't seem to have parted since whatever decade Mary last left the premises. When Daniels flashes back to Precious's horrifying rapes, the wide-angle close-ups of her father's heaving body, and of fried chicken sizzling on the stove, feel like outtakes from one of Rudy Ray Moore's outr\u00e9 blaxploitation farces (or from Daniels's own risible, little-seen debut feature, Shadowboxer, featuring Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. as oedipal hired assassins). And when Precious enrolls at the alternative school where a teacher improbably named Blu Rain (Paula Patton) inspires her to stand and deliver, the classrooms are wreathed in ethereal light. \n \n Hothouse melodrama one moment, kitchen-sink (and frying-pan-to-the-head) realism the next, with eruptions of incongruous slapstick throughout, this may be Daniels's stab at finding a cinematic analog for the novel's inventive, na\u00eff-art language\u2014a film style, like Precious's writing style, seemingly being made up as it goes along. Yet even when the movie is at its most schizoid, Precious still packs a wallop. What Daniels lacks as a craftsman, he makes up for in his willingness to put the lives of abused and defeated black women on the screen with brute-force candor and a lack of sentimentality. Where Push the novel echoed The Color Purple the novel, Precious the movie operates as something of a corrective to Steven Spielberg's 1985 film, with its narrative sanitizing and artery-clogging Quincy Jones score. Its own inspirational touches notwithstanding (not for nothing did it cop the audience awards at Sundance and Toronto earlier this year), Precious is less about overcoming adversity than about survival\u2014a battle the movie does not begin to pretend can be won in two hours of screen time. No slumdog millionaires here, Daniels's movie puts us through hell\u2014Precious's hell\u2014and leaves us somewhere like limbo. \n \n A former casting director, Daniels shows undeniable savoir faire with his actors, a mix of musicians and comedians effectively cast against type, from a dark-haired, deglamorized Mariah Carey as a tough-love social worker to a subtle Lenny Kravitz as an attentive male nurse. The picture belongs, however, to the gale-force Mo'Nique, who transforms an ostensibly one-note monster mom into a complex portrait of a psychologically damaged woman (no matter that Daniels seems to have edited her most showstopping scene in a blender), and to the magnanimous Sidibe, who carries the alternately exhausting and exhilarating narrative on her formidable shoulders. For most of the movie, her stoically beautiful face stays wrought tight in a mask of sadness and self-loathing. When she relaxes those muscles ever so slightly\u2014one of the movie's few subtle touches\u2014it is like a weight of centuries has been lifted.", "summary": "\u2013 Precious packs a strong emotional punch with its story of an abused, illiterate teen in '80s Harlem, but where some critics see candid greatness, others see \"poverty porn.\" Precious is \"a great American film,\" writes Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times, that finds a believable way to move from \"a landscape of despair\" to an inspiring ending. Star Gabourey Sidibe makes a fantastic debut and \"three other actresses perform so powerfully in the film that Academy voters will be hard-pressed to choose among them.\" What director Lee Daniels at times \"lacks as a craftsman,\" Scott Foundas writes in the Village Voice, \"he makes up for in his willingness to put the lives of abused and defeated black women on the screen with brute-force candor and a lack of sentimentality.\" But Dana Stevens, writing for Slate, finds that effort to \"wring uplift' from a hard-knocks story manipulative. \"Daniels' need to shove the reality of Precious' life in our faces, and wave it around till we acknowledge its awfulness, winds up robbing the audience (and, to some extent, the actors) of all agency.\" Further, in offering up their heroine's misery for the audience's delectation, he's created something uncomfortably close to poverty porn.\""}
{"document": "Donald Trump's name has been doing the rounds a fair bit recently. \n \n You might recognise him as the American businessman who has his own tower in New York or as the host of the original version of The Apprentice. \n \n You're also likely to have heard his name recently because he's hoping to be the Republican presidential candidate. \n \n And if you've been on Twitter since he suggested Muslims should be banned from America, you might have seen him being compared to Lord Voldemort. \n \n In a campaign statement, Donald Trump said a \"complete\" shutdown should remain until the US authorities \"can figure out what the hell is going on\" and if Muslims pose a threat to the US. \n \n He later repeated the comments at a rally in South Carolina, where supporters cheered him loudly. \n \n Read more about all the candidates hoping to take over from Barack Obama as US president. \n \n But Jeb Bush, who is also from the Republican party and hoping to be president, said the New York businessman was \"unhinged\". \n \n Donald Trump's comments, which he said were \"common sense\", were made in light of last week's shooting in California where a Muslim couple, believed to have been radicalised, opened fire and killed 14 people at a health centre in San Bernardino. \n \n The White House said Mr Trump's comments were contrary to US values, while the internet compared him to Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter - a lot. \n \n This isn't the first time in this campaign that Trump, who also thinks there should surveillance on some US mosques, has been criticised. \n \n His idea to build a \"great, great wall\" between the US and Mexico didn't go down too well. \n \n Mr Trump, a billionaire New Yorker who has been leading in the polls, defended his plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and deport all the people living illegally in the US. \n \n \"You're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely,\" he told MSNBC's Morning Joe. \n \n \"You have millions of people that are waiting in line to come into this country and they're waiting to come in legally.\" \n \n Donald Trump: 21 things the Republican believes. \n \n For more stories like this one you can now download the BBC Newsbeat app straight to your device. For iPhone go here. For Android go here. ||||| J.K. Rowling took on Donald Trump with her latest tweet heard \u2019round the world. \n \n After the Republican presidential candidate frontrunner said that all Muslims should be banned from entering America, Harry Potter fans began comparing Trump to Lorde Voldemort, a.k.a. he who must not be named, a.k.a. the most draconian, dastardly villain in all of literature \u2014 well at least in Harry Potter\u2019s wizarding world. \n \n But Rowling didn\u2019t agree with the comparison. \u201cHow horrible,\u201d Rowling wrote. \u201cVoldemort was nowhere near as bad.\u201d \n \n How horrible. Voldemort was nowhere near as bad. https://t.co/hFO0XmOpPH \u2014 J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 8, 2015 \n \n On Monday, Trump called for the \u201ctotal and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.\u201d \n \n \u201cWithout looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension,\u201d Trump said. His remarks were slammed by both Republicans and Democrats alike. \u201cDonald Trump is unhinged,\u201d Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush wrote on Twitter. \u201cHis \u2018policy\u2019 proposals are not serious.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Donald Trump is usually the one dishing out insults on Twitter. Not on Tuesday. The business mogul found himself the latest to be burned by JK Rowling after proposing a \"total and complete shutdown\" of Muslims entering the US, reports Entertainment Weekly. Twitter users quickly began comparing Trump to Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort, reports the BBC, but Rowling was having none of it. \"How horrible,\" she tweeted. \"Voldemort was nowhere near as bad.\" Her comment was retweeted more than 50,000 times within hours and racked up almost as many likes. (By the way, you've been saying \"Voldemort\" incorrectly for years.)"}
{"document": "Update at 1:35 p.m. Tuesday: Tennessee Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies is intact, and officials say \"first and foremost\" they want to thank the first responders for \"risking their lives to save our community.\" \n \n \"We would also like to thank our dedicated Aquarium team that stayed as late as possible before being forced to evacuate when fires approached the back of our building,\" Ryan DeSear, the operation's regional manager, said. \"We are grateful to have had the police escort our emergency team back into the Aquarium early this morning to check on the well-being of our animals. We have a team of Marine Biologists and Life Support Experts inside the Aquarium and are happy to report that the animals are safe.\" \n \n Update at noon Tuesday: Tennessee Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies is intact, according to Gatlinburg officials. \n \n Ripley's posted to Facebook at 11:53 a.m. Tuesday that all animals at the aquarium are safe. All attractions at the aquarium will remain closed until the evacuation has lifted. \n \n Sign up for Take 10, the WBIR lunchtime newsletter Sign up for the daily Take 10 Newsletter Something went wrong. Get the news you need to know, plus weather and something to make you smile, every weekday in your inbox! Thank you for signing up for the Take 10 Newsletter. Please try again later. \n \n Submit \n \n A team of marine biologists and life support experts are tending to the animals as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Ripley's. \n \n Here's a list of which structures are destroyed and which are intact. \n \n Update at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday: Tennessee Ripley Attractions General Manager Ryan DeSear said he wasn't sure if flames reached Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. \n \n DeSear said the aquarium's live web camera was still active, and the building was still standing. \n \n \"As long as we have fuel in our generators, that aquarium can run on its own,\" DeSear said. \n \n DeSear said a \"raging fire\" was about 50 yards away from the aquarium when workers were evacuated on Monday night. \n \n Workers at the aquarium were evacuated mostly due to smoke, according to DeSear. \n \n Original Story at 3 a.m. Tuesday: Fire has engulfed at least 30 structures in Gatlinburg late Monday, and one building many people are very concerned about is the Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. \n \n As of midnight Tuesday, Ryan DeSear, General Manager of the aquarium, told 10News that the building was still standing, that all workers were evacuated, but he is very concerned about the 10,518 animals left behind. \n \n He was one of the last people out of the building at 7:45 p.m. Monday, and said he had to force many of the workers to leave because they didn't want to leave the animals without help. \n \n \"They were force evacuated,\" DeSear said. \"To them, every animal has a name. You don't give that up\" \n \n Unfortunately, he said, \"Nothing is more important than human life. Fish can be replaced. It sucks.\" \n \n DeSear said as long as the building had power and didn't catch fire, the animals should be safe. When everything is functioning normally, the animals can survive for 24 hours without human intervention. The clock would start ticking as soon as the power goes out. \n \n Before he left, he did a final check of the animals, and said they were behaving normally. He took that as a good sign because animals have a special sense of danger, and they didn't appear to be affected. \n \n But DeSear and all of those who care for all of that aquatic and animal life at the aquarium are very anxious to get back to them. \n \n \"We need to be one of the first people allowed back in when it's safe,\" he said. \"I hope the people manning the checkpoint here our plea.\" ||||| Gatlinburg, Tennessee (CNN) Fanned by strong winds and the Southeast's worst drought in nearly a decade , at least 14 wildfires burned in and around Gatlinburg, Tennessee, forcing evacuations from the popular tourist destination and nearby communities. \n \n \"If you're a person of prayer, we could use your prayers,\" Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said Monday evening as crews battled wind gusts of up to 70 mph. \n \n On Monday afternoon, a wildfire from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park spread rapidly into nearby communities. Strong gusts scattered embers across long distances, starting fires that fed off drought-stricken trees. The winds also knocked down power lines, igniting new fires, according to authorities. \n \n \"Everything was like a perfect storm,\" said Cassius Cash, superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to CNN affiliate WATE. \n \n There were no deaths reported in connection with the fires, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. But a male evacuee reportedly suffered burn wounds and an accident involving a fire truck may have also caused minor injuries, the agency said. \n \n Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast An aerial photo shows Gatlinburg, Tennessee, on Tuesday, November 29 -- a day after wildfires hit the city. Gatlinburg city officials declared mandatory evacuations in several areas as firefighters battled at least 14 fires in and around the city. More than 30 large wildfires have left a trail of destruction through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, according to the US Forest Service. Hide Caption 1 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Polo Gutierrez climbs onto the foundation of a destroyed home to try to see if his apartment building is still standing in Gatlinburg on November 29. Gutierrez fled his apartment with other residents as fires approached the previous night. Hide Caption 2 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast A destroyed structure and vehicle are seen near Gatlinburg on November 29. Hide Caption 3 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast An Alamo Steakhouse was one of the Gatlinburg businesses destroyed by fire. Hide Caption 4 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Trevor Cates inspects the damage to the Banner Missionary Baptist Church in Gatlinburg on November 29. Hide Caption 5 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Two dormitories at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts were damaged from the wildfires that flared near Gatlinburg on November 29. Hide Caption 6 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Photographer Bruce McCamish captured this image of the fires burning behind the Dollywood Dreammore Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Hide Caption 7 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Fires burn on both sides of Highway 441 between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on Monday, November 28. Hide Caption 8 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Thick smoke looms in Gatlinburg on November 28. Hide Caption 9 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Officials from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park reported the closing of roads and several trails near Gatlinburg on November 28. Hide Caption 10 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Firefighter Layne Whitney checks the treetops while working to hold the northern head of the Rock Mountain Fire, north of Tate City, Georgia, on Tuesday, November 22. Hide Caption 11 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Flames from the Rock Mountain Fire silhouette a weather vane north of Clayton, Georgia, on Monday, November 21. Hide Caption 12 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Fire crews bring down a dead tree along Highway 9 near the community of Bat Cave, North Carolina, on Friday, November 18. Hide Caption 13 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast A helicopter picks up water from Thrasher Lake to help battle a wildfire in Amherst County, Virginia, on November 21. Hide Caption 14 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Eric Willey looks on from the porch of his home as a helicopter fights a wildfire in Tate City, Georgia, on Wednesday, November 16. Hide Caption 15 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Firefighters walk down a dirt road as a wildfire burns a hillside in Clayton, Georgia, on Tuesday, November 15. Hide Caption 16 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast A wildfire burns as it approaches Bat Cave, North Carolina, on November 15. Hide Caption 17 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Firefighters Valarie Lopez and Mark Tabaez work to cool hot spots in Clayton on November 15. A number of the fires are being investigated as suspected arson, but weather conditions are also responsible for the fires. Hide Caption 18 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Firefighter Kevin Zimmer works the wildfire in Clayton on November 15. Hide Caption 19 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Exhausted firefighters take a break in Waldens Creek, Tennessee, on Monday, November 14. Hide Caption 20 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast A haze hovers over the Atlanta skyline from a wildfire burning in the northwest part of Georgia on November 14. Hide Caption 21 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Assistant Fire Chief Brent Masey sprays water on a wildfire in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, on Thursday, November 10. Hide Caption 22 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast A helicopter carrying 240 gallons of water takes off in Lake Lure, North Carolina, on November 10. Hide Caption 23 of 24 Photos: Wildfires scorch the Southeast Smoke from the Party Rock fire spreads near Lake Lure on Wednesday, November 9. Hide Caption 24 of 24 \n \n Several homes and businesses in downtown Gatlinburg were \"completely lost to fire,\" according to authorities. By Tuesday morning, the scope of the disaster was difficult to quantify, with officials unable to give estimates for the number of fires, their size, injuries and how many structures had burned. But a report hours earlier from TEMA reported at least 30 structures had been impacted, including a 16-story hotel and an apartment complex that was consumed by flames. \n \n Staff at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg were forced to evacuate Monday evening, but all of the facility's 1,500 animals are still inside, Ripley Entertainment Regional Manager Ryan DeSear told CNN Tuesday. \n \n DeSear said that according to reports he has received, the building is still standing. The facility's webcam showed lights and power still working inside, but he's concerned about the deteriorating air quality, as well as the smoke and flames. DeSear said he's hoping some staff will be allowed back into the facility Tuesday morning to assess the damage. \n \n If you are able, 'evacuate immediately' \n \n Authorities issued evacuation orders for Gatlinburg and nearby areas, including the north end of Pigeon Forge: \"Nobody is allowed into the city at this time. If you are currently in Gatlinburg and are able to evacuate ... evacuate immediately.\" \n \n TEMA said on its website that State Hwy. 441 heading into Gatlinburg is closed except for emergency traffic and the same highway leaving the city is open for evacuations. \n \n Schools in Green, McMinn and Sevier counties will be closed Tuesday, the agency said, and more than 12,000 people in Sevier County were without power as of early Tuesday morning. \n \n Several evacuation shelters opened as about 1,300 people stayed overnight at the local community center and park. Shaken residents, some needing oxygen after inhaling so much smoke, huddled with each other at the shelters. \n \n \"We watched a building go down in flames to the right of us,\" said one tearful evacuee, who was rescued by firefighters. \n \n At Dollywood, the theme park owned by Dolly Parton in Pigeon Forge, officials with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park evacuated guests from its resort and cabins as flames approached the area. The property had not suffered any damage as of late Monday night and its crew was working to protect the park areas, said Pete Owens, director of media relations at Dollywood. \n \n 'It's just engulfed' \n \n Despite evacuation orders, some people -- including guests at one Gatlinburg hotel -- could not safely leave the area as the fire advanced. \n \n \"I just see fire everywhere,\" said Logan Baker, who had checked into the Park Vista Hotel on Monday. The fire swept up to the hotel parking lot, he told CNN affiliate WATE. He posted videos of the hotel doors and windows glowing from the fire looming outside. \n \n Baker was among dozens of guests who couldn't leave because falling trees engulfed in flames had blocked the only road out. \n \n \"We can't go outside. The firefighters said the wind is blowing at 80 miles per hour and the debris in the air is too hard to get us down right now,\" he said. \n \n The fire had not reached the hotel, but smoke had permeated the building, making it hard to breathe, he said. Guests stood in the hotel lobby with masks over their faces. \n \n But Baker said he felt safe so far. He said he could see downtown Gatlinburg \"just engulfed\" in flames with cabins on the hillside on fire. The night sky had turned orange, clogged with smoke as ash rained down. \n \n Evacuations in national park \n \n Elsewhere, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park evacuated employees from the Elkmont and park headquarters housing areas on Monday. \n \n Due to continued erratic winds, the fires are very unpredictable and more fire growth is expected. pic.twitter.com/BYd9ANQeT4 \u2014 GreatSmokyNPS (@GreatSmokyNPS) November 29, 2016 \n \n The flames proved unpredictable even for authorities as the fire blew into downtown Gatlinburg, forcing officials to evacuate their original command post at City Hall, said Dana Soehn, spokeswoman for the National Park Service. She was uncertain of the condition of City Hall. \n \n The National Guard was activated to help fight the fire and assist in evacuations. \n \n Fire is 'everywhere' \n \n Fires burned perilously close to roads and homes. Social media images and videos showed the night sky blazing bright orange from the flames. \n \n This was just sent to us by a friend in Gatlinburg. This is on Airport Road up by Sidney James Lodge. pic.twitter.com/xhrgtqj6el \u2014 Rep. Jason Zachary (@JasonZacharyTN) November 29, 2016 \n \n Several roads were closed because of fire danger, stemming from dangerous weather conditions, falling trees and downed power lines. Authorities asked people who have not been instructed to evacuate to stay off the roads as evacuees crammed the streets to get to safety. \n \n Among them was Bill May, the executive director at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg. He posted on Facebook late Monday that several of the school's buildings had burned, but thankfully all personnel were safe. \n \n \"It is raining and winds have died down which offers hope, but the resources are stretched too thin with this much fire everywhere,\" he wrote. \n \n Good news and bad news \n \n There may be some good news: Rain moved into the area late Monday night, heading east. \n \n Radar update: the 2nd round of rain is moving into east TN. Unfortunately, some wind gusts will accompany this rain. #mrxwx #tnwx pic.twitter.com/nF2Z40Bz08 \u2014 NWS Morristown (@NWSMorristown) November 29, 2016 \n \n But with the rainfall came some bad news. \n \n \"Unfortunately, some wind gusts will accompany this rain,\" noted the National Weather Service. \n \n High winds are possible across eastern Tennessee, southwest Virginia and southwest North Carolina, according to the National Weather Service. They could topple trees and power lines and fan the flames. ||||| (Photo: Jessica Tezak/Special to the News Sentinel) \n \n GATLINBURG, Tenn. \u2014 Hillbilly Golf, Arrowmont Arts and Crafts School, major hotels, a good portion of Regan Drive and countless other businesses and homes have been destroyed in a blaze that has firefighters continuing their efforts overnight in Gatlinburg, Tenn. \n \n \"The center of Gatlinburg looks good for now,\" said Newmansville Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Bobby Balding. \"It's the apocalypse on both sides (of downtown).\" \n \n An estimated 40 to 50 fire units from volunteer agencies across East and Middle Tennessee were helping fight the fires, with a command center set up at Gatlinburg-Pittman High School. \n \n The Mountain Lodge Restaurant is no longer with us \ud83d\ude14#Gatlinburg pic.twitter.com/U5tQIBv8Ig \u2014 Everything TN (@Everything_TN) November 29, 2016 \n \n Thirty structures are on fire in Gatlinburg, including the Park Vista Hotel, a 16-story hotel on Regan Drive and the Driftwood Apartment complex near the Park Vista that has \"been completely inundated,\" according to Dean Flener, spokesman for Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, in Nashville. \n \n The elementary school, Pi Beta Phi, has not been destroyed, which is a change from initial reports from fire officials. \n \n The Space Needle and many of the properties on the main stretch are intact. Regan Drive, however, has been hard hit, according to fire crews. \n \n Orebank Assistant Fire Chief Bradley Collins said several hotels in Gatlinburg and many houses have burned. \n \n \"It was devastating. We've seen some nice homes burning.\" \n \n Ryan Holt, Greene County Volunteer Fire Coordinator, said his agency rescued three motorists who were trapped in the area in which Gatlinburg Falls, a major cabin rental company, is located. Holt said the entire area around Gatlinburg Falls was burning. \n \n Hillbilly Golf, which is located off the Parkway as you enter Gatlinburg, also was destroyed in the fire, according to firefighters. \n \n A volunteer fire coordinator said firefighters in Gatlinburg were currently trying to knock down fires around what he termed big structures in the downtown area, but he would not identify them. \n \n #Gatlinburg Posting entire terrifying video in 45 sec increments, credit to Michael Luciano, who I believe is the videographer pic.twitter.com/RM7iOpfc74 \u2014 Eric Long (@EricLong1972) November 29, 2016 \n \n TEMA reported earlier no fatalities that the organization knows of, but one report of a burn injury to an evacuee and minor injuries due to a fire truck involved in an accident. \n \n LeConte Medical Center has treated four patients related to the fires, according to Covenant Health spokeswoman Tonya Stoutt-Brown. She did not have any further details early Tuesday morning. \n \n Blount Memorial Hospital in Maryville said late Monday night that they were on alert but had not received any patients from the fires. \n \n Local officials ordered mandatory evacuations for Mynatt Park, Park Vista, Ski Mountain and the city of Gatlinburg. Evacuations were also ordered for the north end of Pigeon Forge. \n \n The National Guard is looking at deploying personnel to help clear debris, but no timeline has been set for their arrival, said Flener. \n \n TEMA has a district coordinator on site at the command post in Gatlinburg and others on the way. The agency has activated the state emergency operations center in Nashville, with personnel on hand from the state fire marshal\u2019s office, Tennessee Department of Transportation, Tennessee Department of Health and others, Flener said. The agency is also working with the fire mutual aid network to pull in firefighters and apparatuses from other counties, including McMinn County. \n \n Sara Gentry, director of sales at Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort in Gatlinburg, said several hundred people were evacuated from the hotel and she and her four children evacuated their home and headed to Dandridge to her sister's house. The number of evacuees likely would have been higher had it been the weekend, she noted. \n \n She said she's been talking to co-workers and friends who have lost their homes to the fire. \n \n \"This one girl was driving down Ski Mountain (Road) and watching her home burn,\" Gentry said. \"My kids' friends have lost their homes. It's just awful.\" \n \n Bill May, executive director of Arrowmont Arts and Crafts School, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, sent out a Facebook post just before 11 p.m. showing a pair of dorms and the red barn surrounded by fire. \n \n \u201cAll Arrowmont personnel are safe,\u201d May said in his post. \u201cI pleaded with the fire dept. to soak the walls of other buildings but our hope is the metal roofs may offer some protection. It is raining and winds have died down which offers hope, but the resources are stretched too thin with this much fire everywhere.\u201d \n \n May said he was on his way to his own home which was being threatened and that he and his wife Anne\u2019s pets and an elderly neighbor were evacuated. \n \n Many evacuees went to shelters in Pigeon Forge. \n \n Phil Campbell is the facilities manager at the LeConte Event Center in Pigeon Forge, which had taken in 300 to 400 people Monday night. \n \n \u201cWe knew we had power here and some places were losing power. We knew we had restrooms and water and a safe place to house people and give them a place to go \u2013 that\u2019s why we opened up,\u201d Campbell said. \n \n He said he expects even more to show up. \n \n The LeConte Event Center has been open for three years. \n \n Allen Sheets is from the American Red Cross out of Knoxville. He said the number of people at the shelter is expected to increase, as trolleys and buses continue to pull up with residents. \n \n Late Monday night Sheets said a group of approximately 200 was gathered at the Pigeon Forge Community Center. \n \n Early Tuesday morning Sheets said cots are on the way, but blankets, food and clothes are needed. He said Wal-Mart just made a large donation, and other businesses have been helping throughout the night. \n \n He said he\u2019s asking local families to bring supplies they can give to help the people stranded here and at the Pigeon Forge Community Center. \n \n Katie Brittian, manager at the Dress Barn near the LeConte Center, said, \"(The sky) was brown. The whole store smelled like smoke. Ash has been falling from the sky since 3.\" \n \n Judy Tucker, director of Sevier County's E-911 call center, around 9 p.m. said, \"We were just told by the Gatlinburg Fire Department that they had told everybody in Gatlinburg to get out. No one's getting through to anyone. Phones are ringing and not being answered anywhere. It's chaos.\" \n \n Pigeon Forge city manager Earlene M. Teaster had said all of Pigeon Forge except for the \"immediate Parkway\" was ordered to evacuate. \n \n Residents in the area were advised to use Highway 411-North to leave the area. \n \n Sevier County and Gatlinburg officials established a command center at Gatlinburg City Hall. \n \n State Hwy. 441 heading into Gatlinburg is closed, except for emergency traffic. State Hwy. 441 leaving Gatlinburg is open to evacuating traffic. \n \n TEMA reports downed power lines and trees, and reports of road closures. \n \n 9-1-1 communications centers in the area report being inundated with calls about the situation. \n \n Sevier and Greene County schools will be closed on Tuesday. Cocke County schools run two hours late. \n \n Copyright 2016 WFAA ||||| Hundreds of structures lost due to Sevier county wildfire \n \n Westgate Resorts, Black Bear Falls completely destroyed \n \n 14,000 residents and visitors evacuated from Gatlinburg \n \n Ober Gatlinburg says its property has NOT been destroyed, contrary to TEMA report. \n \n As of 9:30 a.m., here was the latest update from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency: \n \n The Red Cross is accepting monetary donations. People can make a $10 donation by texting \"REDCROSS\" to 90999. \n \n Related: How to help fire evacuees and first responders \n \n More: List of shelters open for Gatlinburg wildfire evacuees \n \n 7:30 a.m. Tuesday UPDATE: A Sevier County fire has destroyed 75-100 homes Cobbly Nob area of Gatlinburg. \n \n There are no reports of fatalities or major injuries as of 7:30 a.m. Monday. \n \n About 1,300 people are in shelters throughout Sevier County. \n \n The Great Smoky Mountain National Park have closed all facilities in the park on Tuesday due to extensive fire activity and downed trees. GSMNP headquarters do not have power or phone services. \n \n Sign up for Take 10, the WBIR lunchtime newsletter Sign up for the daily Take 10 Newsletter Something went wrong. Get the news you need to know, plus weather and something to make you smile, every weekday in your inbox! Thank you for signing up for the Take 10 Newsletter. Please try again later. \n \n Submit \n \n 5 a.m. Tuesday UPDATE: Authorities rescued 29 backcountry hikers from wildfires in Sevier County, according to Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash. \n \n Cash said there were not any major injuries or fatalities as of 5 a.m. Tuesday. There is one report of an evacuee suffering a burn injury. \n \n \"I've been in federal service for 25 years, and I've fought fires on the West Coast and the East Coast and been with the Forest Service as well,\" Cash said. \"Nothing that we've experienced in the 24 hours has prepared for what we've experienced here in the last 24 hours. (It's) been just unbelievable what we've experienced here.\" \n \n Cash called the wildfires \"unprecedented.\" \n \n Cash said Gatlinburg fire officials said winds reached up to 80 mph. Winds sustained at 30-40 mph about 10-12 hours. The winds coupled with the 500-acre wildfire in Gatlinburg, according to Cash. \n \n Watch: Cassius Cash provides update on Gatlinburg fires on Tuesday morning \n \n 3 a.m. Tuesday UPDATE: Approximately 500 people were evacuated from Pigeon Forge Monday night as wildfires continue to burn around the city. \n \n The city of Pigeon Forge said early Tuesday morning that approximately 100 firefighters from 15 additional stations throughout East Tennessee are battling the blazes. More are expected to arrive Tuesday. \n \n Sevier County officials currently estimate about 100 homes are impacted in the county with 10 homes impacted in Gatlinburg from the fire. \n \n Crews are working to contain multiple active fires around the city and in nearby Gatlinburg. Power outages are being reported in various areas of the city. \n \n Pigeon Forge Fire Chief Tony Watson said emergency crews will begin damage assessment of the area at daybreak. \n \n A few schools systems will be closed Tuesday, including Greene, McMinn and Sevier county schools. Cocke County schools run two hours late. \n \n TEMA officials are on site in Sevier County providing support to local agencies. Fire crews are working closely with a number of state agencies and the military in battling the fire. \n \n Right now, the Tennessee National Guard is mobilizing 100 personnel with helping first responders, removing debris and assisting in welfare checks. \n \n Fire departments from as far north as Greenville to as far south as McMinn County are sending 50 to 60 fire apparatuses to help. The Department of Health is coordinating to send medical units to assist with transports. \n \n More than 1,200 people have been sheltered at the Gatlinburg Community Center and the Rocky Top Sports Park. \n \n Donations are being accepted at the Pigeon Forge Fire Hall Station 1 at 3229 Rena Street. \n \n Sevier County reports that 12,509 people have lost power. \n \n Click here for the latest updates from TEMA \n \n Midnight UPDATE: There are currently 30 structures on fire in Gatlinburg as residents and guests evacuate the city. \n \n The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency issued a level three state of emergency. TEMA said 30 structures are on fire, including a 16-story hotel on Regan Drive and the Driftwood Apartments in Gatlinburg. The wildfire is also at the edge of the Dollywood property. \n \n Mandatory evacuations are in place in Gatlinburg in: \n \n \u00b7 Downtown Gatlinburg \n \n \u00b7 Ski Mountain \n \n \u00b7 Mynatt Park \n \n \u00b7 Cartertown Road \n \n \u00b7 East Foothills \n \n \u00b7 Westgate Community \n \n Evacuations have also been ordered for the north end of Pigeon Forge, specifically between traffic light 8 and the Spur. \n \n There are no reports of fatalities from the fires, according to TEMA. There is one report of an evacuee suffering a burn injury. \n \n There are reports of downed power lines and trees, TEMA said. \n \n The Tennessee National Guard is deploying personnel to Sevier County to help with clearing debris. The Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Department of Transportation are assisting with evacuations and traffic control in the area. \n \n Tennessee's Fire Mutual Aid system is coordinating the arrival of 50 to 60 fire apparatuses from fire departments throughout the area, from as far north as Greeneville and as far south as McMinn County, TEMA said. \n \n GALLERY: Fires in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge \n \n 11 p.m. Monday UPDATE: Motorists fleeing wildfires in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge packed roads in and out of the towns Monday night as flames and choking smoke driven by wind swept across the area. \n \n Multiple parts of Gatlinburg including downtown Gatlinburg were being evacuated, fire officials said Monday night. \n \n The town set up an evacuation shelter at the Gatlinburg Community Center at 156 Proffitt Road. An evacuation center also was set up at Rocky Top Sports World near Gatlinburg Pittman High School on Highway 321. \n \n Some areas of Pigeon Forge also were being evacuated including residents and guests located in the areas between traffic light 8 and the Spur, according to spokeswoman Trish McGee. \n \n \"Three county school buses are available for emergency transport and are being dispatched as needed to transport those who need to evacuate,\" according to a statement from McGee. \n \n %INLINE% \n \n Farther west, fires also were reported above Wears Valley Road near the Dollar General Store. A viewer sent 10News video of the hillside aflame. \n \n In Gatlinburg, National Park Service and Gatlinburg officials stressed the fire posed a serious threat that would not abate until rains came. Evacuees were being shifted to the Gatlinburg. \n \n \"We urge the public to pray. We urge the public to stay off the highways. The traffic that is on the roads is emergency equipment. If (the public) could just stay home and stay tuned to their local media outlet,\" Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said at a 8:30 p.m. press conference. \n \n In Gatlinburg, other areas under a mandatory evacuation include Mynatt Park Neighborhood, East Foothills Road, Turkey Nest Road and Davenport Road areas. The Savage Gardens areas also are under mandatory evacuation. \n \n Police are going to the area to get people out. City officials urged everyone to get out. \n \n %INLINE% \n \n Gatlinburg city officials said high winds were downing power lines, sparking multiple ground fires. \n \n Multiple agencies were responding to the fires in Gatlinburg including the Knoxville Fire Department. Gatlinburg City Manager Cindy Ogle said she understood the Karns Volunteer Fire Department also was responding. \n \n Fire officials decided about 6 p.m. to impose the evacuation, according to Ogle. \n \n Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash said he couldn't over-emphasize the seriousness of the fire's threat. \n \n To help with Pigeon Force evacuations, three county school buses were available for emergency transport and were being dispatched as needed to transport those who need to evacuate, according to a release from \n \n The following locations are open and ready to receive those who need shelter: LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge, Pigeon Forge Community Center, Liberty Baptist Church in Wears Valley and Iglesia Cristiana LaDuz De Jesus. \n \n Also open for evacuations: The First Red Bank Baptist Church in Sevierville and First Baptist Church of Sevierville. \n \n Sevier County Schools are closed Tuesday due to the fires, the school district said on its website. \n \n Great Smoky Mountains Park Superintendent Cassius Cash said the fires posed a \"very serious situation.\" \n \n Authorities could not provide an estimate on the total acreage that was burning. \n \n \"I know that it's hard to potentially think about losing a home or a place that you've worked your entire life to build, but we are dealing with a situation that is very dynamic,\" Miller said. \"The wind is not helping us. The rain is not here yet.\" \n \n Authorities are hoping that rain expected Monday night will ultimately douse the spreading wildfires. \n \n PREVIOUS UPDATE: City of Gatlinburg officials have declared a mandatory evacuation of several areas in the city due to the threat of a nearby fire in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. \n \n The Mynatt Park Neighborhood, Savage Gardens, East Foothills Road, Turkey Nest Road and Davenport Road areas are included in the immediate mandatory evacuation. \n \n RELATED: Chimney Tops fire sends heavy smoke into Gatlinburg \n \n A Red Cross Evacuation Shelter has been set up at the Gatlinburg Community Center at 156 Proffitt Road. Residents needing transportation to the shelter may request assistance by calling the Gatlinburg Police Department at 865-436-5181. \n \n Service animals are allowed at the evacuation shelter. \n \n Gatlinburg Fire Department officials say the threat is from a spot fire in the Twin Creeks area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park combined with low humidity and windy conditions. \n \n Fire officials said fallen trees have sparked multiple fires in Gatlinburg from downed power lines. Fire departments from multiple agencies are assisting. \n \n The National Park Service notified the city around 11:45 a.m. that the Chimney Tops Trail fire created a new fire near Mynatt Park. The fire is still inside the national park, but the park service notified the city since it is near a residential area. \n \n Smoke and ash from the fire have created poor visibility in Gatlinburg since Monday morning. \n \n Gatlinburg police officers are going door to door asking residents in the Mynatt neighborhood to voluntarily evacuate to the Red Cross Shelter, city officials said. \n \n Dana Soehn, a spokesperson for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, said over 100 people from various agencies are working the fire and monitoring its movements. They are expecting another 80 firefighters and engines from seven different counties to arrive Tuesday to provide additional support fighting the fire. \n \n The origins of the fire are unknown, but the park has set up a tipline at 865-436-1580 for anyone who has information about the cause of the fires. \n \n Soehn urged visitors to honor the burn ban that is in place in the park. There is a complete ban on burning of any campfires or charcoal grills. ||||| Thick smoke from area forest fires looms in Gatlinburg, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 28, 2016. Gatlinburg officials say several areas are being evacuated as a result of fires in and around Great Smoky Mountains... (Associated Press) \n \n Thick smoke from area forest fires looms in Gatlinburg, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 28, 2016. Gatlinburg officials say several areas are being evacuated as a result of fires in and around Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Brianna Paciorka/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP) (Associated Press) \n \n ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 As a strong storm system approached some of the largest wildfires burning in the South, the rain signaled new hope for firefighters working to extinguish the blazes. \n \n But the storms also brought high winds, which toppled dead trees and could pose a threat to firefighters, authorities said. Experts predicted that rains Tuesday from one storm system would not be enough to end the relentless drought that's spread across several states and provided fuel for the fires. \n \n The storms early Tuesday appeared to be taking aim at the nearly 28,000-acre Rough Ridge Fire in north Georgia and the nearly 25,000-acre Rock Mountain Fire that began in Georgia and then spread deep into North Carolina. \n \n In Gatlinburg, Tennessee, emergency officials said a wildfire had set 30 structures ablaze, including a 16-story hotel, and was at the edge of the Dollywood theme park. \n \n Mandatory evacuations were underway for areas in and around Gatlinburg, including the south part of Pigeon Forge, where Dolly Parton's theme park is, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Dean Flener said in a news release Monday night. TV news broadcasts showed residents streaming out of town just as rain started to wet roads. \n \n Workers at an aquarium evacuated because of wildfires around Gatlinburg were concerned about the thousands of animals housed there. Ryan DeSears, general manager of Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, told WBIR-TV the building was still standing and all workers had been evacuated late Monday. However, he said workers were anxious to return to check on the well-being of the 10,518 animals. \n \n The rain forecast \"puts the bull's-eye of the greatest amounts right at the bull's-eye of where we've been having our greatest activity,\" said Dave Martin, deputy director of operations for fire and aviation management with the southern region of the U.S. Forest Service. \n \n The projected rainfall amounts \"really lines up with where we need it,\" Martin said Monday. \"We're all knocking on wood.\" \n \n After weeks of punishing drought, any rain that falls should be soaked up quickly, forecasters said. It will provide some relief but won't end the drought \u2014 or the fire threat, they said. \n \n Drought conditions will likely persist, authorities said. The problem is that rainfall amounts have been 10 to 15 inches below normal during the past three months in many parts of the South, authorities said. \n \n \"I think we racked up deficits that are going to be too much to overcome with just one storm system,\" said Mark Svoboda, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. \n \n \"I would say it's way too early to say 'Yes, this drought is over,'\" Svoboda said. \"Does it put a dent in it? Yes, but we have a long ways to go.\" \n \n The rain also brings danger because strong winds at the leading edge of the storms can topple trees and limbs that can kill and injure firefighters, he said. \n \n In Mississippi, trees were reported downed in nearly 20 counties across the state. Sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph with gusts of more than 50 mph were reported and more than 2 inches of rain fell in some areas. \n \n Power outages peaked at more than 23,000 statewide in Mississippi. Powerlines downed by winds sparked grass fires in four counties, said Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. \n \n The storms moved across Alabama on Monday night and fell on Georgia during the overnight hours. High wind warnings were issued for mountainous areas in northern parts of Georgia. \n \n In South Carolina, the stormy forecast was giving hope to firefighters battling a blaze in the northwest corner of the state. The South Carolina Forestry Commission hopes to contain the Pinnacle Mountain fire by the middle of next week. \n \n More rain was expected Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. \n \n ___ \n \n Fuller reported from New Orleans. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Jackson, Mississippi; Beth Campbell in Louisville, Kentucky; and Jack Jones in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 One of at least 14 wildfires raging in Gatlinburg, Tenn., is threatening thousands of animals at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. Flames engulfed at least 30 buildings in the area late Monday\u2014including a 16-story hotel outside the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge\u2014leading aquarium employees to be \"force evacuated,\" the general manager tells WBIR. They left behind 10,518 animals that will survive without humans for 24 hours, unless flames reach the aquarium. \"We need to be one of the first people allowed back in when it's safe,\" the manager says. Many areas of Gatlinburg and neighboring Pigeon Forge are under mandatory evacuations with 100 homes affected, reports WBIR. \"It's the apocalypse\" in downtown Gatlinburg, one fire official tells WFAA. So far there have been no reports of fatalities or major injuries, per CNN, with just two people suffering minor burns, including one of 29 hikers rescued in Sevier County. Fire officials believe some of the fires were sparked by high winds, which sent trees crashing onto power lines. They spread easily as the area is suffering a drought; many parts of the South have seen 10 to 15 inches less rainfall than usual over the last three months. It's \"been just unbelievable what we've experienced here,\" says a superintendent at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where one wildfire is raging. The good news: A US Forest Service rep says Tuesday\u2019s forecast predicts rain will fall where it's needed most, per the AP. However, the fire threat and drought conditions are expected to continue."}
{"document": "The deliveryman had just pulled 18-year-old Savannah Underwood from the burning wreckage of a Nissan early Saturday in Burbank when she starting yelling for her friends. \n \n There was so much smoke as flames overtook the car that Juan Ganaja thought Underwood was the sole occupant as he rushed to pull her away. \n \n \n \n \"She told me, you know, 'My friends are inside,\u2019 and so I turned around and the car, it was really bad already. There was fire all over the car,\u201d Ganaja told NBC4-TV. \n \n Five teens and young adults were killed when the Nissan they were in slammed into a concrete pillar near the Scott Road off-ramp of the 5 Freeway and burst into flames shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday. As of Wednesday, L.A. County coroner's officials had yet to confirm their identities. \n \n Underwood's mother, Valerie Lucas, told reporters Tuesday that her daughter was saved after Ganaja \"heard her screaming and he was able to literally drag her away from the vehicle.\u201d \n \n Underwood sustained broken bones in her right leg and a crushed pelvis, but her attorney, John Gantus, told the Burbank Leader that she was doing \"incredibly well given the circumstances.\" \n \n In a statement, she said she was \"deeply grateful\" to the Hook Burger deliveryman who was there moments after the crash, as well as the first responders and doctors. \n \n The deadly crash shocked many in the community, including longtime police officers, who said it was among the worst they'd seen in years. \n \n The Burbank City Council on Tuesday held a moment of silence for the victims, with some of their friends and family members in the audience. \n \n An investigation into the cause of the crash remained ongoing, although authorities have said they believe speed may have been a factor. \n \n Katherine Laprell, a former Burroughs student who recently saw one of the victims, told the Burbank Leader she was still in shock over the news days after the crash. \n \n \u201cPeople need to be more careful \u2013 I really hope this is a wake-up call for everybody,\u201d Laprell said. \u201cI\u2019ve never had a tragic loss like this happen.\u201d \n \n A vigil at the crash site grew quickly over the last few days as friends stopped to remember the victims and share their grief. \n \n Ganaja, connected to the tragedy by its immediate aftermath, also offered his condolences to the victims' families and friends. \n \n \u201cI feel so bad for them,\" he told NBC4. \n \n ALSO: \n \n UCLA environmental studies receives $15-million donation \n \n Boys held in sexual assault case at Riverside County high school \n \n San Diego man held after police find pot, puppies, baby in home \n \n Times Community News staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report. ||||| A delivery man rescued an 18-year-old woman from the burning wreckage of a car crash that killed five of her friends. John Cadiz Klemack reports from Burbank for NBC4 News at 11 p.m. Oct. 1, 2013. (Published Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2013) \n \n Juan Ganaja, a delivery man on his third stop of Saturday didn't hear the car crash. He only heard a woman's screams for help. \n \n It was 4:20 a.m. in Burbank, Calif., and it was still dark, so he didn't even see the wrecked car - behind two fences and across some train tracks - until the flames burned brightly enough. \n \n Delivery Man Pulls Sole Survivor of Burbank Crash to Safety \n \n Savannah Underwood, the only survivor of a deadly crash that happened in Burbank over the weekend, was traveling with five friends when the driver lost control. Underwood was pulled out from the vehicle by a delivery man who heard her screams. John Cadiz Klemack reports from Burbank for NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Oct. 1, 2013. (Published Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2013) \n \n \"Help! Help!\" the woman screamed. \n \n He ran toward the flames. \n \n On Tuesday, Ganaja laughed and said what he did wasn't special. \n \n \"I'm not a hero,\" he said. \"It's just me.\" \n \n Ganaja, whatever he might be, scaled two fences to get to Savannah Underwood, 18, who had just climbed out of the wreck with a broken leg. He carried her to safety before the car exploded into flames. \n \n She was crying and told Ganaja her friends were still inside, but when he turned around, the fire was too fierce. \n \n He said he still visits the site of the crash every day and feels sorry for the victims he couldn't save and their families. \n \n The Nissan Altima that Underwood was in was carrying six people. The driver lost control on a curving freeway underpass and struck a concrete pillar. \n \n Everyone inside except for Underwood died. \n \n The victims were identified by family and friends as Stephen Stoll, Sebastian Forero, Sameer Nevarez, Malak Hariri and Sugey Cuevas. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office has yet to officially identify them. \n \n Underwood was recovering in a hospital, and had undergone surgeries for her injuries. \n \n \"I survived for a reason last night, & am determined to figure out why, stay strong everyone <3,\" she tweeted. \"I just want to wake up from this nightmare.\" \n \n Her mother, Valerie Lucas, said Underwood was strong. \n \n \"When she was told what happened, which was the following day, she was crying,\" Lucas said. \"And that was the first thing out of her mouth, was that she now had five new angels to watch over her.\" \n \n \"To the other families,\" said her father, David Underwood, \"all we can say is we're so sorry.\"", "summary": "\u2013 A car crash that claimed the lives of five young adults in California over the weekend might have claimed a sixth had a deliveryman not heard her screams, reports NBC Los Angeles. Juan Ganaja, who works for the Hook Burger chain, heard calls for help about 4:20am Saturday in Burbank. He climbed two fences, clambered over railroad tracks, and arrived at the scene of a horrific car accident. Savannah Underwood, 18, had just climbed out of the wreck but had a broken leg and crushed pelvis, and Ganaja carried her to safety just before the car exploded in flames. When Underwood then told him about her five friends still in the car, which had slammed into a concrete pillar under a freeway overpass, Ganaja tried to return but was forced back by the intensity of the flames, reports the LA Times. Underwood was not the driver in the crash, which remains under investigation. \"I survived for a reason last night, & am determined to figure out why, stay strong everyone,\" she tweeted."}
{"document": "On Saturday when introducing his new running mate, Mitt Romney initially referred to Paul D. Ryan as the \u201cnext president of the United States.\u201d \n \n Mr. Romney quickly apologized for the slip-up, saying that he hoped that Mr. Ryan would become the next vice president instead. (Apparently, the stress of a vice presidential rollout can take its toll even on relatively unflappable candidates like Mr. Romney; Barack Obama made a similar slip when introducing Joe Biden four years ago.) \n \n Of course, it\u2019s not literally impossible that Mr. Ryan could turn out to be the 45th American president precisely (Mr. Obama is the 44th). It just couldn\u2019t be through a sequence of events that Mr. Romney would be rooting for. Either the Republican ticket would have to win this year\u2019s election \u2014 but with Mr. Ryan, not Mr. Romney, at the top of the ticket. Or, the more likely case: Mr. Obama would need to win the election and serve out his remaining four years, and Mr. Ryan would have to run for and win the presidency in 2016. \n \n What, exactly, are the odds of one of these scenarios transpiring? \n \n For that matter, what are Mr. Ryan\u2019s odds of someday becoming president \u2014 whether he\u2019s the 45th, 46th, 47th, or some later number in the sequence of people to hold the office? \n \n Even more broadly, what does the future hold for running mates on winning tickets? And what about those on losing ones? \n \n There are too many variables to compute these chances exactly, but we can make some reasonable guesses based on the historical record. \n \n First, let\u2019s consider the case that Mr. Romney would be most pleased with: that he and Mr. Ryan are the winning ticket in November, and Republicans re-capture the White House. \n \n Twenty-eight men have been elected vice president since 1900, double-counting those (like George Herbert Walker Bush in 1980 and 1984) who were elected twice. Let\u2019s give Mr. Biden a mulligan, since he hasn\u2019t yet had a chance to seek an open nomination. That leaves us with 27 cases. \n \n In the chart that follows, I\u2019ve sorted the 27 winning vice presidents by the margin by which their ticket won the popular vote. Then I documented whether they sought the presidency in some subsequent election, whether they won a party nomination, and whether they were actually elected to the Oval Office. \n \n The clear majority of winning vice presidential nominees \u2014 21 of 27, again counting cases like Mr. Bush twice \u2014 ran for president themselves at some point. One qualification: the definition of what counts as \u201crunning\u201d for president is a little fuzzy, especially in the era before presidential primaries were common. But I\u2019ve applied a relatively liberal standard. For instance, the winning vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, Henry A. Wallace, gets credit for both running for and winning a party nomination in 1948 \u2014 although it was with the Progressive Party, and not the Democrats. \n \n The elected vice presidents who failed to eventually seek the presidency had pretty good reasons for it. James S. Sherman, elected vice president to William Howard Taft in 1908, died during the course of the 1912 election when he and Mr. Taft were seeking another term. Spiro T. Agnew, the winning vice president in 1968 and 1972, resigned from office before his second term was completed. Charles Curtis, who was Herbert Hoover\u2019s vice president in 1928, saw his ticket lose disastrously in the landslide of 1932. And Dick Cheney was exceptionally unpopular by the time that Republicans were planning for the 2008 election cycle. \n \n Of the winning vice presidents who did run for the presidency, 13 eventually won their party\u2019s nomination. This includes cases, like Lyndon Baines Johnson, of men who had ascended to the presidency before doing so, and ran for re-election as incumbents. \n \n Even if you exclude those instances, however, you wind up with a batting average of close to 50 percent when former vice presidents sought their party nomination. That\u2019s pretty impressive, considering that there might typically be a half-dozen viable candidates seeking an open nomination. Sitting vice presidents are, literally and figuratively, the \u201cnext in line\u201d in their parties, and they can sometimes clear their fields of competition. \n \n Finally, there were eight cases (counting Richard Nixon and the elder Mr. Bush twice each) in which the winning vice-presidential nominee was later a winning presidential candidate \u2014 or about 30 percent of the total. \n \n Incidentally, there have been no cases since 1900 in which someone was elected vice president, and then ascended to the presidency after a death or resignation, without later being elected to another presidential term themselves. What about Gerald Ford? He succeeded Mr. Nixon in 1974, but then lost his bid for re-election in 1976. But Mr. Ford had also never been elected vice president; instead, he succeeded Mr. Agnew. So he\u2019s excused on a technicality. \n \n Put these bits of trivia aside. A very obvious (and intuitive) fact emerges from this data. Mr. Ryan is much more likely to eventually become president if he and Mr. Romney win this year\u2019s election. \n \n In fact, the track record of losing vice-presidential candidates is quite underwhelming. There are 28 of these cases since 1900. (We will count Sarah Palin even though we didn\u2019t count Mr. Biden, since she had an open nomination this year but declined to seek it.) \n \n Of these 28 men and women who lost their vice-presidential bids, only nine later ran for president. Only three of them later won their party\u2019s nomination, and just one \u2014 Franklin D. Roosevelt \u2014 later won the presidency. \n \n The losing candidates who later ran for president generally had one of two things in common. First, if their loss was very close, it did not seem to harm their reputations nearly as much. Of the eight vice presidential candidates whose tickets lost the election by 5 or fewer percentage points, seven actually did run for president at some later point. (The exception was Charles W. Fairbanks, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1916, but did not seek the office again after his vice presidential bid also failed that November.) \n \n The other circumstance is when a vice president on a losing ticket had previously been on a winning one. Walter Mondale and Dan Quayle, who later sought the presidency (although Mr. Quayle\u2019s bid in 2000 was a flop), had won the vice presidency in 1976 and 1988, respectively, before losing it four years later. \n \n The exceptional case is Mr. Roosevelt. He and the Democratic nominee for president, James M. Cox of Ohio, were decimated in the 1920 election, losing to Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge by more than 26 percentage points. \n \n But Mr. Roosevelt later came back to be elected president four times. So nothing can be ruled out. \n \n Still, if Mr. Ryan fails to win the vice presidency this year, his political future should be aided substantially if he and Mr. Romney at least keep the margin respectable. If the Republicans lose the election by about 3 points \u2014 around what their deficit to Mr. Obama appears to be now \u2014 then Mr. Ryan will be able to claim that he at least did not do the ticket any harm. \n \n A narrow defeat for Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan, also, would still leave Republicans with decent-to-good chances to retain the House of Representatives. And it\u2019s not impossible that they could take over the Senate, since there are quite a lot of seats in play, and since a good half-dozen of them are idiosyncratic cases that may come down more to local factors than the overall partisan tide. \n \n If Republicans do reasonably well in these Congressional races but fail to win the presidency, some in the party may even claim \u2014 and it\u2019s a logical enough case \u2014 that the problem was with the top of the ticket and not with Mr. Ryan. \n \n A decisive loss, however \u2014 if Mr. Obama wins re-election by 5 percentage points more, potentially coming close to his margin of victory in 2008 \u2014 could substantially tarnish Mr. Ryan\u2019s reputation. At that point, Mr. Romney will have gotten a worse result than his standing in the polls before he selected Mr. Ryan. \n \n Furthermore, such a loss would be suggestive that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Republican candidates. Somewhat contrary to the conventional wisdom, most of the forecasting models put together by economists and political scientists predict either an essentially tied election, or a narrow win for Mr. Obama. (Why? Incumbents have historically gotten a lot of credit from voters. And voters have historically had short economic memories. If a case can be made that the economy is improving, the incumbent\u2019s odds are decent, even if it is clearly not firing on all cylinders.) \n \n But few of these models call for a decisive win for Mr. Obama. If he wins by 7 points or so with this economy, and with only break-even approval ratings, that will be more than getting the benefit of the doubt from voters. Instead, it would suggest that many voters felt they had no other choice, given an uncharacteristically poor Republican alternative. \n \n With a margin in the mid-to-high single digits, also, Democrats would be clear favorites to retain the Senate, and the House of Representatives would be in play. Mr. Ryan would undoubtedly retain pockets of support within his party, but unless there were some other excuse for the loss (an unexpectedly good series of jobs reports, or an unexpected scandal involving Mr. Romney), he would be remembered as being part of a hugely disappointing election. \n \n We can systematize this knowledge by performing a regression analysis on the historical data. For our technically-inclined readers: what I\u2019ll be using here is a type of regression called ordered logit, which is appropriate when there is a hierarchy of categorical outcomes (running for president; winning the nomination; becoming president). The independent variables are the ticket\u2019s margin of victory or defeat in the popular vote, a variable indicating whether they won the Electoral College and ascended to the White House, an interaction term between the two, and a time trend. \n \n The interaction term serves to capture the asymmetry in the data. If you are elected vice president, it doesn\u2019t seem to matter much what your ticket\u2019s margin of victory was. Once you\u2019re in office, you\u2019re in, and it\u2019s hard to predict what will transpire from there other than that your chances of someday becoming president have gone way up. \n \n But if you lost the election as the vice-presidential candidate, keeping it close seems to make quite a bit of difference to your fortunes. That way, you can make a more credible claim that the problems with the campaign were isolated to a few issues or bouts of misfortune \u2014 none of them implicating your role in it, of course \u2014 rather than the whole thing having been a debacle and everyone associated with it being inherently suspect. \n \n The inclusion of the time trend is more debatable. Over the past century or so, there has been a very modest tendency toward vice presidents remaining more active in presidential politics after they ran for the office. The variable isn\u2019t statistically significant, but it coincides with a general increase in stature for the vice-presidential slot, so I think there is a theoretical basis for including it. But it only has an impact around the margin, raising Mr. Ryan\u2019s odds just slightly. \n \n The figure below reflects the actuarial odds of Mr. Ryan running for president, winning his nomination, and winning the election in some future November, conditional upon different margins of victory or defeat for him and Mr. Romney this year. You will notice that there is a kink in the graph. This is when Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney go from losing this year\u2019s election to winning it, and Mr. Ryan\u2019s odds of becoming president some day increase sharply. \n \n If Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney lose the election by a single point, the equation estimates that Mr. Ryan still has better-than-even odds \u2014 63 percent \u2014 of someday running for president. His chances of winning the nomination are 28 percent under this analysis, and he has a 14 percent chance of winning a general election as the presidential candidate. \n \n But what if they lose in a 7-point blowout, and Mr. Obama matches his winning margin from 2008? Then Mr. Ryan\u2019s chances of running for president are down to 44 percent. And his probability of actually becoming president are cut in half, to 7 percent. \n \n The best case, of course, is if Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney win. Suppose, for instance, that they do win, but by a single point (and also win the Electoral College). \n \n Then, Mr. Ryan\u2019s chances of running for president are calculated at 84 percent. His probability of winning a future party nomination is 53 percent, and of becoming president, 33 percent \u2014 about one in three. \n \n When I average these results across the entire range of scenarios that our forecast model articulates \u2014 substantial losses for Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan, narrow losses, and wins by various plausible margins \u2014 I come up with about a 15 percent chance of Mr. Ryan someday becoming president. \n \n His odds of becoming the 45th president are slimmer, however. For that to happen, he first needs Mr. Obama to win re-election. Unfortunately for Mr. Ryan, that\u2019s the \u201ceasy\u201d part. Our forecast now gives Mr. Obama about a 72 percent chance of winning another term. \n \n Next, he needs Mr. Obama to finish out his entire second term. If Mr. Obama resigns sometime in mid-2014 after a major scandal, Republican odds of re-claiming the White House will look very good in 2016 \u2014 but someone (probably Mr. Biden) will have become the 45th president first, before Mr. Ryan or another Republican could become the 46th. Without considering any factors specific to Mr. Obama, historically 83 percent of presidents have completed their four-year term. \n \n Then Mr. Ryan needs to win the general election in 2016. Conditional upon he and Mr. Romney having lost this year\u2019s election, the model does not evaluate his chances of this as being all that good. Specifically, the model gives Mr. Ryan a 9 percent chance of eventually becoming president conditional upon losing this year\u2019s election. Moreover, some of those cases involve instances where Mr. Ryan would become president in 2020 (or 2024 or 2028, and so on) after someone else \u2014 Hillary Rodham Clinton or Marco Rubio, for instance \u2014 succeeds Mr. Obama as the 45th president. If you correct for that, it lowers Mr. Ryan\u2019s odds to about 7 percent of becoming president after the 2016 election specifically, after having lost this one. \n \n Finally, we consider the entire parlay of events: that Mr. Obama wins in 2012, that he serves out all four years, and that Mr. Ryan runs and wins in 2016. The chances of this are only about 4 percent. \n \n We can also account for the alternate means by which Mr. Ryan could become the 45th president: if, for some reason, Mr. Romney is unable to complete his bid this year \u2014 and then Mr. Ryan replaces him, and wins the election. Historically, of the roughly 100 major-party tickets in the history of the nation, only one presidential nominee (Horace Greeley in 1872) died, or resigned the nomination, between the party conventions and Inauguration Day. Accounting for this oddball case, Mr. Ryan\u2019s probability of becoming the 45th president increases only to about 4.5 percent. \n \n So Mr. Romney\u2019s misstatement will probably not turn out to be ironically prescient: the odds that Paul Ryan literally becomes the next president of the United States are about 20-to-1 against. But his odds of someday becoming president are much higher than that, and they\u2019ll increase to about 1-in-3 if he and Mr. Romney win this November. \n \n Of course, this is a one-size-fits all calculation, which doesn\u2019t consider anything about Mr. Ryan specifically. The fact that he is quite young, that the Republican Party lacks an obvious successor other than him, and that he commands the respect of both the party base and the party establishment, all work in his favor in terms of running for and winning future nominations. Whatever happens this year, he is likely to be a major part of the American political landscape for a long time to come. ||||| Immediate reaction on par with reaction to Biden \n \n PRINCETON, NJ -- The initial reaction of the American public to John McCain's surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is muted, similar to the reaction of Joe Biden being named Barack Obama's running mate. \n \n Perhaps the most significant finding about Palin in the Aug. 29 USA Today/Gallup poll is that she is largely unknown to most Americans. A substantial majority of Americans don't know enough about her yet to have an opinion, and her name identification is lower than that of any other recent vice presidential candidate when measured immediately after selection. Among those who do know her, her image is significantly more positive than negative, and her 3-to-1 positive-to-negative ratio is better than the 2-to-1 ratio measured for Biden a week ago. \n \n A large majority say that at this point her selection will not have an impact on their presidential vote either way. However, almost as many Americans say that she is not qualified to serve as president as say she is qualified, giving her a more negative reading on this measure than most other recent vice presidential selectees, with the exception of Dan Quayle. \n \n The sections that follow outline the data measured in USA Today/Gallup interviewing conducted Friday, August 29. \n \n 1. Overall Reaction to Palin's Selection Similar to Biden Selection \n \n Americans' overall reaction to the McCain selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate is very similar to last week's reaction to Obama's selection of Biden. \n \n A little less than half of Americans rate the selection of Palin as excellent or pretty good, while 37% rate it as only fair or poor (the rest have no opinion). Gallup's measure of reaction to Biden's selection on August 23 was only slightly different, even though many more Americans were familiar with the Delaware senator when he was named. \n \n In turn, the Palin and Biden assessments are well below the positive reaction the public had to John Kerry's selection of John Edwards in 2004, and slightly less positive than Al Gore's selection of Joe Lieberman and George W. Bush's selection of Dick Cheney in 2000. All recent V.P. selections are more positive compared to George H. W. Bush's selection of Quayle in 1988, the only selection to be reviewed more negatively than positively by the public. \n \n As was the case for Biden a week ago and all vice presidential selections of the last two decades, the substantial majority of Americans say that the selection of Palin will not have much impact on their vote for president this year. \n \n Of those who do have a reaction, the impact is more positive than negative for both Palin and Biden, though the reaction to Palin's selection is the more positive of the two, by a modest margin. \n \n These reactions to the 2008 vice presidential running mates are similar to those that greeted both 2000 vice presidential selections, but slightly less positive than other recent selections such as Edwards in 2004, Jack Kemp in 1996, Gore in 1992, and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. \n \n Even among Republicans, the reaction is muted. Thirty percent of Republicans say that Palin's selection makes them more likely to vote for McCain, while just 5% say they are less likely to vote for McCain, leaving the rest saying that her selection, at least so far, has no impact on their vote. Still, this is a slightly stronger partisan reaction than Democrats had to Biden, as just 21% of Democrats said they were more likely to vote for Obama because Biden was his running mate. \n \n Among the crucial bloc of independents, the impact of Palin's selection is mixed, with the majority saying \"no impact,\" and about as many of the rest saying that it made them less likely to want to vote for her as more likely to vote for her. \n \n Importantly, there is no sign yet of a vehemently negative reaction from Democrats. Just 14% say they are less likely to vote for McCain as a result of the Palin selection, while 6% say they are more likely to vote for McCain. \n \n 2. Palin a Mystery to Majority of Americans \n \n One reason for the lack of a self-reported impact of Palin's selection may be the fact that she is a mystery to many Americans at this early point. More than 7 out of 10 Americans interviewed on Friday night said they had never heard of Palin, or didn't know enough about her to have an opinion. This is a much higher \"don't know\" than measured by Gallup immediately after the initial vice presidential announcement of Biden a week ago, or Edwards, Lieberman, Cheney, Kemp, or Gore in previous years' elections. \n \n This finding is not surprising. The other vice presidential picks in recent years have actively sought their party's presidential nomination in the year they were selected or in previous years, or had well-established careers in Congress or the federal government. Palin has been governor of a small state for less than two years and has no national political experience. \n \n Of interest is the fact that almost 6 out of 10 Republicans say they have never heard of Palin or don't know enough to have an opinion about her. These data underscore that the degree to which Palin is featured at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., next week will be critical in the establishment of her overall image in the minds of many members of her own party, as well as independents and other potential swing voters. \n \n Even at this point, however, Palin has a positive image among those who know enough to have an opinion of her, with more than a 3-to-1 ratio of favorable to unfavorable ratings, more positive than Biden's ratio measured last weekend. \n \n By comparison, Edwards, Lieberman, Cheney, Kemp, and Gore all had much more positive favorable-to-unfavorable ratios than either of this year's vice presidential selections. All in all, Gallup's initial reads of the recognition and image of both Biden and Palin after their selections this year are more muted than has been the case for other recent vice presidential selections. \n \n 3. Potential Problem for Palin: Perceived Qualifications to Serve as President \n \n Palin rates substantially below other recent vice presidential selectees in terms of perceptions that she is qualified to serve as president. Asked if from what they know about Sarah Palin, they believe she is \"qualified to serve as president it if becomes necessary,\" only 39% of Americans say yes, while almost as many, 33%, say no. \n \n These results are highly partisan in nature -- 63% of Republicans say she is qualified, but 53% of Democrats say she is not. Independents are more likely to say she is qualified (41%) than not (31%). \n \n Taken as a whole, the reaction of Americans to Palin's qualifications is much more negative than was given to Biden a week ago after his selection by Obama, when 57% said Biden was qualified to serve, and only 18% said he was not. \n \n In terms of the ratio of \"yes\" to \"no\" responses, the perception of Palin's qualifications is more negative than the \"qualification\" affirmations given to any other recent selection with the exception of Quayle in 1992. The rating of Quayle's qualifications, however, was at a time in which he had already served for four years as vice president, and thus not directly comparable to these initial reactions to the other selectees. \n \n Bottom Line \n \n The initial reaction of the American public to McCain's surprise selection of Palin as his vice presidential running mate is muted. A substantial majority of Americans don't know enough about her yet to have an opinion, and a large majority says that at this point her selection will not have an impact on their presidential vote either way. \n \n The good news for McCain and Palin is that among those who do know her, her image is significantly more positive than negative, and in fact more positive on a ratio basis than the image of Biden when his was measured a week ago. \n \n On the negative side of the ledger for the Republicans is that almost as many Americans say she is not qualified to serve as president as say she is qualified, giving her a more negative reading on this measure than any other recent vice presidential selection with the exception of Quayle in 1992. \n \n Given the fact that so many Americans profess at this point to know nothing about Palin, the next several weeks may be critical to her success as a vice presidential nominee as her image is shaped and formed in the harsh spotlight of national media attention. The data suggest that one major task of the Republican convention in particular will be to convince a skeptical public that she would be able to serve as president if needed. \n \n Survey Methods \n \n Results are based on telephone interviews with 898 registered voters, aged 18 and older, conducted August 29, 2008. For results based on the total sample of registered voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is \u00b13 percentage points. \n \n Polls conducted entirely in one day, such as this one, are subject to additional error or bias not found in polls conducted over several days. \n \n Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only). \n \n In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls. \n \n To provide feedback or suggestions about how to improve Gallup.com, please e-mail feedback@gallup.com. ||||| Rep. Paul Ryan starts his vice presidential campaign in not-so-great territory, with Americans rating his selection more unfavorably than any pick since at least 2000, according to a new poll. \n \n The USA Today/Gallup poll shows 42 percent rate Mitt Romney\u2019s selection of Ryan (R-Wis.) as \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cpoor,\u201d while 39 percent rate it as \u201cexcellent\u201d or \u201cpretty good.\u201d \n \n Those numbers are worse than the initial reactions to both Dick Cheney in 2000 and Sarah Palin in 2008. And they appear to be the worst since Dan Quayle in 1988 (according to a different pollster). All three Republicans wound up being very unpopular in the following years. \n \n Romney\u2019s campaign quickly moved to point out that initial reactions are hardly the be-all, end-all in campaigns. And they say Ryan probably suffers from the fact that most people don\u2019t know who he is. \n \n \u201cAll these numbers indicate is the simple fact that Rep. Paul Ryan was not a nationally known figure prior to being named as Gov. Romney\u2019s vice-presidential pick,\u201d Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said in a statement. \n \n In addition, multiple other national polls have shown views of Ryan are generally more positive than negative. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released last week showed 27 percent of Americans rated him favorably, while 19 percent rated him unfavorably, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Ryan\u2019s favorability rising significantly after his selection, from 23 percent beforehand to 38 percent now. (Notably, his unfavorable rating ticked up just one point, from 32 percent to 33 percent.) \n \n These polls and the Gallup poll would seem to contradict each other, but they are actually asking different things. The Gallup poll asks whether Ryan is a good pick, which is a little different than asking whether you like someone. President Obama, for instance, had a long stretch in recent years where his personal favorability numbers were significantly higher than his job approval ratings. \n \n People liked Obama personally, even if they didn\u2019t necessarily think he was doing a good job. In this case, people may like Ryan personally, even if they are uncertain about his Medicare plan, for example. And much of the media coverage over the weekend focused on whether that Medicare plan would be a problem for Romney, which may be why people don\u2019t necessarily see Ryan as a good pick, politically speaking. (Other vice presidential picks, meanwhile, probably had more of a honeymoon period, since their name wasn\u2019t so synonymous with an already-simmering political issue.) \n \n The difference in polls could also simply be a reflection of the fact that most people simply don\u2019t know Ryan. It\u2019s clear that there is plenty of work to do \u2014 for both sides \u2014 in defining him, particularly over the next three-plus weeks, when opinions of him will begin to solidify. Ryan\u2019s controversial proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program will be Topic No. 1 in that debate. \n \n Quayle was the only somewhat-recent vice presidential candidate to have more poll respondents rate worse than Ryan; 52 percent of likely votes in a Harris Poll rated him as a \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cpoor\u201d choice. (The polls aren\u2019t completely analogous, though, because the Ryan poll tested all adults, not just likely voters.) \n \n At the same time, the Gallup poll shows Ryan is seen as presidential, with 48 percent saying he is qualified to be president if the situation arose and just 29 percent saying he is not. Palin\u2019s marks on that measure were lower. \n \n Updated at 12:37 p.m. to reflect new Washington Post-ABC News poll results. ||||| Updated 6:40 p.m. ET \n \n This story has been updated to specify the views of registered voters in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll about Paul Ryan. It will also appear in Tuesday's editions. \n \n Our original post begins here: \n \n Americans don't believe GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney hit a home run with his choice of Paul Ryan as a running mate, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, with more of the public giving him lower marks than high ones. \n \n Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, is seen as only a \"fair\" or \"poor\" choice by 42% of Americans vs. 39% who think he is an \"excellent\" or \"pretty good\" vice presidential choice. \n \n STORY: GOP ticket opens door to young voters \n \n PHOTOS: Romney running mate Paul Ryan \n \n Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said in a statement that the findings reflect the fact that Ryan, a House member since 1999, isn't widely known. \n \n USA TODAY/Gallup polls of registered voters after the announcements of running mates since Dick Cheney in 2000 all showed more positive reactions. Only Dan Quayle in a 1988 Harris Poll of likely voters was viewed less positively than Ryan, with 52% rating Quayle as a \"fair\" or \"poor\" vice presidential choice. The Ryan poll includes all adults, not just registered voters. \n \n Since Romney introduced Ryan as his running mate on Saturday, Democrats have set out to portray the House Budget Committee chairman as an extremist for his plans to revamp Medicare. President Obama called Ryan an \"articulate spokesman\" for \"a vision I fundamentally disagree with.\" \n \n \"All these numbers indicate is the simple fact that congressman Paul Ryan was not a nationally known figure prior to being named as Gov. Romney's vice presidential pick,\" Newhouse said. \"Congressman Ryan's selection reinforces the seriousness of the issues that will be debated in this election and President Obama's failure to get Americans back to work and his inability to strengthen the middle class.\" \n \n The poll also finds 17% of adults say they are more likely to vote for Romney in November because Ryan is his running mate -- about the same impact Sarah Palin had for John McCain four years ago among registered voters. \n \n Republicans, however, see the appeal in Ryan, who was hailed this weekend as a bold, innovative thinker by party stalwarts. The poll finds 36% of Republicans are now more likely to vote for Romney. In 2008, only three in 10 Republicans said the choice of Palin made them more likely to vote for McCain. \n \n The USA TODAY/Gallup survey also finds 48% of Americans view Ryan as qualified to be president if something should happen to Romney, while 29% do not and 23% were undecided. Only Palin, then the governor of Alaska, and Quayle, a two-term senator from Indiana, were rated lower than Ryan. \n \n The poll of 1,006 adults was taken Sunday. It has a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points.", "summary": "\u2013 Mitt Romney didn't exactly wow the public by picking Paul Ryan as his VP\u2014at least according to one poll. Just 39% think Ryan is an \"excellent\" or \"pretty good\" pick, compared to 42% who think he's a \"fair\" or \"poor\" one, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll. To put that in perspective, that's worse than both Sarah Palin (who got a thumbs-up from 46% of respondents) and Dick Cheney (55%). Indeed, Ryan is the least-popular pick from either party since Dan Quayle, the Washington Post points out. Of course, the Romney campaign has been quick to downplay the result. \"All these numbers indicate is \u2026 that Rep. Paul Ryan was not a nationally known figure,\" says a campaign pollster. And there is some good news: Polls from last week show that, prior to being named VP, more people had a favorable view of Ryan than an unfavorable one. For more poll fun, check out Nate Silver's piece calculating how likely it is Ryan will be, as Mitt Romney accidentally dubbed him, the next president."}
{"document": "\n \n For 45 minutes, 40-year old Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro had no pulse. Now she is alive and healthy with no brain damage. (Photodisc) \n \n They are calling it \"a miracle.\" \n \n Doctors at Boca Raton Regional Hospital in Florida have no way to explain how 40-year-old Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro survived after spending 45 minutes without a pulse and enduring three hours of attempts to bring her back from near-death on Sept. 23. \n \n Graupera-Cassimiro, now a mother of two, had just come out of a cesarean section procedure to deliver her new daughter. Then suddenly, she went from chattering with her family to struggling for her life, according to the Sun Sentinel. \n \n She was suffering from a rare complication called an amniotic fluid embolism, in which the fluid that surrounds the baby in the womb enters the mother's blood stream. The condition can cause life-threatening blood clots. \n \n As Graupera-Cassimiro slipped into unconsciousness, doctors and nurses rushed back to her room in a desperate effort to save her life. \n \n After more than two hours later, her heart stopped. \n \n Doctors and nurses began chest compression that would continue for 45 minutes. They took turns to avoid exhaustion and used electric shock paddles. But nothing worked. \n \n Finally, they decided to call her family into the room to say their goodbyes. \n \n \"Once we say that's it, that's it,\" said anesthesiologist Dr. Anthony Salvadore, according to the Sun Sentinel. \n \n Her family left the room to pray. And doctors were on the verge of declaring her dead when suddenly there was a blip her heart monitor. That was followed by another and another. \n \n Nurse Claire Hansen came out of the operating room with a shocking message, the Sun Sentinel reported. \n \n \"Keep praying,\" she told Graupera-Cassimiro's assembled family, \"because her heart just started.\" \n \n \"She essentially spontaneously resuscitated when we were about to call the time of death,\" said Thomas Chakurda, the hospital spokesman told the Associated Press. \n \n A day later, Graupera-Cassimiro was taken off of life support. And today she is \"the picture of health,\" Chakurda said. \n \n On Tuesday, she and her newborn baby returned to the hospital to thank nurses and doctors for their life-saving efforts. \n \n \"Had you guys maybe stopped before the 45 minutes of compressions -- I mean, I don't know. All I know is that I'm grateful to be here,\" Graupera-Cassimiro she told them, according to the Sun Sentinel. \"I don't know why I was given this opportunity, but I'm very grateful for it.\" \n \n Childbirth complications like Graupera-Cassimiro's are rare -- it is estimated that between 1 and 12 cases of amniotic embolism occur with every 100,000 births, according to the Mayo Clinic. Scientists don't fully understand why complications occur for some mothers but not for others, but pregnancy at an older age, c-sections, and medically induced labor may increase the risk to some women. \n \n But not only did Graupera-Cassimiro survive, but she suffered no brain damage or physical injuries from efforts to revive her. \n \n \"There's very few things in medicine that I've seen, working in the trauma center myself and doing all the things that I do, that really were either unexplainable or miraculous,\" said the president of the hospital's medical staff, Dr. Anthony Dardano, according to the Sun Sentinel. \"And when I heard this story, that was the first thing that came to my mind.\" \n \n Related: \n \n What death looks like to people who have been there and returned to life \n \n Our unrealistic views of death, through a doctor\u2019s eyes ||||| Our general interest e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics. \n \n Definition By Mayo Clinic Staff \n \n Amniotic fluid embolism is a rare but serious condition that occurs when amniotic fluid \u2014 the fluid that surrounds a baby in the uterus during pregnancy \u2014 or fetal material, such as fetal cells, enters the mother's bloodstream. Amniotic fluid embolism is most likely to occur during delivery or immediately afterward. \n \n Amniotic fluid embolism is difficult to diagnose. If your doctor suspects you might have amniotic fluid embolism, you'll need immediate treatment to prevent potentially life-threatening complications. \n \n \n \n ||||| Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro had gone 45 minutes without a pulse when doctors called her family into the operating room and told them there was nothing more they could do. \n \n A team of more than a dozen doctors and nurses had been working desperately to revive her. But now they'd lost hope that the 40-year-old Deerfield Beach woman, whose heart had given out without warning after a routine C-section at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, was going to make it. \n \n Devastated, Graupera-Cassimiro's husband, mother and sister said goodbye to her just hours after they'd welcomed a healthy baby girl. The medical team stopped all lifesaving procedures. They watched a heart monitor, preparing to record a time of death. \n \n And then the impossible happened: A blip of a heartbeat showed up. Then another, and another. \n \n Within a few hours, Graupera-Cassimiro, a human resources manager and now a mother of two, was tugging at the breathing tube on her face and scribbling notes to family. \n \n \"There's very few things in medicine that I've seen, working in the trauma center myself and doing all the things that I do, that really were either unexplainable or miraculous,\" said Dr. Anthony Dardano, president of the hospital's medical staff. \"And when I heard this story, that was the first thing that came to my mind.\" \n \n \"The Second Miracle on Meadows Road,\" a mother who in September went 45 minutes without a pulse after giving birth at a hospital -- and who by all accounts likely would have died -- has made a full recovery. \n \n In what hospital staff are calling the \"Second Miracle on Meadows Road,\" Graupera-Cassimiro has made a complete recovery. She was taken off the life-support machine a day after the Sept. 23 near-death experience. \n \n It was caused, doctors say, by an amniotic fluid embolism. The rare, serious condition occurs when fluid that surrounds a baby in the uterus enters a mother's bloodstream and heart, clogging it. Sudden and unpredictable, it creates a vacuum and stops circulation. \n \n Doctors say it's hard to put a number on the odds of Graupera-Cassimiro's survival. In many cases, amniotic fluid embolism is not diagnosed until after death. But living through 45 minutes without a pulse is extremely unusual. \n \n And the decision to call in Graupera-Cassimiro's family wasn't made lightly. \n \n \"Once we say that's it, that's it,\" anesthesiologist Dr. Anthony Salvadore said. \n \n Amazingly, doctors say, Graupera-Cassimiro suffered no complications. No reduced brain function from the loss of circulation. No burns from the repeated shocks doctors delivered in hopes of restarting her heart. \n \n No bruises, even, from the chest compressions they took turns giving her to keep her blood flowing. \n \n Within days she was back at home. \n \n \"I don't know why I was given this opportunity,\" Graupera-Cassimiro said, \"but I'm very grateful for it.\" \n \n She was back at the hospital Tuesday for a tearful reunion with the medical team that fought to save her. She hugged the doctors and nurses \u2014 who cooed over her daughter, dressed head to toe in pink \u2014 and thanked them. \n \n \"God had the right people in the right place,\" Graupera-Cassimiro said as she cradled the sleeping baby, named Taily. \n \n The baby had just been delivered by obstetrician Dr. Michael Fleischer during a scheduled, \"unremarkable\" C-section when disaster struck the afternoon of Sept. 23. \n \n Fresh from the operating room, Graupera-Cassimiro \"went from talking to being unconscious,\" while in a recovery room at the hospital's Toppel Family Place, anesthesiologist Dr. Jordan Knurr said. \n \n Doctors and nurses sprung to action, starting CPR, intubating Graupera-Cassimiro and calling in help from other parts of the hospital. Fleischer, on his way to other duties after the successful operation, hurried back. Anesthesiologists, intensivists and more nurses flowed into the room and spent over two hours trying to revive her. \n \n \"Suddenly,\" Fleischer said, \"the heart just stopped.\" \n \n They kept pumping Graupera-Cassimiro's chest for 45 minutes, taking turns to avoid exhaustion. They repeatedly tried shocking her. Nothing worked. \n \n A distraught Fleischer told Graupera-Cassimiro's family she faced slim chances of pulling through, and brought them into the operating room. There, her mother cried out for God to \"please take me instead.\" Her sister grabbed and hugged her. \n \n The family left the room with nurse Julie Ewing after saying their goodbyes. They held hands and prayed, Ewing on her knees. \n \n Then another nurse, Claire Hansen, came out of the operating room. \n \n \"Keep praying,\" she said, \"because her heart just started.\" \n \n Screams filled the hallway as Graupera-Cassimiro's family took in the news. They jumped up and down and cried. Her sister ran into the operating room. \n \n \"It was a complete miracle of God. It was answered prayer,\" Ewing said Tuesday. \"We all were there. We all witnessed it.\" \n \n Graupera-Cassimiro woke up in the intensive care unit with no idea what had happened. She thought she was just coming to after the C-section and was bewildered by the voices she heard telling her to open her eyes. She wondered why they wouldn't they let her sleep. \n \n When she did open her eyes, she saw her family was crying and relatives had come in from Miami. She realized something must have gone wrong. \n \n In the next few hours, Graupera-Cassimiro said, she remembered something she thought had been a dream: what she described as an encounter with the spirit of her late father, who told her it wasn't her time. It dawned on her that it may not have been a dream. \n \n When Dr. Shawn Iverson, a resident from Florida Atlantic University, checked in on her the next morning, she gestured upward and nodded. And when Fleischer came to take off the breathing tube, Graupera-Cassimiro told him: \"You don't have to be afraid of dying.\" \n \n bshammas@tribpub.com, 561-243-6531 or Twitter @britsham \n \n First 'Miracle on Meadows Road' \n \n Ruby Graupero-Cassimira's story is called by doctors the \"Second Miracle on Meadows Road,\" because hospital employees already refer to a prior event as the first: The building of the hospital itself. \n \n The hospital is situated at 800 Meadows Road in Boca Raton. \n \n A grass roots effort born out of the tragic deaths of two children raised a million dollars to bring a hospital to the city, then home to just 10,000 people. ||||| BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A Florida mother is home and tending to her new infant less than a month after surviving without a pulse for 45 minutes following complications from a routine cesarean section. \n \n A spokesman for Boca Raton Regional Hospital told The Associated Press on Sunday that a team of medical workers spent three hours attempting to revive the woman after a rare amniotic fluid embolism. \n \n Spokesman Thomas Chakurda says the doctors were preparing to pronounce her death when a blip on a monitor indicated a heartbeat. Despite going 45 minutes without a pulse, she suffered no brain damage during the Sept. 23 ordeal. \n \n \"She essentially spontaneously resuscitated when we were about to call the time of death,\" said Thomas Chakurda, the hospital spokesman. \n \n Doctors had called the family into the operating room and told them there was nothing more they could do for 40-year-old Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro. \n \n Graupera-Cassimiro gave birth to a healthy daughter before amniotic fluid entered her bloodstream and heart and created a vacuum, stopping circulation. Doctors say condition is often fatal. \n \n Chakurda said the woman's survival is a story of two miracles \u2014 her resuscitation and the fact that she survived without serious brain damage. \n \n Medical workers used shock paddles and chest compressions throughout the emergency to try and restore heart beat and circulation, Chakurda said. \n \n \"Today she is the picture of health,\" he said. \n \n Doctors had no immediate explanation for her survival, Chakurda said, calling her case one of \"divine providence.\" \n \n Graupera-Cassimiro did not return a phone message left by The Associated Press on Sunday.", "summary": "\u2013 An amniotic fluid embolism is a rare and easily fatal complication following childbirth that occurs when amniotic fluid enters the mother's bloodstream. When a 40-year-old Florida woman suffered from one after a routine cesarean section in late September, medical staff caught it in time to perform CPR. After 45 minutes taking turns doing chest compressions to manually keep her heart beating and shocking her intermittently to try to jump-start her pulse, they were ready to pronounce the time of death and called in the woman's distraught family. Then, just as they stopped all life-saving procedures and turned to the heart monitor, Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro's heart started beating on its own, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel. \"She essentially spontaneously resuscitated when we were about to call the time of death,\" the hospital spokesman tells the AP. What's more, he adds, \"Today she is the picture of health,\" without any detectable brain damage. In fact, both she and her healthy daughter were sent home from the hospital a few days later. \"I don't know why I was given this opportunity,\" Graupera-Cassimiro says, according to the Washington Post, \"but I'm very grateful for it.\" According to CBS 12, Staff are calling it the hospital's \"second miracle.\" The first was the building of the hospital itself, which was a grass-roots effort\u2014sparked by the tragic deaths of two children\u2014to raise money to build the city's first hospital back when Boca Raton was home to just 10,000 people. (See how a \"miracle\" baby recently helped save her mom's life.)"}
{"document": "\"It is a melting pot of 3rd world miscreants and ghetto thugs,\" he wrote of the city's downtown area. \"It is void of culture. If you live down there you do it at your own risk and at your own peril. If you go down there after dark there is seriously something wrong with you.\" ||||| Sign in using your wftv profile \n \n By submitting your registration information, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . \n \n Already have an account? \n \n We have sent a confirmation email to {* data_emailAddress *}. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. \n \n Thank you for registering! \n \n Thank you for registering! \n \n We look forward to seeing you on [website] frequently. Visit us and sign in to update your profile, receive the latest news and keep up to date with mobile alerts. \n \n Click here to return to the page you were visiting.", "summary": "\u2013 While the rest of the country organized blood drives and memorials for the 49 people killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando last weekend, Florida Assistant State Attorney Kenneth Lewis penned a Facebook post blasting the entire city, which he called a \"national embarrassment\" and a \"melting pot of third-world miscreants and ghetto thugs,\" WFTV reports. \"Downtown Orlando has no bottom,\" Lewis wrote in the post. \"The entire city should be leveled. It is void of any redeeming quality...It is void of culture.\" And it went on like that. The New York Daily News notes the \"vile\" and \"sick\" post was made less than eight hours after the Pulse massacre. On Friday, the State Attorney's Office suspended Lewis for violating its social media policy, according to ABC News. The post wasn't out of character for Lewis, who in 2014 posted the following message to Facebook: \"Happy Mother's Day to all you crack hoes out there...It's never too late to tie your tubes, clean up your life.\" That post got him temporarily reassigned and ordered to sensitivity training. He's also used Facebook to argue that Justice Sotomayor would be working in fast food without affirmative action, that a 19-year-old burglar should have been \"executed on the spot,\" and that Donald Sterling should be supported after he was banned by the NBA over racist remarks."}
{"document": "One of the new features in iOS 9 is the ability to train Siri to only recognize your voice so your phone doesn\u2019t respond to commands from just anybody. According to a report from Wired, though, a pair of researchers at ANSSI\u2014a French government agency\u2014have figured out a way to use radio waves to silently activate Siri or Android\u2019s Google Now from across the room. \n \n The hack only works if the target device has Siri or Google Now enabled, and has headphones or earbuds plugged in that also have a microphone. Wired explains, \u201cTheir clever hack uses those headphones\u2019 cord as an antenna, exploiting its wire to convert surreptitious electromagnetic waves into electrical signals that appear to the phone\u2019s operating system to be audio coming from the user\u2019s microphone.\u201d \n \n In theory, the attack could be used to anything you can do using the Siri or Google Now voice interaction. The attacker could make calls, send text messages, open malicious websites, send spam or phishing emails, or post to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. By placing an outbound call to the attacker\u2019s own phone the hack could be used to surreptitiously eavesdrop on the victim. \n \n That\u2019s the doomsday scenario version. Now, let\u2019s scale it back and look at how plausible it is for an attack like this to actually work. Most of the time that you have headphones plugged in to your smartphone you\u2019re also listening to them. When Siri or Google Now are activated\u2014even if initiated silently over the airwaves\u2014they typically make some sort of noise indicating that they\u2019re ready to listen to your voice command, and they respond verbally by default so if you\u2019re wearing the headphones you should immediately realize something suspicious is going on. \n \n Even if you\u2019re not actively wearing the headphones\u2014maybe your headphones are plugged in but the smartphone and headphones are just sitting on a table in front of you\u2014it would be challenging to activate the virtual assistant without alerting you. The display generally comes to life and displays your request along with the response from Siri or Google now. If you\u2019re sitting there, minding your own business, and your smartphone suddenly springs to life you\u2019d probably notice. \n \n Assuming your smartphone has the headphones plugged in, but you\u2019re not wearing the headphones to hear the voice interaction, and the smartphone is lying face down so you can\u2019t see the interaction on the display it is theoretically possible, but still highly unlikely. The attack requires unique hardware and only has a range of between six and sixteen feet according to the researchers\u2014depending on the size and power of the radio and antenna. \n \n \"Additional functionality, especially concerning user convenience, has often come at the cost of some security,\u201d stressed Gavin Reid, VP of threat intelligence for Lancope. \u201cIn this case the hack needs proximity to work and is a proof of concept needing specialized hardware. High security government equipment and installations have often come with additional shielding specifically to limit emanations and any covert channels.\u201d \n \n It\u2019s conceivable that an attacker could position the radio in a Starbucks or similar public location and generate commands to all of the devices within range and direct them to call a specific phone number that generates cash for the attacker. The odds of that happening are relatively low, though. As Reid explains, \u201cThis attack is less likely to be leveraged by the criminal underground especially with other methods much easier to implement\". ||||| Siri may be your personal assistant. But your voice is not the only one she listens to. As a group of French researchers have discovered, Siri also helpfully obeys the orders of any hacker who talks to her\u2014even, in some cases, one who\u2019s silently transmitting those commands via radio from as far as 16 feet away. \n \n A pair of researchers at ANSSI, a French government agency devoted to information security, have shown that they can use radio waves to silently trigger voice commands on any Android phone or iPhone that has Google Now or Siri enabled, if it also has a pair of headphones with a microphone plugged into its jack. Their clever hack uses those headphones\u2019 cord as an antenna, exploiting its wire to convert surreptitious electromagnetic waves into electrical signals that appear to the phone\u2019s operating system to be audio coming from the user\u2019s microphone. Without speaking a word, a hacker could use that radio attack to tell Siri or Google Now to make calls and send texts, dial the hacker\u2019s number to turn the phone into an eavesdropping device, send the phone\u2019s browser to a malware site, or send spam and phishing messages via email, Facebook, or Twitter. \n \n \u2018The sky is the limit here. Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves.\u2019 \n \n \u201cThe possibility of inducing parasitic signals on the audio front-end of voice-command-capable devices could raise critical security impacts,\u201d the two French researchers, Jos\u00e9 Lopes Esteves and Chaouki Kasmi, write in a paper published by the IEEE. Or as Vincent Strubel, the director of their research group at ANSSI puts it more simply, \u201cThe sky is the limit here. Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves.\u201d \n \n The researchers\u2019 work, which was first presented at the Hack in Paris conference over the summer but received little notice outside of a few French websites, uses a relatively simple collection of equipment: It generates its electromagnetic waves with a laptop running the open-source software GNU Radio, a USRP software-defined radio, an amplifier, and an antenna. In its smallest form, which the researchers say could fit inside a backpack, their setup has a range of around six and a half feet. In a more powerful form that requires larger batteries and could only practically fit inside a car or van, the researchers say they could extend the attack\u2019s range to more than 16 feet. \n \n \n \n \n \n Here\u2019s a video showing the attack in action: In the demo, the researchers commandeer Google Now via radio on an Android smartphone and force the phone\u2019s browser to visit the ANSSI website. (That experiment was performed inside a radio-wave-blocking Faraday cage, the researchers say, to abide by French regulations that forbid broadcasting certain electromagnetic frequencies. But Kasmi and Esteves say that the Faraday cage wasn\u2019t necessary for the attack to work.) \n \n Your browser does not support HTML5 video. \n \n The researchers\u2019 silent voice command hack has some serious limitations: It only works on phones that have microphone-enabled headphones or earbuds plugged into them. Many Android phones don\u2019t have Google Now enabled from their lockscreen, or have it set to only respond to commands when it recognizes the user\u2019s voice. iPhones have Siri enabled from the lockscreen by default, but the the new version of Siri for the iPhone 6s verifies the owner\u2019s voice just as Google Now does.1 Another limitation is that attentive victims would likely be able to see that the phone was receiving mysterious voice commands and cancel them before their mischief was complete. \n \n Then again, the researchers contend that a hacker could hide the radio device inside a backpack in a crowded area and use it to transmit voice commands to all the surrounding phones, many of which might be vulnerable and hidden in victims\u2019 pockets or purses. \u201cYou could imagine a bar or an airport where there are lots of people,\u201d says Strubel. \u201cSending out some electromagnetic waves could cause a lot of smartphones to call a paid number and generate cash.\u201d \n \n Although the latest version of iOS now has a hands-free feature that allows iPhone owners to send voice commands merely by saying \u201cHey Siri,\u201d Kasmi and Esteves say that their attack works on older versions of the operating system, too. iPhone headphones have long had a button on their cord that allows the user to enable Siri with a long press. By reverse engineering and spoofing the electrical signal of that button press, their radio attack can trigger Siri from the lockscreen without any interaction from the user. \u201cIt\u2019s not mandatory to have an always-on voice interface,\u201d says Kasmi. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make the phone more vulnerable, it just makes the attack less complex.\u201d \n \n Of course, security conscious smartphone users probably already know that leaving Siri or Google Now enabled on their phone\u2019s login screen represents a security risk. At least in Apple\u2019s case, anyone who gets hands-on access to the device has long been able to use those voice command features to squeeze sensitive information out of the phone\u2014from contacts to recent calls\u2014or even hijack social media accounts. But the radio attack extends the range and stealth of that intrusion, making it all the more important for users to disable the voice command functions from their lock screen. \n \n The ANSSI researchers say they\u2019ve contacted Apple and Google about their work and recommended other fixes, too: They advise that better shielding on headphone cords would force attackers to use a higher-power radio signal, for instance, or an electromagnetic sensor in the phone could block the attack. But they note that their attack could also be prevented in software, too, by letting users create their own custom \u201cwake\u201d words that launch Siri or Google Now, or by using voice recognition to block out strangers\u2019 commands. Neither Google nor Apple has yet responded to WIRED\u2019s inquiry about the ANSSI research. \n \n Without the security features Kasmi and Esteves recommend, any smartphone\u2019s voice features could represent a security liability\u2014whether from an attacker with the phone in hand or one that\u2019s hidden in the next room. \u201cTo use a phone\u2019s keyboard you need to enter a PIN code. But the voice interface is listening all the time with no authentication,\u201d says Strubel. \u201cThat\u2019s the main issue here and the goal of this paper: to point out these failings in the security model.\u201d \n \n 1Correction 10/15/2015 12:00pm EST: An earlier version of the story stated that Siri doesn\u2019t have verification of the owner\u2019s voice. In fact, that feature was introduced with the iPhone 6s. Apologies for the error. ||||| Page Not Found We're sorry. We cannot find a page that matches your request. Below are some suggestions that may assist: Return to the IEEE Xplore Home Page. \n \n Use your browser's Back button to return to the previous page. \n \n Contact us for assistance or to report the issue. Reason for failure: Query Not Valid", "summary": "\u2013 Using radio waves, hackers at the French government agency ANSSI say they've been able to silently trigger voice commands on any smartphone thanks to access via Google Now and Siri. Reporting in the journal IEEE, they say it's possible to operate the voice-activated command tools to do things like open malware sites, send texts or phishing emails, and even call specific phone numbers that generate cash for the hacker. But as \"clever\" as Wired reports this trick to be\u2014the headphone cord is used as an antenna\u2014it has several limitations, including that headphones with a microphone must be plugged into the jack; the hacker must be within 16 feet of the phone; and Google Now or Siri must be enabled. \"Additional functionality, especially concerning user convenience, has often come at the cost of some security,\" Gavin Reid, VP of threat intelligence for Lancope, tells Forbes. \"In this case the hack needs proximity to work and is a proof of concept needing specialized hardware.\" And while it's possible for people with this hardware to position themselves in crowded places such as airports and trigger some kind of attack on any qualifying phones within range, he adds that the odds are low. \"This attack is less likely to be leveraged by the criminal underground, especially with other methods much easier to implement.\" Even so, Vincent Strubel at ANSSI says, \"The sky is the limit here. Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves.\" (Some 95% of Androids are open to a major hack.)"}
{"document": "Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common, complex, treatment resistant, and deadliest type of brain cancer, accounting for 45% of all brain cancers, with nearly 11,000 men, women, and children diagnosed each year. The time is now to make progress against this disease! \n \n The Defeat GBM Research Collaborative is a groundbreaking, research-based initiative that takes advantage of the convergence of exciting scientific advancements, an innovative business model, and support from biopharmaceutical companies to drive research forward with the aim of doubling the five-year survival rate of GBM patients. Building from the pioneering data discovered through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the growing commitment to true collaboration across disciplines and institutions, we have entered a new era of possibilities. All members of the Defeat GBM Research Collaborative share real-time information of one another\u2019s cutting-edge research to quicken the pace of translating discoveries into clinical stage research\u2014cutting years out of the traditional clinical trial research and analysis procedure. Together with your support, we can bring change today! ||||| A woman in Spain who suddenly became very religious and believed she was speaking with the Virgin Mary turned out to have a brain tumor that appears to have caused her symptoms, according to a new report of the case. \n \n The 60-year-old women was said to be a happy, positive person who was not particularly religious. But over a two-month period, her friends and family noticed changes in her personality and behavior. She appeared sad and withdrawn, and also showed increasing interest in the Bible and other sacred writings, the report said. \n \n The woman started spending hours during the day reciting religious writings. She also had mystical experiences, in which she reported seeing, feeling and talking with the Virgin Mary, the report said. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life] \n \n Those close to her thought the woman might be experiencing depression, because she was caring for a relative with cancer at the time. \n \n However, when her doctors performed an MRI, they saw several lesions in her brain. After taking a biopsy from one of the lesions, doctors diagnosed the woman with glioblastoma multiforme, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. \n \n The tumors were too large to treat with surgery, so the woman received chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer. Her doctors also prescribed antipsychotic drugs for her, because some studies have suggested this class of drugs may have an anti-cancer effect on glioblastoma. \n \n During the woman's five-week treatment, her religious visions gradually disappeared, the report said. \n \n In this patient's case, \"it is clear that the religious experience represented a fracture\" from her prior behavior that was \"not preceded by a gradual change in her thinking and acting,\" the researchers, from the Hospital General Universitario Morales Meseguer in Murcia, Spain, wrote in their paper, published online Dec. 12, 2016, in the journal Neurocase. \"Nor was there any kind of trigger or reason [for the behavior change] except for the disease, and hence, it can be considered a clearly pathological experience,\" they said. \n \n It's not clear how often people experience \"hyper-religiosity\" or other behavior changes as their first symptom of a brain tumor, the researchers said. One review found that up to 22 percent of all brain tumors may first appear along with psychotic symptoms. \n \n From this one case, it's not possible to pinpoint the part of the brain responsible for the women's religious experience, the researchers said. But, they note that the right temporal lobe, a brain region that has previously been linked to the development of mystical experiences, also appeared to be involved in the woman's case. \n \n The researchers also said that, before the woman's extreme religious behavior, she did believe in God, so this \"was not a case of religious conversion.\" \n \n The woman's condition quickly declined \u2014 she experienced a stroke two months after she started treatment, the report said. Eight months after her cancer diagnosis, she died due to the progression of her tumor. \n \n The researchers also suspect that, before her cancer diagnosis, the patient may have experienced non-convulsive seizures, possibly as a result of her brain tumor. They suspected this because of particular changes they saw in her brain scan. Some cases of hyper-religious behavior have also been reported in people with epilepsy, according to the report. However, the researchers were unable to perform tests to confirm the epilepsy diagnosis. \n \n Original article on Live Science.", "summary": "\u2013 Her friends and family felt something was wrong: The Spanish woman went from simply believing in God to believing she was seeing and talking with the Virgin Mary. And that's not all. The 60-year-old abruptly shifted from being happy and positive to sad and withdrawn, reports Live Science. Suspecting depression, they had her see doctors, and an MRI revealed glioblastoma multiforme, the aggressive type of brain cancer that Brittany Maynard suffered from. The National Brain Tumor Society doesn't mince words, calling it \"the most common, complex, treatment resistant, and deadliest type of brain cancer, accounting for 45% of all brain cancers.\" With tumors so big they couldn't be surgically removed, the woman was treated with anti-psychotic drugs sometimes given to glioblastoma patients and chemo and radiation over five weeks; her religious visions ultimately ceased. The doctors write in the journal Neurocase that because she previously believed in God, hers \"was not a case of religious conversion.\" And as there was no \"trigger or reason [for the hyper-religiosity] except for the disease ... it can be considered a clearly pathological experience.\" The researchers suggest that this is not the first such case, writing that \"in some cases, religiosity can appear as a pathological correlate in patients with brain lesions\"; but they present no data as to how often this might occur. The patient died eight months after being diagnosed with cancer. (This man credits Facebook for helping spot his brain tumor.)"}
{"document": "Hedonometer \n \n Hedonometer.org is an instrument that measures the happiness of large populations in real time. The hedonometer is based on people\u2019s online expressions, capitalizing on data-rich social media, and measures how people present themselves to the outside world. ||||| The most commonly used words of 24 corpora across 10 diverse human languages exhibit a clear positive bias, a big data confirmation of the Pollyanna hypothesis. The study\u2019s findings are based on 5 million individual human scores and pave the way for the development of powerful language-based tools for measuring emotion. \n \n Abstract \n \n Using human evaluation of 100,000 words spread across 24 corpora in 10 languages diverse in origin and culture, we present evidence of a deep imprint of human sociality in language, observing that (i) the words of natural human language possess a universal positivity bias, (ii) the estimated emotional content of words is consistent between languages under translation, and (iii) this positivity bias is strongly independent of frequency of word use. Alongside these general regularities, we describe interlanguage variations in the emotional spectrum of languages that allow us to rank corpora. We also show how our word evaluations can be used to construct physical-like instruments for both real-time and offline measurement of the emotional content of large-scale texts. ||||| Jakub Halun, Wikimedia Commons \n \n Human language is biased toward being happy, finds a new study that identifies 10 of the world\u2019s most upbeat languages. \n \n The study, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports the Pollyanna Hypothesis, which holds that there is a universal human tendency to use positive words more frequently than negative ones. Nevertheless, the findings determined that some languages tend to skew happier than others. \n \n Lead author Peter Sheridan Dodds of the University of Vermont\u2019s Computational Story Lab and his team found the top 100,000 of the most frequently used words across 10 languages. The researchers then asked native speakers of the various languages to rate whether the words were \u201chappy\u201d or \u201csad\u201d on a 1\u20139 scale. For example, check out these English words and their rating: laughter: 8.5, food: 7.44, truck: 5.48, greed: 3.06 and terrorist 1.3. \n \n \u201cThe study\u2019s findings are based on 5 million individual human scores and pave the way for the development of powerful language-based tools for measuring emotion,\u201d Dodds and his team wrote. \n \n No. 10 on the list was Chinese. Websites and books among other sources were analyzed in the study. Chinese books scored the lowest for happiness among all included sources.", "summary": "\u2013 If you're in a foul mood, it might be time to learn Spanish. Languages, and the people who use them, tend to favor using positive words over negatives, researchers find, and they've learned that that's particularly true in Spanish. Experts at the University of Vermont and the MITRE Corporation went through volumes of text from all kinds of sources: books, the news, music lyrics, movie subtitles, and more, including some 100 billion words used on Twitter, UVM reports. Investigating 10 languages, they picked out the 10,000 most common words, then had native speakers rank these words on a nine-point happiness scale; \"laughter,\" for instance, was rated 8.5, while \"greed\" came in at 3.06. All 24 types of sources reviewed resulted in scores above the neutral 5, meaning they leaned \"happy.\" In other words, \"people use more positive words than negative ones,\" a researcher says. As far as individual languages go, here are the top five happiest ones, via Discovery: Spanish Portuguese English German French Chinese came in last of the 10 languages in the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Positive-language data has also resulted in an actual happiness meter, known as the hedonometer, UVM notes. It follows Twitter posts in English to determine when the happiest words are being used. Christmas, it shows, is a very happy day, while celebrity deaths correlate with low points. Meanwhile, Boulder, Colorado, is apparently the happiest city (at least among Twitter users), while Racine, Wisconsin, appears to be the most miserable. (If you need a lift, try changing the way you walk.)"}
{"document": "Photo \n \n DES MOINES \u2014 Donald J. Trump may have some company from other candidates at his counterprogramming event here on Thursday night during the Fox News-hosted Republican presidential campaign debate. \n \n In an interview with MSNBC\u2019s \u201cMorning Joe\u201d on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said that he had heard from other candidates \u201cproactively\u201d about attending the event that Mr. Trump will hold at Drake University at the same time as the debate. \n \n Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday afternoon that he would skip the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, after Fox News officials issued a mocking statement about him following a day of escalating attacks. Mr. Trump had earlier said he would participate only if the moderator Megyn Kelly, with whom he clashed at the first G.O.P. debate last August, was removed. \n \n Mr. Lewandowski did not specify who he meant. But since there will be seven higher-polling candidates onstage at the prime-time debate in Iowa, the likeliest possibilities are among the four candidates in the undercard debate. \n \n Of those candidates, two \u2014 Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum \u2014 have been savaging Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Mr. Trump\u2019s main competition in the caucuses. Each man has previously won the Iowa caucuses \u2014 Mr. Huckabee in 2008; Mr. Santorum in 2012 \u2014 by appealing to a swath of evangelical Christians and working-class voters. Mr. Trump has most aggressively seized the populist message in this campaign. \n \n The other candidates in the undercard debate are Carly Fiorina and Jim Gilmore. \n \n Mr. Santorum and Mr. Huckabee are both in the low single digits in polls, but their voters would most likely go to Mr. Cruz if they weren\u2019t in the race, meaning their presence is helping to keep his polling totals down. \n \n Aides to the candidates did not respond to requests for comment. But Nick Ryan, a Republican operative who advises the \u201csuper PAC\u201d supporting Mr. Huckabee, tweeted shortly after the Trump event was announced that candidates in the undercard debate, which airs before the prime-time one, should consider wandering over to Mr. Trump\u2019s event afterward. \n \n \n \n Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter. ||||| He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network\u2019s Thursday night debate \u2014 the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days \u2014 and said he\u2019d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n Speaking on \u201cThe O\u2019Reilly Factor,\u201d Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his derision of women at the first GOP debate, in August. \n \n \u201cI have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI don\u2019t think she\u2019s good at what she does and I think she\u2019s highly overrated. And, frankly, she\u2019s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.\u201d \n \n Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night\u2019s debate on Fox News. \n \n Trump is instead holding his own event in Des Moines at the same time as the debate that he says will raise money for wounded veterans. \n \n In the contentious interview with O\u2019Reilly, Trump rebuffed the anchor\u2019s attempts to convince him that he\u2019s making a grave error by skipping the debate. \n \n \u201cI believe personally that you want to improve the country,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said. \u201cBy doing this, you miss the opportunity to convince others ... that is true. \n \n \u201cYou have in this debate format the upper hand \u2014 you have 60 seconds off the top to tell the moderator, \u2018You\u2019re a pinhead, you\u2019re off the mark and here\u2019s what I want to say\u2019. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader.\u201d \n \n But O\u2019Reilly\u2019s pitch fell flat with Trump. The GOP front-runner dug in his heels, insisting he intended to retaliate against the network by depriving them of ratings. \n \n \u201cFox was going to make a fortune off this debate,\u201d Trump said. \u201cNow they\u2019re going to make much less.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Reilly said he was merely trying to convince Trump that his approach \u201cis wrong because it\u2019s better for people to see you in the debate format.\u201d \n \n He gave the example from 2012, when a CNN debate moderator in South Carolina asked former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) an embarrassing question about allegations he had an open marriage. \n \n Gingrich shut the moderator down and went on to win the South Carolina primary, O\u2019Reilly noted. \n \n \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of guy you are,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said. \u201cYou stick it to them and let them have it.\u201d \n \n Responded Trump: \u201cNewt is a friend of mine, and I thought it was an unfair question. But equally unfair was the question Megyn Kelly asked me.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Reilly then sought to appeal to Trump\u2019s capacity to forgive, reminding the billionaire businessman that he\u2019s a Christian, even if he doesn\u2019t attend church all that often, and that the Bible says to \u201cturn the other cheek.\u201d \n \n Trump shot back, saying he\u2019s a regular churchgoer and that the Bible also says \u201can eye for an eye.\u201d \n \n \u201cYou could look at it that way, too,\u201d Trump said. \n \n O\u2019Reilly accused Trump of being \u201cpetty\u201d and said he was allowing things that are out of his control to have outsize influence over his decisionmaking. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t like being taken advantage of,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIn this case I was being taken advantage of by Fox. I don\u2019t like that. Now when I\u2019m representing the country, if I win, I\u2019m not going to let our country be taken advantage of. ... It\u2019s a personality trait, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a bad personality trait.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Reilly ended the interview asking Trump to reconsider showing up Thursday night. Trump said the two had agreed beforehand that O\u2019Reilly not ask that question. \n \n \u201cI told you up front don\u2019t ask me that question because it\u2019s an embarrassing question for you and I don\u2019t want to embarrass you,\u201d he said. \n \n Updated at 9:17 p.m. ||||| Photo \n \n It was a blustery and dramatic move, 48 hours before the final Republican debate until the Iowa caucuses: Donald J. Trump stormed out in a rage at Fox News, jeopardizing the network\u2019s ratings and overtaking political headlines. \n \n But the reasons for his withdrawal from the kind of high-profile forum that he has so often dominated may involve more than just hurt feelings. \n \n What may be the most intriguing possible explanation is that a debate, at this point in his neck-and-neck contest with Senator Ted Cruz, would almost certainly subject Mr. Trump to tough questions about vulnerabilities \u2013 like his previous support for abortion rights, or his much more recent suggestion that Iowans, the people whose votes he is courting, are stupid. \n \n People who have spoken with Mr. Trump insist he believes he is headed to victory here and wants to play out the clock, a view that was bolstered by a few public opinion polls this week. \n \n But whether he does or not, a debate \u2013 particularly one moderated by a network, and an anchor, whom Mr. Trump believes is motivated to challenge him aggressively \u2013 amounts to an uncontrollable, high-risk confrontation whose outcome could greatly affect his chances. \n \n The truth could be as simple as advertised: Mr. Trump was enraged when Fox News executives issued a statement mocking him as unserious over his threats to bolt the debate unless the cable channel\u2019s anchor, Megyn Kelly \u2013 whom Mr. Trump has attacked for months \u2013 was removed as a moderator. \n \n It could also be seen as strategic genius. \u201cDonald Trump knows that by not showing up, he\u2019s owning the entire event,\u201d Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show. \u201cSome guy not even present will end up owning the entire event, and the proof of that is Fox News last night.\u201d \n \n But for Mr. Trump, participating in a debate four nights before the Iowa caucuses would also most likely mean being pelted with many of his past remarks, in a setting in which he could not expect to dominate the microphone or the questioners. \n \n It would be the exact opposite, for example, of the exchange between Mr. Trump and an NBC reporter who, at the same news conference Tuesday at which Mr. Trump pulled out of the debate, tried to confront him about his previous support for abortion rights, including the late-term procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. \n \n Mr. Cruz and a well-funded group supporting him have been bombarding Mr. Trump with attack ads using footage of a 1999 interview in which he called himself \u201cvery pro-choice\u201d and \u201cpro-choice in all respects.\u201d But when the NBC reporter, Peter Alexander, tried to ask Mr. Trump about that quotation, Mr. Trump repeatedly cut him off, talked over him and turned the tables on him, demanding an apology. \n \n Abortion is not the only subject on which Mr. Trump could be forced to defend or explain his remarks in a tough-minded presidential debate: The ads being run by Mr. Cruz, for example, also show a clip of Mr. Trump, in November, asking \u201chow stupid\u201d the people of Iowa must be for believing Ben Carson\u2019s story of personal redemption. \n \n Mr. Trump\u2019s debate performances debates have not always been unmitigated triumphs: While he acquitted himself well in rebutting Mr. Cruz\u2019s denigration of what he called \u201cNew York values\u201d in a Jan. 14 debate in South Carolina, for example, Mr. Cruz savaged Mr. Trump for much of the first half-hour. \n \n David Carney, a Republican strategist who ran Rick Perry\u2019s 2012 presidential campaign, said Mr. Trump made a wise move in pulling out of the debate when he could not count on turning in a strong performance. \u201cThe debates aren\u2019t his thing,\u201d he said, predicting it would not hurt Mr. Trump with his supporters. \n \n What is undeniable is that Mr. Trump does not like feeling as if he is being backed into a corner \u2013 and that the sarcastic statement by Fox News on Tuesday bothered him greatly. \n \n Escalating a back-and-forth with Mr. Trump leading up to the debate, the network openly mocked him for complaining when challenged by aggressive journalists. \u201cWe learned from a secret back channel that the ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president,\u201d the network said. \n \n Referring to Mr. Trump\u2019s survey of his Twitter followers as to whether he should go ahead with the debate, Fox News added: \u201cA nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.\u201d \n \n At his news conference, held in a high school in Marshalltown, Iowa, Mr. Trump called the network\u2019s parody a \u201cwiseguy press release,\u201d and dared Fox News to hold the debate without him. \n \n \u201cNow let\u2019s see how they do with the ratings,\u201d he said. \n \n Fox News has steadfastly stood by Ms. Kelly. Mr. Trump\u2019s aides said they were planning a competing event in Des Moines during the debate, a fund-raiser to help wounded veterans. But his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, seemed to leave open at least the possibility of a reversal, telling MSNBC on Wednesday morning that he \u201cdidn\u2019t think\u201d there was any way Mr. Trump would change his mind. \n \n But in the interview, Mr. Lewandowski dismissed the notion that Mr. Trump might be concerned about answering questions, and pointed out that he had already taken part in six debates. \n \n This is not the first time Mr. Trump has threatened to walk off a debate stage. But Mr. Trump\u2019s earlier brinkmanship over debates came months ago, not on the eve of a vote, when it could shape the opinions of Iowa\u2019s late-deciding caucusgoers. \n \n \u201cThis debate is in Iowa,\u201d noted Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist and the president of the main \u201csuper PAC\u201d supporting Mr. Cruz. If it were anywhere else, she said, the flap with Fox News might not add up to much. But voters here are paying attention. \n \n Still, exactly what they are taking away from the standoff is unclear. \n \n Matt Strawn, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said he saw no sign yet that it would cut into Mr. Trump\u2019s support. \n \n \u201cThose voters have been drawn to him because he\u2019s willing to flout\u201d establishment rules, Mr. Strawn said. \n \n Would the timing of the dispute make a difference? \u201cLike most of the Donald Trump experience over the last 12 months,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019re all going to learn together.\u201d ||||| @TomLlamasABC @ABCPolitics Replying to @NoLimitCracka @NoLimitCracka @TomLlamasABC @ABCPolitics If you would read his books you would know. You like most people...just get spoon fed by media. ||||| 20:44 \n \n Bernie Sanders wasted no time pointing out that while he may have just come to this evening\u2019s rally from the Oval Office, Hillary Clinton is at a fundraiser with wealthier financiers and Jon Bon Jovi back east. \n \n \u201cMy opponent is not in Iowa tonight, she is raising money from a Philadelphia investment firm,\u201d he told the packed crowd in Mason City. \u201cI would rather be in Iowa.\u201d \n \n \u201cHere we are again facing the machine,\u201d says actress and activist Susan Sarandon as she introduces Sanders by recalling campaigning against Clinton for Obama eight years ago. \u201cThis is not about gender; this is about issues.\u201d \n \n There was no mention of Bill Clinton, however, who is just two miles away at a rival rally on his wife\u2019s behalf at exactly the same time. \n \n Instead, Sanders is devoting an unusually large portion of his speech to attacking Donald Trump, who he clearly sees now as just as much of an opponent as Clinton. \n \n As the overseas media begins turning up in large numbers to the event, Sanders also reminds the audience of the recent debate in the British parliament about whether Trump should even be allowed into the country. \n \n \u201cThink about how this man is going to deal with the world when he can\u2019t even deal with our strongest ally,\u201d says Sanders. ||||| Megyn Kelly posing in GQ Magazine. | POLITICO Screen grab Trump attacks 'bimbo' Kelly for GQ photo shoot \n \n Donald Trump continued his onslaught on Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Thursday, retweeting a follower who criticized a photo shoot she did for GQ Magazine. \n \n \u201cAnd this is the bimbo that\u2019s asking presidential questions?\u201d, the tweet said. It included two photos of Kelly posing provocatively and the following text: \u201cCriticizes Trump for objectifying women ... Poses like this in GQ Magazine.\u201d \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Trump\u2019s ongoing feud with Kelly was one of the reasons behind Trump\u2019s decision to hold a competing event in Des Moines on Thursday night, though he now maintains that a mocking Fox statement was what ultimately drove him out of the debate: \n \n It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly. \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016 \n \n On Wednesday, Trump went after Kelly during an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, reiterating his view that she was biased against him and vowing not to be \"taken advantage of\" by the network. ||||| poster=\"http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201601/1202/1155968404_4724402687001_video-still-for-video-4724350894001.jpg?pubId=1155968404\" true Fox's O'Reilly pleads with Trump to reconsider debate boycott 'I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal,' O'Reilly tells the real estate mogul in a testy interview. \n \n Donald Trump on Wednesday night testily tangled with Bill O\u2019Reilly as the Fox News host asked Trump to reconsider his decision to boycott the Thursday night GOP debate. The real estate mogul and Republican poll leader refused to budge. \n \n \u201cI want you to consider,\u201d O\u2019Reilly pleaded with Trump, asking him to say, \u201cI might come back, forgive, go forward, answer the question, look out for the folks, just consider it.\u201d \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Trump shot back that the question was out of bounds. \u201cWe had an agreement that you wouldn\u2019t ask me that,\u201d he said. \n \n O\u2019Reilly conceded that Trump was telling the truth, and gave him credit for coming on his show, but said the American people need to hear from the man who has a good chance of becoming the Republican nominee. \n \n \u201cYou could absolutely secure this Republican nomination,\u201d the Fox News host said. \u201cI submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal.\u201d \n \n But O\u2019Reilly peppered his words of encouragement with insults, accusing Trump of \u201cwalking away\u201d and getting sidetracked by petty disputes. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t like being taken advantage of,\u201d Trump said, referencing his grievance with Fox\u2019s refusal to remove Megyn Kelly as a moderator from the debate, after Trump accused her of being biased against him. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let our country be taken advantage of,\u201d Trump added, citing the Iran deal as a prime example. \n \n Trump is so far defying skeptics who are dismissing his declaration that he will boycott Thursday night\u2019s debate as a mere bluff, as he forges ahead with an alternate plan to raise funds for veterans that threatens to soak up media attention in the days before the Iowa caucuses. \n \n The real estate mogul, still steaming from his feud with Fox News and Kelly, refused to heed O\u2019Reilly\u2019s advice to \u201cturn the other cheek,\u201d saying \u201cit\u2019s called an eye for an eye.\u201d \n \n Speaking at a South Carolina rally that occurred before the O\u2019Reilly appearance aired, but after it was taped, Trump called it a \u201ctough interview\u201d but promised that his rival event in Des Moines raising funds for veterans would be a great one. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re going to raise a lot of money for the vets,\u201d said a boisterous Trump, donning his signature red \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d cap. \n \n Trump\u2019s staying of the course comes after speculation grew on Wednesday about whether he was really going to sit out the primetime showdown, or if it was all a bunch of bluster. \n \n Doubters, including some of his rivals, saw either a shrewd maneuver that directed an inordinate amount of media attention on him as the GOP field tried to make their closing arguments to caucus-goers, or a clever gimmick that allowed Trump to avoid harsh questioning as he\u2019s come under increased fire for his shifting position on issues such as abortion. \n \n \"I've got a $20 bet he shows up,\" Jeb Bush said during a town hall in Des Moines Wednesday afternoon. \n \n \"I expect to see Trump on stage tomorrow,\" tweeted John Kasich's campaign manager, John Weaver. \n \n \u201cDonald Trump will be at the debate,\u201d Ted Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler Tyler predicted. \u201cMark my words.\u201d \n \n Even Kelly, the Fox debate moderator who is the focus of Trump\u2019s ire, called him out. \u201cI will be surprised if he doesn\u2019t show up, Donald Trump is a showman, he\u2019s very good at generating interest, perhaps this is an effort to generate interest in our debate, if it is that is great, maybe we will have more eyeballs, if he doesn\u2019t show up maybe we will have fewer eyeballs, but either way it is going to be ok,\u201d Kelly told \u201cExtra.\u201d \n \n Trump\u2019s decision to once again wage war on Fox and Kelly so close to the Iowa caucuses is either a shrewd one or a boneheaded one, depending on who you ask. While some are contending that Trump risks coming off as a coward walking away from a fight, it\u2019s undeniable that he\u2019s robbing the media oxygen from his rivals. \n \n Trump earlier on Wednesday showed no outward signs of relenting, citing a bitter relationship with Fox News and Kelly. The real estate mogul also sent out to the media a few scant details about his rival event for Thursday evening \u2013 a \"Donald J. Trump Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations\" at Drake University in Des Moines. \n \n But there were a few indications that he might soften his stance: A Twitter poll he posted asking whether he should participate in the debate urged him to appear, with 56 percent of the 157,864 votes saying he should do the debate. \n \n Then, on Wednesday afternoon, he revealed that he still planned to appear Wednesday night on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program. \n \n Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told CNN Wednesday evening that his boss was still appearing on the show because \u201cwhen we make a promise, we keep it,\u201d except for when Trump is treated unfairly. He also said he has had no conversations with Fox News CEO, and that, to the best of his knowledge, neither has Trump. \n \n The tiff apparently started after Trump tried to pressure Fox News to boot Kelly as one of the moderators, claiming there was no way she could be unbiased. Kelly gained heightened notoriety after pointedly asking Trump at the first debate about his supposed \u201cwar on women.\u201d (O\u2019Reilly on Wednesday night defended the question as \u201cwithin journalistic bounds.\u201d) \n \n But Fox refused to give in, issuing a biting press statement on Tuesday saying, \u201cWe learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president \u2014 a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.\u201d \n \n Fox doubled down after Trump\u2019s declaration of a boycott, issuing a statement Tuesday night that accused Lewandowski of threatening the network with \"terrorizations\" of Kelly. \n \n \u201cIn a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a \u2018rough couple of days after that last debate\u2019 and he \u2018would hate to have her go through that again,\u2019\u201d the network alleged. \n \n The Republican National Committee took an above-the-fray position on the developing drama on Wednesday afternoon, noting that Rand Paul, too, opted to skip a debate -- the undercard debate earlier this month. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019d love all candidates in,\" said Sean Spicer, the RNC's communications director, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday afternoon. \"I think it\u2019s a great opportunity for the American people, and particularly the people in Iowa, to have an understanding of each of these candidates\u2019 vision. But, Wolf, at the end of the day, each campaign has to make up their own mind as to what\u2019s in their best interest so we respect that decision.\" \n \n Spicer added that he anticipates Fox will not show Trump's empty lecturn on screen. \n \n Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, sided with Trump on the dispute. \"Fox News was acting like they had been jilted at the altar,\" Limbaugh said on Wednesday. \n \n Nobody since the Kennedy family has had such an outsize influence on the media, Limbaugh mused to listeners. And the Kennedys \"are pikers compared to the way Trump is doing this,\" he added. \n \n \"Screw the rules, he's saying,\" Limbaugh remarked, according to a transcript, talking through Trump's reasoning. \"Why should I willingly give them another shot at me in a circumstance they control, why should I do it? What's the sense in it for me? I'm leading; I'm running the pack here; why in the world should I put myself in that circumstance? I've already seen what's gonna happen.\" \n \n Trump on Wednesday morning slammed Fox for its allegations against him, saying on Twitter, \u201cThe statement put out yesterday by @FoxNews was a disgrace to good broadcasting and journalism. Who would ever say something so nasty & dumb.\u201d \n \n He also lobbed an attack on Kelly, tweeting, \u201cI refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!\u201d \n \n Lewandowski himself dismissed Fox as being an unfair broker and tried to dispel the notion that Trump is worried that a final debate before the caucuses could expose weaknesses in his candidacy. \n \n Trump is \"the best debater on the debate stage, we know this, he\u2019s the clear winner, he has been by every debate poll that\u2019s taken place,\u201d he said on \u201cMorning Joe.\u201d \n \n \"He\u2019s not afraid to debate. I want to be very clear about this,\" he said. \"He\u2019s done more television, more radio, than all of the other candidates combined. And so, he\u2019s not afraid to answer questions. He\u2019s on your show all the time, he was on yesterday. But the bottom line is, you have people that aren\u2019t going to be fair and ask questions the American people want to talk about, and instead they want to make this about themselves. And that\u2019s what this is about, and it\u2019s a shame.\u201d \n \n Asked about Cruz's call for a one-on-one debate before Monday's caucuses in Iowa, Lewandowski said the Texas senator's campaign was not the only one to reach out asking whether it could participate in the alternate event Trump\u2019s campaign was setting up. \n \n \u201cWell, look, he\u2019s not the only one. We\u2019ve had calls from many debates, from many of the candidates now, to say look, why would we participate in the Fox debate as well? I think what you\u2019re finding out, once again, you have the candidates reacting to the only true leader in this race, which is Donald Trump,\" Lewandowski claimed. \n \n One veterans group signaled it has no interest in partnering with Trump for his counterprogramming event. Paul Rieckhoff, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tweeted that Trump shouldn't be rewarded for his antics. \n \n \"If offered, @iava will decline donations from Trump's event,\" he wrote. \"We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts.\" \n \n The Wounded Warrior Project said in an email to POLITICO on Wednesday afternoon, \"We are not aware of any fundraising efforts on our behalf with Mr. Donald Trump.\" \n \n It\u2019s not clear how a resolution would be brokered between Trump and Fox, and Lewandowski kept up the war of words on Wednesday evening, telling CNN it was a pretty simple decision for Trump to boycott the debate. \n \n \u201cIt's very simple: he's able and willing to debate but he's not going to do it if the network is not going to be fair,\u201d he said. \n \n Nick Gass contributed to this report. \n \n ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. \n \n This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| DES MOINES, Iowa \u2014 Hollow or not, Donald Trump\u2019s threat to boycott the final GOP forum before Iowa votes has complicated Ted Cruz\u2019s game plan, forcing the Texan to prepare for two different debates \u2014 one in which he tangles directly with the front-runner and another that sets up the senator as the largest target on stage. \n \n With hours until debate time, Cruz\u2019s campaign still says it thinks Trump\u2019s pledge to skip the forum is a stunt. \u201cDonald Trump will be at the debate,\u201d Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler Tyler predicted. \u201cMark my words.\u201d \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n In advance of the last pre-Iowa showdown, Cruz spent the day Wednesday holed up in debate preparations with his top brass. Campaign manager Jeff Roe, chief strategist Jason Johnson, Cruz's pollster and others all descended on Iowa ahead of the final five-day push to the caucuses. \n \n If Trump sees through his promise to hold a rival event Thursday, the Cruz camp will use it as fresh ammunition for an assault on the New Yorker\u2019s character, casting their fiercest rival for the GOP nomination as too emotional and self-centered to be trusted with the White House. \n \n \u201cWhat people will understand is Donald Trump, if he\u2019s not there, made an emotional decision,\u201d Tyler said. \u201cThat fits his erratic behavior, based on grievances that are petty and small. That\u2019s what people will see.\u201d \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s put himself first and the country second. Or third or fourth or somewhere,\u201d Tyler added. \n \n Cruz and Trump have been locked in what\u2019s become a two-man race for first place in the first state, but polls suggest Trump has the momentum. The Manhattan businessman has led all but one of the 11 public polls in Iowa that have been released since the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in early January showed Cruz with a narrow 3-point lead. \n \n Cruz, a collegiate championship debater, clearly wants another shot at Trump. He immediately challenged him to a \u201cmano-a-mano\u201d debate after Trump announced his withdrawal. \u201cCan we do it in Canada?\u201d Trump mocked him on Twitter. \n \n For Cruz, Trump\u2019s threatened absence means that the other candidates who trail him in Iowa, such as Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, have only one leader to fire upon: him. \n \n Paul, whose sagging showing in the polls caused him to miss the last debate, has been itching to take on Cruz. On Wednesday, Paul ripped Cruz for his more hawkish stands on foreign affairs in an email to his supporters. Trump\u2019s nonappearance, Paul said on Fox News, should give him more time to make all his arguments. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s sort of a double win for me; not only am I on the main stage, but we don\u2019t have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness and calling people names,\u201d Paul said. \n \n Rubio has telegraphed his interest in going after Cruz\u2019s past work as a lawyer for a Chinese company accused of stealing intellectual property from an American firm. The issue has yet to come up at a debate, but Rubio hammered Cruz for it earlier this week in Des Moines. \n \n \u201cWhen Ted Cruz had to choose as a lawyer, he was choosing to represent the Chinese,\u201d Rubio told reporters. \u201cYou can\u2019t go around saying you\u2019re tough on China but then have a legal record in which you were paid a lot of money to defend the Chinese who had taken a product away from an American \u2014 unjustly, unfairly and illegally.\u201d \n \n The attack is a familiar one for Team Cruz. His 2012 Senate race opponent, David Dewhurst, used it aggressively. In a twist, the Dewhurst strategist who crafted those broadsides is now Cruz\u2019s campaign manager, Roe. \n \n There are other echoes of Cruz\u2019s 2012 contest. In that race, Cruz mercilessly mocked Dewhurst for not doing enough debates and events with him, even sending someone in a duck outfit to trail him. Cruz touted the DuckingDewhurst.com domain then; after Trump\u2019s treat, Cruz began promoting DuckingDonald.com. \n \n Cruz wasn\u2019t the only one hunkered down in a prep for an uncertain debate. The campaign trail in Iowa was far quieter than normal just days from the caucuses. Two of Cruz\u2019s top surrogates, Rep. Steve King and former Gov. Rick Perry, campaigned without him during the day, holding events in Burlington and Iowa City. \n \n Cruz was scheduled to headline an evening rally in West Des Moines. Rubio\u2019s lone public event was also an evening rally, scheduled only five miles away. \n \n But all eyes remain on Trump, who holds a rally and then is scheduled to appear on Fox\u2019s Bill O\u2019Reilly program late Wednesday, despite his boycott of the network\u2019s debate the next night. Rival campaigns plan to tune in to see whether Trump, who mused about walking out on past debates but never followed through, reverses course.", "summary": "\u2013 It's GOP debate night, and the million-dollar question is whether Donald Trump will show. It turns out there's also a 1.5 million-dollar question on the table. The latest: In a Wednesday night interview with Bill O'Reilly, Trump didn't come close to budging. The Hill recounts the many ways O'Reilly tried to convince him: He said \"turn the other cheek,\" and Trump replied, \"Eye for an eye.\" O'Reilly ended the interview by asking Trump a question that the two had apparently agreed wasn't to be asked, per Politico. If he does indeed skip, the New York Times reports he might not be the only one. Still not using the word \"bimbo\" himself, Politico notes that Trump retweeted a follower's shot at Megyn Kelly over a provocative GQ photo shoot she did: \"And this is the bimbo that\u2019s asking presidential questions?\" Ted Cruz apparently didn't spend Wednesday fighting zombies. Politico reports he hunkered down for debate prep, aware that if Trump is out, the target is on his back. Cruz also turned up the heat on his \"mano a mano\" debate invite to Trump, reports the Guardian. Cruz has named a place, time, and potential facilitators and \"sweetened the deal\" by noting two super PAC donors will hand $1.5 million to veterans charities if Trump shows. What the Trump camp had to say about the money, to Tom Llamas of ABC: \"desperate,\" \"dirty.\" At the New York Times, Maggie Haberman has the \"most intriguing possible explanation\" for Trump's planned no-show: He knows he's ahead in Iowa and \"wants to play out the clock\" rather than face tough questions. The Times references the \"furious discussions\" going on about all this, including a conversation between Trump's daughter Ivanka and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes."}
{"document": "Is Justin Bieber still holding a candle for Selena Gomez? \n \n The Biebs apparently issued a very subtle message to his famous ex in his new music video for \"What Do You Mean?\" And leave it to those Beliebers to spot the blink-and-you'll-miss-it-moment. \n \n In the skate park scene at the end of the video, the name Selena can almost be seen spray painted among graffiti on the wall (while the words \"Hope\" and \"Love\" are featured prominently). See for yourself around 04:00, on the far right side of the frame. Can you spot \"Selena\"? \n \n ETonline has reached out to Bieber's camp for comment. \n \n This isn't the first time he's publicly called out his ex. At one point in the music video for \"Where Are U Now,\" the phrase \"Where R Now Selena\" flashed across the screen. \n \n Odds are high that \"What Do You Mean?\" was inspired by JB's relationship with Gomez. In an interview with On Air With Ryan Seacrest earlier this year, Bieber confessed, \"I think a lot of my inspiration comes from [Selena]... It was a long relationship that created heartbreak and created happiness and a lot of different emotions that I wanted to write about. There's a lot of that on this album.\" ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| Published on Sep 2, 2015 \n \n Justin Bieber talks to Jimmy about the emotions that led to his tearful 2015 MTV Video Music Awards performance. \n \n \n \n Subscribe NOW to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: http://bit.ly/1nwT1aN \n \n \n \n Watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Weeknights 11:35/10:35c \n \n Get more Jimmy Fallon: \n \n Follow Jimmy: http://Twitter.com/JimmyFallon \n \n Like Jimmy: https://Facebook.com/JimmyFallon \n \n \n \n Get more The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: \n \n Follow The Tonight Show: http://Twitter.com/FallonTonight \n \n Like The Tonight Show: https://Facebook.com/FallonTonight \n \n The Tonight Show Tumblr: http://fallontonight.tumblr.com/ \n \n \n \n Get more NBC: \n \n NBC YouTube: http://bit.ly/1dM1qBH \n \n Like NBC: http://Facebook.com/NBC \n \n Follow NBC: http://Twitter.com/NBC \n \n NBC Tumblr: http://nbctv.tumblr.com/ \n \n NBC Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NBC/posts \n \n \n \n The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon features hilarious highlights from the show including: comedy sketches, music parodies, celebrity interviews, ridiculous games, and, of course, Jimmy's Thank You Notes and hashtags! You'll also find behind the scenes videos and other great web exclusives. \n \n \n \n Justin Bieber Explains Why He Got Emotional During the VMAs \n \n http://www.youtube.com/fallontonight", "summary": "\u2013 Justin Bieber appeared on the Tonight Show last night to talk about his first album in three years and ended up explaining the tearful end to his VMAs performance on Sunday. \"It was just so overwhelming for me, everything, just the performance\u2014I missed some cues so I was a little disappointed at that\u2014and just everyone, just the support,\" the 21-year-old said, per People. \"Honestly, I just wasn't expecting them to support me in the way they did,\" he added. \"Last time I was at an award show I was booed.\" Bieber also touched on his past troubles. \"I had a bunch of knuckleheads around me, that was pretty much it,\" he said. \"You have to test the waters. I just happened to be in the spotlight, in front of cameras all the time, and they caught all those moments.\" Bieber then pointed at the crowd, asking, \"You didn't have those moments?\" Jimmy Fallon's response: \"Not as much as you did.\" The Biebs' new album drops Nov. 13. His first single, \"What Do You Mean,\" has already hit the top of the charts in 89 countries, Fallon said. (And there might be a secret message for Selena Gomez in the video.)"}
{"document": "President Trump Donald John TrumpDACA recipient claims Trump is holding \u2018immigrant youth hostage\u2019 amid quest for wall Lady Gaga blasts Pence as \u2018worst representation of what it means to be Christian\u2019 We have a long history of disrespecting Native Americans and denying their humanity MORE said Tuesday he would \"love\" to see a government shutdown if Democrats do not agree to his demands on immigration. \n \n \"We\u2019ll do a shutdown and it\u2019s worth it for our country. I\u2019d love to see a shutdown if we don\u2019t get this stuff taken care of,\" Trump told law enforcement officials and members of Congress at the White House. \n \n During impromptu remarks at an event on immigration, Trump said Democrats must accept new border-security measures to keep out people trying to enter the country illegally. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n \u201cIf we have to shut it down because the Democrats don\u2019t want safety and, unrelated but still related, they don\u2019t want to take care of our military, then shut it down,\" the president added. \"We\u2019ll go with another shutdown.\u201d \n \n Trump's saber rattling came as lawmakers are rushing to meet a Thursday deadline to fund the government. \n \n His tough talk stands in stark contrast to optimism on Capitol Hill about the chances of averting a shutdown. \n \n Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate announced earlier Tuesday they were close to a two-year budget deal, which does not include immigration language. \n \n \"Speaks for itself,\" Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerProtecting our judiciary must be a priority in the 116th Congress Baldwin's Trump plays 'Deal or No Deal' with shutdown on 'Saturday Night Live' Sunday shows preview: Shutdown negotiations continue after White House immigration proposal MORE (D-N.Y.) said when asked to respond to Trump's comments. \n \n \"We had one Trump shutdown. Nobody wants another, maybe except him.\" \n \n Rep. Barbara Comstock Barbara Jean ComstockDems win Virginia state Senate special election Dem rep asks for asks for pay to be withheld during shutdown New Dem lawmaker hangs trans flag outside office on Capitol Hill MORE (Va.), a vulnerable Republican who represents a district outside of Washington, D.C., with many federal workers, rebuked Trump after he welcomed a shutdown. \n \n \u201cWe don't need a government shutdown on this,\u201d she told Trump during the meeting. \u201cI think both sides have learned that a government shutdown is bad.\u201d \n \n Comstock said there is bipartisan support for cracking down on violent gangs such as MS-13, which was the focus of Tuesday\u2019s meeting. \n \n Trump cut off the Virginia lawmaker and doubled down on his willingness to stage a shutdown. \n \n \u201cWe have to get that, they are not supporting us,\u201d the president said. \u201cYou can say what you want. We are not getting support of the Democrats.\u201d \n \n Trump has vented his frustration that Democrats have refused to accept his sweeping immigration plan. The proposal would offer a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children in exchange for billions of dollars for a wall along the southern border and steep cuts to legal immigration. \n \n Democrats and some Republicans have objected to making significant to changes to the U.S. visa system, while conservative GOP lawmakers have balked at a citizenship path. \n \n Trump has framed the offer as Congress's best chance to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which he scrapped last year. \n \n While the president in the past has floated the possibility of extending the March 5 deadline to end the program for young immigrants, White House chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE on Tuesday poured cold water on that idea. \n \n If lawmakers do not agree to an immigration deal before Thursday's government funding deadline, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellDACA recipient claims Trump is holding \u2018immigrant youth hostage\u2019 amid quest for wall Former House Republican: Trump will lose the presidency if he backs away from border security Pence quotes MLK in pitch for Trump's immigration proposal MORE (R-Ky.) has said he would hold an open debate on the issue. \n \n \u2014 This report was updated at 3:45 p.m. ||||| Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (left) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy arrive to meet with reporters following a closed-door GOP strategy session at the Capitol on Tuesday. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo House GOP passes stopgap bill to avoid shutdown But the Senate is expected to rewrite the measure \u2014 and potentially lift stiff budget caps. \n \n The House passed a stopgap bill Tuesday to prevent another government shutdown, as a broader budget deal appeared increasingly within reach on Capitol Hill. \n \n Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met privately on Tuesday to discuss lifting stiff spending caps as part of the short-term funding package, according to sources in both parties briefed on the talks. The top four congressional leaders believe they are close to clinching a budget deal that significantly boosts defense and domestic spending and ends the cycle of temporary funding measures. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n The bill passed by the House, 245-182, would boost Pentagon spending over the next eight months while funding nondefense programs at current levels \u2014 and then only until March 23. \n \n The \u201cdefense-only\u201d approach was an easy win in the House, where droves of GOP conservatives and defense hawks have been begging Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his leadership team for months to vote on just such a plan. \n \n But many of those same House Republicans acknowledged the bill is doomed in the Senate, since Democrats want any increases in defense and nondefense spending levels to be equal. \n \n \u201cFrom the very beginning of the budget debate, Democrats have made our position in these negotiations very clear,\u201d Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. \u201cWe support an increase in funding for our military and our middle class. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don\u2019t want to do just one and leave the other behind.\u201d \n \n Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. \n \n The Senate is likely to rewrite the House bill to eliminate the extra defense funding, but a repeat of last month\u2019s federal government shutdown is not expected. \n \n White House chief of staff John Kelly told reporters on Tuesday he didn\u2019t think there would be another government shutdown. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen, no. Yeah, I guess I\u2019m optimistic,\u201d Kelly said. \n \n President Donald Trump, meanwhile, called for a government shutdown Tuesday if Congress is unable to pass what he considers adequate border-security measures. \n \n \u201cIf we don\u2019t get rid of these loopholes where killers are allowed to come into our country and continue to kill \u2026 if we don\u2019t change it, let\u2019s have a shutdown,\u201d Trump said at a White House roundtable focused on the gang MS-13. \u201cWe\u2019ll do a shutdown, and it\u2019s worth it for our country. I\u2019d love to see a shutdown if we don\u2019t get this stuff taken care of.\u201d \n \n Immigration, however, is not a major issue in the current spending debate on Capitol Hill. \n \n And a budget caps deal could ease all the drama surrounding the Senate vote, as all four congressional leaders and the White House would have to be in agreement for such a spending deal to occur. It would outline budget levels for the next two years, although there will still be fights over specific policy concerns within the annual appropriations bills. \n \n The deal is expected to bust budget caps by $300 billion for domestic and defense programs over the next two years. It would also achieve near parity between defense and domestic funding increases \u2014 a key priority of Democrats \u2014 and approach $150 billion in new defense spending to satisfy hawks, according to a person briefed on the talks. \n \n Leaving a House GOP strategy meeting Tuesday morning, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said lawmakers are prepared for the bill to \u201cping-pong\u201d back to the House with changes from the Senate. And if the Senate strips out the extra defense money, House Republicans will be forced to embrace that rewrite or risk another shutdown come midnight Thursday. \n \n \u201cThe history\u2019s pretty clear. If they need to send something back, we usually hug it pretty quick,\u201d said Amodei, a member of the House spending panel. \u201cLet\u2019s not bulls\u2014- each other. The Republicans in the House may be in the majority, but it\u2019s like \u2014 when we talk about what the heck hits the president\u2019s desk \u2014 it doesn\u2019t feel like we\u2019re in control.\u201d \n \n The House Freedom Caucus voted Monday night to band together in support of House GOP leadership\u2019s spending plan. But the conservative group\u2019s chief, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), said \u201cthe majority\u201d of his caucus plans to oppose the measure if it returns without defense funding at a level of $659.2 billion. \n \n Meadows said the group doesn\u2019t plan to take an official position against a stripped-down version, though, potentially enabling House leaders to pick off a few of those conservative lawmakers as \u201cyea\u201d votes if the measure does indeed return with changes from the Senate. \n \n \n \n \n \n \u201cI think there\u2019s a fair amount of skepticism in terms of: \u2018Ultimately, will this produce a different result?\u2019\u201d Meadows said. \u201cBut it\u2019s the best play call we have today.\u201d \n \n The Senate likely won\u2019t hold its passage vote until Wednesday or Thursday; another House vote would come shortly after. \n \n House Democrats plan to head to their annual strategy retreat Wednesday and will likely be called back to Washington for a final vote to prevent a shutdown. \n \n Making the plan harder for Democrats to oppose, the GOP bill includes two years of funding for the Community Health Centers program, a permanent repeal of the Medicare cap on therapy services and other provisions that generally have bipartisan support. \n \n Yet Senate Democrats continue to make clear they have no interest in the House GOP plan. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve made very clear that to get past sequester, you\u2019ve got to raise the caps on both,\u201d said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. \u201cWe\u2019re for an increase in defense. But we\u2019re not going to ignore everything from opioids to veterans hospitals to education to cancer research and all those things.\u201d \n \n Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report. \n \n ||||| Top Senate leaders were working Tuesday to finalize a sweeping long-term budget deal that would include a defense spending boost President Trump has long demanded alongside an increase in domestic programs championed by Democrats. \n \n As negotiations for the long-term deal continued, the House passed a short-term measure that would fund the government past a midnight Thursday deadline and avert a second partial shutdown in less than a month. \n \n The House bill, which passed 245 to 182, would fund most agencies through March 23 but is a nonstarter in the Senate because of Democratic opposition. \n \n But the top Senate leaders of both parties told reporters earlier in the day that a breakthrough was at hand on a longer-term budget deal. Spending has vexed the Republican-controlled Congress for months, forcing lawmakers to rely on multiple short-term patches. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re on the way to getting an agreement and on the way to getting an agreement very soon,\u201d said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). \n \n Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) echoed him, \u201cI am very hopeful that we can come to an agreement, an agreement very soon.\u201d \n \n \n \n From left, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at an event honoring Bob Dole last month. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) \n \n Despite the optimism, no agreement was finalized with less than three days until Thursday\u2019s deadline. And even as congressional leaders were sounding an upbeat note, Trump was raising tensions by openly pondering a shutdown if Democrats did not agree to his immigration policies. \n \n \u201cI\u2019d love to see a shutdown if we don\u2019t get this stuff taken care of,\u201d Trump said at a White House event focused on crime threats posed by some immigrants. \u201cIf we have to shut it down because the Democrats don\u2019t want safety . . . let\u2019s shut it down.\u201d \n \n Trump\u2019s remarks appeared unlikely to snuff out the negotiations, which mainly involved top congressional leaders and their aides \u2014 not the president or his White House deputies \u2014 and have largely steered clear of the explosive immigration issue. \n \n White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday afternoon that Trump was not pushing for the inclusion of immigration policies in the budget accord, something that would upend the sensitive talks. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t think that we expect the budget deal to include specifics on the immigration reform,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we want to get a deal on that.\u201d \n \n The agreement McConnell and Schumer are contemplating, with input from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), would clear the way for a bipartisan accord that would break through the sharp divides that helped prompt a three-day government shutdown last month. \n \n Under tentative numbers discussed by congressional aides who were not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations, defense spending would get an $80 billion boost above the existing $549 billion in spending for 2018. Nondefense spending would rise by $63 billion from its current $516 billion. The 2019 budget would include similar increases. \n \n \u201cDemocrats have made our position in these negotiations very clear,\u201d Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. \u201cWe support an increase in funding for our military and our middle class. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don\u2019t want to do just one and leave the other behind.\u201d \n \n Among the other issues that could be addressed in the deal is an increase in the federal debt limit, which could be reached as soon as early March, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The aides said that an increase was being discussed in the negotiations but that no final decisions have been made. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a question of what the traffic will bear,\u201d said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 Senate GOP leader, describing the likelihood of a debt-ceiling increase. \n \n [House Republicans eye defense spending boost, complicating plan to avoid second shutdown] \n \n A disaster aid package aimed at the victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires is also part of the talks, potentially adding $80 billion or more to the deal\u2019s overall price tag. That provision could help win support from lawmakers representing affected areas in California, Florida and Texas but further repel conservatives concerned about mounting federal spending. \n \n Even the rumors of a coming deal were enough to send some hard-liners reeling. \n \n \u201cThis is a bad, bad, bad, bad \u2014 you could say \u2018bad\u2019 a hundred times \u2014 deal,\u201d said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. \u201cWhen you put it all together, a quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar increase in discretionary spending \u2014 not what we\u2019re supposed to be doing.\u201d \n \n If the parties cannot reach an agreement in the next two days, it is unclear how a shutdown might be averted. \n \n Multiple House Republicans said Tuesday that if the Senate takes their spending bill and substitutes its version with a significant boost for domestic programs, they could not vote for it. House Democrats, meanwhile, have showed only limited willingness to help pass temporary spending measures absent a broader agreement. \n \n Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus chairman, said a broad deal encompassing a debt-limit increase and a huge disaster package would be \u201cconsidered a lead balloon\u201d among hard-line conservatives. \u201cIt\u2019d get zero support\u201d from the caucus, he said, aside from a member or two representing states affected by the disasters. \n \n Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Congress should \u201cnot let disagreements on domestic policy continue to hold our nation\u2019s defense hostage.\u201d He warned that a failure to pass long-term funding would imperil troop paychecks, inhibit the maintenance of planes and ships, stunt recruiting and otherwise harm military readiness. \n \n \u201cTo carry out the strategy you rightly directed we develop, we need you to pass a budget now,\u201d he said. \n \n The House bill would increase Pentagon funding to $584 billion and guarantee it through Sept. 30, while the rest of the government would continue to be funded at 2017 levels through March 23. \n \n The bill would also provide two years of funding for the federal community health-center program, which lapsed last year and is at risk of running out of spending authority, and it would extend several other programs. \n \n [Shutdown ends after Democrats agree to trust that McConnell will allow \u2018dreamer\u2019 vote] \n \n The bill also would affect many other moving parts in the health-care system. It would postpone planned cuts in funding to hospitals that treat an especially large share of poor patients, eliminating reductions in \u201cdisproportionate share\u201d payments for this year and 2019 and shifting the $6 billion in reductions to 2021 through 2023. \n \n Amy Goldstein and Paul Sonne contributed to this report. \n \n Read more at PowerPost", "summary": "\u2013 With the prospect of another government shutdown looming this week, President Trump entered the fray with some headline-making comments: \u201cI\u2019d love to see a shutdown if we can\u2019t get this stuff taken care of,\u201d Trump said, referring to his demands for tougher border protection. \u201cIf we have to shut it down because the Democrats don't want safety ... let's shut it down.\u201d The president made the impromptu comments at a gathering of law enforcement officials at the White House, reports the Hill, which notes that they're in contrast to reports of progress between Democrats and Republicans on a deal to avert a shutdown at midnight Thursday. As the Washington Post notes, both Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer earlier said they were optimistic about reaching a deal that would include big increases for the Pentagon and domestic programs. The House is expected to vote later Tuesday on legislation that Politico describes as the \"opening salvo\" in the bid to avert a shutdown. In his comments, Trump also seemed to reference the death over the weekend of an NFL player being blamed on an undocumented immigrant accused of drunken driving. \u201cIf we don\u2019t get rid of these loopholes where killers are allowed to come into our country and continue to kill ... if we don\u2019t change it, let\u2019s have a shutdown.\""}
{"document": "Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By Herb Weisbaum \n \n Ever wonder what\u2019s going to come in that mail today? Will you get your sister\u2019s wedding invitation? Is this the day your IRS refund check finally arrives? \n \n Informed Delivery, a free service from the U.S. Postal Service, lets you see what will be in your mailbox that day. Sign up and you\u2019ll receive an email each morning with actual size black and white images of the front side of the letters and cards to be delivered. \n \n Informed Delivery, a new and free service from the Post Office, lets you see what will be in your mailbox that day. usps.com \n \n Knowing when that check really is \u201cin the mail\u201d could change how you plan your day. You might want to get home in time to deposit it. \n \n The service has been available in Northern Virginia since 2014. The pilot program was later expanded to parts of California, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. \n \n Bob Dixon, the executive program director for Informed Delivery, told NBC News the feedback was \u201ctremendously positive,\u201d so it\u2019s being rolled out nationally in mid-April. A USPS survey found that nine out of 10 people who signed up for the service checked their Informed Delivery notifications every day. \n \n What's in the Mail? \n \n Feedback from the pilot program showed that Informed Delivery was popular with people who had roommates. This way, everyone in the household knows what they should expect that day, no matter who goes to the mailbox. \n \n It\u2019s also been a hit with people who travel and want to know what\u2019s in their mail, even if they can\u2019t physically retrieve those letters. \n \n Christopher Ebert is CEO of Ophelia Myth Media, which is based in New York and London, so he is always on the go. He\u2019s used Informed Delivery for about two years and likes the way it helps him stay more aware and more in control. \n \n \u201cMy life is largely digital,\u201d he wrote NBC News in an email. \u201cHaving the ability to see my mail deliveries right on my phone keeps me connected.\u201d \n \n Integrating the physical and digital is a smart move, according to Miro Copic, a marketing professor at San Diego State University. \n \n \u201cThis makes postal mail more interesting to millennials, who are on their devices all day long,\u201d Copic said. \u201cAnd it just might change the equation of how millennials think about the post office longer term.\u201d \n \n A Few Specifics \n \n Informed Delivery is for residential mail customers and you must sign up for it at InformedDelivery.USPS.com. It is not currently available for mail delivered to P.O. boxes. \n \n Only 10 images will be sent via the daily email notification. If you receive more than 10 pieces of first-class mail, you\u2019ll get 10 images and a link to see the rest. These images are available for seven days. \n \n Notifications are sent Monday through Saturday on days that mail is processed. If for some reason a piece of mail is not handled via automation, an image cannot be sent. \n \n The Postal Service does not open any mail. This is simply a digital scan of the address side of the envelope. And those images will only be emailed to the person to whom the letter was sent. \n \n If all the mail in one household is delivered to one mailbox, those who share the residence and the mailbox will receive the same images for all the mail delivered to that household. \n \n If you get an image of a letter, but not the physical piece itself, Informed Delivery makes it easy to report that missing mail to the Postal Service. The image can help speed up the process of finding what\u2019s missing. \n \n Why Give Snail Mail a Digital Twist? \n \n In a world of instant communication, the U.S. Postal Service is searching for ways to remain relevant and increase revenue. Mail volume has dropped dramatically during the last 10 years. USPS reports that it handled 61.2 billion pieces of first class mail in 2016, down from 98 billion in 2006. \n \n Informed Delivery gives it a way to reach the growing number of Americans who\u2019ve shifted to digital communications. \n \n \u201cOur emerging consumers, younger folks, are digital natives. That\u2019s how their communications are coming to them,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cWe also know that if we can get those folks to the mailbox, they\u2019ll spend longer with each piece of mail than someone who has a long history of mail usage. So the benefit to us is that we continue the relevance of mail in a very digital world and we provide access to the consumers for those mail pieces.\u201d \n \n This scanning technology has been in place since the 1990s. It\u2019s part of the automation process that sorts the mail. This is a way for USPS to leverage something it\u2019s already doing. This digital presence also gives the Postal Service a way to deliver digital advertising. For now, it will be a free bonus for companies that use the mail. \n \n Prof. Copic thinks the Postal Service has found a way to add value for both mail customers and potential advertisers by offering something that no other service provides. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity for the Post Office to work with marketers to make their offers more appealing and interesting and to reduce the decline of mail being delivered,\u201d he said. \u201cIt opens an opportunity that allows them to play with the big boys in direct marketing, rather than being on the sidelines.\u201d \n \n USPS policy will strictly limit that advertising. It must be related to a piece of mail sent to you that day. For example: If you\u2019re getting a frequent flier statement, the airline could have a link for a special offer sent to you along with the image of their envelope. But you\u2019ll never see an ad for something that\u2019s not already a physical piece of mail in your mailbox, USPS assures customers. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to create spam,\u201d Dixon told NBC News. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to create a channel that\u2019s got a lot of noise in it for consumers. Physical mail cuts through the digital clutter and we don\u2019t want to add digital clutter to this channel.\u201d \n \n Security Implications \n \n Mail theft is a serious problem. It\u2019s one of the common ways identity thieves get personally identifying information to commit their crimes. Informed Delivery can help you spot a problem in real time. \n \n If an important piece of mail that was supposed to be delivered isn\u2019t in the mailbox \u2014 a credit card bill, tax document or financial statement \u2014 you can assume it was stolen or delivered to the wrong address and start working to find out what happened. With identity theft, the quicker you discover a problem, the faster you can move to manage the damage. \n \n These email notifications can be a double-edged sword, cautioned Adam Levin, co-founder of the digital security firm CyberScout. \n \n \u201cIf your account is compromised, criminals will know when something of value that they can cash, charge or use for the purpose of exploiting your identity is coming to your mailbox and be there to grab it before you do,\u201d Levin told NBC News. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s imperative that you use a long and strong password for a service like this. It also needs to be a unique password that you don\u2019t share or use for any other websites.\u201d \n \n Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website. ||||| 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. ||||| New USPS Service Gives You A Peek Into Your Mailbox Before You Get Home \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service \n \n In the spring of my senior year of high school, I took daily trips to the mailbox. It might have been the only time in my life when I knew for a fact that any day, letters with my name on them would appear in the mailbox from colleges that had read through my hopeful applications. \n \n It's this excitement that Bill McAllister, the Washington correspondent for a stamp publication called Linn's Stamp News, calls the \"mail moment.\" It's the feeling you have when mail arrives, knowing that you could be receiving a handwritten letter, or, in my case, a college acceptance. \n \n But this moment is no longer a common experience for McAllister. \n \n \"The amount of mail \u2014 single-piece first-class mail \u2014 has dropped so dramatically that there isn't much magic in the daily mail anymore for most people,\" he says. \"And that's a rather sad thing.\" \n \n Now a new service by the U.S. Postal Service called Informed Delivery might be an attempt, he says, to get back the magic of that moment. \n \n On April 14, the Postal Service is set to launch a nationwide service that allows users, in a sense, to peek at their mail before it arrives in their mailbox. \n \n Users will have the option of getting an email with photos of the front of card- and letter-size mail pieces that are due to arrive that day, or a day or two later. The email is sent on days when mail is being processed and delivered. It shows up to 10 grayscale images in each email with a link at the bottom to see the rest. \n \n Users can also view the images for seven days on their dashboard, which they can find on informeddelivery.usps.com. \n \n Right now, the program is available to select addresses only, as shown on the map. \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service \n \n Bob Dixon, the executive program director of Informed Delivery, says the program was first piloted in Northern Virginia in 2014 and sprang from a program to help post office box customers know when they had something in their P.O. box. \n \n He says participants in specific scenarios \u2014 like roommates who misplaced each other's mail or people who traveled frequently \u2014 found the daily messages helpful. \n \n \"I and many people manage their life through a cellphone or tablet or some other digital medium,\" Dixon says. \"As we become busier and busier, it's important to have things in one place.\" \n \n Scanning mail is not a new thing. Since the 1990s, the Postal Service has been taking photos of the exterior of most mail pieces to sort and route the mail. In 2013, The New York Times reported that the USPS \"occasionally provides the photos to law enforcement agencies that request them as part of criminal cases.\" \n \n McAllister, who wrote a piece on this new feature in Linn's Stamp News, says it's hard to find usefulness in a new aspect of a product that's not significant in one's daily life to begin with. \n \n \"Most urgent mail or messages that you get this day tend to come by telephone or email,\" he says. \"That has become the way most people communicate, and letters, sadly, aren't just as important as they used to be.\" \n \n McAllister previously wrote a stamp and coin column for The Washington Post for 19 years, where he says he covered the Postal Service as the Internet was growing. \n \n \"There were people down there who just basically thought the Internet was nothing, that it was a fad and would go away, and it wouldn't impact mail,\" he says. \"But it has. It has impacted mail dramatically.\" \n \n Dixon says he knows the Postal Services' consumers are very digitally engaged. \n \n \"We also know that mail is still one of the highest response rate channels there is for marketing messages,\" he says. \"It's important for us because we want to be able to continue to demonstrate the relevance of mail but provide that convenience of a digital response channel.\" \n \n And maybe it will. Dixon, as one of Informed Delivery's first users, says when he was traveling and was informed of a jury notice, he was able to ask his son to pull the letter out of his stack of mail that was piling up on the kitchen table in his absence. \n \n It's situations like these, he says, where people can use the service to plan ahead for the day. \n \n So the reality of the service is that it might not always be magical. It's not often that I see something in the mail that I'm genuinely excited to tear open. \n \n But Dixon is hoping that by marrying mail with the convenience of digitized notifications, mail will at least stay relevant. \n \n Cecilia Mazanec is an NPR digital news intern.", "summary": "\u2013 Anyone who\u2019s waited by the mailbox for an important letter or much-needed paycheck will want to be first in line for a new free service USPS is rolling out widely in mid-April. Residential customers who sign up for Informed Delivery will receive a daily email with high-quality photo scans of their incoming envelope fronts, reports NBC News. The emails display up to 10 images\u2014if there are more than 10 on a given day, the rest can be viewed via a link that stays active for seven days. After receiving \u201ctremendously positive\u201d feedback in pilot test runs, executive program director Bob Dixon says the program has been particularly appealing to people living with roommates, since they\u2019re not always first to retrieve their daily mail. Frequent travelers are another group utilizing the service, which Dixon personally attests to as one of Informed Delivery\u2019s first users. He tells NPR that he was able to flag a jury duty summons while on the road and asked his son to set it aside so it didn\u2019t get lost in a towering mail pile. With the rate of mail delivery declining (61.2 billion pieces of first-class mail were handled by USPS in 2016 compared to 98 billion in 2006), the service is one way the post office is innovating and trying to remain relevant. \"Our emerging consumers, younger folks, are digital natives,\" Dixon says. \"That's how their communications are coming to them.\" USPS has opened sign-up for Informed Delivery at: informeddelivery.USPS.com. (Finland's postal service tried to innovate in a different way.)"}
{"document": "CLOSE Tina MacIntyre-Yee \n \n Buy Photo FILE PHOTO: Barry Beck and Kimberly Ray during their morning radio show on 98.9 the Buzz. (Photo: FILE PHOTO)Buy Photo \n \n The firing of local radio personalities Kimberly and Beck for comments they made about transgender healthcare coverage Wednesday is getting swift \u2013 and strong - reactions from fans and non-fans of the controversial morning drive-time hosts. \n \n Opinion blogger: Kimberly and Beck \"out of line\" \n \n Editorial: The Buzz fires Kimberly and Beck; are there lessons \n \n The anti-transgender comments were made during a 12-minute conversation on \"The Breakfast Buzz\" radio show on station 98.9 The BUZZ yesterday. The radio hosts began by expressing opposition to Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren's new health care policy within city government that would allow city employees to receive services related to gender reassignment surgery effective Jan. 1. \n \n The station initially suspended the hosts indefinitely and fired them early Thursday. \n \n \"Their hateful comments against the transgender community do not represent our station or our company,\" said Sue Munn, vice president and general manager for Entercom Rochester, in a prepared statement. \n \n The hosts of the radio show have not commented publicly on the situation. \n \n Kimberly and Beck also questioned the mental health status of transgender people during the portion of the show, and, ultimately, discussed male and female sexuality, male and female body parts, City of Rochester employees, city taxpayers and a student who was born a male playing on an area high school's girls' softball team. \n \n Many inside the gay, lesbian and transgender community immediately called on the radio station to take action following the radio segment. \n \n \"Entercom radio was very swift in their response and I think it demonstrates that the station supports and affirms the LGBT community,\" said John Cullen, coordinator of outreach with the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership and chair of the Pride Alliance at the University of Rochester. \n \n Social media reaction on both sides of the firing was swift. \n \n Kimberly %26 Beck karma is real \u2014 Mark Dieter (@mdieter86) May 22, 2014 \n \n For Rochester's 98.9 I officially am never listening to that station again after they fired #KimberlyandBeck they were right sorry! \u2014 Elisha Blue (@BlueDRamGirl787) May 22, 2014 \n \n Since they were paid to entertain and be controversial, I think it's ridiculous they've been fired. #989thebuzz#Kimberlyandbeck \u2014 Chris Trewer (@ChrisTrewer) May 22, 2014 \n \n Kimberly and Beck being fired seems way over due. \u2014 Nick English (@NickrEnglish) May 22, 2014 \n \n I'm not saying I agree with anything Kimberly and beck said, but I don't think they needed to lose their jobs over it.. \u2014 KC (@KristinaAnn8) May 22, 2014 \n \n Wow! EVERYONE is #roc coming out to bash Kimberly and Beck. Not ONE person to their defense. What's that tell ya? C-YA! \u2014 Joe Castrechino (@PapaJoeMusic) May 22, 2014 \n \n #KimberlyandBeck I am no fan of the show but apparently it's now only acceptable to say anything against straight white people. \u2014 Jeremiah Beard (@woefuljester) May 22, 2014 \n \n Kimberly and Beck fired, thank God, we do not need their hate on the air waves. \u2014 David McGloin (@migs51) May 22, 2014 \n \n \n \n \n \n GMCLENDN@Gannett.com \n \n Twitter.com/NightCopsReport.com \n \n Read or Share this story: http://on.rocne.ws/1ns1flA ||||| Promo shot from 98.9 FM. \n \n Last week, the city of Rochester, New York, announced that it would include transgender health care benefits for employees and their families under the city\u2019s medical plan. Local news outlet the Democrat and Chronicle reported that, \u201cUnder the new coverage, effective Jan. 1, city employees will be eligible to receive services related to gender reassignment surgery, such as medical and psychological counseling, hormone therapy and cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries.\u201d This move is not only great news for the individuals it impacts directly, but also for the city on a symbolic level\u2014taking the lives and well-being of transgender people seriously is crucial step on the road to LGBTQ equality. \n \n J. Bryan Lowder J. Bryan Lowder is a Slate associate editor. He writes and edits for Outward, Slate\u2019s LGBTQ section, and for the culture section. \n \n However, not everyone is celebrating. Towleroad reports that earlier this morning, the hosts of rock station 98.9 FM\u2019s \u201cBreakfast Buzz\u201d radio show, Kimberly and Beck, spent about 12 minutes demeaning and mocking transgender people in the vilest terms. And to be clear, this was not simply a matter of disagreeing with the idea that taxpayers should contribute to gender confirmation surgery, which Kimberly and Beck do. That\u2019s a debate that has to do with whether you understand such procedures as medical necessities rather than as cosmetic choices, and one that could in theory be had respectfully. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \n \n No, the sentiments expressed in this segment are outright malicious, ranging from the tired song choice of \u201cDude Looks Like a Lady\u201d to the frighteningly callous discussion of a transgender member of a local high-school women\u2019s softball team, which included the line: \u201cWhen he steps up to the plate, doesn\u2019t he have two bats [sic]?\u201d \n \n Amid a stream of transphobic jokes, willful ignorance, and nasty slurs, Kimberly has the gall to suggest that she understands all the \u201csensitivities\u201d involved in transgender issues. Of course, that\u2019s only when she\u2019s confronted by an impressively brave and eloquent caller who does their best to push back against the morass of prejudice with a little education\u2014\u201c[this is] incredibly disrespectful toward transgender people.\" Not that it does much good: Before kicking them off the air, another host, perceiving the caller to be female, says: \u201cThank you, sir.\u201d \n \n Quotes really can\u2019t do this cruel mess justice, though. Listen for yourself, and then feel free to let 98.9 know how you feel about them clouding our airwaves with this kind of rank bigotry. \n \n Serious trigger warning here for transphobia and general stupidity. ||||| It's about corporate responsibility. It's about the safety and well-being of young people who are frightened, and confused about their gender identity; that society says it's not OK to ridicule them, ostracize them, or pound their brains into the pavement.Good God, people. Have you no shame? No sense of decency?The Rochester radio show \"The Breakfast Buzz\" with Kimberly and Beck \u2014 while never an oasis of intelligent discourse \u2014 has hit bottom and then dug a basement. In the Marianas Trench. The radio hosts apparently decided that the City of Rochester's recent decision to extend health care benefits to transgender individuals and their families could not pass without their enlightened contribution to the subject. How fortunate for the rest of us. You can listen to the clip yourself, but here's an excerpt of the dialogue, which I'm sure rivals only the Lincoln-Douglas debates in thoughtfulness, sincerity, and responsibility to a greater idea of humanity:Aren't we tired of this? Yeah, I know, they're shock jocks or whatever; this is their job. Well, who is paying them to do this terrible job? (98.9 The Buzz is owned by Entercom.) And why? (That last bit is rhetorical. I know why: money and ratings. Well, OK, then.) Living in a country that allows you to shoot your mouth off doesn't free you from the consequences of what you say. And I want there to be consequences for this.Who decides who is welcome in our society and who is not? These two? Lord help. Today, it's trans people. Tomorrow, it's heavyset blonde women and their poindexter sidekicks. Well, them's the breaks.And, of course, serial offender Bob Lonsberry had to have his say on the city's policy, too. And it's everything you could hope for..: The Buzz announced late yesterday that Kimberly and Beck had been placed on indefinite suspension. This morning, we learned that they have been fired. Applaud if you like, but the fact remains that Kimberly and Beck had been spewing hateful speech on Rochester's airwaves for a long time, with the apparent blessing of Buzz owner Entercom. Why? Because they were making the station money. Now that things have gotten a little too hot \u2014 with advertising dollars at stake \u2014 Entercom cut them loose. Who will hold Entercom responsible? ||||| On May 21st, Kimberly and Beck, the hosts of 'The Breakfast Buzz' on 98.9 The Buzz in Rochester, NY disparaged transgender individuals in light of the recent move by the City of Rochester to include transgender health benefits for employees. Below are a few of the disgraceful things said by the hosts: \n \n \"Transgender or gender nonconforming. What the hell does that mean? Like you're not a woman or a man??\" \n \n \"The dude can look like a lady and the city is going to pay for it!\" \n \n \"Does that mean then if women want a boob job they'll pay for a boob job because that's only right.\" \n \n \"The services that will be paid for under the new coverage - gender reassignment surgery, PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING, because you're probably a NUTJOB to begin with!\" \n \n \"It's a slippery slope. Then if some woman can go to a doctor and it'd be proven that she's got mental issues because her rack's not big enough then you know what? she deserves a boob job, Right Kimberly? Or she deserves liposuction.\" \n \n \"Right, IF YOU CAN PROVE YOU'RE A NUT, I guess.\" \n \n To make matters worse, Kimberly took to Twitter to post - \"Freedom of Speech includes the freedom to offend others. You aren't granted a right to not be offended in this life #getoverit#ROC\" \n \n This incident has made headlines nationally and brings shame to our community. This is not talk that is representative of Rochester and we need to make our voice heard. Please urge Entercom Rochester to take corrective action immediately and call for the removal of Kimberly and Beck from the station.", "summary": "\u2013 The city of Rochester, NY, has a new policy that extends health benefits to transgender employees and, not coincidentally, two job openings for morning radio deejays. The latter is because station 98.9 FM fired Kimberly Rae and Barry Beck after a series of jokes and criticisms about the new policy, reports the Democrat and Chronicle. A sampling: \"Transgender or gender nonconforming. What the hell does that mean? Like you're not a woman or a man?\" \"The dude can look like a lady and the city is going to pay for it!\" \"Does that mean then they'll also, if women want a boob job, they'll pay for a boob job, because I think that's only right.\" \"The services that will be paid for under the new coverage\u2014gender reassignment surgery, psychological counseling, because you're probably a nutjob to begin with.\" The comments stirred up immediate criticism of the Kimberly and Beck show, including an online petition to have them fired. It worked, with parent Entercom pulling the trigger today and issuing an apology, reports TWC News. The local City newspaper thinks Entercom is acting only because ad dollars are at stake and shouldn't be able to rid itself of the controversy so quickly, while conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry slams the new health-care changes as \"Lovelycare\" in honor of Mayor Lovely Warren. You can listen to the original Kimberly and Beck comments in full via Slate."}
{"document": "Teens stop attempted child abduction Posted: Tuesday, March 10, 2015 9:45 AM EDT Updated: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 9:45 AM EDT \n \n The missile delivery was suspended three years later because of strong objections from the U.S. and Israel. \n \n The missile delivery was suspended three years later because of strong objections from the U.S. and Israel. \n \n \"I'm for justice,\" protester James Johnson said. \"It's not about race. It's about doing right.\" \n \n \"I'm for justice,\" protester James Johnson said. \"It's not about race. It's about doing right.\" \n \n Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations were expected to discuss the final nuclear agreement between P5+1 countries and Iran, the conflicts in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine, as well as terrorism. \n \n Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations were expected to discuss the final nuclear agreement between P5+1 countries and Iran, the conflicts in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine, as well as terrorism. \n \n Hundreds of people have been killed and over 121,000 have been displaced by the Saudi air campaign in Yemen. \n \n Hundreds of people have been killed and over 121,000 have been displaced by the Saudi air campaign in Yemen. \n \n Several people threatened the senator sponsoring the bill, who is also a pediatrician, and compared his actions to the Holocaust. \n \n Several people threatened the senator sponsoring the bill, who is also a pediatrician, and compared his actions to the Holocaust. \n \n Isaac Yow and Andrew Crane were enjoying a quiet Sunday in their normally sleepy town when they heard a scream and realized someone was trying to kidnap a child. (Source: KREM/CBS) \n \n SPRAGUE, WA (KREM/CBS) - Two teenagers are being praised as heroes for chasing down a man who tried to abduct a toddler from a park in a normally quiet community. \n \n Isaac Yow and Andrew Crane, both high school freshmen, heard screaming Sunday afternoon and quickly sprang into action. \n \n \"It turned into blood-curdling screaming,\" Yow said. \n \n The two ran over to find a 22-month-old baby boy sitting on the ground, and the child's older sister said a man in his 20s had been chatting with them at the city park. Then he suddenly grabbed the toddler and ran. \n \n Surveillance video from a nearby grocery store showed the suspect trying to get away. About 10 seconds later, the baby's two older siblings ran after him. \n \n The suspect ended up leaving the child a block away. \n \n \"It was obvious he had dropped the child in the dirt,\" Crane said. \"There was a big line of dirt across his shoulder.\" \n \n Crane and Yow first made sure the child was OK. Then, they chased after the suspect. \n \n But by the time they got around the corner, the man was gone. \n \n Officials said they've interviewed several witnesses, but so far, no one has recognized the man. \n \n \"I don't consider myself a hero,\" Yow said. \"I just consider myself a person doing the right thing.\" \n \n Copyright 2015 KREM via CBS. All rights reserved. ||||| He snatched about a two year old baby child! And the \n \n little sister started screaming! \n \n NOW THEY'RE RECEIVING NATIONAL ATTENTION FOR THEIR \n \n ACTIONS. \n \n KXLY'S GRACE DITZLER IS WORKING FOR YOU. \n \n THESE TEENS ARE BEING CALLED HEROES. \n \n BUT HOW DO THEY SEE THEMSELVES? NADINE, \n \n THESE TWO HIGH SCHOOLERS SAY THEY WERE JUST IN THE \n \n RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME, AND THEY HOPE OTHERS \n \n WOULD'VE DONE THE SAME THING TO PROTECT THIS CHILD. \n \n SPRAGUE POLICE ARE STILL LOOKING FOR THE MAN WHO SNATCHED \n \n A 22 MONTH OLD BOY FROM A STROLLER SUNDAY, WHILE THE \n \n CHILD WAS BEING WATCHED BY HIS BABYSITTER IN THE SMALL \n \n TOWN OF SPRAGUE. \n \n FORTUNATELY, WITNESSES WERE THERE TO STOP HIM. \n \n THE YOUNG CHILD'S SISTER STARTED SCREAMING AND RUNNING \n \n AFTER THE BOY. \n \n THATS WHEN 16 YEAR OLD ISAAC YOW AND 15 YEAR OLD \n \n ANDREW CRAIN RAN AFTER HIM. \n \n THE MAN PUT THE CHILD DOWN AND TOOK OFF. \n \n THE BOYS GAVE THE CHILD BACK TO THE SISTER, AND RAN \n \n AFTER THE MAN. \n \n THE SUSPECT GOT AWAY, AND NOWTHE MANHUNT TO FIND HIM \n \n IS SPREADING NATIONWIDE. \n \n THE BOYS SAID WHILE THEY DID WHAT THEY COULD TO HELP, \n \n THEY THINK THE TODDLER'S YOUNG SISTER IS THE REAL \n \n HERO. \n \n i think there's only a slight chance that it was because \n \n of us, i think that little girl played a very large \n \n part in that. \n \n she played the biggest part, because if she wouldn't \n \n have been screaming she wouldnt have known anything \n \n was wrong. \n \n i could've thought the kid got a bloody nose daddy \n \n got worried and ran on home. \n \n ANDREW AND ISAAC SAY THEY'RE THANKFUL THE BOY IS SAFE, \n \n BUT SAY NOW THEIR SMALL TOWN WILL BE FOREVER CHANGED. \n \n nothing happens in sprague, nothing. \n \n the most eventful time of the year is sprague hay \n \n days and even then its probably 50 people, and its \n \n scary to think it happened, and its even scarier to \n \n think of what if his plot succeeded and had actually \n \n gotten away with the boy. \n \n it's something that i dont think anyone wants to think \n \n about \n \n POLICE ARE FOLLOWING LEADS AND ASK ANYONE WITH INFORMATION \n \n ON THE KIDNAPPERS WHEREABOUTS TO COME FORWARD. \n \n THE SUSPECT IS DESCRIBED AS A WHITE MALE WITH A SLEDER \n \n BUILD, POSSIBLY IN HIS MID 20'S WITH SHORT HAIR A \n \n MOUSTACHE. \n \n REPORTING IN STUDIO GRACE DITZLER KXLY 4 NEWS. ||||| A TERRIFYING ORDEAL - YOU'RE WATCHING IT UNFOLD. \n \n A MAN TRIES TO ABDUCT A TODDLER \n \n NOW, POLICE NEED YOUR HELP TRACKING HIM DOWN. \n \n THAT CHILD IS SAFE TONIGHT. \n \n BUT, THE MAN WHO TRIED TO TAKE LITTLE OWEN IS STILL \n \n OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. \n \n THE ABDUCTION ATTEMPT HAPPENED SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN \n \n THE TOWN OF SPRAGUE. \n \n ABOUT 40 MINUTES SOUTHWEST OF SPOKANE. \n \n KXLY4'S ALLIE NORTON, WORKING FOR YOU - WITH HOW YOU \n \n CAN HELP POLICE FIND THIS WOULD-BE KIDNAPPER. \n \n ALLIE? \n \n AARON, NOT TOO MANY WITNESSES IN THIS CASE. \n \n BUT THANKS TO SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS FROM CITY HALL \n \n AND A LOCAL GROCERY STORE. \n \n THE LINCOLN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE HAS A CLEAR PICTURE \n \n OF THE KIDNAPPER. \n \n THE FATHER OF THE VICTIM IS ASKING ANYONE WITH INFORMATION \n \n TO PASS IT OFF TO AUTHORITIES BEFORE IT HAPPENS TO \n \n ANOTHER CHILD. \n \n IT'S A PHONE CALL NO PARENT WANTS TO RECEIVE: FINDING \n \n OUT THAT YOUR CHILD WAS ALMOST KIDNAPPED. \n \n SOT/ MICHAEL WRIGHT- Victim's Father @:19-:22 \n \n You get so nervous. \n \n You're nervous and you can't think straight. \n \n MICHAEL WRIGHT, SAYS HE LEFT HIS THREE KIDS WITH THE \n \n BABYSITTER YESTERDAY WHILE HE WAS AT WORK. \n \n 10 OLD YEAR BRENDEN, 8 YEAR OLD DELICIA AND 22 MONTH \n \n OLD OWEN WERE UNSUPERVISED AND PLAYING IN A PARK NEAR \n \n THE SITTER'S HOUSE. \n \n IN A CLOSE-KNIT TOWN OF 500, IT'S USUALLY A SAFE PLACE \n \n FOR CHILDREN, BUT THAT WASN'T THE CASE YESTERDAY. \n \n SOT/ MICHAEL WRIGHT- Victim's Father @:03-:14 \n \n I can't explain the feeling, the anxiety and everything \n \n that goes into finding out your children is missing \n \n or something has happened to them. \n \n LINCOLN COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPUTIES SAY A MAN SCOOPED \n \n UP OWEN OUT OF THE STROLLER. \n \n SURVEILLANCE VIDEO FROM A GROCERY STORE SHOWS THE \n \n KIDNAPPER RUNNING, CHILD IN ARMS WITH THE SIBLINGS \n \n FOLLOWING. \n \n SOT/ DOROTHY GIDDINGS- Witness @:08- \n \n This little girl come running around the corner screaming \n \n her head off. \n \n DOROTHY GIDDINGS WAS WORKING NEARBY. \n \n SHE SAYS ONCE REALIZED WHAT WAS HAPPENING SHE SENT \n \n HER GRANDSON AND HIS FRIEND TO CHASE THE MAN. \n \n SHE SAYS IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN ACT OF GOD WHEN THE \n \n KIDNAPPER DROPPED LITTLE OWEN IN A VACANT LOT. \n \n SOT/ DOROTHY GIDDINGS- Witness @:41-:50 \n \n I told that little girl, I said, 'Honey, you did exactly \n \n what you needed to do scream your head off.' That's \n \n what saved that baby. \n \n her screaming and us running.W11 22 \n \n DESPITE THE CHASE, THE KIDNAPPER GOT AWAY. \n \n THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE IS NOW FOLLOWING UP ON LEADS. \n \n WRIGHT URGES ANYONE WITH INFORMATION TO COME FORWARD, \n \n BEFORE IT CAN HAPPEN TO SOMEONE ELSE. \n \n SOT/ MICHAEL WRIGHT- @:56-:05 \n \n I'm remorseful for anybody out there that has to go \n \n through this situation because now that I've done \n \n it, been through it. \n \n I wouldn't wish it on anybody.", "summary": "\u2013 A man who grabbed a 22-month-old boy Sunday from a stroller in Washington state probably didn't think he'd be foiled by the boy's young sister and two teenagers. Owen Wright was being watched by a babysitter at a park when he got snatched, and his 8-year-old sister Delicia started yelling and running after the man and her brother. Isaac Yow, 16, and Andrew Crain, 15, saw what was happening and gave chase. The man put the toddler down and kept running, and after the teens handed the boy to his sister, they kept running, too. The little girl \"played the biggest part\" in the rescue, Isaac tells KXLY. \"If she wouldn't have been screaming, we wouldn't have known nothing was wrong.\" The suspect got away, but KXLY reports that surveillance cameras in the area managed to get a \"clear picture\" of the man described as white, possibly in his mid-20s, with a slender build, short hair, and a mustache. Police in Sprague, a town of 500, are searching for him, and the manhunt is spreading across the country. According to 19 Action News, the suspect was talking with the kids and their babysitter at the park before snatching Owen. A local who saw Delicia chasing after her brother (followed by her other brother, 10-year-old Brenden) says she told her, \"'Honey, you did exactly what you needed to do: scream your head off.' That's what saved that baby.\""}
{"document": "Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012 and an abortion opponent, said Thursday that anti-abortion activists should try to build a broad coalition and find common ground with supporters of abortion rights as a way to advance their agenda. \n \n Ryan, R-Wis., said in a speech to the Susan B. Anthony List that those who oppose abortion \"need to work with people who consider themselves pro-choice _ because our task isn't to purge our ranks. It's to grow them.\" \n \n \"We don't want a country where abortion is simply outlawed. We want a country where it isn't even considered,\" he said. \n \n Ryan told the organization that seeks to elect women who oppose abortion rights that \"labels can be misleading.\" He pointed to former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, whose 2010 election in Massachusetts nearly derailed President Barack Obama's health care law. Brown supports abortion rights. In contrast, Ryan told the group that former Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, who opposed abortion, \"delivered the votes that passed it into law.\" \n \n Many opponents of abortion disagreed with the health care overhaul because it requires most employers to cover birth control free of charge to female workers as a preventative service. The law exempted churches and other houses of worship. \n \n Ryan said critics often urge abortion opponents to abandon their beliefs but \"that would only demoralize our voters.\" But he said anti-abortion activists should work with people of all beliefs to plant \"flags\" in the law _ \"small changes that raise questions about abortion.\" \n \n He said some people who support abortion rights oppose taxpayer funding of abortions or parental notification of minors' abortions. Others, he said, support the reinstatement of the so-called Mexico City policy, which bans American aid from funding abortions. Obama waived the order soon after taking office in 2009. \n \n Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group's president, said it plans to target Senate seats in 2014 held by Democrats Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, both of whom support abortion rights. \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas ||||| Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two highly publicized gay-marriage cases, a majority of Americans continue to say they support same-sex marriage, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. \n \n Fifty-three percent of respondents favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, which is up 2 points since the NBC/WSJ survey last asked this question in December, though that increase is within the poll\u2019s margin of error. \n \n Forty-two percent oppose gay marriage \u2013 also up 2 points since late last year. \n \n By party, 73 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of independents back gay marriage, while 66 percent of Republicans oppose it. \n \n Strikingly, nearly 8-in-10 respondents (79 percent) say they know or work with someone who is gay or lesbian, which is an increase of 14 points since December and 17 points since 2004. \n \n However, only 15 percent say that knowing or working with someone gay makes them more likely to back same-sex marriage; 4 percent say it makes them less likely to support it, and more than half say it doesn\u2019t make a difference. \n \n Win Mcnamee / Getty Images file photo Equal rights supporters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26, 2013 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments March 26, in California's proposition 8, the controversial ballot initiative that defines marriage only between a man and a woman. \n \n These numbers come after numerous Democratic politicians, plus a handful of Republicans, have recently announced their support for gay marriage. They also come as the Supreme Court is expected to decide two different cases this summer \u2013 one on the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law which prohibits the government from recognizing gay marriages performed in states where they are legal, and the other on California\u2019s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage in that state. \n \n The poll also finds that 63 percent of respondents believe the federal government should recognize same-sex marriages in states where they are legal, and 56 percent think that the question of allowing gay marriage should be left to a federal standard rather than to the states. \n \n In reversal, majority thinks abortion should be illegal \n \n At the same time that general support for gay marriage has increased \u2013 albeit within the margin of error \u2013 so has opposition to abortion. \n \n According to the survey, a combined 52 percent say that abortion should be illegal either with exceptions or without them, versus a combined 45 percent who say it should be legal either \u201calways\u201d or \u201cmost of the time.\u201d \n \n This is a reversal from the NBC/WSJ poll in January, when a majority \u2013 for the first time \u2013 said abortion should be legal in some form or fashion. \n \n Measuring the values debate \n \n The poll also gauges public sentiment on other questions involving social and moral issues. \n \n Asked to choose what should be a more important goal for society \u2013 either promoting greater respect for traditional values or encouraging greater tolerance \u2013 50 percent picked traditional values, and 44 selected greater tolerance. \n \n That\u2019s a significant change from when this question was last asked in 1999, when 60 percent chose traditional values and 29 percent sided with tolerance. \n \n As the Republican Party tries to find their message on gun control in the wake of Newtown and on gay marriage before the Supreme Court rulings this summer, Stuart Stevens, Romney's 2012 campaign manager, offers them some advice. \n \n Notably, this movement toward tolerance comes from Democrats and self-described independents \u2013 but not from Republicans. (In 1999, 76 percent of Republicans said promoting traditional values was a more important goal vs. 77 percent say that now.) \n \n In another change, half of respondents (50 percent) say that society\u2019s most serious problems stem primarily from economic and financial pressures. \n \n View full poll results here \n \n But in past NBC/WSJ polls \u2013 in 1994 and 1996 \u2013 majorities said those problems came mainly from a decline in moral values. \n \n And Americans give the Democratic and Republican parties either mixed or poor marks when it comes to social and cultural issues. \n \n By 47 percent to 22 percent, respondents say they disagree with the GOP\u2019s approach to social and cultural issues, and they disagree with Democrats by a 38-percent-to-37 percent margin. \n \n On the parties\u2019 approach to looking out for the middle class, the numbers are even worse \u2013 they disagree with Republicans by 51 percent to 24 percent, and with Democrats by 42 percent to 33 percent. \n \n The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents) from April 5-8, and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.", "summary": "\u2013 Support for gay marriage is up, but the same isn't true for abortion, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. The survey of 1,000 people found 53% in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to marry, up two points since December (it notes the rise is within the poll's margin of error); opposition to gay marriage was also up two points, to 42%. An interesting and substantial jump: 79% said they know or work with someone who is gay, up 14 points since the December poll. But in a big switch from January's poll, the majority has flipped on the subject of abortion: 52% say abortion should be illegal, versus 45% who think it should be legal \"always\" or \"most of the time.\" In a speech from last night that's getting a bit of buzz, Paul Ryan addressed the issue. The key lines, per the AP: We \"need to work with people who consider themselves pro-choice\u2014because our task isn't to purge our ranks. It's to grow them. ... We don't want a country where abortion is simply outlawed. We want a country where it isn't even considered.\""}
{"document": "UPDATE: Police said Thursday they have arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with the fatal stabbing of a Greenacres woman. \n \n Wendy Martinez, 35, was jogging Sept. 18 in Washington, D.C. when a man came up and stabbed her multiple times. \n \n Police arrested Anthony Crawford, 23, in connection with the stabbing and have charged him with first-degree murder while armed. \n \n Crawford was taken into custody late Wednesday evening by the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. \n \n BREAKING: Metro police arrest 23-year-old Anthony Crawford in the murder of Wendy Martinez, a Greenacres woman who was stabbed while jogging in D.C. https://t.co/LBiuE7Pitz @WPTV @WPTVContact5 #Contact5 \u2014 Merris Badcock (@MerrisBadcock) September 20, 2018 \n \n Martinez was stabbed multiple times on Sept. 18, while jogging near the 1400 block of 11th Street, Northwest, in Washington, D.C. \n \n In a press conference Thursday morning, Washington, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said the \"unsettling\" stabbing appears to be random. \n \n \"We believe there was only one person involved in the assault,\" Newsham told reporters during a press conference. \"We do not have any information to suggest that Wendy knew or had any association with the suspect in this case. We also do not have any information at this point to suggest that it was a robbery, so the motive in this case is unknown. \" \n \n Newsham described Crawford's criminal history as \"extensive,\" but noted Crawford has no indication of violence in his criminal past. Police are still reviewing Crawford's criminal history and background. \n \n Police located Crawford in a park Wednesday night and brought him in for questioning. \n \n D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser credited neighbors with the fast arrest. Bowser told reporters \"outraged\" neighbors gave detectives important information in the crucial hours after Martinez was stabbed. The key information helped detectives quickly put the pieces together. \n \n Crawford was transported to the hospital with a hand injury and described as not being cooperative with police. \n \n EARLIER: \n \n GREENACRES, Fla. - A 35-year-old woman stabbed to death while jogging in Washington, D.C. has ties to Greenacres. \n \n According to Metropolitan Police Department, Wendy Martinez was jogging near the 1400 block of 11th Street, Northwest on Sept. 18, when a man came up and stabbed her multiple times. \n \n Martinez was seen on surveillance video running to a nearby Asian restaurant for help. She was rushed to the hospital but died from her injuries. \n \n Family members tell Contact 5\u2019s Crime Investigator Merris Badcock, Martinez was a marathon runner, and ran in the neighborhood often. \n \n According to family, Martinez grew up in Greenacres and graduated from Lake Worth High School. After graduation she moved to the D.C. area where she went to college and started her career. \n \n Family members provided this photo of Wendy Martinez, one and a half weeks before she was killed. \n \n Recent photos of Martinez show she recently got engaged to her fianc\u00e9. A family member who did not want to be identified told Contact 5 they were shocked by what happened. \u201cWe were planning a wedding, and now we have to plan a funeral,\u201d the woman said. \n \n Family members say Martinez will be buried in Greenacres, but they have to wait for police to release her body before they can bring her home. \n \n Metro police have released surveillance video of a possible suspect. You can view that video here . \n \n The Metropolitan Police Department currently offers a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone that provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for any homicide committed in the District of Columbia. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the police at 202-727-9099. Additionally, anonymous information may be submitted to the department\u2019s TEXT TIP LINE by sending a text message to 50411. \n \n UPDATE: Family members of Wendy Martinez are speaking publicly for the first time. Cora Martinez talks about seeing her daughter in her wedding dress just days before she was murdered. https://t.co/LBiuE7Pitz @WPTV @WPTVContact5 #Contact5 pic.twitter.com/Eqbe61GvB3 \u2014 Merris Badcock (@MerrisBadcock) September 20, 2018 ||||| A newly-engaged woman was brutally stabbed multiple times while jogging near her Washington, D.C. home Tuesday night. \n \n In a desperate attempt to save her own life, 35-year-old Wendy Karina Martinez stumbled into a local Chinese restaurant covered in her own blood. Once inside, Martinez collapsed prompting customers to rush to her side, Chief of Police Peter Newsham explained during a press conference Wednesday. \n \n Get push notifications with news, features and more. \n \n In surveillance footage obtained from the eatery, bystanders can be seen trying to revive Martinez as they waited for EMS to arrive, Chief Newsham said. \n \n Martinez was then transported to a nearby hospital where she was later pronounced dead. \n \n Wendy K. Martinez Facebook \n \n While the investigation is ongoing, Chief Newsham believes it was a \u201crandom attack.\u201d \n \n \u201cThis is one of those types of unsettling incidents that sometimes happens in large cities, but it seems like a singular incident.\u201d \n \n \u2022 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. \n \n Wendy K. Martinez Facebook \n \n The suspect, who was captured by a nearby surveillance camera, can be seen fleeing the scene in what appears to be a mustard-colored sweatshirt. \n \n \u201cThe best thing we can do right now is identify the suspect,\u201d Chief Newsham continued. \u201cWe will get to the bottom of this.\u201d \n \n The murder weapon \u2014 a knife \u2014 was recovered near the scene. \n \n Also in the press conference, Chief Newsham described Martinez as an \u201cavid runner\u201d who spent most of her evenings jogging around the city. \n \n In addition to her athleticism, Martinez served as Chief of Staff of FiscalNote, a privately held software, data, and media company headquartered in Washington, D.C. \n \n \u201cThe entire FiscalNote family is shocked and deeply saddened to learn that Wendy Martinez, our Chief of Staff, was killed last night,\u201d FiscalNote wrote on Twitter. \n \n \u201cWendy was an invaluable member of our team and a vibrant member of the community. Our thoughts and prayers are with Wendy\u2019s family and friends.\u201d \n \n Wendy Karina Martinez and Daniel Hincapie Facebook \n \n Martinez was also newly engaged. \u201cWendy Karina Martinez was the light of our lives. Not only was she an avid runner, but she was a devout Christian, a wonderful friend, and a driven professional,\u201d Martinez\u2019s family said in a statement obtained by NBC 4 Washington. \n \n \u201cEverything you hope that a daughter and a friend would be. She was also excited to be planning her upcoming wedding to her fianc\u00e9, Daniel Hincapie. They were engaged just last week.\u201d ||||| Watch Queue Queue \n \n Watch Queue Queue Remove all \n \n Disconnect ||||| Wendy Martinez Wendy Martinez \n \n Related Headlines Police searching for suspect in fatal DC stabbing \n \n - A D.C. woman stabbed during an evening jog near Logan Circle tragically died after getting engaged last week. \n \n Police said 35-year-old Wendy Martinez was randomly attacked just before 8 p.m. Tuesday at 11th Street and P Streets in Northwest D.C. After she was wounded, she tried to run into a Chinese restaurant for help. She was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. \n \n RELATED: DC police searching for suspect in Logan Circle deadly stabbing \n \n Martinez was the chief of staff for FiscalNote, a 5-year-old government affairs company that describes itself as on a mission to reinvent the way organizations around the world understand the bigger picture. \n \n Company officials declined to speak with FOX 5, but issued a statement saying: \n \n \u201cThe entire FiscalNote family is shocked and deeply saddened to learn that Wendy Martinez, our Chief of Staff, was killed last night. Wendy was an invaluable member of our team and a vibrant member of the community. Our thoughts and prayers are with Wendy\u2019s family and friends.\u201d \n \n In a recent profile on thebridgework.com, she was asked how she likes to unwind after work. She told the interviewer that she could be found running around the city or working up a sweat at her favorite local studio. \n \n Her LinkedIn resume said she attended the University of Florida and Georgetown University and speaks three languages. She previously worked for the Inter-American Development Bank. \n \n On her Twitter account, she recently retweeted a photo of herself volunteering at DC Central Kitchen. In her profile, she describes herself as a \u201cBeliever in doing well by doing good.\u201d \n \n \u201cWe are deeply saddened by this senseless tragedy,\" Martinez's family said in a statement. \"Wendy Karina Martinez was the light of our lives. Not only was she an avid runner, but she was a devout Christian, a wonderful friend, and a driven professional. Everything you hope that a daughter and a friend could be. She was also excited to be planning her upcoming wedding to her fianc\u00e9, Daniel Hincapie. They were engaged just last week. \n \n \u201cWe ask that you respect our privacy as we grieve the passing of her beautiful soul and inform her friends and family of this terrible news. We also want to encourage the community to please contact the police with any information that may lead to finding justice for Wendy. The hotline number to call is 202-727-9099. \n \n \"Simply put, Wendy was fearfully and wonderfully made! Now we know she has found the one whom her soul loved. (Song of Solomon 3:4)\" \n \n Police are searching for one suspect in the vicious stabbing. Officials said the suspect is described as a male wearing a mustard-colored shirt, dark-colored pants, white socks and sandals. He fled the scene heading south on 11th Street following the stabbing.", "summary": "\u2013 Police in Washington, DC, are hunting a man believed to have stabbed a woman to death in an apparently random attack. Police say 35-year-old Wendy Karina Martinez was jogging near her home in northwest DC around 8pm Tuesday night when she was fatally stabbed by a man in a mustard-colored shirt, People reports. She managed to get to a nearby Chinese restaurant where she collapsed, bleeding from a wound to the neck. Patrons were unable to save Martinez, who was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Martinez, chief of staff at government affairs company FiscalNote, was an avid runner who regularly spent her evenings jogging around the city. DC Chief of Police Peter Newsham described the neighborhood as \"very safe\" and told reporters the killing \"is more likely a random act than anything else but we\u2019re going to look at all possibilities.\" He said police have recovered what they believe is the murder weapon. In a statement, her family described her as \"a devout Christian, a wonderful friend, and a driven professional\" who got engaged just a week ago, Fox 5 reports. \"We were planning a wedding, and now we have to plan a funeral,\" a relative in Greenacres, Fla., where Martinez grew up, tells WPTV. Police have released surveillance video of the suspected attacker."}
{"document": "LandLeader is once again proud to present The Land Report 100, the 2018 annual survey of America's top land owners. In our second year of sponsoring this exclusive list, LandLeader continues to reinvent land and ranch marketing and is growing at a tremendous rate. \n \n \n \n Since 2013, LandLeader jumped into the land marketing market with immediate growth, innovative marketing strategies, exceptional land sales, and welcomed the best land brokers to join our exclusive partnership across the country. In just three quick years our members have collectively sold over $3 billion in real estate in over 35 states. \n \n \n \n The network that our owner members have created gives landowners and buyers the most trusted and wide spread group of land professionals in America. Our team of agents and brokers loves the great outdoors, believes in strong family values and are purveyors of conservation and wildlife management. \n \n \n \n ||||| The federal government is by far the nation's biggest land owner, holding 640 million acres of purple mountains, fruited plains and amber waves of grain in the name of the American public. \n \n But over the past decade, the nation's wealthiest private landowners have been laying claim to ever-larger tracts of the countryside, according to data compiled by the Land Report, a magazine about land ownership in America. \n \n In 2007, according to the Land Report, the nation's 100 largest private landowners owned a combined 27 million acres of land \u2014 equivalent to the area of Maine and New Hampshire combined. \n \n A decade later, the 100 largest landowners have holdings of 40.2 million acres, an increase of nearly 50 percent. Their holdings are equivalent in area to the entirety of New England, minus Vermont. \n \n Those rising numbers represent \u201cthe growing appeal of land as an asset class,\u201d said Eric O'Keefe, editor of the Land Report, in an interview. \n \n The stock market has been on a tear in recent years, and some wealthy individuals have been looking to cash out and park their assets in a safe place. That's where land comes in. Paper fortunes appear and vanish in the span of days on Wall Street, but land isn't going anywhere. \n \n Investors are particularly interested in productive land \u2014 property that can be used to raise cattle, mine minerals, produce timber or grow crops. That's because when the Dow Jones industrial average lost over half its value between 2007 and 2009, over that same period \u201cproductive land correction was less than five percent,\u201d according to O'Keefe. \n \n Like stocks, income and wealth in general, land ownership is tightly concentrated among the upper class. According to a recent working paper by New York University economist Edward Wolff, in 2016 the wealthiest 1 percent of households owned 40 percent of the nation's non-home real estate, while the next 9 percent of households owned another 42 percent. \n \n That left the remaining 90 percent of households owning just 18 percent of the country's non-home real estate. \n \n A 2015 paper by the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that the total value of land in the Lower 48 states was roughly $23 trillion in 2009, with $1.8 trillion of that value owned by the federal government. \n \n The nation's largest private landowner is telecom baron John Malone, with 2.2 million acres \u2014 an area considerably larger than the state of Delaware \u2014 to his name in 2017. Ted Turner is No. 2 on the list, with an even 2 million acres. \n \n O'Keefe says that one common thread among the nation's top private landowners is sports team ownership. Malone and Turner have both owned the Atlanta Braves, while No. 4 landowner Stan Kroenke, with 1.38 million acres, owns the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche and the Los Angeles Rams. \n \n Back in 2008, you needed about 76,000 acres to appear in the Land Report's list of the top 100 landowners. Today the cutoff is nearly double, 145,000 acres. The median holdings of the top 100 landowners rose from 160,000 acres to 250,000 acres over that time period. \n \n Part of that increase, O'Keefe says, reflects improvements in data collection and availability. His staff scours property records, tax rolls, corporate filings and real estate listings, among other sources, to produce the annual list. Many wealthy individuals shield their purchases via trusts, shell companies and other corporate structures, making ownership difficult to ascertain in some cases. \n \n \u201cMost people have no idea that there's this market in these huge pieces of America,\u201d O'Keefe said. Properties currently on the market include the Agua Fria Ranch in Texas, where $15.2 million will get you 23,482 acres, including \u201calmost the entire Agua Fria Mountain range.\u201d (Alternatively, with the same amount of money you could buy a single condo in Brooklyn). \n \n Other enormous chunks of land currently for sale include 24 mountain peaks outside Salt Lake City for $39 million (price recently reduced), a 7,000-acre Georgia estate on the market for the first time in the history of the republic, and T. Boone Pickens's Mesa Vista ranch in Texas, where $250 million will net you 64,000 acres of the Texas Panhandle. \n \n For most Americans, land isn't a financial necessity the way income or even wealth is, so we give little thought to the massive tracts of countryside trading hands every year. \n \n \u201cEighty percent of us live on 3 percent of the United States,\u201d O'Keefe said. \u201cLarge swaths of privately owned land are beyond comprehension because they are simply beyond the horizon.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 The list may not have the same cachet as the Forbes list of richest Americans, but it's an interesting look at an often overlooked aspect of US wealth. The Land Report is out with its annual list of the 100 largest private landholders in America, and sitting on top is a man who made his fortune in the telecom business. Liberty Media Chairman John Malone has 2.2 million acres across the US, spread across several states from coast to coast. The Washington Post highlights a rich-are-getting-richer component of the list: In 2007, the 100 biggest landowners collectively had 27 million acres. In 2017, that total is 40.2 million acres, roughly the equivalent of New England, without Vermont. The Post sees the growing interest in land acquisition as a more stable investment for investors who don't want to be at the mercy of the stock market. The top 10 follow."}
{"document": "WILSON, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The crew of a truck carrying a load of gold bars had just pulled off the interstate in North Carolina when, the two men told police, a seemingly ordinary episode of carsickness turned into a multimillion-dollar heist. \n \n Wilson County Sheriff's Deputies investigate an area near Interstate 95, Monday, March 2, 2015, in Wilson, N.C. Armed robbers hijacked an armored truck, tied up the two guards and disappeared with 275... (Associated Press) \n \n This image released Wednesday, March 4, 2015, by the Wilson County, N.C. Sheriff's Office, shows a composite sketch by investigators of one of the suspects in a heist of millions of dollars in gold bars... (Associated Press) \n \n Wilson County Sheriff's Deputies investigate an area near Interstate 95, Monday, March 2, 2015, in Wilson, N.C. Armed robbers hijacked an armored truck, tied up the two guards and disappeared with 275... (Associated Press) \n \n Wilson County Sheriff's Deputies investigate an area near Interstate 95, Monday, March 2, 2015, in Wilson, N.C. Armed robbers hijacked an armored truck, tied up the two guards and disappeared with 275... (Associated Press) \n \n This image released Wednesday, March 4, 2015, by the Wilson County, N.C. Sheriff's Office, shows a composite sketch by investigators of one of the suspects in a heist of millions of dollars in gold bars... (Associated Press) \n \n Three days later, authorities said they were suspicious that Sunday's roadside robbery might have been an inside job. \n \n As soon as the guards stopped on the shoulder because one of them wasn't feeling well, three robbers drove up in a cargo van and confronted them at gunpoint, yelling \"Policia!\" and ordering the crew to lie on the ground. The robbers tied their hands behind their backs and marched them into nearby woods, authorities said. \n \n The thieves then set out orange traffic cones while they gathered up 275 pounds of gold bars worth $4.8 million and fled, leaving the two guards stranded along Interstate 95 as drivers zoomed by. \n \n On Wednesday, authorities released search warrants in which detectives raised questions about the initial accounts of the heist. \n \n \"The fact that the truck was robbed immediately upon pulling over at an unannounced stop is suspicious in and of itself,\" the warrant stated, adding that the truck had no external markings indicating the cargo. The warrant said the suspects tried to steal the truck but could not get it started, indicating they did not know how to operate a commercial truck. \n \n At a news conference, Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard said the guards were still considered victims, not suspects, but that all possibilities were being investigated. \n \n Asked to elaborate on the warrants that were filed the day after the heist, the sheriff said the documents were written in a hurry before the victims, who spoke little English, could be thoroughly interviewed in Spanish. \n \n The strange scene unfolded around dusk Sunday in a rural area about 50 miles east of Raleigh. \n \n Earlier in the day, the guards had stopped for gas in Dillon, South Carolina, near the North Carolina line. As they kept driving, one of them started to feel sick and said he smelled gas, Woodard said. \n \n However, after deputies arrived, a mechanic found no problems with the truck, the sheriff said. \n \n The guards got out of the tractor-trailer without their guns, according to the sheriff, who said it was a company security violation to leave the truck without their weapons. \n \n Woodard said that the robbers cut a padlock, but there were no other security measures to stop them. \n \n When the robbers were gone, the guards drew the attention of startled motorists, several of whom called 911 to report seeing uniformed men running into the highway with their hands bound, motioning for help. \n \n \"They've got their hands zip-tied behind their backs, and they're out in the road to try to flag people down to call the police,\" one caller said. \n \n The caller described the scene to the dispatcher and waited in his car for at least 12 minutes for officers to arrive, according to recordings released by Wilson County authorities. \n \n The man told the dispatcher he did not feel safe leaving his vehicle. One of the guards can be heard trying to relate details though his window. \n \n The heist happened hours after the truck left Miami for a town south of Boston. \n \n Neither guard was injured, according to their employer, Miami-based Transvalue Inc., which specializes in transporting cash, precious metals, gems and jewelry. A Transvalue spokeswoman declined to comment. \n \n The company has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. \n \n A woman who saw the guards walking into the road with their hands tied did not feel safe stopping. \n \n \"It's dark. It's raining, and they're walking in the middle of the road,\" she said. \"I didn't know what to do.\" ||||| Police suspect that the alleged armed robbery of a truck transporting bars of gold in North Carolina was an inside job as more details about the highway heist have emerged, according to search warrant application that was obtained by ABC News. \n \n Three suspects allegedly stole $4.8 million-worth of gold after one of the two armed guards -- the driver and another man, both inside the truck's cabin -- said that he felt sick and prompted the driver to pull over, Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr. told reporters today. \n \n That account is different from what was presented in the first police report on the case, which said that a mechanical issue caused the truck's driver to pull over. \n \n \u201cThere is suspicion at this time that this could be an inside job due to the circumstances of the robbery,\" a Wilson County Sheriff\u2019s Office detective wrote in a search warrant application to get access to one of the guards' cell phones, one of two search warrants in the case obtained today. \n \n \"The fact that the truck was robbed immediately upon it pulling over at an unannounced stop is suspicious in and of itself,\" the document added. \"It is also suspicious because there are no markings on the side of the truck that would indicate the type of cargo contained therein. The suspects also went directly to the trailer and found the gold which was in unmarked five gallon buckets. It is not believed that this is a random act due to the nature and facts of this robbery.\" \n \n The second search warrant application was to get access to the truck and the trailer it was pulling. \n \n Woodard told reporters today that the case was \"suspicious,\" but declined to reiterate the theory expressed in the search warrant that the robbery could have been an inside job. \n \n WTVD \n \n Woodard shared sketches of the three suspects who allegedly bound the hands of the driver and the passenger, and a photo of a traffic cone that was placed behind the truck as the suspects allegedly removed the gold from the vehicle after breaking a lock on the back. The traffic cone had the marking of a company that only does work in Florida. \n \n WTVD \n \n The truck was bringing gold and silver to Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and being driven on I-95 by armed guards employed by a Miami-based company, TransValue Inc., Woodard said. \n \n One of the search warrants states that approximately $5 million-worth of silver was left in the truck, meaning that when the truck left Miami on Sunday morning, it had close to $10 million in metals inside the back compartment, which, the sheriff said, was protected solely by a Master lock on the door. \n \n \"The suspects attempted to steal the truck and trailer but could not get the truck started,\" according to one of the search warrants. \"The truck was in proper working condition so the suspects had to [have] not been experienced in the operation of a commercial motor vehicle. The suspects loaded the gold in the minivan and fled the scene.\" \n \n WTVD \n \n The metal was owned by Republic Metals Corporation in Opalocka, Florida, according to a search warrant. The company did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment. \n \n The police said they were seeking a search warrant for the phones of the armed guard who felt sick because of the suspicious nature of the case, but Woodard said at today's news conference that the driver and the passenger have not been considered suspects. Both men have been interviewed separately several times by police, Woodard added. \n \n Woodard noted that the driver and the passenger apparently violated their company\u2019s policies by exiting the vehicle without their firearms and leaving the firearms inside the truck.", "summary": "\u2013 Did three armed robbers in a van just happen to be passing when a truck carrying gold bars pulled over on an isolated stretch of Interstate 95 on Sunday? According to search warrants seen by ABC News, investigators in North Carolina think the $4.8 million highway heist may have been an inside job. \"The fact that the truck was robbed immediately upon it pulling over at an unannounced stop is suspicious in and of itself,\" one document states. \"It is also suspicious because there are no markings on the side of the truck that would indicate the type of cargo contained therein.\" According to Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr., the two guards say they pulled over after one began to feel carsick, not because of mechanical problems as earlier reported. At a press conference yesterday, Woodard told reporters that while every possibility is still being considered, the guards are currently considered victims, not suspects, and the search warrants were written before the men could be thoroughly interviewed in Spanish, the AP reports. According to the sheriff, the guards violated TransValue company rules by getting out of the truck without their guns. Police have also released 911 calls made after the heist, when the guards tried to flag down motorists after the robbers had taken off with the gold bars, WNCN reports. \"There's a couple guys that look like they have their hands zip-tied behind their backs,\" one caller says. \"They look like they have some sort of guard uniform on.\""}
{"document": "NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Police say a New York City man shoved a candy bar in the face of another man and then repeatedly punched him in an apparently random attack. \n \n Court papers show Eliexer Reyes has been charged with misdemeanor assault following his arrest in the Times Square subway station Tuesday night. \n \n Artist Ian Sklarsky tells Gothamist the 35-year-old Reyes was unprovoked when he shoved a Snickers bar in his face and mouth. \n \n After police say the 33-year-old Sklarsky asked Reyes what was wrong with him, Reyes then repeatedly punched him in the face during a scuffle. \n \n They say Sklarsky suffered pain, a cut lip and a bruised nose. \n \n Reyes' attorney didn't immediately comment on the charges. ||||| \n \n Sklarsky at the police station on Tuesday night, after the assault (via Sklarsky) \n \n Bushwick artist Ian Sklarsky says that he was waiting for the Q train at 42nd Street shortly after midnight on Tuesday, when a man walked up and punched him in the face with a partially-unwrapped Snickers bar, shoving the candy into his mouth. \n \n The assailant walked away, but turned back when Sklarsky called out in surprise. A scuffle ensued, and Sklarsky says he was punched five more times. \n \n \"It was so out of the blue,\" Sklarsky told us yesterday, recovering from what amounted to a black left eye, bruised nose, and two split lips. \"All of a sudden he shoved it into my face, and in my mouth. It was kind of a face punch of sorts, but with a candy bar.\" \n \n Sklarsky, who specializes in pen-and-watercolor \"blind contour\" drawing\u0097a method where the artist draws lines without looking at the paper\u0097was headed home to Bushwick when the incident occurred. He had just seen a short Alan Cumming film at the Living Room in the W Hotel in Times Square. \"I had a great night,\" he recalled. \"I saw Bernadette Peters. It was wonderful.\" \n \n Sklarsky says that there were about a dozen people on the train platform who witnessed the incident, and didn't intervene. \n \n \"I did a lot of grabbing at him, trying to hold him down,\" he added. Sklarsky denied throwing any return punches, but said that he held the candy-puncher down in an effort to \"keep him there so security or police got there, but no one did.\" He continued to scuffle with the man up an adjacent set of stairs. At the top, Sklarsky said, \"he punched me a few more times\" before running away. \n \n Sklarsky learned after the fact that a witness had called 911. \n \n According to the NYPD, Eliexer Reyes, 35, was arrested in conjunction with the attack, at about 12:40 a.m. Reyes, who police say resides at 450 Lexington Avenue in Bed-Stuy, has since been charged with assault to cause injury and disorderly conduct. Sklarsky said he has no connection to Reyes. \n \n Sklarsky, who has lived in New York City since 2010, says he is moving to South Africa in a few months. \"I was like, fuck,\" he said. \"My whole New York experience has been great. You hear stories about what happens in the city, but now it's a story that's happened to me.\" \n \n UPDATE: The NYPD confirmed that Reyes, who is currently incarcerated with $500 bail, has been arrested for punching individuals in the past. In October of 2009 Reyes punched an individual in the face at 300 Skillman Avenue in East Williamsburg. And in 2012, he was arrested for punching an acquaintance in the face at 609 West 174th Street. \n \n Reyes also violated an order of protection against an elderly person in January of 2013, and in March of that year he was arrested for smashing the back windshield of a Mitsubishi Galant with his fist and a metal lock. When officers arrested him, they found an iPhone 4 in his possession that had been stolen earlier that day.", "summary": "\u2013 \"It was so out of the blue,\" the alleged victim of a very strange assault tells the Gothamist. \"All of a sudden he shoved it into my face, and in my mouth. It was kind of a face punch of sorts, but with a candy bar.\" The speaker is Brooklyn artist Ian Sklarsky\u2014currently nursing a black eye, bruised nose, and split lips, and the assault weapon is a Snickers bar\u2014apparently randomly shoved in Sklarsky's piehole as he waited for the Q train after midnight Tuesday. Sklarsky says he asked his attacker what was wrong with him, per the AP, and the man returned and repeatedly punched him in the face. Police have arrested fellow Brooklynite Eliexer Reyes, 35, and charged him with assault and disorderly conduct. Reyes has twice been arrested for punching other people, notes the Gothamist. He's jailed on $500 bail."}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Filmmaker Michael Moore on Thursday called for the release of all blacks jailed on drug sentences to be released, and for the police to be disarmed. \n \n \u201cHere\u2019s my demand: I want every African-American currently incarcerated for drug \u2018crimes\u2019 or non-violent offenses released from prison today,\u201d Moore tweeted. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n \u201cNext demand: Disarm the police,\u201d he continued. \n \n Moore\u2019s tweets were in response to the rioting in Baltimore earlier this week, which was triggered by the death in police custody of a 25-year-old black man. \n \n \u201cWe have \u00bc billion 2nd Amendment guns in our homes 4 protection,\u201d Moore wrote. \u201cWe\u2019ll survive til the right cops r hired.\u201d \n \n The \u201cFahrenheit 9/11\u201d director additionally accused national law enforcement of practicing racial discrimination against blacks. \n \n \u201cAnd the rest who r imprisoned \u2013 I don\u2019t believe 50 percent did what they\u2019re accused of,\u201d Moore tweeted. \n \n \u201cLies, greed, a modern day slave system,\u201d he added. \u201cPoor whites 2.\u201d \n \n Moore argued \u201clocal cops now militarized\u201d upheld this system of oppression. This status quo, he continued, undermines America\u2019s deepest values. \n \n \u201cFounding Fathers said NO army policing our soil,\u201d the filmmaker charged. \n \n \u201cWhy do cops have tanks?\u201d he asked. \u201cOh right \u2013 the Enemy: The Black Man.\u201d \n \n Moore also listed a summary of alleged grievances perpetrated by police departments against minority communities, especially blacks. \n \n \u201cImprison u, shoot u, sever your spine, crush your larynx, send u to war, keep u poor, call u a thug, not let u vote,\u201d he tweeted. \n \n \u201cBut u can sing for us,\u201d Moore finished. \n \n The director\u2019s screed was in response to violent protests in Baltimore earlier this week. \n \n Riots erupted Monday over the death of Freddie Gray. Baltimore police on Tuesday arrested 235 people after confrontations in the streets. \n \n The city additionally imposed a curfew between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. that will last through the end of the week.", "summary": "\u2013 Michael Moore isn't big on incremental solutions. In a series of tweets today that keep gathering steam, Moore called for the disarming of police and for the release of all black prisoners jailed for drug crimes or non-violent offenses, reports the Hill. He likened prison to a \"modern day slave system.\" Three of the tweets: \"Imprison u, shoot u, sever your spine, crush your larynx, send u to war, keep u poor, call u a thug, not let u vote. But u can sing for us.\" \"Here's my demand: I want every African-American currently incarcerated for drug 'crimes; or nonviolent offenses released from prison today.\" \"Next demand: Disarm the police. We have a 1/4 billion 2nd amendment guns in our homes 4 protection. We'll survive til the right cops r hired\" The reaction is coming down pretty much the way you'd expect, with Moore's fans and enemies retweeting in a frenzy. Conservative site The Blaze makes sure to highlight this tweeted response from Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr.: \"Start pilot project by doing it in his neighborhood. Set up transitional inmate housing where he lives.\""}
{"document": "Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Milton Nkosi says up to seven people were killed \n \n Police in South Africa have opened fire during clashes with striking workers at the Marikana platinum mine, leaving at least 12 people dead, witnesses say. \n \n Police opened fire after miners carrying machetes, clubs and spears refused to disarm, eyewitnesses said. \n \n A witness told the BBC he saw 18 bodies on the ground after the shooting. \n \n The mine, owned by Lonmin, has been at the centre of a violent pay dispute, exacerbated by tensions between two rival trade unions. \n \n Ten people had previously died in violence since the strike began last Friday. \n \n The striking miners had gathered on a rocky hill overlooking Marikana, the third-largest platinum mine in the world. \n \n Image copyright Reuters Image caption Several injured people were treated at the scene after the violence \n \n Union leaders and police had tried in vain to disperse the crowd, some of whom said they were prepared to die on the hill. \n \n During the clashes, missiles - thought to be either petrol bombs or grenades - were thrown at police, who responded by opening fire, eyewitnesses said. \n \n Reports said a group of miners had approached police lines before the shooting began. \n \n One witness, Molaole Montsho, of the South African news agency Sapa, told the BBC police had first used tear gas in an attempt to disperse the miners. \n \n \"The police threatened with them water from the water cannon, fired tear gas and stun grenades. And then in the commotion - we were about 800m (2,600ft) from the scene - we heard gunshots that lasted for about two minutes,\" he said. \n \n He also said he had counted 18 bodies lying on the ground after the gunfire, but could not tell whether they were dead or alive. \n \n 'Illegal gatherings' \n \n The police ministry acknowledged that there had been deaths, but defended the police's actions. \n \n \"To protest is a legal and constitutional right of any citizen,\" spokesman Zweli Mnisi told the AFP news agency in a text message. \n \n \"However, these rights do not imply that people should be barbaric, intimidating and hold illegal gatherings. We had a situation where people who were armed to the teeth attacked and killed other.\" \n \n President Jacob Zuma said he was \"shocked and dismayed at this senseless violence\". \n \n \"We call upon the labour movement and business to work with government to arrest the situation before it deteriorates any further,\" said Mr Zuma. \n \n \"I have instructed law enforcement agencies to do everything possible to bring the situation under control and to bring the perpetrators of violence to book.\" \n \n The recent violence was initially thought to have been triggered by a turf war between the long-established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the newly-formed Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which is more militant. \n \n However, the AMCU has since demanded a pay rise of 12,000 rand ($1,500; \u00a3930) per month. \n \n Lonmin said in a statement on Thursday that the strike was illegal and that any striking workers who did not return to work by Friday would be sacked. \n \n The company said it had missed six days of production as a result of the unrest, and estimated it would lose around 2% of its normal yearly output of saleable platinum. The company's share price dropped by more than 6% on Thursday on the London Stock Exchange. \n \n The violence has shocked South Africans, with many finding the scenes reminiscent of how the apartheid regime dealt with protests, the BBC's Milton Nkosi in Johannesburg reports. ||||| South African police opened fire Thursday on a crowd of striking workers at a platinum mine, leaving an unknown number of people injured and possibly dead. Motionless bodies lay on the ground in pools of blood. \n \n Police surround the bodies of striking miners after opening fire on a crowd at the Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012. An unknown number of people have been killed... (Associated Press) \n \n Bodies of striking miners lay on the ground after police opened fire on a crowd at the Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012. South African police opened fire Thursday... (Associated Press) \n \n Police moved in on striking workers who gathered near the Lonmin PLC mine Thursday afternoon after urging them to give up their weapons and go home to their hostels and shacks. Some did leave, though others carrying weapons began war chants and soon started marching toward the township near the mine, said Molaole Montsho, a journalist with the South African Press Association who was at the scene. \n \n The police opened up with a water cannon first, then used stun grenades and tear gas to try and break up the crowd, Montsho said. Suddenly, gunfire broke out. \n \n On TV footage, a volley of intense gunfire from among the police ranks could be heard, with dozens of shots fired. The police were armed with automatic rifles and pistols. \n \n Images broadcast by private television broadcaster e.tv showed the gunfire ending with police officers shouting: \"Cease fire!\" By that time, bodies were lying in the dust, some pouring blood. Another image showed some miners, their eyes wide, looking in the distance at heavily armed police officers in riot gear. \n \n It was an astonishing development in a country that has been a model of stability since racist white rule ended with South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994. The shooting recalled images of white police firing at anti-apartheid protesters in the 1960s and 1970s, but in this case it was mostly black police firing at black mine workers. \n \n Police Capt. Dennis Adriao, a spokesman for the officers at the mine, declined to immediately comment. Jeff Wicks, a spokesman for private ambulance company Netcare Ltd. that was standing by at the mine, also declined to comment. \n \n Barnard O. Mokwena, an executive vice president at Lonmin, would say only: \"It's a police operation.\" Lonmin is the world's third largest platinum producer \n \n In a statement earlier Thursday, Lonmin had said striking workers would be sacked if they did not appear at their shifts Friday. \n \n \"The striking (workers) remain armed and away from work,\" the statement read. \"This is illegal.\" \n \n The unrest at the Lonmin mine began Aug. 10, as some 3,000 workers walked off the job over pay in what management described as an illegal strike. Those who tried to go to work on Saturday were attacked, management and the National Union of Mineworkers said. \n \n On Sunday, the rage became deadly as a crowd killed two security guards by setting their car ablaze, authorities said. By Monday, angry mobs killed two other workers and overpowered police, killing two officers, officials said. Officers opened fire that day, killing three others, police said. \n \n Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of miners had gathered at a rocky cliff within sight of the mine's smelter. They cheered, sang and marched around with machetes and clubs under the watchful eye of police officers in armored trucks. Some leaders of the miners spoke with the police and largely followed their instructions, breaking up the protest as dusk fell. \n \n Operations appeared to come to a standstill Tuesday as workers stayed away from the mines, where 96 percent of all Lonmin's platinum production comes from. The stoppage has spooked those investing in Lonmin. Stock in Lonmin plunged 6.91 percent in trading Thursday afternoon on the London Stock Exchange. \n \n While the walkout appeared to be about wages, the ensuing violence has been fueled by the struggles between the dominant National Union of Mineworkers and the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union. Disputes between the two unions escalated into violence earlier this year at another mine. \n \n Both unions have blamed each other for the strife at the mine at Marikana, about 70 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. \n \n ___ \n \n Associated Press writer Emoke Bebiak in Johannesburg contributed to this report. ||||| MARIKANA, South Africa South African police opened fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine on Thursday, killing at least a dozen men in scenes that evoked comparisons with apartheid-era brutality. \n \n In the incident, filmed by Reuters television, officers opened up with automatic weapons on a group of men who emerged from behind a vehicle and started loping towards police lines. \n \n The volley of bullets threw up clouds of dust, which cleared to reveal bodies lying on the ground. \n \n President Jacob Zuma said he was \"shocked and dismayed\" at what appeared to be one of the bloodiest police operations since the end of white-minority rule in 1994 in Africa's biggest economy. \n \n \"I have instructed law enforcement agencies to do everything possible to bring the situation under control and to bring the perpetrators of violence to book,\" he said in a statement. \n \n Police have refused to confirm the death toll from the operation to disperse 3,000 protesting drill operators who had massed on a rocky outcrop near the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. \n \n \"The police, in order to protect their own lives and in self-defense, were forced to engage the group with force,\" they said in a statement. \"This resulted in several individuals being fatally wounded, and others injured.\" \n \n The police ministry said that the officers acted as they did only after first trying to peacefully disperse the crowd. \n \n \"The minister is of the view that given the volatility of the situation, police did their best,\" the minister's spokesman Zweli Mnisi said in a text message. \"What should police do in such situations when clearly what they are faced with are armed and hardcore criminals who murder police?\" \n \n A Reuters photo showed a dozen corpses lying on a patch of sandy ground, while a spokeswoman from the opposition Democratic Alliance said the overall toll could be as high as 38. The SAPA news agency said one of its reporters had counted 18 bodies. \n \n World platinum prices leapt as much as $30 an ounce - more than 2 percent - to a six-day high as the extent of the violence became apparent in the country with 80 percent of known reserves. \n \n Leaders of the radical Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which was representing most of the strikers, accused police of a massacre. \n \n \"There was no need whatsoever for these people to be killed like that,\" General Secretary Jeffrey Mphahlele told Reuters. \n \n Some commentators likened the scenes to apartheid-era footage of ranks of police opening fire on crowds of protesters in black townships. \n \n \"I cannot think of a confrontation between protesters and police since 1994 that has taken place along these lines,\" said Nic Borain, an independent political analyst. \n \n \"PREPARED TO DIE\" \n \n Before the start of the operation by hundreds of police, officials said several days of talks with AMCU leaders had broken down, leaving no option but to use force to break the crowd, which had triggered the closure of the mine. \n \n \"Today is unfortunately D-day,\" police spokesman Dennis Adriao said. \n \n Prior to Thursday, 10 people - including two policemen - had died in nearly a week of fighting between rival worker factions at the mine, the latest platinum plant to be hit by an eight-month union turf war. \n \n The Marikana strikers have not made their demands explicit, although much of the bad blood stems from AMCU's challenge to the two-decade dominance of the National Union of Mineworkers, a close ally of Zuma's ruling African National Congress. \n \n Before the police advance, AMCU president Joseph Mathunjwa, whose organization has been on a big recruitment push in South Africa's platinum mines, said there would be bloodshed if police moved in. \n \n \"We're going nowhere,\" he shouted through a loud-hailer, to cheers from the crowd. \"If need be, we're prepared to die here.\" \n \n The unrest has forced Marikana's London-headquartered owner to halt production at all its South African operations, which account for 12 percent of global platinum output. \n \n Lonmin said it had lost the equivalent of 15,000 ounces of platinum from the six-day disruption, and was unlikely to meet its full-year production target of 750,000 ounces. \n \n Its shares fell to a four-year low, losing 6.7 percent in London and 7.3 percent in Johannesburg. In all, they have shed more than 13 percent since the unrest started at the weekend. \n \n At least three people were killed in a similar round of fighting in January that led to a six-week closure of the world's largest platinum mine, run nearby by Impala Platinum. That helped push the platinum price up 15 percent. \n \n Despite South Africa's dominance of the platinum sector, rising power and labor costs and a sharp drop in the price of the precious metal this year have left many mines struggling to keep their heads above water. \n \n (Additional reporting by Johannesburg bureau; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Myra MacDonald)", "summary": "\u2013 The death toll has risen to at least 17 in a week of clashes tied to a miners' strike in South Africa, the AP reports. At least seven people were killed after police fired at striking miners today. Officers, accompanied by armored vehicles, were setting up barbed wire near a platinum mine today as 3,000 workers protested. Details of what followed are murky: Reuters suggests that officers fired after several men appeared from behind a vehicle; the BBC cites reports that the machete-wielding protesters had ignored orders to drop their weapons. Some type of projectiles\u2014possibly grenades\u2014were reportedly hurled at the police before the shooting. While the BBC reports seven dead, South African news says 18 bodies were found on the ground. Talks between police and the leaders of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, which backed most the strikers, yielded no progress, police say, forcing them to resort to force. \"Today was, unfortunately, D-Day,\" said one. The violence comes amid a conflict between the more radical AMCU and the longstanding National Union of Mineworkers."}
{"document": "Safe Cities Index: Security in a rapidly urbanising world \n \n Safe Cities Index 2017 The paper analyses the results of the 2017 index, both overall and by each of the four categories: digital security, health security, infrastructure security, and personal security. Additional insight into the index results and urban safety, more generally, was gained through interviews with experts. Download PDF Download XLS PDF \u65e5\u672c\u8a9e \n \n About the report \n \n The Safe Cities Index 2017 is a report from The Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by NEC. The report is based on the second iteration of the index, which ranks 60 cities across 49 indicators covering digital security, health security, infrastructure security and personal security. \n \n The index was devised and constructed by Chris Clague, Stefano Scuratti and Ruth Chiah. The report was written by Sarah Murray and edited by Chris Clague. Findings from the index were supplemented with wide-ranging research and in-depth interviews with experts in the field. Our thanks are due to the following people (listed alphabetically by surname) for their time and insights: \n \n Nathalie Alvarado , citizen security lead specialist, Inter-American Development Bank \n \n , citizen security lead specialist, Inter-American Development Bank Alan Brill , managing director, Kroll Cyber Security \n \n , managing director, Kroll Cyber Security David Buck , senior fellow, public health and inequalities, The King\u2019s Fund \n \n , senior fellow, public health and inequalities, The King\u2019s Fund Elizabeth Johnston , executive director, European Forum for Urban Security and executive director, French Forum for Urban Security \n \n , executive director, European Forum for Urban Security and executive director, French Forum for Urban Security Dan Lewis , chief, Urban Risk Reduction Unit and head, City Resilience Profiling Programme, UN Habitat \n \n , chief, Urban Risk Reduction Unit and head, City Resilience Profiling Programme, UN Habitat Mitchell Moss , professor of urban policy and planning, and director, Rudin Center for Transportation, New York University \n \n , professor of urban policy and planning, and director, Rudin Center for Transportation, New York University Robert Muggah , co-founder, Igarap\u00e9 Institute \n \n , co-founder, Igarap\u00e9 Institute Brian Nussbaum , assistant professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs, State University of New York at Albany \n \n , assistant professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs, State University of New York at Albany Michael Nutter , professor of professional practice in urban and public affairs, Columbia University \n \n , professor of professional practice in urban and public affairs, Columbia University Michael O\u2019Hanlon , senior fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution \n \n , senior fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution Jacqueline Poh , chief executive office, GovTech Singapore \n \n , chief executive office, GovTech Singapore John Rossant , chairman, New Cities Foundation \n \n , chairman, New Cities Foundation Ana Diez Roux , dean and professor of epidemiology, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University \n \n , dean and professor of epidemiology, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University Dan Smith, director, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute \n \n \n \n \n \n Executive summary \n \n In many respects it\u2019s the very success of cities, in their role as global social and economic hubs, that makes them more vulnerable. As rural residents head for the city in developing countries\u2014which for purposes here we define as non-OECD countries, with the exception of Singapore\u2014and wealthy global capitals draw in international talent, vast demographic shifts are creating cities with previously unimagined population sizes. In 2016, there were 31 megacities\u2014cities with more than 10m inhabitants. This is projected to rise to 41 by 2030.1 \n \n And size matters. While cities generate economic activity, the security challenges they face expand and intensify as their populations rise. These include growing pressure on housing supply (prompting the spread of slums) and services such as healthcare, transport, and water and power infrastructure. \n \n Man-made risks are also growing. As tragic recent events in European cities such as London, Paris and Barcelona have demonstrated, high profile, wealthy urban centres are becoming targets for terrorist activities. And as income divides widen, growing inequalities can create tensions that contribute to violent outbursts such as the 2011 London riots. \n \n Meanwhile, another major shift has come to the fore: the rapid deployment of digital technologies in pursuit of the so-called \u201csmart city\u201d. The technologies no doubt bring benefits. As part of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, sensors collect and wirelessly transmit data from physical objects, delivering new insights into city operations and permitting remote and more efficient management of infrastructure and services. Connecting apartments and office buildings to the electricity grid via smart meters, for example, delivers energy efficiency and cost savings. \n \n And with the spread of closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) and webcams around cities, technologies such as artificial intelligence and data analytics can greatly enhance the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to combat urban crime and terrorism. \n \n Yet the rush to embrace smart city technologies also creates vulnerabilities if investments in digital technologies are not accompanied by commensurate investments in cyber security. Wealthy cities are making investments, albeit to varying degrees, but security often comes lower on the list of spending priorities for cities with already stretched finances. \n \n The consequences of neglecting cyber security could be dire. For example, if hackers were to shut down the power supply, an entire city would be left in chaos. This prospect is something city officials now need to plan against. \n \n Cities are also defined by the complex, interlinked nature of their systems and infrastructure. This complexity has a bearing on safety. For example, experts are uncovering links between the quality of housing and the health of citizens. And while terrorist attacks are what make headlines, traffic accidents are a greater day-to-day danger for urban residents. Natural forces are also coming in to play as climate change poses new risks to cities, with extreme weather events becoming an even greater threat, as illustrated by the devastation Hurricane Harvey just delivered to Houston, Texas. \n \n The 2017 Safe Cities Index retains the four categories of security from the 2015 version\u2014 digital, health, infrastructure and physical. However, we have added six new indicators and expanded the index to cover 60 cities, up from 50 in 2015. \n \n The index\u2019s key findings include the following: \n \n As in 2015, Tokyo tops the overall ranking. The Japanese capital\u2019s strongest performance is in the digital security category while it has risen seven places in the health security category since 2015. However, in infrastructure security, it has fallen out of the top ten, to 12th. \n \n The Japanese capital\u2019s strongest performance is in the digital security category while it has risen seven places in the health security category since 2015. However, in infrastructure security, it has fallen out of the top ten, to 12th. In many cities, security is falling rather than rising: With two exceptions (Madrid, which is up 13 places and Seoul, up six), cities tend to have fallen in the index since 2015 (for example, New York is down 11 places, Lima is down 13, Johannesburg is down nine, Ho Chi Minh City is down ten and Jakarta is down 13) \n \n With two exceptions (Madrid, which is up 13 places and Seoul, up six), cities tend to have fallen in the index since 2015 (for example, New York is down 11 places, Lima is down 13, Johannesburg is down nine, Ho Chi Minh City is down ten and Jakarta is down 13) Asian and European cities remain at the top of the index: Of the cities in the top ten positions in the overall index, four are East Asian cities (Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka and Hong Kong), while three (Amsterdam, Stockholm and Zurich) are European. \n \n Of the cities in the top ten positions in the overall index, four are East Asian cities (Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka and Hong Kong), while three (Amsterdam, Stockholm and Zurich) are European. Asia and the Middle East and Africa dominate the bottom of the index: Dhaka, Yangon and Karachi are at the bottom of the list. Of the ten cities at the bottom of the overall index, three are in South-east Asia (Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta), two are in South Asia (Dhaka and Karachi) and two are in the Middle East and Africa (Cairo and Tehran). \n \n Dhaka, Yangon and Karachi are at the bottom of the list. Of the ten cities at the bottom of the overall index, three are in South-east Asia (Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta), two are in South Asia (Dhaka and Karachi) and two are in the Middle East and Africa (Cairo and Tehran). Security remains closely linked to wealth but the rankings of high-income cities are falling: While cities in developed economies dominate the top half of the index (with the lower half dominated by cities in poorer countries), of the 14 cities in high-income countries, the rankings of ten have fallen since 2015. \n \n While cities in developed economies dominate the top half of the index (with the lower half dominated by cities in poorer countries), of the 14 cities in high-income countries, the rankings of ten have fallen since 2015. Income is not the only factor governing city performance on security: Most of the cities in the top ten of the index are high-income or upper middle-income cities. However, two high-income cities in the Middle East (Jeddah and Riyadh) fall below position 40 in the index. \n \n Most of the cities in the top ten of the index are high-income or upper middle-income cities. However, two high-income cities in the Middle East (Jeddah and Riyadh) fall below position 40 in the index. America\u2019s failing infrastructure is reflected in its cities\u2019 rankings: No US city makes it into the top ten in this category and only San Francisco appears in the top 20. The top ten cities in this category are either in Europe (Madrid, Barcelona, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Zurich) or Asia-Pacific (Singapore, Wellington, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney). \n \n No US city makes it into the top ten in this category and only San Francisco appears in the top 20. The top ten cities in this category are either in Europe (Madrid, Barcelona, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Zurich) or Asia-Pacific (Singapore, Wellington, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney). However, the US performs well in digital security: Of the cities in the top ten in this category, four are North American (Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Dallas). \n \n 1 The World\u2019s Cities in 2016: Data Booklet, United Nations. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/urbanization/the_worlds_cities_in_2016_data_booklet.pdf \n \n \n \n \n \n Introduction \n \n In the two years since we published the inaugural Safe Cities Index, the world\u2019s urban population is estimated to have grown by more than 150m people, raising the total number of people living in cities to above 4bn. More than 90% of the increase in urbanisation over this period occurred in the developing world, where massive migration from rural areas has continued to accelerate. In the developed world, however, the size of most cities remained roughly the same, with some cities even beginning to shrink in those countries with ageing and declining populations. \n \n \n \n \n \n The results of the 2017 Safe Cities Index, which now covers 60 cities, again show a sharp divide in overall levels of safety between the fast urbanising developing world and the stagnant developed world. The top three cities in the index are unchanged from 2015, with Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka ranked first, second and third and still separated by mere tenths of a point. Likewise, the remainder of the top ten continues to be comprised of mainly Asian and European cities. \n \n At the bottom of the Index is one of the ten new cities added in 2017: Karachi. Although it performs poorly across all of the categories, it was dragged down by a very low level of personal security (60th). This is a reflection of a number of factors, but the main reason is that among the cities in the index, it experiences by far the most frequent and most severe terrorist attacks. Jakarta, which ranked last in 2015, is 57th this year, pulled from the bottom by the addition of Karachi and other cities like Yangon and Dhaka. \n \n In 2017 only one city in the developing world cracks the top half of the index, Buenos Aires, which places 29th, between two Middle Eastern cities, Abu Dhabi (28th) and Doha (30th). Two other Middle Eastern cities, Jeddah (42nd) and Riyadh (47th), are the worst performing of the 21 cities from the developed world, having scored below average in all of the four categories and particularly poorly in the infrastructure and personal security categories. \n \n All the seven cities in North America are in the top half of the overall rankings but many underperform their developed country peers in key areas. New York, for example, ranks 31st in health security, with Dallas (29th) faring only slightly better. Dallas is also in the bottom half of the infrastructure security category, a category in which Chicago (27th) and Washington, DC (28th) are relatively weak as well. The decaying state of infrastructure in the US has long been a subject of debate in the country. The index shows that the debate has yet to translate into much action. \n \n In general, while the Safe Cities Index measures relative rather than absolute safety, there does not appear to have been a vast improvement in overall levels of safety since 2015. In parts of the developed world, particularly Europe, a series of terrorist attacks has affected personal security. At the same time, city governments in the developing world are still struggling to keep pace with the rapid expansion of their populaces, which is straining infrastructure and overwhelming health services and law enforcement, the extent to which it is even present. \n \n That is not to say progress hasn\u2019t been made. At least in the developed world, more cities are devoting resources to digital security. Seoul, for one, improved its ranking in the category by 29 places by reducing the number of computers infected with viruses and the frequency of identity theft. But significant gaps in safety remain. In many instances, it\u2019s a matter of resources\u2014financial, human and political. Yet in others, it\u2019s a question of understanding. The latter is easier to bridge and cities can start with identifying the problems and understanding how they\u2019ve been solved elsewhere. The Safe Cities Index was designed to help policymakers address these and other issues. ||||| Our world has evolved beyond just thinking of safety in terms of personal well-being, health, and infrastructure\u2014we now live in a digital age. Therefore, quantifying what is classed as a safe place to live means looking at more than crime rates and building regulations. \n \n Perhaps, one of the most granular ways to determine where the safest places in the world to live are is by looking The Economist Intelligence Unit, which ranks countries in its Safe Cities Index. It looks at health security, infrastructure safety, personal safety, as well as digital security. \n \n The 2017 index ranked 60 major cities, scoring 49 indicators in the same four subindexes to get a final score out of 100. The ranking also includes more nuanced and weighted data to get a more accurate result. For example, it added man-made threats such as indicators about terrorism and civil unrest. It also revised how it looks at gender safety, which \u201cwas changed from the number of rape cases to female homicide victims. This is to address issues on the underreporting of sexual violence crimes as well as differing definitions of rape. Homicide tends to be less underreported, and the focus on female victims also captures gender safety issues,\u201d said the EIU. \n \n Tokyo came out on top as the safest city to live in the world. Overall, Asian and European cities hit most of the top ten positions in the index. \n \n Ranking Country 1 Tokyo 2 Singapore 3 Osaka 4 Toronto 5 Melbourne 6 Amsterdam 7 Sydney 8 Stockholm 9 Hong Kong 10 Zurich \n \n Tokyo reached poll position for digital security, second place for health security, and fourth place for personal security. However it didn\u2019t rank in the top five for infrastructure security, which is why its overall score in the Safe Cities Index hit 89.80. Singapore came in a close second with 89.64, while Osaka came in at third place with 88.87.", "summary": "\u2013 The Economist is out with a new ranking of the world's safest cities, and it finds that none from the US crack the top 10. The closest is San Francisco at No. 15. Japan, on the other hand, has two of the top three. The Safe Cities Index ranked 60 major cities on personal security (for example, urban crime), digital security (cyberattacks), health security (access to hospitals), and infrastructure security (safety of buildings, roads, etc.), per Quartz. The top 10, and their scores out of 100: Tokyo, 89.8 Singapore, 89.6 Osaka, 88.9 Toronto, 87.4 Melbourne, 87.3 Amsterdam, 87.3 Sydney, 86.7 Stockholm, 86.7 Hong Kong, 86.2 Zurich, 85.2 Click for the full list, which has Los Angeles and Chicago (despite its gun violence) in the top 20 with San Francisco."}
{"document": "Abstract Background Gulf War exposures in 1990 and 1991 have caused 25% to 30% of deployed personnel to develop a syndrome of chronic fatigue, pain, hyperalgesia, cognitive and affective dysfunction. Methods Gulf War veterans (n = 31) and sedentary veteran and civilian controls (n = 20) completed fMRI scans for diffusion tensor imaging. A combination of dolorimetry, subjective reports of pain and fatigue were correlated to white matter diffusivity properties to identify tracts associated with symptom constructs. Results Gulf War Illness subjects had significantly correlated fatigue, pain, hyperalgesia, and increased axial diffusivity in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. ROC generated thresholds and subsequent binary regression analysis predicted CMI classification based upon axial diffusivity in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. These correlates were absent for controls in dichotomous regression analysis. Conclusion The right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus may be a potential biomarker for Gulf War Illness. This tract links cortical regions involved in fatigue, pain, emotional and reward processing, and the right ventral attention network in cognition. The axonal neuropathological mechanism(s) explaining increased axial diffusivity may account for the most prominent symptoms of Gulf War Illness. \n \n Citation: Rayhan RU, Stevens BW, Timbol CR, Adewuyi O, Walitt B, et al. (2013) Increased Brain White Matter Axial Diffusivity Associated with Fatigue, Pain and Hyperalgesia in Gulf War Illness. PLoS ONE 8(3): e58493. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0058493 Editor: Yu-Feng Zang, Hangzhou Normal University, China Received: December 12, 2012; Accepted: February 7, 2013; Published: March 20, 2013 Copyright: \u00a9 2013 Rayhan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Sources of funding were provided by the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) award W81-XWH-09-1-0526. Research support for the Clinical Research Unit at Georgetown University Medical Center was funded in whole or in part with federal funds (Grant # UL1TR000101, previously UL1RR031975) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), through the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program (CTSA), a trademark of DHHS, part of the Roadmap Initiative, \u201cRe-Engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise.\u201d The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. \n \n Introduction Over 25% of the 697,000 veterans deployed to the 1990\u20131991 Persian Gulf War and 15% of nondeployed veterans have developed a symptom complex of widespread pain, fatigue, headache, gastrointestinal, bladder, and other \u201cfunctional\u201d nociceptive and interoceptive complaints [1]\u2013[4]. Gulf War veterans were exposed to a wide variety of exposures that include binary nerve agents, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, organophosphates, other pesticides and herbicides that may have initiated their symptom complex [3]. This syndrome has been termed Gulf War Illness (GWI). An initial analysis defined these subjects as Chronic Multisymptom Illness (CMI) [1], [2] based on \u22652 complaints of (i) fatigue, (ii) musculoskeletal or (iii) mood and cognitive dysfunction for \u22656 months [2]. Deployed Gulf War veterans met criteria for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) (odds ratio = 40.6) and Fibromyalgia (FM) (odds ratio = 2.32) indicating extensive symptom overlap [5], [6], [7]. All of the veterans who met CMI criteria in this study also met CFS criteria, and 52% met FM criteria. A striking clinical observation in our GWI subjects has been that their chronic pain and fatigue fluctuate in parallel [1]. Fatigue represents an increase in the presumed effort required to perform usual activities, and is not the same as tiredness or sleep deprivation [5]. Pain is the subjective sensory and affective perception reported by subjects in response to a potentially harmful stimulus [8]. Pain and fatigue have been associated with structural and functional alterations of cortical regions in chronic regional pain syndrome, penetrating brain injury, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome and chronic pelvic pain [9]\u2013[13]. Efforts have been made to define both fatigue and pain in terms of functional neurobiology [14], [15]. Activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been associated with both the fatigue sensation induced by a prolonged cognitive task and with accurate discrimination between painful and non-painful perceptions [16], [17]. The OFC has strong reciprocal projections with the adjacent ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). The severity of damage to the vmPFC correlates with fatigue [10]. Further, increased functional connectivity between the right vmPFC, nucleus accumbens and anterior insula, mediated via the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), contributes to the development and maintenance of chronic pain. [18], [19]. The prefrontal cortex is the only cortical area to receive direct projections from the spinal cord [20]. Central sensitization mechanisms that alter the spinal cord dorsal horn gating of pain transmission lead to increased perceptions of pain after an aversive, physical stimulus such as cutaneous pressure (hyperalgesia) or an innocuous stimulus such as light touch (allodynia) [21], [22]. These molecular events may sensitize prefrontal regions of the brain\u2019s \u201cpain matrix\u201d leading to structural and functional reorganization associated with chronic symptom complaints [23]. Brain dysfunction in CMI may involve changes in white matter integrity. White matter function can be analyzed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) which assesses the random Brownian motion and the orientation of water molecules in a strong magnetic field [24]\u2013[27]. Fractional anisotropy (FA) is the most commonly reported index. A decrease in FA indicates loss of white matter integrity [28]. FA is defined as the inverse of the 3 eigenvectors that describe the potential diffusion of water in nerve bundles [28]. The primary eigenvector describes water diffusivity in the direction of the fiber tract and is called the axial diffusivity (AD). Histological information indicates AD assesses axonal function [29]. Diffusion of water perpendicular to axons is defined by two eigenvectors and reported as the radial diffusivity (RD). RD has been associated with demyelination, neuroinflammation with edema or macrophage infiltration [30]\u2013[32]. Mean diffusivity (MD) is the average of the AD and 2 RD eigenvectors. AD, RD, MD and FA can be correlated with subjective and objective outcomes to determine their relationships with tract integrity. White matter integrity and CMI symptoms have not been investigated. Given the concomitant chronic fatigue and pain, we hypothesized CMI may have significant white matter dysfunction compared to control subjects in tracts connecting the prefrontal areas involved in pain and fatigue. Correlations of fatigue, pain and hyperalgesia with AD and RD of specific white matter tracts were expected to implicate alterations of axonal or dysmyelination processes, respectively, to brain regions responsible for these clinical features. Two possible outcomes were envisioned. Significant correlations between fatigue, pain, hyperalgesia, and DTI variables for specific tracts that are distinct from control subjects would support the hypothesis that CMI is a disease with characteristic central nervous system pathology with bimodal distribution. Alternatively, these correlations may occur across both the CMI and control populations. This would suggest that CMI represents a highly skewed population distribution selected by symptom severity; any neurologic alterations seen in CMI would be interpreted as the far end of the distribution of a normal physiological process. There is no data regarding white matter integrity in CMI. Our findings advance current knowledge by investigating/integrating objective DTI outcomes into CMI neuropathology. \n \n Materials and Methods Subjects, Ethics Statement and Recruitment Protocols were approved by the Georgetown University Institutional Review Board and USAMRMC Human Research Protection Office (HRPO #A-15547.0) (clinicaltrials.gov identification number NCT01291758). All participants signed an informed consent. The subject pool was composed of 31 veterans who met CMI and CFS criteria, and 12 sedentary control veterans and civilians not meeting CMI or CFS criteria (Georgetown University IRB #2009\u2013229) All of these subjects completed psychometric questionnaires and physical examinations (n = 43). For the initial DTI analysis (n = 51), 8 additional age - matched, healthy sedentary female control civilians(#2010\u2013050 and #2010\u2013356) were recruited. Complete details involving recruitment and retention of all participants can be found in Table B in File S1. On \u2013 line questionnaires (Table B in File S1) assessed an extensive set of psychometric qualities to investigate the distinctions between CMI, CFS and control subjects [33]. The current study focused only on fatigue, pain and hyperalgesia. Other data will be reported elsewhere. Fatigue was assessed with the ordinal fatigue rating, Chalder fatigue scale and the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI) [34], [35]. The ordinal fatigue assessment was anchored with 0 = no complaint, 1 = trivial, 2 = mild, 3 = moderate or 4 = severe intensity [36]\u2013[38]. Inclusion of \u201ctrivial\u201d allowed participants to verify complaints that were present but not bothersome enough to warrant treatment and/or other lifestyle changes [39]. Subjective pain perceptions were quantified using the McGill short form with its sensory, affective and total scores [40] and nominal analysis of widespread pain in 4 quadrants and the axial skeleton [7]. Relative disability and quality of life were compared using the Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form 36 (SF-36) [41]. Subjects on medications (analgesics, sedative, tricyclic and other antidepressant drugs) had their medications tapered over a 2 week period. Protocol Upon arrival to the Georgetown University Clinical Research Unit, participants reviewed and signed their informed consent forms. All subjects had history and physical examinations to assess CMI [2], CFS [5], and fibromyalgia criteria [7], [42]. The protocol also included clinical assessments, blood tests, dolorimetry [43], and had a tour of the facilities to familiarize themselves with the fMRI and other equipment. Hyperalgesia in fibromyalgia has traditionally been ascertained by tenderness to manual thumb pressure of about 4 kg at \u226511 of 18 tender points [7]. We adapted this concept by pressing a pressure strain gauge dolorimeter at the 18 sites at a rate of 1 kg/sec [43]. Subjects were instructed that they were in control of the pressure, and to report the point when the pressure sensation switched to become painful. The average of the dolorimetry pressures has been used as a measure of systemic hyperalgesia [43]. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) Data was acquired on a Siemens 3T Tim Trio scanner equipped with transmit-receive body coil and commercial 12-element head coil array. Two DTI scans were acquired for each subject with parameters of TE = 101 ms, TR = 7900 ms, FOV = 240 mm, 55 slices, slice resolution = 2.5 mm, voxel size = 2.5\u00d72.5\u00d72.5 mm. For each scan, 5 non-diffusion weighted volumes (b = 0 s/mm2) and 30 diffusion-weighted volumes (b = 1000 s/mm2) were acquired. For each subject, the two DTI scans were concatenated to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. All MR images were screened for abnormal radiological/structural appearances by a trained technician. Preprocessing of the individual subject\u2019s DTI data was performed with the TORTOISE (version 1.1.2) processing pipeline [44]. Default settings were used except where noted otherwise. Eddy current distortion and motion correction were applied [45]. Susceptibility-induced EPI distortion correction was performed using the first B0 image as a target for registration [46]. Rigid reorientation was applied to the subject\u2019s diffusion weighted images, bringing them into a common final space as defined by the registered first B0 image. All corrections were performed in the native space of the diffusion weighted images, all transformations were applied in a single interpolation step, and the b-matrix was reoriented appropriately [47]. In preparation to calculate the FA image, the signal standard deviation was calculated with the automatic method option, and then the diffusion weighted images were masked with the masking tool. FA and eigenvalue images were calculated using the iRESTORE algorithm provided with TORTOISE, which is a non-linear least squares method of tensor estimation [48]. Subject specific maps for FA and MD were direct outputs from the TORTOISE program. The AD maps were the first eigenvalue images, while RD maps were calculated by taking the average of the second and third eigenvalue images. Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS), which is part of the FSL software package [49], [50] was used to transform the images into common Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space. All default settings were used. The subjects\u2019 FA data were imported into TBSS, and then aligned into MNI space using the nonlinear registration tool FNIRT [50], [51], which uses a b-spline representation of the registration warp field [51]. This transformation was subsequently applied to the AD, RD, and MD images. The Johns Hopkins University white-matter tractography atlas was used to create masks to extract mean values for each tract [52]\u2013[54]. Brain extraction was performed, using the brain extraction tool implemented in FSL [55]. Statistical Analysis SPSS for Windows version 20 (Armonk, New York) and Microsoft Excel 2007 (Redmond, Washington) were used for database and statistical analysis. Ordinal fatigue, McGill total score and dolorimetry were compared between the 31 CMI and 12 control subjects and reported as means with 95% confidence intervals. Significant differences between groups (P\u22640.05) were identified by two-tailed unpaired Student\u2019s t-tests or Fisher\u2019s exact tests, with all P values corrected for multiple comparisons by Bonferroni corrections and false discovery rate [56]\u2013[58]. Ordinal fatigue, McGill total score and dolorimetry were evaluated by receiver \u2013 operator curve (ROC) analysis as predictive measures. Clinical data from the eight control participants recruited under protocols #2010-050 and #2010-356 were not included in this analysis but will be reported separately. FA, MD, AD, and RD for each tract were correlated in univariate fashion with ordinal fatigue by one - tailed Spearman\u2019s function, and for McGill total pain and average dolorimetry pressures using one - tailed Pearson\u2019s function based upon previous studies [9], [13], [18]. The clinical variables with significant DTI correlates were then assessed by separate step-wise multivariate linear regression analyses that included age and gender to identify significantly associated tracts and clinical features across all subjects. Average white matter diffusivity parameters (FA, MD, AD and RD) were compared between all CMI and control participants (n = 51) and in 20 white matter tracts by two-tailed unpaired Student\u2019s t-tests. ROC analysis of each tract identified the sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve (AUC), and asymptotic significance of each diffusivity parameter. The thresholds were used to define dichotomous variables for stepwise forward binary logistic regression to predict CMI status. \n \n Discussion All of the veterans recruited for this protocol met CMI and CFS criteria [2], [5]. To understand the pathophysiological principles behind these case designation criteria, we examined the underlying complaints that were most strongly reported by our subjects. Dolorimetry, fatigue, and pain ratings were highly correlated with each other and with elevated AD in cortico-cortical association and corticospinal tracts. These analyses identified four significant correlates of CMI status that were significantly different from controls: ordinal fatigue, McGill total pain scores, dolorimetry (kg) and AD of the right IFOF. The salutary observation was that CMI status was associated with increased axial diffusivity in the right IFOF with non-significant trends for increased FA and MD in the same tract (Table C in File S1) (Table D in File S1). Multi-variate and binary logistic regression analysis identified the right IFOF as the only tract to correlate with all three clinical parameters and may provide diagnostic utility in predicting CMI versus control status. The right IFOF connects multiple frontal, sublobar, temporal and occipital cortical regions that are involved in the perception of pain, fatigue and cognitive dysfunction that are symptom constructs in the case designation criteria for CMI [2] and CFS [5]. Anatomically, the tract originates from the vmPFC, inferior frontal gyrus, frontal pole and OFC [59]. As it leaves the prefrontal area it courses adjacent to the insula [60] and through the temporal lobe to terminate in the posterior fusiform, cuneus, and lateral cortices of the occipital lobe [59]. The OFC and vmPFC are intimately associated with the severity of fatigue [10], [16] and communicate with the nucleus accumbens via corticostriatal IFOF fibers [18]. During the onset of noxious stimuli these regions coordinate responses that provide a punishing teaching signal that leads to altered decision making based upon these painful cues [61]. Increased structural connectivity between the regions linked by the right IFOF is predictive of increased blood flow to the nucleus accumbens which represents amplified sensitivity to punishment during reward-related behavior [18]. Sensory and other processing through the anterior insula directly contributes to the vmPFC - nucleus accumbens interactions which are causally associated with the transition from subacute to chronic low back pain [19]. Because the right IFOF is a critical component of the structural circuitry that facilitates communication between these regions, increased AD in the right IFOF may play a central role in the adaptation and maintenance of chronic pain and fatigue in CMI. Attention and focus are other functions mediated via the right IFOF. This tract connects the right inferior frontal gyrus and right temporal parietal junction that form the ventral attention network (VAN) [62]. VAN maintains surveillance for unexpected environmental cues that may be salient. Maintaining focus on goal \u2013 directed behavior is the function of the dorsal attention network (DAN) [63]. Anatomically, DAN includes the frontal eye fields, supplementary motor cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. DAN generates top \u2013 down managerial control to complete specific tasks [63]. Activation of VAN creates an interruptive signal that decouples DAN activity so that attention must be reoriented towards the newly identified, task \u2013 relevant stimulus. Increased VAN activity has been linked to decreased activity in the DAN [64]. Nociceptive stimuli can involuntarily capture attention and interfere with on \u2013 going behavior [65], [66]. Building on this notion, elevated AD in the right IFOF in CMI may signify increased structural connectivity with a heightened propensity to activate VAN, interrupt DAN activity, and cause reorientation of attention to pain signals. Increased connectivity may explain the reported surveillance and hyperarousal behaviors of CMI subjects [1], [67]. The left CST and right SLF had higher diffusivity measures between CMI and control groups. Increased AD in the left CST, which sends collaterals into the spinal cord dorsal horn, may suggest potential dysfunction of descending anti-nociceptive pathways that may contribute to hyperalgesia [68]. MD was increased in the right SLF and correlated with greater fatigue and lower dolorimetry pain pressures. This tract connects the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and DAN to inferior parietal working memory regions [69]. This is of relevance to CMI since increased MD in the SLF has been correlated with language impairment and cognitive deficits [70], [71]. Increased AD was correlated with fatigue and pain measures in several other tracts when all subjects were assessed. The right cingulum links the anterior and posterior cingulate gyrus and was associated with nociceptive processing in several chronic pain states [9], [12], [72]. Elevated AD was correlated with the McGill total score and lower dolorimetry pressures. The forceps minor connects regions in the left and right anterior prefrontal lobes that are implicated in pain and fatigue processing [10], [13], [16], [17], [19].The uncinate fasciculus links prefrontal and limbic regions involved in pain, emotion and affect [73]. The increase and discriminatory potential in AD suggests DTI analysis may have value as a research tool to identify longitudinal changes and to test the efficacy of novel therapies in clinical trials in CMI. This pilot study has several limitations. The magnitudes of the differences in AD between groups were not large, but were statistical significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Correlations of AD for various tracts with fatigue, pain and dolorimetry measures identified significant relationships within the entire study population. The control group was not entirely Gulf War veterans who shared the same exposures and experiences as the CMI subjects. However, our subjects (Table A in File S1) were representative of the 1995 Gulf War National Health Survey and other population based studies [1], [6], [74]. Prospective epidemiological studies using the variables identified here will be required to firmly resolve this issue. Correlations between the increased AD in right IFOF, fatigue, pain, and hyperalgesia may have been an artifact of selecting subjects with similar complaints who represented a distal end of a spectrum found in the general population. Our sample size was not large enough to adequately assess this possibility. However, the binary logistic regression analysis significantly distinguished CMI from control subjects. This suggests a bimodal rather than unimodal distribution. Tractography and analysis of gray matter volume loss in regions linked by the dysfunctional white matter tracts were not investigated, but may provide important information about the heterogeneity and extent of CMI dysfunction. Reduced midbrain white matter volume was correlated with duration of fatigue in CFS [75], but DTI was not performed. Tractography offers a complementary approach to TBSS. TBSS may underestimate DTI indices since it relies on the white matter skeleton with highest FA values [76]. Axonal atrophy may lead to an artifactual increase in AD since smaller axonal caliber may increase absolute neuron densities within pixels that are mathematically transformed into higher diffusivity measurements when mapped onto a standard white matter skeleton [77]. TBSS processing as used here may reduce this potential bias [76]. This and other explanations for elevated AD await histological verification from surgical or autopsy studies of GWI veterans. The cross - sectional design cannot address longitudinal changes or temporal reproducibility. Future longitudinal DTI studies will be needed to confirm if the defect of elevated AD correlates with fatigue, pain and hyperalgesia as it changes over time. Conclusion The right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus links cortical regions involved in fatigue, pain, emotional and reward processing, and the right ventral attention network in cognition. Axial diffusivity of this region was significantly different between CMI and controls and the degree of difference was found to correlate to fatigue and pain symptoms. The axonal neuropathological mechanism(s) explaining the objectively measured increase in axial diffusivity may contribute to Gulf War Illness. \n \n Supporting Information File S1. Supporting information tables. Table A: Extended and detailed demographics information. Table B: Detailed recruitment strategies and retention during protocol. Table C: Average fractional anisotropy (FA) for 20 white matter tracts between groups. Table D: Average mean diffusivity (MD) for 20 white matter tracts between groups. Table E: Average axial diffusivity (AD) for 20 white matter tracts between groups. Table F: Average radial diffusivity (RD) for 20 white matter tracts between groups. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0058493.s001 (DOCX) ||||| A destroyed Iraqi tank sits near oil well fires in northern Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991. Gulf War illness has affected more than 250,000 veterans of the 1991 war against Iraq. (Photo: AP file photo by David Longstreath) Story Highlights Findings may eventually help those suffering from chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia \n \n Veterans studied say the illness has wrecked their lives \n \n More than 250,000 veterans of the 1991 war have reported some symptoms \n \n WASHINGTON \u2014 Researchers say they have found physical proof that Gulf War illness is caused by damage to the brain \u2014 and that proof may ultimately help civilians who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. \n \n Using fMRI machines, the Georgetown University researchers were able to see anomalies in the bundle of nerve fibers that interpret pain signals in the brain in 31 Gulf War veterans. The research will be published Wednesday in PLOS ONE journal. \n \n The findings are \"huge,\" because an fMRI allows doctors to diagnose a person with Gulf War illness quickly, said James Baraniuk, senior author and professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. The research, he said, also shows that Gulf War illness is not psychological. \n \n An fMRI, or \"functional\" MRI, is a scan that measures activity by detecting how blood flows through the brain. \n \n Many veterans have had difficulties getting benefits and treatment for a service-connected condition because doctors assumed they were either faking it or suffering from post-traumatic stress. \"That's a problem with all physicians \u2014 VA, military or civilian,\" Baraniuk said. \"If it doesn't fall within their small world of known diseases, then the patient is nuts.\" \n \n Gulf War illness is a series of symptoms that has affected more than 250,000 veterans of the 1991 war against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. \n \n Baraniuk said the correlation of anomalies in the brain's white matter with Gulf War illness has not been studied before. Researchers, he said, also found that fatigue and pain worsen congruently in the veterans. \n \n To test the veterans, they watched the way liquid moved through brain nerve cells at rest and while the veterans were exercising. They could locate the nerves' axons and determine how healthy they were, said Rakib Rayhan, lead author of the study. \n \n \"We're able to say, 'There is something here,' \" Rayhan said. \" 'Take these veterans seriously when they come in.' \" \n \n In particular, John VanMeter, director of Georgetown's Center for functional and molecular imaging, said they looked at the fibers that process pain. \n \n \"The fibers in the Gulf War veterans have deteriorated compared to the control,\" he said. Those fibers interpret environmental pain, but in the case of the veterans, a tiny pulse of pressure is interpreted as a painful pinch, or normal muscle fatigue from walking a flight of stairs could be interpreted as climbing to the fourteenth floor. \"They get, 'I'm in pain! I'm in pain! I'm in pain!' all the time.\" \n \n He said that most hospitals already have the MRI equipment they need to do the exam, but they may need to purchase or install fMRI software, as well as to be trained to use it. \n \n The researchers do not know whether the veterans' symptoms will continue to worsen, though it appears they have from their onset 22 years ago until now. \n \n \"The guys who were robust and leading the charge on this 10 years ago are now using canes,\" Baraniuk said. \n \n This research appears to correlate with previous research on Gulf War Illness, including a major study this year that showed problems in involuntary function, and a second that showed that as many as 100,000 troops may have been doused with Sarin gas when the U.S. Air Force bombed a munitions factory during the war. \n \n The researchers suspect the damage came from environmental factors. Other researchers have found that as many as 100,000 troops were exposed to Sarin gas when the U.S. Air Force bombed an Iraqi munitions plant, and other researchers have found a connection between the symptoms and the ACHL-inhibitors found in nerve agents, the anti-nerve-agent pills servicemembers took, and the industrial-strength bug spray troops used on their clothing and skin. \n \n Baraniuk believes that the three areas of symptoms seen in Gulf War veterans are all different stages of the same disease \u2014 and he will be able to show that in a future paper. \n \n Veterans who participated in the study said the illness has hurt them but they were optimistic about the survey's findings. \n \n Army veteran Robert Ward's symptoms began while he was still in the Middle East. He felt tired and his gums started to swell and bleed. He figured it was a fluke, until he read a newspaper article in 1993 and discovered he was one of many. Soon, he suffered irritable bowel syndrome, constant headaches, muscle twitches, rashes and muscle fatigue. For 18 months, he found himself bedridden. He moved in with his parents so they could help care for him. \n \n \"This is a big deal,\" he said. \"This has ruined my life. I'm thankful that Gulf War illness patients will be able to get the help that they deserve.\" \n \n Denise Nichols, an Air Force veteran, also had symptoms while she was still in the Middle East, including irritability, hair lossand sensitivity to light and noise. When she came home, she had blurred vision and tight muscles. \n \n \"I quit nursing because I was afraid of making errors or exposing patients to whatever I had,\" she said. When she learned the results of the study, she yelled, \"Yes! Yes! Yes! We're finding real proof.\" \n \n Still, she said, it's bittersweet to wait 22 years. \n \n The researchers themselves said they've been surprised by how little attention this group of veterans has received. \n \n \"If 30% of Congress got sick, or 30% of Manhattan got sick, there would have been an outcry,\" Baraniuk said. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/ZdGhZr", "summary": "\u2013 Scientists now know that Gulf War Syndrome is more than just a psychological condition\u2014it's actually tied to brain damage. But for the first time, they have zeroed in on physical proof that this is the case. The Georgetown researchers used fMRI machines on 31 Gulf War vets and were able to spot abnormalities in the bundles of nerve fibers that process pain. They \"have deteriorated compared to the control,\" says a researcher, and USA Today explains the impact thusly: \"a tiny pulse of pressure is interpreted as a painful pinch, or normal muscle fatigue from walking a flight of stairs could be interpreted as climbing to the fourteenth floor.\" The discovery is \"huge,\" says another researcher, because it will allow veterans to be quickly diagnosed via the fMRI scan. Most hospitals are equipped with the necessary MRI machines, and would just need to install the proper software and train their technicians on its use. \"We're able to say, 'There is something here,'\" says the study's lead author. \"'Take these veterans seriously when they come in.'\" You can check out PLoS ONE to see the original paper."}
{"document": "What you need to know about the BOOK of ENOCH and the AGE of the FALLEN \n \n - Duration: 13:06. \n \n WoodwardTV \n \n 2,731,708 views ||||| Sen. Ted Cruz, speaking as the results of the Nevada caucuses were being tallied, argued Tuesday evening that he was the only Republican left in the race who could beat Donald Trump. \n \n \u201cThey\u2019re still counting the ballots so we don\u2019t know the exact results, but I want to congratulate Donald Trump on a strong evening tonight and I want to congratulate the grass roots \u2013 the conservatives across this country who have come together behind this campaign,\u201d Cruz told supporters at a YMCA in Las Vegas. \n \n Cruz, who was battling with Sen. Marco Rubio for a second-place finish, argued that he had history on his side since he won the Iowa caucuses, the first of the GOP presidential nominating contests. \n \n \u201cWhen we started this campaign nearly a year ago, there were 17 candidates in the race. The role of the first four primaries historically has been to narrow the field and we have seen the first four states do exactly that \u2013 narrow the field,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cNow at this point we\u2019ve had four primaries, history teaches us no one has ever won the nomination without winning one of the first three primaries. And there are only two people who have won one of the first three primaries \u2013 Donald Trump and us.\u201d \n \n \u201cThe first four states has shown the only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump and the only campaign that can beat Donald Trump is this campaign,\u201d he said, urging conservatives and those who want to beat Hillary Clinton to consolidate behind him. \n \n He never mentioned Rubio by name, but he slashed at him as a Washington insider and over his positions on issues such as immigration. And he set sky-high expectations for Super Tuesday, one week from today, when 11 states including his home state of Texas will go to the polls. \n \n \u201cOne week from today will be the most important night of this campaign,\u201d Cruz said at the rally, his last event before flying to Houston to start a day of campaigning there Wednesday.", "summary": "\u2013 How big a hit is Beyonc\u00e9's Formation? So big it got it's own question during Tuesday's Democratic town hall in South Carolina. \"Let's talk about Beyonc\u00e9 for a second, because why not?\" Chris Cuomo introduced a question for Hillary Clinton about policing in the US. Some law enforcement groups see the video for Formation as overly critical of police and led them to call for a boycott of the pop star, the Los Angeles Times reports. Clinton responded that it's important to \"respect the police\" while recognizing those officers \"who are doing the right things and protecting us.\" But she also acknowledged the difficulty many officers having interacting with minority communities. \"Let\u2019s hold police behavior accountable, so there\u2019s an incentive for people to change how they\u2019re doing police practices,\" she said. (Formation also sent sales skyrocketing at one seafood chain.)"}
{"document": "The royal couple will travel more than 14,000 miles (22,530km) in 11 days during next month\u2019s tour of Canada and America, in what will be the new bride\u2019s first visit to both countries. \n \n St James\u2019s Palace on Monday released a brief itinerary of the couple\u2019s trip, which will take in nine cities throughout the region from June 30 to July 10. \n \n A royal source said the couple were \u201cvery much looking forward to their first joint royal tour\u201d. \n \n It is understood that the Canadian government will foot the two million dollar bill for that part of the tour as the Commonwealth country is one of the Queen's realms \u2013 meaning she is not a foreign monarch but the country's sovereign and head of state. \n \n This means that Prince William , 28, and the former Kate Middleton , 29, are members of the Canadian royal family and the country's authorities are taking the lead in organising the trip. \n \n The newly married pair, who are said to be \u201ceagerly anticipating\u201d their summer tour, will be flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force during their nine days in Canada before they are flown to Los Angeles for their three day tour. \n \n Covering more than 5100 miles across the continent\u2019s vast open spaces, the pair will visit destinations including Charlottetown on the shores of Prince Edward Island in the east, to the remote settlement of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, in the far north. \n \n They will also visit Canada's capital, Ottawa and the surrounding region, Montreal and Quebec City in the francophone province of Quebec and the oil boom town of Calgary, Alberta. \n \n Officials confirmed that security will be beefed up for their visit In Quebec amid fears nationalists will protest the royals' stop in the mostly French-speaking province. \n \n One of the tour\u2019s highlights will be the royal couple's appearance at Canada Day celebrations in the Ottawa on July 1. \n \n The visit to Alberta, during their final leg, also coincides with the opening of the city's world-famous rodeo event, the Calgary Stampede \u2013 an annual rodeo, exhibition and festival dubbed the \"Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth\". \n \n The pair will then take in a glimpse of Hollywood, when they travel to Los Angeles and the surrounding area on a three-day official visit supporting Britain's interests in America. \n \n That leg of the tour will also involve promoting charities the Prince is patron of, including Tusk Trust, and will almost certainly include a function on behalf of Bafta, of which the Duke is President. \n \n While the Duchess has never touched down on American soil, it will also be the first time her husband has visited the country in an official capacity. \n \n The pair, who married last month at Westminster Abbey, will then take a \u201cscheduled\u201d flight home from Los Angeles. \n \n Asked whether a Bafta event would mean the couple meeting Hollywood A-listers, a St James's Palace spokesman said: \"They may well bump into one or two stars at some point. \n \n \u201cBut there are different types of functions you could organise to promote Bafta, such as a reception for up and coming talent, so it would be wrong to assume they will be in a room full of celebrities. \n \n \"The visit to California is very much about promoting charities.\" \n \n The visit had originally been planned as a solo trip for the duke but after last November's engagement announcement the duchess was added to the arrangements. \n \n The Canadian Government has themed the tour \"'Moving Forward Together' from past accomplishments to current service and future achievements\u201d. \n \n James Moore, Canada\u2019s Heritage Minister, confirmed the entire visit will cost Canadian taxpayers just under two million dollars. \n \n Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, added: \"Canadians hold the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in very high esteem and look forward to welcoming them as they embark on their first official royal tour as newly-weds. \n \n \"The couple's decision to visit Canada first is a testament to our country\u2019s close relationship with the Crown and Royal family, and an opportunity for all Canadians to take pride in our traditions, history, and institutions. \n \n \"I am confident that, in coming to know this country and its people better, the Duke and Duchess will develop their own enduring bonds of affection for Canada and Canadians as has been the case with Her Majesty The Queen over sixty years, which began with her own very first tour as Princess Elizabeth at the age of 25 in 1951.\" \n \n The royal family have been regular visitors to Canada during the Queen's reign, with the Queen travelling there more than 20 times. \n \n The Duke last visited Vancouver aged 15 in 1998 with his father, the Prince of Wales and brother Prince Harry. \n \n The trip will be the duchess's first overseas tour as a member of the royal family. \n \n But she has a family connection to the Commonwealth country as her grandfather Peter Middleton, who died last year aged 90, served as an RAF flight instructor during the Second World War training Canadian pilots in Calgary from 1942 to 1944. \n \n It is thought the duchess may pay tribute to her grandfather while in Canada. \n \n According to reports, the duchess is a fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery's book Anne of Green Gables, which is set in Prince Edward Island, and so she may visit those sites while William, a search and rescue pilot, takes a Coast Guard helicopter out. \n \n Further details are expected to be released later. ||||| Duke and Duchess of Hazard: Wills and Kate to visit largest rodeo during north American tour \n \n \n \n By Rebecca English \n \n \n \n Last updated at 3:08 PM on 31st May 2011 \n \n The new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to visit the world\u2019s largest \u2013 and richest \u2013 rodeo during their first foreign tour together. \n \n The couple plan to visit the legendary Calgary Stampede when they fly to Canada next month. \n \n Billed as the greatest outdoor show on earth, it offers $2 million in prize money to competing cowboys and attracts some of the top names in the field. \n \n Daring: Cowboy Jake Vold rides in the Novice Saddle Bronc riding event at the Calgary Stampede \n \n Cropper: Cowboy Gavin DeRose is bucked off the back of a horse in the Novice Bareback Bucking event in 2008 \n \n They are also likely to view the controversial sport of \u2018chuckwagon\u2019 racing, which involves a team of horses pulling a large wagon, the kind used to carry food and cooking equipment on the prairies of the United States and Canada, supported by a group of four outriders. \n \n The outriders have to throw two tent poles and a barrel, representing a camp stove, into the back of their wagon before mounting their horses and following the wagons as they circle a race track. \n \n The rodeo sport, which is particularly popular on the Canadian prairies, is controversial as horses and drivers are sometimes killed or injured, prompting animal welfare groups to call for the sport to be banned. \n \n Three horses died following chuckwagon races at the 2009 Calgary Stampede and a spectacular wagon crash during the event in 2007, in which three horses were killed and a driver hospitalized, led officials in Calgary to review the safety of the sport. \n \n Chuckwagon: Dirt and mud fly as a chuckwagon driver and outriders try to catch the other three wagons at a previous Calgary Stampede \n \n The couple will be in Calgary, Alberta, from July 7 to 8, the last stop on their nine-day whirlwind tour through Canada which takes in eight major cities: Ottawa (June 30-July2), Montreal (July 2), Quebec (July 3), Charlottetown and Summerside on Prince Edward Island (July 3 and 4) and Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories (July 4-6). \n \n During their visit, which is being paid for by the Canadian government, the newly-weds will make an emotional visit to the Canadian airfield where Kate\u2019s late grandfather, Peter Middleton, was based as an RAF pilot during the Second World War. \n \n Kate was very close to Mr Middleton, who died at the age of 90 last year, and even delayed the announcement of her engagement so that she could attend his funeral. \n \n Flying Officer Middleton was posted to the No37 Service Flying School in Calgary in 1942 (now home to Calgary International Airport) when he was a volunteer reservist aged just 22. He spent two-and-a-half years as an instructor there training Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster pilots. \n \n We're going to America: The young Royal couple meet U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and first lady Michelle Obama, right \n \n They will also make a trip to the country\u2019s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, which features in Kate\u2019s favourite childhood book, Anne of Green Gables. \n \n A royal source explained that the trip had been organised to allow William \u2013 who visited the country in 1991 and 1998 - to \u2018get to know Canada better\u2019. \n \n \u2018The duchess\u2019s late grandfather was stationed near Calgary as a trainee bomber pilot and therefore the country is very much part of her own family\u2019s story too even though this will be her first visit to the country,\u2019 they said. \n \n \u2018The trip is designed to show them the diversity and vibrancy of Canada and its people, visiting provinces and territories that aren\u2019t so often visited by the Royal Family. There will be both traditional and formal elements and more informal elements appropriate to their age and interests.\u2019 \n \n After Canada, the couple fly to LA for three days at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. \n \n The Hollywood leg of their trip has created huge excitement in Tinsel Town where stars are said to be falling over themselves to meet the Cambridges. \n \n And this is how father did it: Prince Charles, in a white stetson and western outfit complete with polo (strings) tie, rides in the Calgary Stampede parade in 1977 \n \n But a royal aide warned that they wanted to concentrate on issues such as armed forces, veterans, vulnerable people, the arts and William and Harry\u2019s own charitable foundation. \n \n \u2018Unfortunately it is unlikely to feature many celebrities and there will be no down time. The trip isn\u2019t about that. It was very much generated by the FCO and has an official itinerary,\u2019 he said. \n \n The cost of flying William and Kate to Canada on an airforce jet will be shouldered by the country\u2019s government and the couple will take scheduled flights back from LA. \n \n \u2018They are keen to keep their costs down and will keep their entourage to a minimum. They haven\u2019t made any decisions yet on who will travel with them and whether this will include hairdressers or anything like that,\u2019 said a source. \n \n A spokesman for the Canadian Department of Heritage said: \u2018The 2011 Royal Tour of Canada by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will give the royal couple the opportunity to visit every region of the country \u2013 east, centre, west and north \u2013 on their first official tour as a married couple. \n \n 'It will enable them to meet as many Canadians as possible and, in the process, come to know Canada even better. \n \n \n \n \u2018It is hoped that, upon their departure, they will come to regard Canada as their second home \u2013 a term of endearment often used by the Queen to describe her special bond of affection for and pride in this country.\u2019 \n \n \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 Royal newlyweds William and Kate will be touching down in Los Angeles for a few days in early July as part of their first official overseas trip. The California destination was revealed in the just released itinerary of earlier announced trip to North America that will also include an eight-city tour of Canada, reports the Telegraph. The trip will be Kate's first visit to either country and William's first visit to the US in an official capacity. The Canadian tour will include a stop in Ottawa on July 1, and a visit to Calgary on the opening day of the Calgary Stampede rodeo festival. The couple also plan to visit the airfield where Kate's grandfather served as a trainee pilot during World War II, the Daily Mail reports. Royal sources say the Los Angeles visit will be more about promoting charities, including the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, than hobnobbing with Hollywood A-listers. \"The couple view this as a working visit, not as an opportunity for them to meet celebrities,\" a palace source tells People."}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| MarShawn M. McCarrel II, a young Ohio activist involved with the Black Lives Matter movement committed suicide on the steps of the Statehouse in Columbus. (WBNS-10TV http://www.10tv.com/) \n \n A prominent young activist killed himself on the steps of the Ohio statehouse Monday. \n \n MarShawn M. McCarrel II, a leading member of the state\u2019s Black Lives Matter movement, shot himself outside the capitol\u2019s entrance about 6 p.m. The 23-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene, State Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Craig Cvetan told the Columbus Dispatch. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t have any evidence to know the reason why he did it,\u201d Cvetan said. \n \n There were signs on social media that McCarrel had been struggling lately. His Twitter feed oscillated between joy and despair, and on the morning of his death, he tweeted an emotional goodbye. \n \n \u201cI love y\u2019all,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAll of you.\u201d \n \n Moments later, the message turned darker. \n \n \u201cIf we don\u2019t have to live through hell just to get to heaven,\u201d he wrote. \n \n By the afternoon, his social media postings had darkened further. \n \n \u201cMy demons won today,\u201d he wrote on his Facebook page. \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d \n \n Just days before his apparent suicide, McCarrel had attended the NAACP Image Awards with his mother. A picture posted to Instagram showed him dressed in a red suit jacket and matching bow tie. \n \n McCarrel helped coordinate Black Lives Matter protests in Ohio following the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager killed in 2014 by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. He also founded a youth mentorship program and anti-homelessness efforts, according to the New York Daily News. \n \n On Wednesday, Black Lives Matter Cincinnati\u2019s Facebook page was flooded with tributes to McCarrel. \n \n \u201cAn activist to his soul,\u201d wrote fellow activist Shaun King. \u201cFought tirelessly in Ohio and beyond for the rights of oppressed people. \n \n \u201cBrother \u2013 we\u2019ll keep fighting,\u201d King wrote. \u201cYou rest, now.\u201d ||||| A Franklin Township man killed himself outside the front door of the Statehouse Downtown on Monday evening. Authorities were called just after 6 p.m. to a shooting, which occurred up the steps and at the entrance to the Statehouse, on the S. High Street side. MarShawn M. McCarrel II, 23, was pronounced dead at the scene, said Lt. Craig Cvetan of the State Highway Patrol. \n \n A Franklin Township man killed himself outside the front door of the Statehouse Downtown on Monday evening. \n \n Authorities were called just after 6 p.m. to a shooting, which occurred up the steps and at the entrance to the Statehouse, on the S. High Street side. \n \n MarShawn M. McCarrel II, 23, was pronounced dead at the scene, said Lt. Craig Cvetan of the State Highway Patrol. \n \n >>> Update:Family remembers activist who took own life outside Statehouse on Monday \n \n McCarrel II, 23, lived on Eastbrook Drive North in Franklin Township. He was not employed by the state, Cvetan said. \n \n \"We don't have any evidence to know the reason why he did it,\" Cvetan said. \n \n Posted on his Facebook page shortly after 3 p.m., however, was \"My demons won today. I'm sorry.\" \n \n No one witnessed McCarrel shoot himself. He was seen on the Statehouse grounds just moments before the gunshot, Cvetan said. \n \n S. High Street was shut down for a short time and then the sidewalk in front of the Statehouse, and the COTA bus stop, were closed for the investigation. \n \n If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call Franklin County Suicide Prevention Hotline at 614-221-5445; the Teen Suicide Prevention Hotline, 614-294-3300; or the Lifeline national organization for suicide prevention, 1-800-273-8255. \n \n jwoods@dispatch.com \n \n @Woodsnight ||||| ... \n \n belonging to two children. When two brothers see it, they stop to intervene and make sure the officer and the kids know their rights. \n \n I love this video. This officer is trying to take and keep backpacks", "summary": "\u2013 A Black Lives Matter activist is dead after shooting himself outside the entrance of the Ohio Statehouse where he previously attended protests. Police say MarShawn McCarrel II was pronounced dead on the scene around 6pm Monday. \"We don't have any evidence to know the reason why he did it,\" a State Highway Patrol rep tells the Columbus Dispatch. But the Washington Post notes McCarrel's social media posts \"oscillated between joy and despair.\" \"I love y'all,\" the 23-year-old tweeted Monday morning. At noon came his final tweet: \"Let the record show that I pissed on the statehouse before I left.\" Then this Facebook post around 3pm: \"My demons won today. I'm sorry.\" A former teacher describes McCarrel as the student he was proudest of in his 27 years on the job. \"I saw him as a shining star in the future of civil rights.\" Indeed: McCarrel was named one of just 15 Radio One Hometown Champions, attended the NAACP's Image Awards on Friday, helped organize Black Lives Matter protests in Ohio after the shooting of Michael Brown, founded a youth mentorship program, and worked with the homeless. \"He had so much to do,\" his mom tells the Dispatch. \"He forgot to take time for himself.\" A fellow activist says \"the statehouse was no accident. We've been working so hard, and yet the conditions for the people in our community ... are still so hard.\" McCarrel was \"an activist to his soul,\" a friend adds on Facebook. He \"fought tirelessly in Ohio and beyond for the rights of oppressed people \u2026 Brother\u2014we'll keep fighting. You rest, now.\""}
{"document": "[Fort Cumberland, Md., 18 July 1755] To Mr Jno. Auge Washington Mount Vernon \n \n Dear Jack Brother \n \n As I have heard since my arrivl at this place,1 a circumstantial acct of my death and dying Speech, I take this early oppertunity of contradicting both the first , and of assuring you that I \u27e8 illegible \u27e92 of the livg by the miraculous care of I have not, as yet, composed the latter. But by the all powerful dispensatns of Providence, that I have been protected me beyond all human expectation ; probability & expectation for I had 4 Bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under and yet me yet although death was levelling my companions on every side of me. escaped unhurt. \n \n We have been most scandalously beaten by a trifling body of men; but fatiegue, and the want of tim\u27e8e\u27e9, will prevent s me from \u27e8erasure\u27e9 give ing you any of the \u27e8erasure\u27e9 details un till I have the happiness of seeing you at home Mount Vernon ; which I now most ardently wish d for, since we are drove in thus far. A Weak, and Feeble State of Health, obliges me to halt here for 2 or 3 days, to recover a little strength, that I may thereby be enabled to proceed homewards with more ease; You may expect to see me there on Saturday or Sunday Se\u2019night,3 which is as soon as I can well be down as I shall take my Bullskin Plantation\u2019s in my way. Pray give my Compts to all my Fds. I am Dr Jack Yr most Affecte Brothr ||||| \n \n This vintage portrait features George Washington, the first president of the United States. (iStock) \n \n Today is George Washington\u2019s Birthday. It\u2019s something of a political miracle that the man indispensable to the founding of his country came into the world just at the right time, in 1732, so that when he reached manhood, he was there when we needed him. \n \n More miraculous still is that he survived so long, until 1799. \n \n During the course of his 67 years on Earth, the father of our country survived smallpox, bouts of malaria, multiple infections and abscesses, tuberculosis, dysentery and in the first six months of his presidency, an extraordinarily painful boil \u201cthe size of two fists\u201d accompanied by a fever. \n \n So worrisome was his health at that point that some feared a \u201cdreadful calamity,\u201d and as James Madison wrote, a \u201ccrisis\u201d in the affairs of the new nation, which had given no thought to anyone else as president. The presidency, indeed, was designed with Washington in mind. \n \n \u201cWere we to be deprived of his influence,\u201d wrote Rep. William Smith at the time, \u201cI much fear no other man could hold us together.\u201d \n \n As a young man, Washington fought with the British army during the French and Indian War. While not wounded, he became so ill and so close to being shot that before he returned home to Virginia, rumors were already circulating of his death. \n \n \u201cI have heard,\u201d he wrote upon his return from battle in July, 1755, \u201ca circumstantial account of my death and dying speech. \n \n \u201cI take this early opportunity,\u201d he wrote his brother, John Augustine Washington, \u201cof contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not, as yet, composed the latter. \n \n \u201cBut by the all powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four Bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under me; yet escaped unhurt.\u201d \n \n He had also fallen victim to dysentery, which produced extreme diarrhea in a man with hemorrhoids. \u201cAt first the stoic young aide tried to conceal the malady,\u201d writes Washington biographer Ron Chernow, \u201cbut he soon found it so debilitating that he had to travel lying down in a covered wagon.\u201d \n \n It was not dignified. But he survived. \n \n He had an iron constitution, which can only be fully fathomed by considering the state of medicine at the time. \n \n \u201cThere was no well-defined concept of infection or immunity,\u201d Anthony Fauci and David M. Morens wrote in a 2012 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, \u201cno vaccines, almost no specific or effective treatments for infectious diseases and little idea that any treatment or public health measure could reliably control epidemic diseases \u2026 During Washington\u2019s lifetime, infectious diseases were the defining challenges of human existence.\u201d \n \n Perhaps the most defining challenge to Washington\u2019s health was his first known confrontation with infectious disease, when he contracted smallpox at the age of 19 while visiting Barbados. And as debilitating as it was, the immunity it conferred upon him would prove vital at another pivotal moment in American history nearly three decades later, a \u201cpowerful dispensation\u201d for him and for the nation. \n \n It was the spring of 1749 when George\u2019s older half brother, Lawrence, contracted tuberculosis, a disease for which there was then no certain cure. In search of relief, he first traveled to England. Finding no reprieve in the treatments of English doctors, he returned to Virginia, where he only deteriorated further. He then decided to try Barbados, in hopes that the warmth there would help. \n \n \u201cBecause Lawrence\u2019s wife had just given birth to a daughter,\u201d writes Chernow, it \u201cfell upon George, nineteen, to accompany his thirty-three-year-old-brother, acting as both nursemaid and companion\u201d on the 37-day voyage and while Lawrence got treatment. \n \n Shortly after they arrived, the brothers received an invitation to visit Gedney Clarke, an uncle of Lawrence\u2019s wife. Washington was reluctant to accept, because Clarke\u2019s wife was confined with smallpox. Smallpox was \u201cextraordinarily virulent; individuals exposed to the virus, which passes by contact, were almost certain to be infected,\u201d wrote historian Jack Warren, unless through some previous exposure they developed an immunity to the disease. \n \n As Virginia had not been touched by smallpox during Washington\u2019s lifetime, he caught it. It\u2019s not established that Mary Clarke, Gedney Clarke\u2019s wife, was the source of Washington\u2019s smallpox. But as Washington wrote in his diary on Nov. 16, 1751 he \u201cwas strongly attacked\u201d with the lethal disease. Washington was housebound for 25 days with the painful pustules and fever and managed to survive. \n \n Lawrence returned to Virginia and died of tuberculosis at his home in Mount Vernon in 1752. \n \n Washington would soon become a soldier and \u201cwhere soldiers go, plagues follow,\u201d says the old axiom. \n \n The American Revolution brought with it soldiers from England and Germany carrying smallpox, facing American forces largely unexposed to the disease, and therefore greatly vulnerable. By the fall of 1775, Boston, then under British occupation, \u201csuffered from a widespread smallpox epidemic that threatened to spread throughout the ranks of Washington\u2019s army,\u201d according to the Mount Vernon digital research library. \n \n The disease \u201cspread like wildfire through the weakened soldiers and crowded army camps, leaving death and devastation in its wake,\u201d writes Jeanne E. Abrams in \u201cRevolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and Health.\u201d \n \n \u201cWe should have more to dread\u201d from the disease \u201cthan from the Sword of the Enemy,\u201d Washington wrote. \n \n Because Washington had already had smallpox, he was safe. \n \n Despite the risks of spreading the disease by undertaking to inoculate the soldiers in the army he commanded, in 1777 he took the momentous decision to undertake the first mass military inoculation in history. By the end of that year, with some 40,000 troops inoculated, infection rates fell from 17 percent to 1 percent. \n \n \u201cIt averted another health crisis within the Continental Army and dramatically altered the outcome of the Revolutionary War,\u201d as Benjamin A. Drew wrote in JAMA Dermatology in July, 2015. \n \n Washington, of course, lived on to become the nation\u2019s first president, albeit one still plagued by the other diseases of his era and ultimately by the state of what was then modern medicine. White McKenzie Wallenborn, a physician, described his last days in an article supplementing the Washington papers at the University of Virginia: \n \n On December 12th, 1799, George Washington in his 68th year of life, rode out around his farms on horseback from ten a.m. until about three p.m. The weather that day according to General Washington was snowing in the morning and about three inches deep. Wind at NE and mercury at 30 (30 degrees Fahrenheit). Continued snowing until about one o\u2019clock, and at about four o\u2019clock it became perfectly clear. Wind at same place-not hard. Mercury 28 (28 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Colonel Tobias Lear, George Washington\u2019s secretary, stated that the weather that day was bad, rain, hail, and snow falling alternately with a cold wind. When George Washington returned from his ride, the General\u2019s neck appeared wet, snow was hanging from his hair, and he came to dinner without changing his dress (clothes wet?). The next day, Friday December 13th, 1799, the General did not go out as usual for he had taken cold and complained of a severe sore throat. He did go out in the afternoon to mark some trees which had to be cut down. He now had hoarseness which increased in the evening. He spent the evening reading the papers, and when he met anything interesting, he read it as loud as his hoarseness would permit. On the next day, Saturday the 14th, at three o\u2019clock in the morning, he told Mrs. Washington that he was very unwell and that he had an \u201cague\u201d (paroxysmal chills). It was observed that he could hardly speak and that he breathed with difficulty. At daybreak on the 14th, Colonel Tobias Lear came in and found the General breathing with difficulty and hardly able to utter a word intelligently. A mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter was given but he (GW) could not swallow a drop and when attempted, he appeared to be distressed, convulsive, and almost suffocated. Later he tried to use a gargle of vinegar and sage tea but in attempting to gargle, he almost suffocated and when the gargle came back from the throat some phlegm followed. At eleven a.m., his swallowing had not improved. After the last bleeding it was noted that the blood came \u201cslow and thick\u201d but there was no fainting (his physicians had ordered that he be bled a number of times in the course of his illness and an incredible amount about eighty two ounces or about five pints or units of blood were removed from him). \n \n Doctors now believe Washington had acute epiglottitis, a life-threatening condition, caused by injury or infection, that causes the epligottis to swell, blocking the airways to the lungs. It was, and is still today, potentially life-threatening. \n \n Today, Wallenborn writes, doctors would perform a tracheostomy, creating a surgical airway to allow air to flow to the patient\u2019s lungs. While one of Washington\u2019s three doctors suggested such a procedure, it was new and controversial and \u201cmight not have worked anyway,\u201d Wallenborn writes. \n \n His friend, Lear, described his last moments. \n \n \u201cAt his bedside,\u201d Lear wrote, \u201cI reached for his hand. \u2018My breath cannot last long,'\u201d Washington told him. \u201c\u2018I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal,\u2019 he said. He seemed so perfectly resigned \u2014 dignified even \u2014 despite his gasping breaths \u2026\u2019I am just going,\u2019 he said. After uttering some instructions, he whispered finally, \u2018Tis well.\u2019 And then he expired.\u201d ||||| Interactive Timeline The Perpetual Challenge of Infectious Diseases. \n \n Among the many challenges to health, infectious diseases stand out for their ability to have a profound impact on the human species. Great pandemics and local epidemics alike have influenced the course of wars, determined the fates of nations and empires, and affected the progress of civilization, making infections compelling actors in the drama of human history.1-11 For 200 years, the Journal has captured the backdrop to this human drama in thousands of articles about infectious diseases and about biomedical research and public health efforts to understand, treat, control, and prevent them. \n \n The Uniqueness of Infectious Diseases Infections have distinct characteristics that, when considered together, set them apart from other diseases (Table 1Table 1 Characteristics of Infectious Diseases That Set Them Apart from Other Human Diseases.). Paramount among these characteristics is their unpredictability and their potential for explosive global effect, as exemplified by the bubonic\u2013pneumonic plague pandemic in the 14th century,1,12 the 1918 influenza pandemic,13,14 and the current pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),15 among others. Infectious diseases are usually acute and unambiguous in their nature. The onset of an infectious illness, unlike the onset of many other types of disease, in an otherwise healthy host can be abrupt and unmistakable. Moreover, in the absence of therapy, acute infectious diseases often pose an all-or-nothing situation, with the host either quickly dying or recovering spontaneously, and usually relatively promptly, often with lifelong immunity to the specific infecting pathogen. Not only are some infectious diseases transmissible to others, a unique characteristic among human diseases, but their transmission mechanisms are relatively few (including inoculation and airborne and waterborne transmission), well understood, and comparatively easy to study, both experimentally and in the field. In addition, such transmission is generally amenable to medical and public health interventions. Unlike many chronic and lifestyle-associated diseases resulting from multiple, interacting risk cofactors, most infectious diseases are caused by a single agent, the identification of which typically points the way not only to general disease-control measures (e.g., sanitation, chemical disinfection, hand washing, or vector control) but also to specific medical measures (e.g., vaccination or antimicrobial treatment). Given their nature, infectious diseases are potentially preventable with personal protection, general public health measures, or immunologic approaches such as vaccination. As preventive measures have become more effective and efficient, history has shown that certain infectious diseases, particularly those with a broad global health impact and for which there is no nonhuman host or major reservoir, can be eliminated. Such diseases include poliomyelitis, which has been eliminated in the Western Hemisphere,16 and smallpox, which has been eliminated globally.9 Another unique aspect is that the extraordinary adaptability of infectious pathogens (i.e., their replicative and mutational capacities) provides them with a temporary evolutionary advantage against pressures aimed at their destruction. These pressures include environmental factors and antimicrobial drugs, as well as the human immune response. At the same time, such adaptations provide us with opportunities to respond with new vaccine antigens, such as annually updated influenza vaccines,17 or new or different anti-infective agents. This back-and-forth struggle between human ingenuity and microbial adaptation reflects a perpetual challenge.12,18,19 Infectious diseases are closely dependent on the nature and complexity of human behavior, since they directly reflect who we are, what we do, and how we live and interact with other people, animals, and the environment.19-30 Infectious diseases are acquired specifically and directly as a result of our behaviors and lifestyles, from social gatherings, to travel and transportation, to sexual activity, to occupational exposures, to sports and recreational activities, to what we eat and drink, to our pets, to the environment \u2014 even to the way we care for the ill in hospitals and other health care environments. Moreover, microbial colonizing infections that lead to long-term carriage without disease (e.g., within the endogenous human microbiome) may influence the development of infections with exogenous microbes31,32 and also have an effect on general immunologic and physiologic homeostasis,33,34 including effects on nutritional status. Human microbiomes seem to reflect, and may even have helped to drive, human evolution.35 In this struggle, infectious diseases are intimately and uniquely related to us through our immune systems. The human immune system, including the primitive innate system and the specific adaptive system,36 has evolved over millions of years from both invertebrate and vertebrate organisms, developing sophisticated defense mechanisms to protect the host from microbes.37 In effect, the human immune system evolved as a response to the challenge of invading pathogens. Thus, it is not by accident that the fields of microbiology and immunology arose and developed in close association long before they came to be considered distinct disciplines. \n \n Disease Emergence and Reemergence Because infectious pathogens are evolutionarily dynamic, the list of diseases they cause is ever-changing and continually growing. Since newly emerging infectious agents do not arise spontaneously, they must recently have come from somewhere else, usually from animal infections, as occurred with HIV infection, influenza, and the severe acute respiratory syndrome. This interspecies transmission underscores the importance of interdigitating the study of human and animal diseases19,23,38-40 and recognizing the central role that microbial reservoirs, including those in animals, vectors, and the environment, play in human infectious diseases.19,38 Preexisting or established infectious diseases also may reemerge in different forms, as in extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis,41 or in different locations, as in West Nile virus infection in the United States,42 to cause new epidemics (Table 2Table 2 Broad Categories of Infectious Diseases.). Indeed, many human infectious diseases seem to have patterns of evolution, sometimes played out over thousands of years, in which they first emerge and cause epidemics or pandemics, become unstably adapted to human populations, undergo periodic resurgences, and eventually become endemic with the potential for future outbreaks (Figure 1Figure 1 Leading Causes of Global Deaths from Infectious Diseases.Of an estimated 58.8 million annual deaths worldwide, approximately 15.0 million (25.5%) are believed to be caused by infectious diseases. Cause-specific mortality estimates are provided by the World Health Organization.43,44 The data do not include deaths from secondary infectious causes, such as rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, liver cancer and cirrhosis, or other chronic diseases. ).12,19,43,44 \n \n Historical Perspectives and Current Status Just over a decade before the publication of the first issue of the Journal, President George Washington died of an acute infectious disease believed to have been bacterial epiglottitis.45 Washington's life reflects the history of his era and provides both a window into infectious diseases two centuries ago and a benchmark for measuring our remarkable progress since then. Washington was born in 1732, just before the deadliest diphtheria epidemic on the North American continent. He was scarred by smallpox, survived multiple debilitating bouts of malaria, suffered wound infections and abscesses, nursed his brother on a tropical island as he died of tuberculosis, and even had an influenza pandemic named after him (the Washington influenza of 1789\u20131790). During his presidency, he stayed in the then-capital city of Philadelphia while most of the government fled during the nation's deadliest yellow fever epidemic.5,12 At the time of Washington's birth, there was no well-defined concept of infection or immunity, no vaccines, almost no specific or effective treatments for infectious diseases,3,46 and little idea that any treatment or public health measure could reliably control epidemic diseases. During Washington's lifetime, infectious diseases were the defining challenges of human existence. No one alive then could have imagined the astonishing breakthroughs that lay ahead. In this regard, it is noteworthy that almost all the major advances in understanding and controlling infectious diseases have occurred in the past two centuries (Table 3Table 3 Selected Infectious Diseases of Importance from 1812 to the Present. and interactive timeline). Experimental animal-transmission studies that were conducted soon after the War of 1812 were followed by the development of better microscopes, which linked fungi to skin diseases and protozoa to mucosal diseases \u2014 for example, Alfred Donn\u00e9's 1836 work with Trichomonas vaginalis and David Gruby's studies of Candida albicans in the early 1840s. The breakthroughs in the late 1800s, which taken together provided the compelling unifying principle of infectious diseases and must surely rank among the most important advances in the medical sciences, were the characterization of specific cultivatable microorganisms and proof of their association with specific diseases. This triumph was led by the work of Davaine and Koch in establishing anthrax as the first fully characterized infectious disease.47,48 This seminal process was facilitated by the development of defined criteria for establishing causality (Koch's postulates). Additional breakthroughs followed quickly, including the discovery and characterization of pathogen-specific immune responses; the demonstration that when inactivated by heat or chemicals or grown under limiting conditions that changed certain biologic properties (e.g., attenuation), organisms or their products could safely stimulate protective responses in a host; and development of anti-infective serums and chemicals to destroy pathogens. Over the next 135 years, a wide array of vaccines and antibiotics and, more recently, antiviral agents have saved hundreds of millions of lives, greatly extended the human life span, and reduced untold suffering. Undeniably, these countermeasures against infectious disease rank among the greatest achievements in public health and medicine. History reminds us that new challenges in infectious diseases will continue to emerge and reemerge. We must be prompt in identifying them and devising new countermeasures. In this effort, we still follow the familiar pathway that was set down in the late 1800s for the identification and characterization, both clinical and epidemiologic, of the causative agent; the characterization of the human immune response to the pathogen; and the development of pathogen-specific diagnostic tests, treatment strategies, and public health prevention strategies such as vaccinations.49 \n \n Diagnosis and Characterization of Pathogens In the late 1800s, the realization that identifiable microbes caused specific diseases led to pathogen-specific medical diagnosis. Although the time-honored techniques of growing bacteria in broth or solid cultures and staining and examining them under microscopes are still important today, newer technologies have transformed the field of microbial diagnosis. Among the first emerging epidemic diseases to be identified by one such method was the hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a centuries-old disease caused by an unknown phlebovirus (Sin Nombre) that was discovered unexpectedly in 199350 by the application of a then-novel molecular genetic technique, polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This followed quickly on the 1992 discovery of the previously unknown agent causing an infectious chronic condition, Whipple's disease.51 Less than a year later, PCR-related subtraction techniques solved a century-old mystery of the cause of Kaposi's sarcoma, human herpesvirus 8.52 Now, less than two decades later, sophisticated, high-throughput, rapid sequencing of the genomes of pathogens not only dramatically hastens initial identification but also detects individual genetic variants,53 facilitating identification of the genetic basis of drug resistance. Additional gene-based diagnostic tools include microchips and other technologies that detect short sequences of many different genes or their proteins, allowing simultaneous diagnosis or diagnostic elimination of multiple pathogens. New serologic techniques such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay can be many times more sensitive than traditional techniques in detecting and measuring antibodies to pathogens. Furthermore, monoclonal antibody techniques, which involve the use of cellular clones to produce antibodies against specific pathogen epitopes, have been adapted for the purposes of diagnosis, identification of the molecular structures of pathogens, elucidation of the natural history and pathogenesis of infectious diseases, development of conformationally accurate immunogens to be used as vaccine candidates,54 and even treatment.55 Many of these data-rich approaches require sophisticated bioinformatics systems (e.g., phylogenetic comparisons and genome construction analyses). \n \n Vaccine Development Vaccines against infectious diseases such as anthrax and rabies have been produced since the late 1870s. Only in the past half century, however, have technological advances in vaccination led to dramatic changes in the field of disease prevention. The World Health Organization now estimates that each year more than 120 different types of vaccines save 2.5 million lives and with optimal uptake could save an additional 2 million.56 Trivalent combined inactivated and live attenuated poliomyelitis vaccines were licensed in 1955 and 1962, respectively; a live attenuated trivalent vaccine against three unrelated diseases (measles, mumps, and rubella) was licensed in 1971; and a variety of vaccine approaches and platforms have been introduced since then. It is now possible to determine high-resolution crystallographic structures of pathogens and use this information to design vaccines directed at the most relevant epitopes in the microbe's complex structure, an approach known as structure-based vaccine design.57 \n \n Treatment Successful treatment with pathogen-immune serum was another critical breakthrough of the late 19th century.55 This approach to therapy also encouraged scientists to develop chemicals to kill the specific pathogens that they were regularly identifying. Ehrlich succeeded first in 1910 with his magic bullet against syphilis (arsphenamine, or salvarsan58). Within two decades, a new generation of scientists was working on what would eventually be called antibiotics. As a result of these efforts, sulfa drugs were developed in 1936, and penicillin in 1943.59,60 In the United States, tuberculosis had been only partially controlled by public health measures and incompletely effective vaccines.61 It was not until the introduction of specific antituberculosis therapy in the 1950s62 that sanatoriums were emptied and cases of active disease were substantially reduced. Antibiotics have revolutionized the treatment of many other important bacterial infections and have saved many millions of lives since their introduction. When antiviral drugs were first developed in the 1960s, they did not seem to be particularly promising, with a few exceptions. In response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, however, the development of antiretroviral drugs markedly expanded the arsenal of available antiviral agents and invigorated the research-and-development pathway for these important drugs. Effective combinations of powerful antiretroviral drugs have led to substantial prolongation of the lives of millions of persons with previously almost invariably fatal HIV infection, a true landmark in therapies for infectious diseases.15,63 All antibiotic and antiviral drugs, however, share an inherent weakness: the organisms against which they are directed almost invariably evolve mechanisms of resistance. Bacteria become resistant by a variety of mechanisms.64 The evolution of antimicrobial resistance is enhanced by overuse of antibiotics in animals and by inappropriate use in humans. Many viruses, particularly RNA viruses such as influenza virus, rapidly develop mutations even in a single brief replication cycle. A number of approaches have been pursued to meet the ever-present challenge of antimicrobial resistance. The development of new classes of antibiotic, antiviral, and antiparasitic agents aimed at diverse microbial targets, often with the use of high-throughput screening of compounds,65 is strengthening and broadening the therapeutic armamentarium. In addition, combination therapies (e.g., antiretroviral agents for HIV infection and multidrug approaches to tuberculosis) have proved to be successful in slowing the emergence of resistance. \n \n Public Health Achievements Breakthroughs in the field of infectious diseases have had far-reaching effects, including the realization of the critical importance of clean water and basic sanitation and hygiene for the prevention of a great number of infectious diseases. In addition, disease-specific approaches to prevention and treatment have led in many cases to the widespread control of diseases that historically have caused substantial morbidity and mortality.66 The treatment of infectious diseases is in itself a prevention measure, limiting or preventing transmission to others. Eradication, the ultimate goal in facing the threat of an established or emerging infectious disease, is no longer unrealistic. Specifically, in addition to the millions of lives saved by vaccines and antibiotics, certain infectious diseases have been eliminated from large regions of the world or even completely eradicated, an accomplishment rarely, if ever, seen in other medical disciplines. In 1980, smallpox became the first eradicated disease,9 making this among the most momentous achievements in human disease control. In May 2011, the veterinary morbillivirus disease rinderpest was declared eradicated, and its presumed descendant, human measles virus, is now being targeted for eradication.67 Poliomyelitis has been eliminated from several regions of the world, and it is hoped that within a reasonable period, it will be eradicated globally.68 Dracunculiasis (guinea worm disease) is also almost completely eradicated.69 These are just a few examples of what has been and can be accomplished by aggressive and concerted public health measures using the tools provided by basic and clinical research. \n \n New Vistas An unanticipated outcome of the explosion of information concerning the microbial world is the recognition that a growing number of chronic diseases that were once attributed to host, environmental, or lifestyle factors or to unknown causes are actually directly or indirectly caused by infectious agents that potentially can be controlled through prevention and treatment. For example, liver cancer and cirrhosis are complications of hepatitis B and C infections, cervical cancer is a complication of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, and gastric and duodenal ulcers may result from Helicobacter pylori infection.70-72 Vaccines against two of these agents, hepatitis B and HPV, are already in use, exemplifying the concept of cancer-preventing vaccines. H. pylori infection can be cured with antibiotics, and chronic hepatitis B and C infections are being treated by means of antiviral regimens with growing success rates. Certain autoimmune conditions have also been attributed to infections. For example, enteric microbes have been associated with inflammatory arthritides, and Campylobacter jejuni and certain viruses have been associated with the Guillain\u2013Barr\u00e9 syndrome.73 In addition, with new technologies and approaches, scientists are exploring new facets of microbiology, including the role of the human microbiome in maintaining homeostasis in the ecosystems of our bodies and its possible relationship to conditions such as obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.74 \n \n The Perpetual Challenge We are living in a remarkable era. Almost all the major advances in understanding and controlling infectious diseases have occurred during the past two centuries, and momentous successes continue to accrue. These breakthroughs in the prevention, treatment, control, elimination, and potential eradication of infectious diseases are among the most important advances in the history of medicine. Nevertheless, because of the evolutionary capacity of infectious pathogens to adapt to new ecologic niches created by human endeavor, as well as to pressures directed at their elimination, we will always confront new or reemerging infectious threats. Our successes in meeting these threats have come not just from isolated scientific triumphs but also from broad approaches that complement the battle against infectious diseases on many different fronts, including constant surveillance of the microbial landscape, clinical and public health efforts, and efficient translation of new discoveries into disease-control applications. These efforts are driven by the necessity of expecting the unexpected and being prepared to respond when the unexpected occurs. It is a battle that has been well fought for more than two centuries but that will almost certainly still be raging, in now-unimagined forms, two centuries from now. The challenges are truly perpetual. Our response to these challenges must be perpetual as well. \n \n Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org. ||||| By White McKenzie Wallenborn, M.D. \n \n On December 12th, 1799, George Washington in his 68th year of life, rode out around his farms on horseback from ten a.m. until about three p.m. The weather that day according to General Washington was snowing in the morning and about three inches deep. Wind at NE and mercury at 30 (30 degrees Fahrenheit). Continued snowing until about one o\u2019clock, and at about four o\u2019clock it became perfectly clear. Wind at same place-not hard. Mercury 28 (28 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Colonel Tobias Lear, George Washington\u2019s secretary, stated that the weather that day was bad, rain, hail, and snow falling alternately with a cold wind. When George Washington returned from his ride, the General\u2019s neck appeared wet, snow was hanging from his hair, and he came to dinner without changing his dress (clothes wet?). \n \n The next day, Friday December 13th, 1799, the General did not go out as usual for he had taken cold and complained of a severe sore throat. He did go out in the afternoon to mark some trees which had to be cut down. He now had hoarseness which increased in the evening. He spent the evening reading the papers, and when he met anything interesting, he read it as loud as his hoarseness would permit. \n \n On the next day, Saturday the 14th, at three o\u2019clock in the morning, he told Mrs. Washington that he was very unwell and that he had an \u201cague\u201d (paroxysmal chills). It was observed that he could hardly speak and that he breathed with difficulty. At daybreak on the 14th, Colonel Tobias Lear came in and found the General breathing with difficulty and hardly able to utter a word intelligently. A mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter was given but he (GW) could not swallow a drop and when attempted, he appeared to be distressed, convulsive, and almost suffocated. Later he tried to use a gargle of vinegar and sage tea but in attempting to gargle, he almost suffocated and when the gargle came back from the throat some phlegm followed. At eleven a.m., his swallowing had not improved. After the last bleeding it was noted that the blood came \u201cslow and thick\u201d but there was no fainting (his physicians had ordered that he be bled a number of times in the course of his illness and an incredible amount about eighty two ounces or about five pints or units of blood were removed from him). At half past four o\u2019clock, Washington gave directions about his will and at about five he again tried sitting up but remained so only half an hour. In the course of the afternoon, he appeared in great pain and distress from difficulty in breathing, and frequently changed his position in bed. At about eight o\u2019clock it was noted that his condition remained unchanged and did so until about ten minutes before his decease (death) when breathing became easier. He died between ten and eleven p.m. December 14th, 1799. \n \n His primary symptoms in the order of their occurrence were \u2013 severe sore throat; hoarseness; cough, chills, difficulty with breathing; difficulty with swallowing; expectoration (spitting-? drooling); fever; loss of voice-, and suffocation. \n \n From the observations of Colonel Lear, Dr. James Craik, Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, an Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown, and the clinical course of his illness, I think that it is very reasonable and possible to make a determination of the disease process that was the cause of George Washington\u2019s death. He had acute epiglottitis (supraglottitis) which is a severe, rapidly progressing infection of the epiglottis and surrounding tissues that may be quickly fatal because of sudden respiratory (airway) obstruction by the inflamed structures. The epiglottis is located at the base of the tongue and is the most superior part of the larynx (voice box). It is at the very entrance to the airway which goes through the larynx to the trachea and lungs. Swelling of this structure is painful and tends to rapidly obstruct the airway and also the entrance to the hypopharynx (area just above the esophagus) and the esophagus (gullet). With acute epiglottitis, George Washington would have had great difficulty breathing, talking, and swallowing and these he certainly had. \n \n The onset of epiglottitis is usually acute and fulminating. Sore throat, hoarseness, dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) , and respiratory distress accompanied by drooling, shortness of breath, rapid pulse, and inspiratory stridor (harsh high pitched respiratory noise heard while the patient is inhaling [breathing in]) develop in rapid order. Death from this dysorder is caused by obstruction of the patient\u2019s airway and is very painful and frightening. \n \n The other possible dysorders suggested by some as being the disease process that caused George Washington\u2019s death were acute diphtheria (laryngeal diphtheria), quinsy, acute laryngitis, and Ludwig\u2019s angina. However none of these diagnoses quite fit the description of Washington\u2019s terminal illness but on the other hand acute epiglottitis does explain all of his symptoms and his demise. His illness is a classic \u201ctextbook\u201d case of acute epiglottitis. \n \n Laryngeal diphtheria is an unlikely diagnosis for several reasons. General Washington was reported to have survived a case of \u201cblack canker\u201d as a child. This would have been diphtheria and would have given him lifetime immunity against future attacks of diphtheria more than likely. There were no other reported cases of diphtheria in his household or farm population so the likelihood that he would have picked up a case of diphtheria was remote. Diphtheria in an adult is a very rare occurrence. Although this diagnosis is a possibility because it can produce laryngeal obstruction and respiratory distress, it just doesn\u2019t fit the picture. \n \n Quinsy is the term used to describe a peritonsillar abscess. Quinsy produces a sore throat but it is almost always unilateral (on only one side of the throat) and produces symptoms referable to that side only e.g. soreness; swelling of the neck on that side; and another symptom: trismus (a lockjaw-like symptom where the patient cannot open their mouth). This diagnosis also does not fit the disease process from which General Washington died. \n \n Acute laryngitis in an adult is not usually a life threatening dysorder. \n \n Ludwig\u2019s Angina is an infection in the floor of the mouth in front of or lateral to the tongue. It usually results from a dental or periodontal infection. George Washington had no teeth..ergo.. not a likely diagnosis. \n \n It would be improper for today\u2019s medical practitioners to be critical of the physicians of George Washington\u2019s day if they were delivering the standard of care that other physicians of that era were giving to their patients. It would appear that Dr. James Craik, Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, and Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown were well trained as physicians, were honest and caring, and gave the kind of medical care that their peers would have given. Today we know that many of their methods were wrong and we would do things differently. If Drs. Craik and Brown would have encouraged Dr. Dick to perforate Washington\u2019s trachea (tracheostomy), it might have allowed him to survive the acute illness and live on for sometime afterwards. However this procedure was new and controversial so they were not totally wrong to oppose it. Technically it might not have worked anyway \u2026 but who knows? Today we find the removal of about eighty two ounces of blood (about five pints or units of blood) from a sick patient in less than sixteen hours to be incredible. However this was the method of treatment being taught in those days. It was the treatment of choice for many diseases and the complications of using this method were not comprehended by the physicians of that day. I certainly have a great deal of compassion for George Washington\u2019s physicians who were attempting to save his life by using the methods that they thought best for him. I am also filled with sadness that such a remarkable man and leader should have such a painful and frightening end to his life. \n \n White McKenzie Wallenborn, M.D. \n \n Clinical Professor (Ret.) \n \n Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery \n \n University of Virginia School of Medicine \n \n November 5, 1997 \n \n References \n \n In the study of George Washington\u2019s terminal illness, a number of textbooks of Otolaryngology were consulted. William Abbot and Dorothy Twohig, Editor in Chief of The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia, provided a number of valuable articles written about George Washington\u2019s death and his overall medical history. By combining the textbook articles, the journal articles, and my own clinical experiences, I was able to reach the conclusions noted above. The journals used are listed below: \n \n Barker, Creighton. \u201cA Case Report,\u201d The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 9 (1936), 185-87. \n \n Blanton, Wyndham B. \u201cWashington\u2019s Medical Knowledge and Its Sources,\u201d Annals of Medical History, 4 (1932), 52-61. \n \n Brickell, John. \u201cObservations on the Medical Treatment of General Washington in His Illness,\u201d Transactions of the College of Physicians, 25 (1903), 90-93. \n \n Courtney, John F. \u201cGeorge Washington\u2019s Final Illness,\u201d Resident and Staff Physician, 15 (1969), 84-. \n \n Knox, J. H. Mason, Jr. \u201cThe Medical History of George Washington, His Physicians, Friends and Advisers,\u201d Bullentin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, 1 (1933), 174-91. \n \n Lewis, Fielding 0. \u201cWashington\u2019s Last Illness,\u201d Annals of Medical History, 4 (1932), 245-48. \n \n Nydegger, James A. \u201cThe Last Illness of George Washington,\u201d Medical Record, 92 (1917), 1128. \n \n Wells, Walter A. \u201cLast Illness and Death of Washington,\u201d Virginia Medical Monthly, 53 (1926-27), 629-42. \n \n Willius, F. A., and Keys, T. E. \u201cThe Medical History of George Washington (1732-1799),\u201d Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo Clinic, 17 (1942), 92-96, 107-112, 116-121. \n \n \u00a9 1999 White McKenzie Wallenborn", "summary": "\u2013 \"I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation,\" the National Archives quote George Washington in a letter to his brother following the French and Indian War. He wasn't kidding. In a piece written for Washington's birthday this week, the Washington Post reveals America's first president was nigh indestructible. In his lifetime, Washington bested smallpox, malaria, infections, abscesses, tuberculosis, dysentery, and a boil \"the size of two fists.\" And that's not even mentioning the battles he survived. Washington claimed that during the French and Indian War, four bullets ripped through his coat and two horses were shot while he rode them. He apparently had so many close calls he was rumored to be dead. Yet somehow he managed to live to 67. Washington's resilience was all the more impressive as he was living at time with, as the New England Journal of Medicine puts it, \"no well-defined concept of infection...no vaccines, almost no specific or effective treatments for infections diseases.\" As an illustration of this point, Washington finally died in 1799 when he came down with a sore throat and chills after riding around his property in the snow, according to the Washington Papers. Doctors tried everything to cure him\u2014from molasses mixed with butter, to vinegar mixed with sage tea, to removing five pints of blood from the former president. None of it worked. A friend described Washington's \"dignified\" final words, which were\u2014frankly\u2014a long time coming: \"I am just going...Tis well.\" (Thomas Jefferson's home is getting a renovation with slave Sally Hemings in mind.)"}
{"document": "Despite the many number of studies examining workaholism, large-scale studies have been lacking. The present study utilized an open web-based cross-sectional survey assessing symptoms of psychiatric disorders and workaholism among 16,426 workers (M age = 37.3 years, SD = 11.4, range = 16\u201375 years). Participants were administered the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, the Obsession-Compulsive Inventory-Revised, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Bergen Work Addiction Scale, along with additional questions examining demographic and work-related variables. Correlations between workaholism and all psychiatric disorder symptoms were positive and significant. Workaholism comprised the dependent variable in a three-step linear multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Basic demographics (age, gender, relationship status, and education) explained 1.2% of the variance in workaholism, whereas work demographics (work status, position, sector, and annual income) explained an additional 5.4% of the variance. Age (inversely) and managerial positions (positively) were of most importance. The psychiatric symptoms (ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression) explained 17.0% of the variance. ADHD and anxiety contributed considerably. The prevalence rate of workaholism status was 7.8% of the present sample. In an adjusted logistic regression analysis, all psychiatric symptoms were positively associated with being a workaholic. The independent variables explained between 6.1% and 14.4% in total of the variance in workaholism cases. Although most effect sizes were relatively small, the study\u2019s findings expand our understanding of possible psychiatric predictors of workaholism, and particularly shed new insight into the reality of adult ADHD in work life. The study\u2019s implications, strengths, and shortcomings are also discussed. \n \n Introduction \n \n Workaholism has been defined as \u201cbeing overly concerned about work, driven by an uncontrollable work motivation, and to investing so much time and effort to work that it impairs other important life areas\u201d [1] (p. 8). Research into this timely topic has heavily expanded over the past few decades [2,3], and concerns have been raised regarding the downsides of workaholism [4,5]. In order to prevent workaholism developing, there is a need to identify factors involved with this compulsive work pattern\u2013especially since modern technology (i.e., laptops, tablets, smartphones) has blurred the natural lines between home and the workplace. \n \n Given this evolving context, the present study aimed to identify risk factors associated with workaholism, and to enrich the existing literature in several ways. Previous workaholism research has often used invalid measures, small samples, and insufficient theoretical frameworks [1,6,7]. In this study, a contemporary theoretical framework of addiction to conceptualize workaholism was applied, and validated scales were utilized to investigate whether several psychiatric symptoms were related to workaholism among a large sample of employees. \n \n The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) reconceptualized addictive behavior to include behavioral addictions akin to more traditional drug addictions [8]. Two profound changes were made: (i) Gambling Disorder (formerly pathological gambling) was reclassified as a behavioral addiction rather than a disorder of impulse control [9], (ii) and Internet Gaming Disorder was introduced into Section 3 of the DSM-5 (Emerging Measures and Models) [8]. However, at present, although these changes represent a substantial recognition of behavioral addictions in general, most potentially addictive behaviors are not yet formally defined as such\u2013including workaholism. \n \n As the line between excessive enthusiasm and a genuine addiction is difficult to define, scholars have typically used specific criteria to define the border between addictive and non-addictive behavior [10]. These criteria involve being totally preoccupied by work (salience), using work to alleviate emotional stress (mood modification), gradually working longer and longer hours to get the same mood modifying effects (tolerance), suffering emotional and physical distress if unable to work (withdrawal), sacrificing other obligations (personal relationships with partner and children, social activities, exercising, etc.) because of work (conflict), desiring or attempting to control the number of hours spent working without success (relapse), and suffering some kind of harm or negative consequence as either a direct or indirect result of the excessive working (problems) [11,12]. Because previous workaholism scales did not cover these addiction components, the seven-item Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS) was specifically developed in order to assess this behavior using the same criteria as other addictions [13]. Consequently, the BWAS is based on and embedded within general addiction theory [10], and has demonstrated robust psychometric properties across studies in different countries [13\u201315]. \n \n Via mobile technology hardware, work is highly accessible to anyone and anywhere, and has the potential to facilitate and enhance workaholism tendencies [16,17]. However, there has been a perceivable paucity in the number of reliable prevalence estimates of workaholism. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses tentatively report estimates from 5% to over 25% [14,18]. According to a recent (and, to date, only) nationally representative study of Norwegian workers, 8.3% were categorized as workaholics [14]. Research has also shown that age is inversely related to workaholism [14,19]. Although a few studies have reported gender differences [20,21], workaholism appears to be unrelated to both gender and marital status [2,14,19]. Research has further demonstrated that higher education and having managerial duties are associated with workaholism [13,19,20,22,23]. A few studies have reported higher levels of workaholism in certain lines of work (e.g., commercial trade, agriculture, medicine, communication, consultancy, etc.) as well as sectors (private and self-employment) [19,20,22\u201324]. For some, workaholism has been described as a money disorder [25], and one study associated it with having a higher income [20]. This has good face validity because working hard usually means increased salary/earnings. Given these findings, it is expected that younger, well-educated workers, in self-employed and private sector, with managerial responsibilities and higher income will report higher scores on the Bergen Work Addiction Scale in the present study (Hypothesis 1). \n \n Research have consistently demonstrated that Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of various chemical and non-chemical addictions [26]. However, this psychiatric disorder has never been empirically examined (or theoretically associated with) workaholism. ADHD is prevalent in 2.5\u20135% of the adult population, and is typically manifested by inattentiveness and lack of focus, and/or impulsivity, and excessive physical activity [8,26]. Individuals with ADHD may often stop working due to their disorder, and may have trouble in getting work health insurance as they are regarded as a risk group [26]. For this reason, the present authors hypothesize that individuals with ADHD may compensate for this by over-working to meet the expectations required to hold down a job. Although this is a contentious issue, there are a number of reasons why ADHD may be relevant to workaholism. \n \n Firstly, the present authors argue that the inattentive nature of individuals with ADHD causes them to spend time beyond the typical working day (i.e., evenings and weekends) to accomplish what is done by their fellow employees within normal working hours (i.e., the compensation hypothesis). In addition, as they may have a hard time concentrating while at work due to environmental noise and distractions (especially office work in open landscape environments), they might find it easier to work after co-workers have left their working environment or work from home. Their attentive shortcomings may also cause them to overly check for errors on the tasks given, since they often experience careless mistakes due to their inattentiveness [26]. This may cause a cycle of procrastination, work binges, exhaustion, and\u2013in some cases\u2013a fear of imperfection. Although ADHD is associated with lack of focus, such individuals often have the ability to hyper-focus once they find something interesting\u2013often being unable to detach themselves from the task (e.g., flow) [27,28]. \n \n Secondly, the present authors\u2019 argue that the impulsive nature of individuals with ADHD causes them to say \u2018yes\u2019 and taking on many tasks without them thinking ahead, and taking on more work than they can realistically handle\u2013eventually leading to workaholic levels of activity. Thirdly, it is also argued that the hyperactive nature of individuals with ADHD and the need to be constantly active without being able to relax, causes such individuals to keep on working in an attempt to alleviate their restless thoughts and behaviors. Consequently, work stress might act as a stimulant, and they may choose active (and often multiple) jobs with high pressure, deadlines and activity (e.g., media, sales, restaurant work)\u2013where they have the opportunity to multitask and constantly shift between tasks (e.g., Type-A personality behavior) [26,29]. In line with this, Type-A personality has often been associated\u2013and sometimes used interchangeably\u2013with workaholism in previous research [2,30]. This line of reasoning also relates to the workaholic type portrayed by Robinson [31], in which he actually denoted \u201cattention-deficit workaholics\u201d (who tend to start many projects but become bored easily and need to be stimulated at all times). His description of the \u201crelentless\u201d type also corresponds well with ADHD symptoms (i.e., unstoppable in working fast and meeting deadlines, often with many projects going on simultaneously). In other words, these types may utilize work pressure to obtain focus, constantly seeking stimulation, crisis, and excitement\u2013and therefore like risky jobs. \n \n Finally, people with ADHD are often mistaken as being lazy, irresponsible, or unintelligent because of their difficulties with planning, time management, organizing, and decision-making [26]. Feeling misunderstood might cause individuals with ADHD to push themselves to prove these misconceptions as wrong\u2013and resulting in an excessive and/or compulsive working pattern. Such individuals are often intelligent, but may feel forced or motivated to start up their own business (i.e., entrepreneurs), as they find it troubling to adjust to standard work schedules or organizational boundaries. Previous research has highlighted that workaholism is prevalent among entrepreneurs and the self-employed [24,32]. Often failing in other aspects of life (e.g., family) [26], work for such individuals may become even more important to them (e.g., self-efficacy). In accord with the aforementioned line of reasoning and findings, it is hypothesized that ADHD symptoms will be positively associated with workaholism in the present study (Hypothesis 2). \n \n Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is another underlying psychiatric disorder that increases the likelihood of developing an addiction [33]. Full-blown OCD occurs in approximately 2\u20133% of children and adults, and is commonly manifested by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors of checking, obsessing, ordering, hoarding, washing, and/or neutralizing [8,34,35]. It has been suggested that addictive behaviors might represent a coping and/or escape mechanism of OCD symptoms, or as an OCD-behavior that eventually becomes an addiction in itself [36]. Previous workaholic typologies have incorporated the \u201ccompulsive-dependent\u201d and \u201cperfectionistic\u201d types [37], and some empirical studies have demonstrated that obsessive-compulsive traits are present among workaholics [2,38,39]. The OCD tendency of having the need to arrange things in a certain way (i.e., a strong need for control) and obsessing over details to the point of paralysis\u2013may predispose workers with such traits to develop workaholic working patterns [31,37,40,41]. Therefore, it is hypothesized that OCD symptoms will be positively related to workaholism in the present study (Hypothesis 3). \n \n Other psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression may also increase the risk of developing an addiction [33]. Approximately 30% of people will suffer from an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, and 20% will have at least one episode of depression [34,35]. These conditions often occur simultaneously, as most people who are depressed also experience acute anxiety [36]. Anxiety and/or depression can lead to addiction, and vice versa [36]. A number of studies have previously reported a link between anxiety, depression, and workaholism [2,7,42,43]. Furthermore, it is known that workaholism (in some instances) develops as an attempt to reduce uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and depression. Working hard is praised and honored in modern society, and thus serves as a legitimate behavior for individuals to combat or alleviate negative feelings\u2013and to feel better about themselves and raise their self-esteem [10,11]. Consequently, it is hypothesized that there will be a positive association between anxiety, depression, and workaholism (Hypothesis 4). Against this background, data were analyzed from a large sample in order to investigate whether individual and work-related demographics and psychiatric symptoms in terms of ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression could predict workaholism (Hypotheses 1\u20134). ||||| A large national Norwegian study shows that workaholism frequently co-occurs with ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression. \n \n Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway have examined the associations between workaholism and psychiatric disorders among 16,426 working adults. \n \n \"Workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics,\" says researcher and Clinical Psychologist Specialist Cecilie Schou Andreassen, at the Department of Psychosocial Science, at the University of Bergen (UiB), and visiting scholar at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. \n \n Workaholics score higher on all clinical states \n \n The study showed that workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics. Among workaholics, the main findings were that: \n \n 32.7 per cent met ADHD criteria (12.7 per cent among non-workaholics). \n \n 25.6 per cent OCD criteria (8.7 per cent among non-workaholics). \n \n 33.8 per cent met anxiety criteria (11.9 per cent among non-workaholics). \n \n 8.9 per cent met depression criteria (2.6 per cent among non-workaholics). \n \n \"Thus, taking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues. Whether this reflects overlapping genetic vulnerabilities, disorders leading to workaholism or, conversely, workaholism causing such disorders, remain uncertain,\" says Schou Andreassen. \n \n The pioneering study, published in the open-access journal PLOS One, is co-authored by researchers from Nottingham Trent University and Yale University. \n \n Affects identification of disorders \n \n According to Schou Andreassen, the findings clearly highlight the importance of further investigating neurobiological deviations related to workaholic behaviour. \n \n \"In wait for more research, physicians should not take for granted that a seemingly successful workaholic does not have ADHD-related or other clinical features. Their considerations affect both the identification and treatment of these disorders,\" says Schou Andreassen. \n \n Seven diagnostic criteria for workaholism \n \n The researchers used seven valid criteria when drawing the line between addictive and non-addictive behaviour. \n \n Experiences occurring over the past year are rated from 1 (never) to 5 (always): \n \n You think of how you can free up more time to work. \n \n You spend much more time working than initially intended. \n \n You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness or depression. \n \n You have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them. \n \n You become stressed if you are prohibited from working. \n \n You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities, and/or exercise because of your work. \n \n You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health. \n \n Scoring 4 (often) or 5 (always) on four or more criteria identify a workaholic. \n \n Accordingly, the Bergen Work Addiction Scale operationalizes workaholism by the same symptoms as traditional addictions: salience, mood modification, conflict, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse and problems. \n \n In line with previous research, 7.8 per cent of the current sample classified as workaholics, which is close to an estimate (8.3 per cent) found in a (and, to date, only) nationally representative study conducted by Dr. Andreassen and colleagues in 2014. ||||| Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more.", "summary": "\u2013 Spending late nights at the office and missing a kid's piano recital or three might be a sign of a deeper psychiatric problem, according to a study published last week in PLOS One. Researches found workaholism was statistically linked with anxiety, depression, OCD, and ADHD. \u201cWorkaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics,\" researcher Cecilie Schou Andreassen says in a press release. Researchers found 32.7% of workaholics had ADHD versus 12.7% of non-workaholics; 25.6% had OCD versus 8.7% of non-workaholics; 33.8% had anxiety versus 11.9% of non-workaholics; and 8.9% had depression versus 2.6% of non-workaholics. Without further research, the nature of the relationship between workaholism and common psychiatric conditions is unclear. But Schou Andreassen notes, \u201cTaking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues.\" Researchers found 7.8% of the nearly 16,500 adults studied were workaholics, which they determined with a series of seven statements participants could rank, including, \u201cYou think of how you can free up more time to work\u201d and \u201cYou become stressed if you are prohibited from working.\u201d But not everyone is convinced. \u201cAny human behavior can be turned into a disease,\u201d a professor at Liverpool University tells the Financial Times. \u201cIt\u2019s this tendency to pathologize the usual messy realities of life, of which work is one.\u201d (Here's why we shouldn't have to find meaning in work.)"}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Two days after CNN first reported that five women said \"Game Change\" co-author and journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed or assaulted them during his time at ABC News, the number of accusers has grown to at least a dozen women, including four who are now sharing their accounts for the first time. Another woman, who shared her account in CNN's initial article on the condition her name not be published, is now speaking out on the record. \n \n The new accusations from the four women include that Halperin masturbated in front of an ABC News employee in his office and that he violently threw another woman against a restaurant window before attempting to kiss her, and that after she rebuffed him he called her and told her she would never work in politics or media. The alleged incidents occurred while Halperin was in a position of significant authority at ABC News, while the women were young and had little power. \n \n Halperin denies that he masturbated in front of anyone, that he physically assaulted anyone, or that he threatened anyone in the way described in this story. \n \n In a statement provided to CNN Friday evening, Halperin said, \"I am profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated.\" Halperin said that in recent days, as he has read accounts of women he worked with at ABC News, he has felt \"profound guilt.\" He said that for several years, around his departure from ABC News, he \"had weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner.\" He additionally said that his behavior had not continued after he left ABC News. (Halperin's full statement appears at the bottom of this article.) \n \n Related: Five women accuse journalist and 'Game Change' co-author Mark Halperin of sexual harassment \n \n The first of the four new accusers, who was at the time of the incident an ABC News desk assistant in her early 20s, told CNN she asked Halperin if she could meet with him for career advice in either 1997 or 1998. It was after 10 p.m. when she went into his office, she said. During their conversation, Halperin began to masturbate behind his desk while staring at her, the woman said. \n \n \"I sat in a chair across from him,\" she told CNN. \"He was behind a wooden desk so I couldn't see him from the waist down. As we had our conversation about my career he was masturbating. There was no question about it.\" \n \n \"I pretended like I didn't know what was going on and we talked a bit more and then he abruptly wrapped up the conversation,\" she continued. \n \n The woman told CNN it was clear what Halperin was doing. \"There was an up and down motion,\" she said. \n \n \"I don't know if he made any sound at the end or how it was clear to me that he had climaxed,\" she said. \"But it was clear that he was satisfied -- like he stopped making that motion and stopped staring at me.\" \n \n A longtime friend of the woman's told CNN that the woman had told him her story years ago. \n \n The second woman told CNN she met Halperin in the late 1990s while she was interning at the White House. \n \n \"At the end of my internship, Mark said to me, 'When you graduate from college, if you're looking for a job, call me.' And I was super flattered and really excited. So when I graduated, I called Mark Halperin,\" she said. \n \n The woman told CNN that Halperin took her to lunch in Midtown Manhattan. They didn't talk about her career or jobs at all throughout the lunch, but she assumed that he knew it was why he called and that the topic would be addressed later. At the end of the lunch, after they walked out of the restaurant, she said, she extended her hand for him to shake it. Halperin, she said, had other ideas. \n \n \"He put both hands on my arms and threw me against the window of the restaurant hard. So my head banged against the window hard, in a way I thought people inside were going to think something terrible had happened to me,\" she said, adding, \"This was rough, and hard, and violent. And not in a seductive way -- in a way that telegraphs some anger and meanness.\" \n \n \"And he lunged at me,\" she continued, \"with his body pressed against mine against the window and came at me with his open mouth.\" \n \n The woman said she was able to avoid his attempt to kiss her, get out from under him and walk away. About 10 minutes later, she said, he called her. \n \n \"I was really hoping he would be calling to apologize. And he said something to the effect of, 'You are never going to get a job. You're never going to be hired in politics or media. Why would anyone ever hire you?' And that's when I broke down and started crying,\" she told CNN. \n \n Two friends of the woman told CNN that the woman had told them about the incident more than a decade ago. \n \n A third woman, who worked as a desk assistant on \"World News Tonight,\" told CNN that Halperin hit on her in the office during the Fall of 2006. The woman provided CNN excerpts from the journal she kept at the time that she told CNN referenced Halperin, although it only referred to the man as \"an older man who is involved with someone else and has a powerful position at ABC.\" \n \n \"He cornered me in the coffee closet, and introduced himself,\" the journal said. \"And knowing of course who he is, his national significance, and his importance in news, I squandered (sic) in nervousness. I noticed he had been eying me... he's in the newsroom a lot... but figured he was looking at the monitors behind me.\" \n \n Later, the woman wrote in her journal, the man pulled her aside when she was alone and \"He whispered -- how old are you, do you have a boyfriend, and do you understand how important it is that we remain secretive? With that he told me he wanted to meet me in his office before I left for the night. Knowing perfectly well that his intentions were wrong, I went to him anyway -- if anything to save my dignity and stand up for myself for seeming more interested or suggestive than I was.\" \n \n At that time, the woman's account in her journal said, the man told her he was \"extremely attracted\" to her. The woman told Halperin it was best if they remained professional, but he didn't listen. \n \n \"As I gathered my things to leave, he leaned in to kiss me. I turned my head away, but he would not relent,\" she wrote in the journal. \"So in the awkwardness and pressure of the moment, I let him put his lips on mine. It was nothing -- not a kiss, just lips on lips. And he smelled like makeup. I went home, wanting to cry and vomit.\" \n \n The woman told CNN that what Halperin did was \"part of the reason I didn't go for an off-air position,\" the term ABC News used to describe reporters who were embedded with presidential campaigns. \n \n \"I didn't want to work with him,\" she said, later adding the whole episode contributed to her decision to leave journalism all together. \n \n The woman, at the time, confided in a close friend. The friend told CNN she had told him the story years ago. \n \n A fourth woman, who was a 19-year-old ABC News intern in the summer of 1995, told CNN she was assigned to the political unit. She said she was working on a project when Halperin personally volunteered one night to assist her. He said he would go with her to a museum in New York City to review some archived CBS footage. \n \n \"I remember thinking to myself he's got a million associate producers, so why is he going with the intern to do research?\" the woman recalled to CNN, but said at the same time she was \"very impressed\" by him and thrilled he'd want to help her with the assignment. \n \n The woman said the booths for reviewing footage at the museum were only meant for one person, but Halperin told her \"he want[ed] to share\" one. \n \n It was a tight fit, the woman said, so \"our cheeks [were] touching.\" \n \n \"And then I look over and he has a massive boner. And our legs are touching,\" she said. \"And at this point, I just flew up and got up. And he said, 'The night's not over! We need to end it with a margarita.'\" \n \n The woman said she declined. \n \n The four new accounts bring the total number of women who have accused Halperin of sexual harassment to at least one dozen. Five women made accusations in CNN's original report Wednesday night, the Washington Post included an on-the-record account in an article it published Thursday night, journalist Emily Miller wrote on Twitter that she had been \"attacked\" by Halperin in the past, and on Thursday night a former CNN producer published an op-ed on CNN.com in which she accused him of sexually harassing her in his office at ABC News when she was just out of college, before she went to work at CNN. \n \n Related: Why I'm speaking up about Mark Halperin, and why I stayed silent so long \n \n In a Friday statement, an ABC News spokesperson told CNN that the company takes issues of harassment seriously and would like to encourage anyone who has been subjected to such treatment to \"come forward so we can address them immediately.\" \n \n \"While Mark left ABC News over a decade ago and no complaints were made during his tenure, we hold everyone at ABC News accountable for their behavior and how they conduct themselves,\" the spokesperson said. \"We know that our people do their best work in an environment where they feel respected, safe and supported. Harassment or retaliation of any kind is never acceptable.\" \n \n In addition to the new accounts, Lara Setrakian, who was one of the five women whose stories were included in CNN's Wednesday night report without her name attached, is now going on the record, both with CNN and in an op-ed for the Washington Post published Friday afternoon. In CNN's original article, she said Halperin had grabbed her breasts during an encounter in his office; he had denied doing so. She told CNN on Friday that Halperin's denial is false. \n \n \"I understand why he feels the need to deny it,\" Setrakian said. \"But it's not true. What he said is not true. ... There's absolutely no question of what happened in terms of unwanted physical contact.\" \n \n Setrakian said it \"hurt to see [Halperin] rise and rise without any accountability.\" \n \n \"It felt like the world was so stacked,\" she told CNN. \"It felt profoundly unfair to have feelings of anxiety as a woman in media while watching someone who was clearly misbehaving rise and rise in our industry with no apology, no thought as to how we felt before, no effort to apologize. No effort to reach out to us.\" \n \n Setrakian said now she is happy Halperin issued a form of an apology, but she wants to know what Halperin will do \"to make it right.\" She told CNN the incident changed her. \n \n \"It made me hyper-conscious. First, it made me much more skeptical of people's intentions,\" she said. \"I think it made me hyper-sensitive to the idea that my career will depend on who finds me sexually attractive. And if the time comes when they don't I will be at a massive disadvantage. That upset me tremendously. And it made me move away from television. It made me feel like I had an expiration date.\" \n \n Mark Halperin's full Friday evening statement: \n \n I am profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated. \n \n The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. That new awareness is, of course, a positive development. For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it. As I said earlier in the week, my behavior was wrong. It caused fear and anxiety for women who were only seeking to do their jobs. \n \n In recent days I have closely read the accounts of women with whom I worked at ABC News. I have not read these accounts looking for discrepancies or inconsistencies. Instead, in almost every case, I have recognized conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility, some involving junior ABC News personnel and women just starting out in the news business. \n \n Many of the accounts conveyed by journalists working on stories about me or that I have read after publication have not been particularly detailed (and many were anonymous) making it difficult for me to address certain specifics. But make no mistake: I fully acknowledge and apologize for conduct that was often aggressive and crude. \n \n Towards the end of my time at ABC News, I recognized I had a problem. No one had sued me, no one had filed a human resources complaint against me, no colleague had confronted me. But I didn't need a call from HR to know that I was a selfish, immature person, who was behaving in a manner that had to stop. \n \n For several years around my departure from ABC News, I had weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner. \n \n Those who have worked with me in the past decade know that my conduct in subsequent jobs at TIME, Bloomberg, NBC News, and Showtime has not been what it was at ABC. I did not engage in improper behavior with colleagues or subordinates. If you spoke to my co-workers in those four places (men and women alike), I am confident you would find that I had a very different reputation than I had at ABC News because I conducted myself in a very different manner. \n \n Some of the allegations that have been made against me are not true. But I realize that is a small point in the scheme of things. Again, I bear responsibility for my outrageous conduct at ABC News. \n \n I hope that not only will women going forward be more confident in speaking up, but also that we as an industry and society can create an atmosphere that no longer tolerates this kind of behavior. \n \n I know I can never do enough to make up for the harm I caused. I will be spending time with my family and friends, as I work to make amends and contributions both large and small. ||||| FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin\u2019s publisher has canceled the... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin\u2019s publisher has canceled the book he was to co-write about the 2016 election. Penguin Press announced Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017, that... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin\u2019s publisher has canceled the book he was to co-write about the 2016 election. Penguin Press announced Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017, that... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016 file photo, author and producer Mark Halperin appears at the Showtime Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Halperin\u2019s publisher has canceled the... (Associated Press) \n \n LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 CNN reported Friday that four more women have leveled allegations of sexual harassment against journalist Mark Halperin. \n \n The news channel said that one woman claimed Halperin masturbated in her presence after she went to his ABC News office to seek advice from him about her career at the news division, where she was a desk assistant. \n \n CNN said a second woman alleged that the \"Game Change\" co-author threw her against a restaurant window and threatened to derail her career after she rebuffed his attempt to kiss her. \n \n The woman, who told CNN she met Halperin when she was interning at the White House, said he called her shortly after the encounter and warned that she'd never be hired in media or politics. \n \n The four women, who were not identified in the CNN report, said the encounters took place between the late 1980s and 2006, during which time Halperin worked at ABC News in influential positions including political director. \n \n CNN said that Halperin denied that he masturbated in front of anyone or physically assaulted or threatened anyone. \n \n The two other women included in CNN's report: One who worked as a desk assistant at ABC News and who claimed Halperin forced her into a kiss, and an intern who said he squeezed into a small footage-reviewing booth with her and became visibly aroused. \n \n The latest allegations bring the number of women accusing him of sexual misconduct to about 12. \n \n Halperin issued a lengthy apology on Twitter, saying he was \"profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated.\" \n \n \"The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. That new awareness is, of course, a positive development. For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it,\" he said in the post. \n \n But counseling he sought after leaving the network changed his behavior, he said. \n \n \"Those who have worked with me in the past decade know that my conduct in subsequent jobs at TIME, Bloomberg, NBC News, and Showtime has not been what it was at ABC. I did not engage in improper behavior with colleagues or subordinates,\" Halperin said. \n \n The journalist has been suspended from his role as a MSNBC contributor, while a follow-up to 2010's \"Game Change\" was canceled by Penguin Press and HBO dropped plans for a miniseries based on the book about the 2016 election.", "summary": "\u2013 CNN reported Friday that four more women have leveled allegations of sexual harassment against journalist Mark Halperin. The news channel said that one woman claimed Halperin masturbated in her presence after she went to his ABC News office to seek advice from him about her career at the news division, where she was a desk assistant. CNN said a second woman alleged that the Game Change co-author threw her against a restaurant window and threatened to derail her career after she rebuffed his attempt to kiss her. The woman, who told CNN she met Halperin when she was interning at the White House, said he called her shortly after the encounter and warned that she'd never be hired in media or politics. The four women, who were not identified in the CNN report, said the encounters took place between the late 1980s and 2006, during which time Halperin worked at ABC News in influential positions including political director. CNN said that Halperin denied that he masturbated in front of anyone or physically assaulted or threatened anyone. The latest allegations bring the number of women accusing him of sexual misconduct to about 12. Halperin issued a lengthy apology on Twitter, the AP reports. He said he was \"profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. ... The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. ... For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it.\" But counseling he sought after leaving the network changed his behavior, he said. The journalist has been suspended from his role as a MSNBC contributor, while a follow-up to 2010's Game Change was canceled by Penguin Press and HBO dropped plans for a miniseries based on the book about the 2016 election."}
{"document": "AT&T Inc. (T), joining the ranks of U.S. TV, Internet and wireless providers racing to consolidate, is in advanced talks to acquire DirecTV (DIG1) for about $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. \n \n Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private. DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White is likely to retire after 2015, the people said. \n \n The purchase would give AT&T a national satellite-TV provider to combine with its wireless, phone and high-speed broadband Internet services as competition ramps up. The pool of pay-TV customers is peaking in the U.S. because viewers are increasingly watching video online, and the combination would keep DirecTV from being on its own with just a TV offering and no competitive Internet package. \n \n \u201cWith DirecTV they are getting a national TV presence -- they can sell TV with wireless nationwide,\u201d said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics, based in Dedham, Massachusetts. \u201cAT&T has increasingly been breaking out of their 22-state landline footprint. They sell wireless, they started selling home security and they could add TV to that package.\u201d \n \n Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private. Close Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV... Read More Close Open Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private. \n \n A price could come in close to $95 a share, depending on how much cash or stock is in the transaction, another person said. The person said White\u2019s future after a merger is also still being negotiated. The price could go as high as $100 a share, two other people said. \n \n Cash-Stock \n \n The deal could be reached in the next couple of weeks while the sides negotiate the cash-stock component along with the size of the termination fee, said another person familiar with the matter. \n \n The termination fee is important because that payment would go to DirecTV from AT&T if the deal was blocked for various reasons, including by regulators on antitrust grounds. In AT&T\u2019s failed effort to acquire Deutsche Telekom AG\u2019s T-Mobile US unit in 2011, the company paid out $3 billion in cash plus wireless frequencies and a roaming agreement. \n \n AT&T fell 1 percent to $36.20 at the close in New York. DirecTV slipped 1.2 percent to $86.08, after gaining 26 percent this year through yesterday. \n \n Warren Buffett\u2019s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is one of the biggest beneficiaries of DirecTV\u2019s rally, thanks to a stake built by his deputy stock pickers at about half the current price. Berkshire had about 36.5 million shares as of Dec. 31, a filing shows. \n \n Photographer: Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said people asking not to be named because the information is private. Close DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said people... Read More Close Open Photographer: Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White plans to retire after 2015, said people asking not to be named because the information is private. \n \n Latin America \n \n AT&T would be getting a pay-TV business that\u2019s expanding in Latin America and generating higher monthly bills from U.S. customers. DirecTV\u2019s exclusive content includes the National Football League Sunday Ticket package and products such as Genie, a multiroom digital video recorder. \n \n Comcast Corp.\u2019s (CMCSA) plan to acquire Time Warner Cable (TWC) Inc. -- to create an even bigger provider of both TV and Internet in the U.S. -- is accelerating the drive for consolidation in the rest of the industry. In March, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson called the Time Warner Cable takeover an \u201cindustry-redefining deal.\u201d \n \n The question with all of these potential tie-ups is whether regulators will allow them. Comcast\u2019s takeover of Time Warner Cable hasn\u2019t been approved yet. A merger of DirecTV and Dish Network Corp. (DISH) was blocked more than a decade ago, and AT&T had to abandon a purchase of T-Mobile several years ago in the face of antitrust opposition. \n \n Regulatory Approval \n \n DirecTV and AT&T are planning on a 12-month regulatory process to review the deal, one of the people said. \n \n \u201cIf regulators let Comcast buy Time Warner Cable, there\u2019s no reason they wouldn\u2019t let AT&T buy DirecTV,\u201d Entner said. \u201cThey have to see it as part of a holistic market.\u201d \n \n Getting ownership of DirecTV\u2019s Latin American units would cause a conflict for AT&T, which holds an 8 percent stake in America Movil SAB (AMXL) -- a direct competitor to DirecTV in countries including Brazil and Colombia. DirecTV\u2019s Latin America operation includes Mexico, where it has a minority stake in Sky Mexico, controlled by Grupo Televisa SAB, one of America Movil\u2019s biggest rivals. \n \n DirecTV had also drawn merger interest from Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen, people with knowledge of the matter said in March. While a DirecTV merger is tempting, the satellite-TV rival is too expensive to pursue, Ergen said last week on a conference call to discuss first-quarter earnings. \n \n Debt Funding \n \n \u201cIf DTV is willing to sell for $100 then it must be either concerned about its lack of broadband long term, worried about the viability of a Dish merger, or both,\u201d Philip Cusick, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., wrote in a research note. \n \n Darris Gringeri, a DirecTV spokesman, declined to comment as did Brad Burns, an AT&T spokesman. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that AT&T is planning a stock and cash bid for DirecTV (DTV), without specifying the price. \n \n AT&T can afford to add about $16 billion in debt to fund the DirecTV deal without risking a credit-rating downgrade, according to Erich Marriott, an analyst with Bloomberg Industries. The company is rated A3 by Moody\u2019s Investors Service and A- at Standard & Poor\u2019s, both four levels above junk. \n \n Adding $16 billion of debt would keep AT&T\u2019s ratio of debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization below 2.5, the level at which credit ratings agencies have said may trigger a downgrade, Marriott wrote in a research note. The analysis assumes deal synergies of about 10 percent. \n \n That implies that AT&T will need to offer a significant portion of stock to fund the $50 billion acquisition. The company has about $3.6 billion of cash and near-cash items and two revolving credit agreements with a combined $8 billion available, according to a regulatory filing. \n \n \u201cWe were thinking AT&T would want to use as much debt as they can and that the deal could be all cash,\u201d said John Hodulik, an analyst with UBS AG. \u201cBut that would mean the leverage would be about 2.7, and that\u2019s too high. I think they\u2019d prefer 2.5 leverage.\u201d \n \n To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Sherman in New York at asherman6@bloomberg.net; Jeffrey McCracken in New York at jmccracken3@bloomberg.net \n \n To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mohammed Hadi at mhadi1@bloomberg.net; Sarah Rabil at srabil@bloomberg.net Sarah Rabil ||||| Photo \n \n AT&T is in talks to buy DirecTV for at least $50 billion, and the two sides are actively working toward an announcement, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. \n \n If completed, a deal would give AT&T, the country\u2019s second-largest wireless carrier, control of the country\u2019s largest satellite television provider, further reshaping the rapidly changing telecommunications and television industries. AT&T has grown interested in DirecTV in recent months, according to several people with knowledge of the company\u2019s thinking, leading to an approach in the last few weeks. Rumors of a deal between the two companies have sent DirecTV shares up about 12 percent this month. \n \n On Monday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that talks had accelerated, details on the timing and the price of a deal began coming into focus. The terms of any agreement are not expected to be released in the next two weeks, and the two sides are working on a pricing structure under which AT&T would pay $92 to $94 a share. In addition, Mike White, DirecTV\u2019s chief executive, is not expected to step down if the deal goes through. \n \n DirecTV closed at $87.16 on Monday, but was up sharply in after-hours trading. \n \n For AT&T, a deal for DirecTV would signal its continued ambitions to grow in the United States, after its attempted takeover of the rival wireless carrier T-Mobile failed in 2011 because of resistance from regulators. \n \n This year, AT&T was looking to expand in Europe and considering an acquisition of Vodafone, which sold its stake in Verizon Wireless back to Verizon Communications for $130 billion in February. \n \n But AT&T has refocused its attention on the United States market, believing it has an opportunity to expand its footprint in the pay-television business. DirecTV has about 20 million subscribers in the United States. \n \n Talks between AT&T and DirecTV began in earnest after Comcast announced its plan to acquire Time Warner Cable. That deal, if completed, would create a clear leader in the cable television industry. \n \n Photo \n \n People knowledgeable about both deals said that if AT&T and DirecTV announced a merger, it could complicate the review of Comcast\u2019s bid for Time Warner Cable, because antitrust regulators might want to consider both deals simultaneously. \n \n By acquiring DirecTV, AT&T could bolster its small television operations and gain a valuable foothold in Latin America, where DirecTV has about 18 million subscribers. \n \n But several people in the industry said they believed that the ideal target for AT&T would be not DirecTV but its main competitor, Dish Network. Dish, run by the billionaire Charles W. Ergen, has amassed a trove of spectrum that could be valuable to AT&T as it seeks to build out its wireless network. \n \n Some investment bankers privately speculated that talks between AT&T and DirecTV were intended to draw Mr. Ergen off the sidelines and into the fray. But last week, speaking in a conference call after announcing first-quarter earnings, Mr. Ergen said his company was not in a position to make an offer for DirecTV. \n \n \u201cDirecTV would be too frothy for us, for our board to look at, at those kinds of prices,\u201d he said. \n \n Photo \n \n AT&T is facing renewed competition in the wireless market. Verizon has taken full control of Verizon Wireless, giving it access to additional cash. And Sprint, the third-largest wireless provider, has struck a deal with Japan\u2019s SoftBank that will give it added firepower as it seeks to expand. \n \n Another deal on the horizon could be Sprint\u2019s making an offer for T-Mobile, the fourth-largest wireless carrier, which is just completing its own major purchase. Last year, T-Mobile acquired MetroPCS. \n \n People briefed on the discussions between AT&T and DirecTV said there was no guarantee that a deal would be completed. \n \n AT&T and DirecTV declined to comment. \n \n Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting. ||||| NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES AT&T; Inc is in active talks to buy satellite TV provider DirecTV and may complete a deal in the next few weeks that could be worth close to $50 billion, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday. \n \n The second-largest wireless operator is discussing an offer in the low- to mid-$90s per share for DirecTV, one of the people said, compared with the company's closing price of $87.16 on Monday. \n \n A bid near $95 per share would value DirecTV at more than $48 billion based on its shares outstanding, and would represent a premium of more than 20 percent to its stock price before news of AT&T;'s interest first emerged on May 1. \n \n The deal price has yet to be finalized and terms could still change, the people said, adding that discussions are continuing. They asked not to be named because the matter is not public. \n \n Other details also have yet to be worked out, such as a break-up fee as well as a potential role for DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White, the second person said. \n \n The talks are the latest sign of a rising tide of potential megadeals in the telecoms, cable and satellite TV space, which is being roiled by Comcast Corp's proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc as well as market forces such as the rise of Web-based TV and surging mobile Internet usage. \n \n AT&T; and DirecTV declined to comment. Bloomberg News earlier reported that AT&T; was offering to pay around $100 per share for DirecTV, whose management team will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T.; (link.reuters.com/xyf39v). The Wall Street Journal said a deal could happen in two weeks. \n \n DirecTV shares rose 6 percent to $92.50 in extended trading on Monday. \n \n DirecTV is working with advisers including Goldman Sachs Group to evaluate a possible combination following a recent takeover approach from AT&T;, Reuters reported last week. \n \n A combination of AT&T; and DirecTV would create a pay television giant close in size to where Comcast will be if it completes its pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable. For that reason, the proposed merger is likely to face a prolonged battle to convince regulators to allow further consolidation in pay-TV. \n \n \"This is not the first time that AT&T; and DirecTV have danced around the fire and thought if they could give it a go,\" said ReconAnalytics analyst Roger Entner. \n \n \"They both looked at each other for at least 10 years. Both kind of came to the conclusion that it was in the right environment. It makes a lot of sense to get together, but there was never the right regulatory environment for it.\" \n \n A Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger would call for a counterweight like a combined AT&T-DirecTV;, Entner said. He added that the merger would make sense for DirecTV given the decline of satellite TV. \n \n \"They both see the Grim Reaper at the horizon. DirecTV hasn't gone out and bought spectrum. Dish has, so DirecTV needs to find a partner, and AT&T; is that partner,\" he said. \n \n Some investors have also speculated about a potential tie-up of DirectTV and smaller rival Dish Network Corp. \n \n But Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen last week said his company, which attempted to buy DirecTV more than a decade ago, would not make a fresh approach at current prices even though he said such a tie-up would create many benefits. \n \n (Additional reporting by Marina Lopes, Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Tom Brown, Richard Chang and Ken Wills)", "summary": "\u2013 AT&T is in active talks to buy DirecTV for around $50 billion, multiple outlets are reporting, with the deal potentially coming in a matter of weeks. The move could have implications for Comcast's purchase of Time Warner, because anti-regulators may want to look at both deals together, the New York Times reports, adding that the AT&T talks actually began in earnest right after the Time Warner deal was announced. \"With DirecTV they are getting a national TV presence\u2014they can sell TV with wireless nationwide,\" one analyst tells Bloomberg. The exact price is still up in the air; Reuters sources say it's in the \"low- to mid-$90 per share\" range, while Bloomberg says it could be as high as $100 per share. Also still in the air is the fate of DirecTV CEO Mike White, who isn't expected to step down\u2014but does reportedly plan to retire after 2015. Some industry sources speculate that the entire deal is a feint intended to land the real apple of AT&T's eye, Dish Network. Last week Dish said it could see the logic in merging with its competitor, but said it couldn't outbid AT&T for DirecTV."}
{"document": "Credit where credit is due. Last night Sean Hannity had on as his guest GOP Senate candidate Christine O\u2019Donnell, and very delicately broached the subject of yesterday\u2019s controversial and anonymously-penned story that appeared in Gawker that outlined a \u201cone night stand\u201d with the candidate. Hannity brought it up in the safe and predictable context of \u201cliberal media\u201d attacks on GOP women candidates. \n \n How did O\u2019Donnell reply? Alas, she did not take the bait, claiming that she had such a busy day that she did not know what specific attack on her that Hannity was referencing, which, given the breakneck pace of late October campaigning, is a completely credible explanation. Another explanation is that O\u2019Donnell simply didn\u2019t want to address the story, which given some of the sordid details, is also completely understandable. \n \n O\u2019Donnell\u2019s campaign did issue an official statement via the candidate\u2019s Facebook page: \n \n Wilmington, DE \u2013 Communications Director Doug Sachtleben stated in response to the universal condoning of the Gawker story: This story is just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with. From Secretary Clinton, to Governor Palin, to soon-to-be Governor Haley, Christine\u2019s political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks \u2014 all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race. Even the National Organization for Women gets it, but Christine\u2019s opponent disturbingly does not. As Chris Coons said on September 16th he would not condone personal attacks against Christine. Classless Coons goons have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency or common sense with their desperate attacks to get another rubber stamp for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. Such attacks are truly shameful, but they will not distract us from making our case to Delaware voters \u2014 and keeping the focus on Chris Coons\u2019 record of higher taxes, increased spending, and as he has done again here, breaking his promises to the voters.\u201d The National Organization for Women (NOW) on Thursday condemned the tabloid website Gawker for publishing an anonymous account: NOW issued a statement late Thursday stating that \u201csexist, misogynist attacks against women have no place in the electoral process, regardless of a particular candidate\u2019s political ideology.\u201d \u201cNOW repudiates Gawker\u2019s decision to run this piece. It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O\u2019Donnell, but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere,\u201d said NOW president Terry O\u2019Neill. ||||| Christine O\u2019Donnell\u2019s campaign late Thursday night responded to an anonymous Gawker post claiming a drunken encounter with Delaware\u2019s Republican Senate nominee, calling it \u201csexism and slander.\u201d \n \n \"This story is just another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with \u2014 from Secretary [Hillary] Clinton to Gov. [Sarah] Palin to soon-to-be Gov. [Nikki] Haley. Christine's political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks \u2014 all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race,\" O\u2019Donnell Communications Director Doug Sachtleben wrote in a post on Facebook. \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset VIDEO: Tea party pols held to fire POLITICO 44 \n \n The gossip website Gawker on Thursday posted an anonymous account of a man who said he had had a one-night stand with O\u2019Donnell three years ago on Halloween. \n \n Gawker reportedly paid the man in the \"low four figures\" for the account and pictures of O\u2019Donnell dressed up like a ladybug. \n \n The site has been widely criticized by media outlets for posting the item and was denounced Thursday by the National Organization for Women. \n \n \"NOW repudiates Gawker's decision to run this piece,\" the organization said in a statement. \"It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O'Donnell but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere.\" \n \n O'Donnell trails Democrat Chris Coons by 21 percentage points, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Thursday. \n \n The Republican's Facebook post attempts to link the post to the Coons camp. \n \n \"Even the National Organization for Women gets it, but Christine\u2019s opponent disturbingly does not,\" Sachtleben wrote. \"Classless Coons goons have proven yet again to have no sense of common decency or common sense with their desperate attacks to get another rubber stamp for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. Such attacks are truly shameful, but they will not distract us from making our case to Delaware voters \u2014 and keeping the focus on Chris Coons\u2019s record of higher taxes, increased spending and, as he has done again here, breaking his promises to the voters.\" ||||| Sean Hannity had Ann Coulter on his Fox News show to do some preemptive gloating about Tuesday\u2019s midterm election. \n \n Coulter didn\u2019t want any part of that, but she did have a lot to say about her gender. \n \n \u201cYou\u2019re not really doing much to lower expectations,\u201d she warned Hannity at the beginning. Later in the show, she cautioned him \u201cI think you\u2019re getting kind of ahead of the game,\u201d when he said he believes Democrats think \u201cMarco Rubio could be President some day.\u201d \n \n But looking at the polls this year, Coulter had this conclusion: \n \n I am so proud of my gender, which is, for the first time, voting Republican more than they have since that poll has been taken beginning in 1992, and I think that\u2019s because women are more likely to pay the bills in the family. \n \n Coulter also weighed in on the Christine O\u2019Donnell-Gawker story \u2013 in addition to O\u2019Donnell herself. \u201cThe attacks Christine O\u2019Donnell has come under are just stunning,\u201d she said. \u201cFor one thing this shows why public figures don\u2019t like to meet new people or go out in public.\u201d \n \n Also, of Gawker\u2019s tactics: \u201cThis is the Democratic Party, America.\u201d \n \n Check it out, from FNC. Apparently Ann Coulter wakes up at Noon. Who knew? \n \n \n \n \u2014\u2013 \n \n \u00bb Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter \n \n Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Delaware Democrat Chris Coons on Friday denounced as \u201ccowardly\u201d an anonymous Gawker post from a man claiming a drunken encounter with Republican Christine O\u2019Donnell \n \n \u201cThe Gawker item is despicable, cowardly and has absolutely no value at all to any Delaware voters,\u201d Coons spokesman Daniel McElhatton told POLITICO. \u201cWe denounce it with great vigor.\u201d \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset POLITICO 44 \n \n The comment comes in response to the gossip website\u2019s post Thursday in which an anonymous man claims to have had a one-night stand with O\u2019Donnell three years ago on Halloween. The post includes numerous embarrassing claims about O\u2019Donnell, as well as pictures of her dressed like a lady bug. \n \n O\u2019Donnell spokesman Doug Sachtleben responded to the item with a post on Facebook calling it \u201csexism and slander.\u201d \n \n The National Organization for Woman also denounced the post as \u201cpublic sexual harassment.\u201d \n \n The story comes amid more bad news for O\u2019Donnell, as two new polls continue to show her trailing Coons. \n \n According to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Thursday, O\u2019Donnell trails her Democratic opponent by 21 percentage points. \n \n But a Monmouth University poll out Friday has O\u2019Donnell down only 10 percentage points among likely voters. The same poll two weeks ago had Coons leading by 19 percentage points.", "summary": "\u2013 Christine O\u2019Donnell\u2019s campaign has slammed Gawker for its one-night stand story, reports Politico\u2014and so has her opponent, Chris Coons, as well as the National Organization for Women. Some reactions: It\u2019s \u201cjust another example of the sexism and slander that female candidates are forced to deal with,\u201d wrote an O\u2019Donnell rep on Facebook, linking the story to \u201cCoons goons\u201d who \u201chave proven yet again to have no sense of common decency.\u201d For Coons' part, a rep called the story \u201cdespicable\u201d and \u201ccowardly,\u201d with \u201cabsolutely no value at all to any Delaware voters.\u201d NOW called the piece \u201cpublic sexual harassment\u201d that targeted \u201call women contemplating stepping into the public sphere.\u201d Meanwhile, Ann Coulter labeled it it \u201cstunning,\u201d reports Mediaite, adding, \u201cThis is the Democratic Party, America.\u201d O\u2019Donnell herself, though, kept quiet: asked about the story on Hannity last night, she'd had such a busy day campaigning, she was unfamiliar with it."}
{"document": "http://timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_prison-5.jpg \n \n Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes. \n \n WILKES-BARRE \u2014 Two people died Monday evening inside the Luzerne County Correctional Facility \u2014 an inmate and a prison guard \u2014 according to Luzerne County Manager David Pedri. The two died after a brief altercation that took place at about 6:25 p.m., Pedri said at a news conference late Monday night. Pedri identified the inmate as Timothy Gilliam, 27. Pedri said he believed Gilliam had been incarcerated for failing to register under Megan\u2019s Law, for sex offenders. Pedri said the name of the prison guard was not being released at the request of his family. \u201cThis guard went to work today believing that he would be coming home,\u201d Pedri said. \u201cAnd, sadly that didn\u2019t happen.\u201d He called the incident a \u201csad and tragic.\u201d \u201cWe will do everything in our power to ensure an incident like this never happens again,\u201d he said. According to Pedri, who declined to comment on the specifics of the incident, the matter was under investigation by the Luzerne County District Attorney\u2019s Office and Pennsylvania State Police. When asked about Mark Rockovich, the new correctional division head, Pedri said Monday was his first day on the job. Luzerne County Councilman Tim McGinley, who was on site shortly after the incident occurred, said any suspect death would be of concern to the county, noting that the county spends $30 million on the facility annually. Michele Rohrbaugh, whose son Michael is an inmate on the fifth floor of the facility, came for a visit at about 7 p.m. and was told by prison staff that there would be no visit because the prison was on lockdown. Rohrbaugh stood outside of the prison for over three hours, hoping to hear her son was safe. After the press conference, she made her way from council chambers visibly relieved. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t him,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t my son.\u201d Rohrbaugh said she recently had heard that gang activity at the prison was on the rise. She also said she was concerned with her son\u2019s safety. Some prison guards have been complaining for months about security and safety concerns at the main prison, located on Water Street. Prison officials have been wrestling with an increase in inmate assaults and fighting \u2014 problems that have been blamed on a rise in inmates who are addicted to drugs, battling mental health issues and involved in gangs. The main prison has been at or over its 505-inmate capacity in recent years. In April, county officials investigated the hospitalization of a prison inmate for a serious cut above his right ear down into his neck. Prison officials said they suspected the man was assaulted by another inmate, but the inmate continues to maintain he cut himself when he fell off the top metal bunk bed in his cell, officials said as recently as last week. One guard, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Monday night that he and many of his colleagues blame Pedri and prison deputy Warden James Larson for not taking their safety concerns seriously. Larson has been acting as correctional services division head since April 1, following the March resignation of prior prison overseer J. Allen Nesbitt in March. The county council unanimously voted last week to confirm Pedri\u2019s nomination of Rockovich as the new correctional division head. Rockovich, who has worked at the prison since 1991, assured the council he will address problems at the facility, including work release. Federal authorities recently charged former prison employee Louis Elmy with extortion and possession of a firearm in furtherance of selling crack cocaine. Prosecutors said Elmy, while acting in his official role as a prison work-release counselor, extorted money and other items of value from work release inmates in exchange for giving them special privileges and unauthorized furloughs. The resolution appointing Rockovich was to take effect six days after adoption, which means Monday was his first day in the new position. County Councilman Eugene Kelleher in March questioned delays in repairing malfunctioning security cameras at the prison and other safety concerns raised by at least 10 past and present staffers who had contacted him. The aging facility has more nooks and crannies than a modern prison because it is five stories. \u201cI\u2019m really concerned about security at the prison for employees,\u201d Kelleher said at the time. The administration said it was addressing the cameras. Editors Note: This article has been edited to reflect the correct identity of the deceased inmate.", "summary": "\u2013 A correctional officer and an inmate are dead following an altercation at a Pennsylvania prison. It happened Monday night at Luzerne County Correctional Facility in Wilkes-Barre, which is currently on lockdown, the AP reports. Luzerne County Manager David Pedri tells the Times Leader that the dead inmate is 27-year-old Tracy Gilliam, who he believes was in prison for failing to register as a sex offender. Pedri says the guard's family has asked for his name not to be released. \"This guard went to work today believing that he would be coming home,\" he says. \"And sadly, that didn't happen.\" Pedri says authorities will do all they can to make sure a \"sad and tragic\" incident like this doesn't happen again. State police and the county DA are investigating."}
{"document": "Donald Trump said he wanted to make a deal on DACA. Donald Trump just spent the past few days doing everything he could to kill a deal on DACA. Therefore, Donald Trump deserves the blame for the Senate\u2019s failure to pass an immigration bill. \n \n It\u2019s really that simple. \n \n The Senate debacle only happened because Congress \u2014 and everyone else \u2014 thought Trump wanted to make a deal \n \n Even after Donald Trump got elected president with immigration as his signature issue, most members of Congress didn\u2019t want to touch the subject. They knew that the combination of complicated policy and polarized politics was going to make it very difficult to pass any legislation, and they didn\u2019t want to take any votes that would turn into attack-ad fodder instead of actual laws. \n \n What changed their minds wasn\u2019t just Trump\u2019s September 2017 decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young unauthorized immigrants from deportation and allowed them to work legally in the United States. It wasn\u2019t even, necessarily, the fact that Trump set an artificial March 5 \u201cdeadline\u201d and said that he wasn\u2019t really ending DACA, just giving Congress a six-month chance to address the status of DACA recipients. \n \n What really inspired so many members of Congress, in both chambers and parties, to accept a \u201cDACA fix\u201d as a legislative priority was that Trump acted like he wanted to make a deal. \n \n Trump\u2019s \u201cdealmaker\u201d reputation has often been misunderstood or overstated by pundits and politicians. Even as a businessman, Trump loved deals but hated compromises; a deal, for him, was that he won and the other guy lost. But what Trump prided himself on, and ran on as a candidate, was that he could find imaginative ways to get what he wanted. \n \n For Congress to actually make a deal on such a touchy issue as immigration, that combination of flexibility and relentlessness would be desperately needed. Congress would need the autonomy to work out the details of legislation in such a way that 60 members of the Senate, and a majority of House Republicans, could feel comfortable voting for it \u2014 which would be much easier for Republicans if they knew the president would provide political cover with the right wing. \n \n The idea that Trump would play dealmaker on immigration wasn\u2019t as far-fetched as it might have seemed. He said over and over that he had a \u201cbig heart\u201d for DACA recipients and wanted to protect them. The fact that it took him until September 2017 to actually pull the trigger on DACA \u2014 and, even then, sent Jeff Sessions in front of the cameras to make the official announcement \u2014 was an indication that he really didn\u2019t want to be on the hook for young immigrants losing deportation protections. \n \n Sure, many of Trump\u2019s closest advisers, including senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John Kelly, had strong opinions about immigration policy. But Trump had shown an inclination not to listen to his advisers when he didn\u2019t want to. \n \n On several occasions between the September announcement and the Senate debate, Trump actually did show interest in compromise. There was the infamous \u201cChuck and Nancy\u201d dinner meeting, during which (depending on whom you believe) he may have agreed to sign a bill that legalized DACA recipients without demanding any concession to conservatives. There was the January Oval Office meeting in which (after the cameras were off) he reportedly told congressional negotiators to ignore the packet of demands that Department of Homeland Security officials had just passed out. \n \n And before the cameras had turned off, Trump had said this: \n \n \u201cWhen this group comes back, hopefully with an agreement, I am signing it. I will be signing it. I\u2019m not going to say, \ufffd?Oh, gee, I want this or I want that.\u2019 I will be signing it.\u201d \n \n Trump didn\u2019t do anything he needed to do to make a deal \n \n At some point \u2014 probably after the \u201cshithole countries\u201d brouhaha in January, judging from the tone of the president\u2019s tweets \u2014 Donald Trump decided he was more interested in blaming Democrats for not making a deal on DACA than he was in making a deal on DACA. From that point on, the White House\u2019s strategy aligned with what staffers like Stephen Miller wanted: with more interest in fighting for specific policies that weren\u2019t related to DACA \u2014 specifically, cutting legal immigration \u2014 then in fighting to address DACA itself first and foremost. \n \n It\u2019s not yet clear (though it\u2019s probably just a few juicy palace-intrigue articles away) exactly what role Trump played in the White House\u2019s shift. He might have changed his mind \u2014 after several months of pressing Congress to act, he might have decided that he actually cared a great deal about \u201cI want this or I want that,\u201d and was comfortable letting Congress twist in the wind. \n \n Or he could have, just as damningly, made a mess of the negotiations and then walked away for other people to clean it up. \n \n By the time the Senate actually took up immigration at the beginning of this week, the White House\u2019s demands had calcified to a page-long laundry list of \u201cwant this, want that.\u201d They put out an immigration framework in late January and decided unilaterally that it represented a compromise (even though Democrats were immediately and vociferously opposed). \n \n The White House then panned the alternatives floated by various bipartisan groups, claiming that because they didn\u2019t stick to the particulars in the White House framework, they were violating the four \u201cpillars\u201d legislators had agreed to in the televised meeting \u2014 the meeting where Trump said he wouldn\u2019t haggle over particulars. \n \n The White House killed bills the Senate might have passed. The Rounds-King proposal that got 54 votes on Thursday, for example, likely would have passed with a few more Republicans (Chuck Schumer might have been less willing to allow three Democrats who voted no to defect if it made the difference between passage and failure). But the White House issued a veto threat before the vote had been opened; DHS put out a press release invoking 9/11; administration officials held a press call just to dump on the bill. \n \n Trump didn\u2019t even really try to close the deal on the bill he claimed to support: the Grassley bill modeled on his own framework. Instead of lobbying senators, he wrote a vague tweet about \u201cmerit-based immigration.\u201d Instead of extolling the virtues of the Grassley bill, his advisers talked to reporters about how much they\u2019d given up to immigration doves by allowing DREAMers to apply for citizenship \u2014 even exaggerating the scope of the \u201camnesty\u201d in ways that might have helped cost them the votes of a few hardline Republicans. \n \n All four bills that were put up for a vote in the Senate failed on Thursday. The one Trump had endorsed fared the worst, with 60 senators voting against it. But the fact that nothing happened for the DREAMers \u2014 and that hundreds of thousands of young immigrants can still be used as bargaining chips if Congress ever picks up immigration again \u2014 should either be seen as the policy victory the White House wanted or a damning political failure. Either way, the responsibility rests on the shoulders of Donald J. Trump. ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpMcMaster complained that Trump 'thinks he can be friends with Putin': report Manafort requests Virginia trial be moved, citing media coverage Giuliani: Mueller needs to prove Trump committed crime before agreeing to interview MORE on Friday accused Democrats of abandoning young immigrants after the Senate rejected three separate immigration bills a day earlier. \n \n \"Cannot believe how BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by the Democrats...totally abandoned!\" Trump tweeted, referring to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. \"Republicans are still working hard.\" \n \n Cannot believe how BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by the Democrats...totally abandoned! Republicans are still working hard. \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2018 \n \n The president's tweet came a day after senators rejected three proposals that would have resolved the fate of the \"Dreamers\" \u2014 young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n DACA temporarily shielded Dreamers from deportation and gave them permission to work in the U.S. But Trump rescinded the program in September, giving lawmakers until March 5 to work out a legislative fix for the program recipients. \n \n But three bills that sought to address the matter were voted down in the Senate on Thursday. \n \n The measure that received the most votes was a centrist compromise bill, which would have established a path to citizenship for Dreamers while setting aside roughly $25 billion for Trump's proposed border wall. That bill got 54 votes \u2014 six short of the 60 it needed to avoid a fillibuster and pass. \n \n Trump, however, refused to back any proposal other than his own, which was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyThe Senate's grown-ups in the Trump-Russia probe follow facts, not politics Trump: 'No final straw' on Pruitt GOP lawmakers relieved with Pruitt\u2019s departure MORE (R-Iowa). That measure would have created a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers but also sought to curb legal immigration. It received only 39 votes in the Senate. ||||| Is The March 5 DACA Deadline Meaningful Anymore? \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Spencer Platt/Getty Images Spencer Platt/Getty Images \n \n Updated at 11:58 a.m. ET \n \n When it comes to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program and Congress, no one seems to know what comes next. \n \n Three approaches to making DACA permanent came up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday, and all three failed. A majority of lawmakers backed two narrow bills that would allow DACA protectees to live in the country legally and also increase funding for border security. \n \n But an aggressive veto threat from the White House killed the chances of the bipartisan approach crafted by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and other moderate lawmakers from both parties. \n \n President Trump is rejecting any measure that doesn't also narrow legal immigration. After telling legislators in January that he would sign anything that passed Congress, Trump has now tanked two bipartisan compromises. \n \n But notably, the bill backed by the White House got far less support than any other measure Thursday, winning just 39 votes. \n \n On Friday morning, Trump tried to put the blame for the lack of progress on Democrats. \n \n In September, Trump set the March 5 expiration date for DACA, a program that offers protections for immigrants in the U.S. illegally who came to the country as children. At the time, the White House called on Congress to come up with a more permanent solution as part of a broader immigration overhaul. \n \n Now that deadline is inching closer and closer, and Congress is out next week on recess. \n \n Yet, with ongoing court battles over the program, DACA will almost certainly stay in place beyond March 5. Two separate federal courts have blocked the president from ending the program. \n \n \"Until further notice, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017,\" a spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services told NPR. The agency continues to accept renewal applications for people whose status expired after Trump began the process of ending DACA. \n \n And because of that \u2014 and because of Congress' inability to pass a fix \u2014 some leaders are beginning to say DACA doesn't necessarily need to be addressed before March 5. \n \n \"We think this deadline's an important deadline. Obviously with the court ruling it's not as important as it was before, given the court rulings,\" said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., this week. \n \n Ryan said he still wants Congress to operate with some urgency. \"I think this place works better with deadlines, and we want to operate on deadlines. We clearly need to address this issue in March,\" he said. \n \n A potential slide from March 5 to sometime in March has Democrats worried. \n \n \"For the speaker to say this could go to March 5, to the end of March, means he doesn't know the fear that [the White House] has instilled into the families and into the hearts of these children,\" House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, referring to people whose protected status has expired or would be eliminated if future court rulings eliminate DACA. \n \n \"I don't think the end of March has viability to it. Let's just get on with it,\" she said. \n \n The problem: With both narrow and broad approaches failing in the Senate this week, it's not clear what, if anything, could win support of the House, Senate and the White House.", "summary": "\u2013 Lawmakers had three chances to protect Dreamers from deportation in the form of three separate bills voted on by the Senate on Thursday. None passed, and President Trump laid the blame on Democrats on Friday, the Hill reports. \"Cannot believe how BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by the Democrats...totally abandoned! Republicans are still working hard,\" the president tweeted. However, Dara Lind at Vox writes Trump is pointing his finger in the wrong direction. Trump announced he was ending DACA on March 5, opening young immigrants brought illegally to the US as children to deportation, and said he wanted lawmakers to work on a deal to protect Dreamers permanently. In January, Trump had this to say: \u201cWhen this group comes back, hopefully with an agreement, I am signing it. I will be signing it. I\u2019m not going to say, \u2018Oh, gee, I want this or I want that.\u2019 I will be signing it.\u201d On Thursday, a bipartisan bill offering a path to citizenship for Dreamers\u2014something proposed by the White House\u2014and $25 billion for border security and Trump's wall fell just six votes short of passing. It's possible it could have secured the final votes needed to pass had Trump and the White House not vehemently opposed it and threatened a veto. The bill Trump did support received just 39 of the needed 60 votes to pass. Meanwhile, Trump's decision to end DACA is being blocked in two courts, meaning the March 5 deadline could pass with no change\u2014or peace of mind\u2014for Dreamers, NPR reports."}
{"document": "APS March Meeting 2015 Volume 60, Number 1 Monday\u2013Friday, March 2\u20136, 2015; San Antonio, Texas \n \n Session S48: Focus Session: Physics of Evolutionary and Population Dynamics I \n \n 8:00 AM\u201311:00 AM, Thursday, March 5, 2015 \n \n Room: 217C \n \n \n \n Sponsoring Unit: DBIO \n \n Chair: Michel Pleimliung, Virginia Tech University \n \n \n \n Abstract ID: BAPS.2015.MAR.S48.8 \n \n \n \n Abstract: S48.00008 : The Statistical Mechanics of Zombies \n \n 9:24 AM\u20139:36 AM \n \n \n \n Preview Abstract Abstract \n \n Authors: \n \n Alexander A. Alemi \n \n (Cornell University) \n \n Matthew Bierbaum \n \n (Cornell University) \n \n Christopher R. Myers \n \n (Cornell University) \n \n James P. Sethna \n \n (Cornell University) \n \n We present results and analysis from a large scale exact stochastic dynamical simulation of a zombie outbreak. Zombies have attracted some attention lately as a novel and interesting twist on classic disease models. While most of the initial investigations have focused on the continuous, fully mixed dynamics of a differential equation model, we have explored stochastic, discrete simulations on lattices. We explore some of the basic statistical mechanical properties of the zombie model, including its phase diagram and critical exponents. We report on several variant models, including both homogeneous and inhomogeneous lattices, as well as allowing diffusive motion of infected hosts. We build up to a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States, and discover that for `realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed. ||||| Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the Living Dead. Credit: Wikipedia A team of Cornell University researchers focusing on a fictional zombie outbreak as an approach to disease modeling suggests heading for the hills, in the Rockies, to save your 'braains' from the 'undead.' \n \n Reading World War Z, an oral history of the first zombie war, and a graduate statistical mechanics class inspired a group of Cornell University researchers to explore how an \"actual\" zombie outbreak might play out in the U.S. \n \n During the 2015 American Physical Society March Meeting, on Thursday, March 5 in San Antonio, Texas, the group will describe their work modeling the statistical mechanics of zombies\u2014those thankfully fictional \"undead\" creatures with an appetite for human flesh. \n \n Why model the mechanics of zombies? \"Modeling zombies takes you through a lot of the techniques used to model real diseases, albeit in a fun context,\" says Alex Alemi, a graduate student at Cornell University. \n \n Alemi and colleagues' work offers a nice introduction to disease modeling in general, as well as some techniques of statistical physics for measuring second-order phase transitions. \"It's interesting in its own right as a model, as a cousin of traditional SIR [susceptible, infected, and resistant] models\u2014which are used for many diseases\u2014but with an additional nonlinearity,\" points out Alemi. \n \n All told, the project was an overview of modern epidemiology modeling, starting with differential equations to model a fully connected population, then moving on to lattice-based models, and ending with a full U.S.-scale simulation of an outbreak across the continental U.S. \n \n It involved a lot of computational results generated from simulations the researchers wrote themselves. \"At their heart, the simulations are akin to modeling chemical reactions taking place between different elements and, in this case, we have four states a person can be in\u2014human, infected, zombie, or dead zombie\u2014with approximately 300 million people,\" Alemi explains. \n \n The project's large-scale simulations are stochastic in nature, meaning that they have an element of randomness. \"Each possible interaction\u2014zombie bites human, human kills zombie, zombie moves, etc.\u2014is treated like a radioactive decay, with a half-life that depends on some parameters, and we tried to simulate the times it would take for all of these different interactions to fire, where complications arise because when one thing happens it can affect the rates at which all of the other things happen,\" he says. \n \n In most films or books, \"if there is a zombie outbreak, it is usually assumed to affect all areas at the same time, and some months after the outbreak you're left with small pockets of survivors,\" explains Alemi. \"But in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn't seem like this is how it would actually go down.\" \n \n Cities would fall quickly, but it would take weeks for zombies to penetrate into less densely populated areas, and months to reach the northern mountain-time zone. \n \n \"Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down\u2014there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate,\" he elaborates. \"I'd love to see a fictional account where most of New York City falls in a day, but upstate New York has a month or so to prepare.\" \n \n If you somehow happen to find yourself in the midst of a fictional zombie outbreak and want to survive as long as possible, Alemi recommends making a run for the northern Rockies. While not an entirely practical implication, it's \"fun to know,\" he says, and points out the benefits of applying hard science to fun topics\u2014especially to help make learning more entertaining and enjoyable. \n \n \"A lot of modern research can be off-putting for people because the techniques are complicated and the systems or models studied lack a strong connection to everyday experiences,\" Alemi adds. \"Not that zombies are an everyday occurrence, but most people can wrap their braains around them.\" \n \n What's next for Alemi and colleagues? \"Given the time, we could attempt to add more complicated social dynamics to the simulation, such as allowing people to make a run for it, include plane flights, or have an awareness of the zombie outbreak, etc.,\" he notes. \n \n Explore further: UK brains under threat? \n \n More information: meeting.aps.org/Meeting/MAR15/Session/S48.8 \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 If a zombie outbreak were to strike US shores, East Coasters should head west ASAP. That recommendation comes by way of Cornell University researchers, who have modeled the statistical mechanics of, yes, zombies and will present their findings at a meeting of the American Physical Society on March 5 in San Antonio. The researchers used a number of techniques that are used when modeling real diseases, and the abstract ends with this dismal line: \"We build up to a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States, and discover that for 'realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed.\" But Phys.Org relays a glimmer of hope by way of Alex Alemi, a grad student involved in the research: He says those who want to remain safe from the undead for as long as they can should head to the northern Rockies. He explains that while books and movies typically show an outbreak touching all corners of the country immediately, \"in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn't seem like this is how it would actually go down.\" Yes, major cities could be toast within days, but less populated areas could be unaffected for weeks, and the northern Mountain Time Zone could be safe for months. \"Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down\u2014there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate,\" says Alemi. \"I'd love to see a fictional account where most of New York City falls in a day, but upstate New York has a month or so to prepare.\" (Of course, some people want to be trapped in a room with a zombie.)"}
{"document": "Hackers on Sunday claimed to have stolen a raft of e-mails and credit card data from U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor, promising it was just the start of a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets. \n \n One alleged hacker said the goal was to use the credit data to steal a million dollars and give it away as Christmas donations, and images posted online claimed to show the receipts. \n \n Members of the loose-knit hacking movement known as \"Anonymous\" posted a link on Twitter to what they said was Stratfor's tightly-guarded, confidential client list. Among those on the list: The U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the Miami Police Department. \n \n The rest of the list, which Anonymous said was a small slice of its 200 gigabytes worth of plunder, included banks, law enforcement agencies, defense contractors and technology firms such as Apple and Microsoft. \n \n \"Not so private and secret anymore?\" the group taunted in a message on the microblogging site. \n \n Lt. Col. John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the Air Force, said that \"for obvious reasons\" the Air Force doesn't discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats or responses to them. \n \n \"The Air Force will continue to monitor the situation and, as always, take apporpriate action as necessary to protect Air Force networks and information,\" he said in an email. \n \n Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt. Freddie Cruz Jr. said that he could not confirm that the agency was a client of Stratfor, and he said he had not received any information about any security breach involving the police department. \n \n Anonymous said it was able to get the credit details in part because Stratfor didn't bother encrypting them _ an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company. \n \n Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor's client list, Anonymous posted images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole. \n \n \"Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency,\" read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee's information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit. \n \n Stratfor said in an email to members that it had suspended its servers and email after learning that its website had been hacked. \n \n \"We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites,\" said the email, passed on to The Associated Press by subscribers. \"We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained.\" \n \n The email, signed by Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman, said the company is \"working closely with law enforcement to identify who is behind the breach.\" \n \n \"Stratfor's relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me,\" Friedman wrote. \n \n Stratfor's website was down midday Sunday, with a banner saying \"site is currently undergoing maintenance.\" \n \n Wishing everyone a \"Merry LulzXMas\" _ a nod to its spinoff hacking group Lulz Security _ Anonymous also posted a link on Twitter to a site containing the email, phone number and credit number of a U.S. Homeland Security employee. \n \n The employee, Cody Sultenfuss, said he had no warning before his details were posted. \n \n \"They took money I did not have,\" he told The Associated Press in a series of emails, which did not specify the amount taken. \"I think why me? I am not rich.\" \n \n One member of the hacking group, who uses the handle AnonymousAbu on Twitter, claimed that more than 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists _ \"corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox\" news _ had been hacked and used to \"steal a million dollars\" and make donations. \n \n It was impossible to verify where credit card details were used. Fox News was not on the excerpted list of Stratfor members posted online, but other media organizations including MSNBC and Al Jazeera English appeared in the file. \n \n Anonymous warned it has \"enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week.\" \n \n The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on companies such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as others in the music industry and the Church of Scientology. \n \n ____________ \n \n Associated Press writer Jennifer Kway in Miami contributed to this report. \n \n _____________ \n \n Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd", "summary": "\u2013 Hackers say they stole credit card numbers from a US security think tank today and began using them to make donations to charity, the AP reports. The hackers are members of the loose-knit movement known as \"Anonymous.\" The victims are members of a highly guarded list of clients of Stratfor, including the US Air Force, US Army, and Miami police. Hackers have posted tweets saying they plan to make $1 million in donations with the card numbers. \"Anonymous\" members even posted images of fresh donation receipts to charitable groups. \"Not so private and secret anymore?\" tweeted one alleged hacker. Anonymous says it's using the numbers easily because Stratfor neglected to encrypt them\u2014a major blunder if true. For its part, Stratfor has shut down its site and is \"diligently investigating,\" it said in an email. Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility for earlier credit card attacks, says it plans to continue striking targets throughout Christmas week."}
{"document": "BALTIMORE (AP) \u2014 A woman was found pushing her dead 3-year-old son in a park swing Friday, and authorities say she may have been there for hours, or even since the day before. \n \n There were no obvious signs of foul play, but it has not been ruled out, said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman with the Charles County Sheriff's Office. \n \n Richardson said authorities are trying to trace the 24-year-old woman's movements over the past several days \"to find out what was going on in her life, what led to this moment.\" \n \n Sheriff's deputies went to the park in La Plata, Maryland, about 7 a.m. after being called to check on the welfare of the woman and child, Richardson said. The officers went to remove the boy from the swing and give him first aid, but \"it was instantaneously clear the child was dead,\" she said. There were no signs of trauma to his body. \n \n Deputies cut the chain on the swing's seat and removed the body, which was taken to the Officer of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore. A spokesman for the medical examiner said he couldn't provide any information. \n \n The woman, whom police did not identify, was able to answer some of the deputies' questions before being taken to a local hospital for a medical evaluation, Richardson said. \n \n She listed several addresses, including one in Washington and another in Charles County, where La Plata is located, Richardson said. She said the woman also had stayed with a relative in the county. \n \n La Plata is about 30 miles southeast of Washington, with a population of about 8,700, according to the town's website. \n \n \"It's a very sad and tragic situation for the mother, her family, the officers,\" Richardson said. \"All of us want answers. We're working very hard on that.\" ||||| When Charles County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call about a woman pushing a child in a playground swing for an unusually long time, they made a heartbreaking discovery. News4's Derrick Ward reports. (Published Friday, May 22, 2015) \n \n A toddler was found dead on a playground swing in Charles County, Maryland, Friday morning with his mother still pushing him. \n \n \"A citizen called and said they'd noticed a woman pushing a child in a swing for an unusually long period of time,\" said Diane Richardson with the Charles County Sheriff\u2019s Office. \n \n Deputies went to Wills Memorial Park about 7 a.m., and as they got close they noticed the 3-year-old boy in the swing was lifeless. They cut the swing down to administer first aid to the child, but it was too late. \n \n \"They were able to get the child out of the swing, but there was really nothing they could do,\" Richardson said. \n \n Top News Photos of the Week \n \n The boy was taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy. \n \n The child's 24-year-old mother was taken to a hospital. No one in the neighborhood knew who she was or where she'd come from with the child. \n \n The sheriff\u2019s office knows the identity of the mother and child and is trying to find the father. \n \n Copyright Associated Press / NBC4 Washington ||||| Mom found pushing three-year-old son in La Plata park. (Photo: WUSA9) \n \n LA PLATA, Md. (WUSA9) -- A Maryland mother was found pushing her dead three-year-old child in a swing at a park Friday morning, according to the Charles County Sheriff's Office. \n \n Officers responded to Wills Memorial Park located at 500 St. Mary's Avenue around 6:55 a.m. for the report of a woman who had been pushing a child in a swing for an unusually long period of time. \n \n The 24-year-old mother and her son may have been at the park since the day before, officials said. When officers got to the park, they found the woman pushing the three-year-old in a swing at the playground. Officers noticed right away that the boy was dead. \n \n There were no signs of trauma, officials said. The child was taken to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore where an autopsy will be done in order to determine the cause of death. \n \n The mother remains in the hospital for a medical evaluation, officials said Saturday. The investigation is ongoing. \n \n Anyone with additional information is asked to call Det. C. Shankster at (301) 609-6513. \n \n OTHER NEWS: \n \n Police: Woman killed prior to Oxon Hill apartment fire \n \n Man killed inside Salisbury home \n \n Death of 3-year-old Vienna boy under investigation \n \n Read or Share this story: http://on.wusa9.com/1Sp22oC", "summary": "\u2013 In a tragic and bizarre case, authorities yesterday found a woman pushing her dead son in a park's swing, the AP reports. She may have been at the Maryland park for hours or even overnight, they say. The story began with a call to sheriff's deputies regarding the well-being of the child and mother, according to Charles County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Diane Richardson. \"A citizen called and said they'd noticed a woman pushing a child in a swing for an unusually long period of time,\" she tells NBC Washington. Sheriff's deputies found the 24-year-old woman at about 7am at Wills Memorial Park in La Plata, Md., WUSA9 reports, roughly 30 miles from Washington. Deputies cut the swing's chain and pulled the boy out, but \"it was instantaneously clear the child was dead,\" says Richardson. No trauma was seen on the boy's body, she adds, but foul play is still a possibility. The woman, who remains unidentified, answered questions before being taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation. She also gave authorities a few addresses, including at least two of her own in the area and one where she had stayed with a relative. Now authorities are trying to track her activities over recent days. \"It's a very sad and tragic situation for the mother, her family, the officers,\" says Richardson. \"All of us want answers. We're working very hard on that.\""}
{"document": "\u0093Even though I have not done anything wrong, it is clear to me that I need to move on,\u0094 Parmley wrote in his resignation letter. \u0093I refuse to be a distraction.\u0094 \n \n Jay Parmley, who served less than a year at the helm of the party, denied harassing any employee and blamed right-wing political enemies for \u0093spreading a false and misleading story.\u0094 \n \n RALEIGH -- The executive director of the N.C. Democratic Party resigned Sunday as questions mounted about a secret agreement to pay a former staffer to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations. \n \n But his quick departure \u0096 just two days after the matter surfaced \u0096 did little to answer questions about the settlement or quiet critics of party Chairman David Parker. A number of party activists, openly and privately, are calling for him to resign, too. \n \n In a statement, Parker said he accepted Parmley\u0092s resignation and defended his decision not to fire him, saying \u0093there have not been grounds for termination for cause.\u0094 \n \n \u0093In this political world of rushing to judgment and the presumption of guilt, however, my legal and personal opinion has been outweighed by this having become a political distraction and issue,\u0094 said Parker, a Statesville attorney. \n \n Watt Jones, a member of the state party\u0092s executive committee, said Parmley made the right decision for the party. \u0093Clearly I think there are others who should resign, too,\u0094 Jones said. \n \n Democratic consultant Perry Woods of Raleigh agreed. \u0093I think Jay did the right thing,\u0094 he said. \u0093David Parker should join him.\u0094 \n \n Rumors of a harassment issue have circulated for months, but the matter was pushed into the public spotlight by internal party emails obtained on Friday by The News & Observer. The emails included questions about a financial settlement and nondisclosure agreement with the former staffer. The documents did not identify the party official responsible nor the former staffer. \n \n Parker\u0092s statement did not mention any settlement or agreement with the former staffer who was fired in November. Parker declined to comment further, citing advice of legal counsel, but he defended Parmley\u0092s tenure as a party leader in South Carolina and Oklahoma earlier in his career. \u0093There have never been any complaints or allegations concerning Jay Parmley before or since the matter,\u0094 Parker concluded. \n \n North Carolina is a battleground state in the presidential race and host of the Democratic convention, and activists suggested that continued negative publicity involving party leaders could taint the state party\u0092s efforts in the 2012 election. \n \n State Rep. Bill Faison, a candidate for governor who challenged Parker for the party chairmanship in 2011, said in a statement Sunday that Parker should resign \u0093on behalf of the 2.7 million Democrats in North Carolina so that we can get on with the primary election without further distraction.\u0094 \n \n The party\u0092s turmoil made for tense conversations Saturday as local Democrats hosted dozens of county conventions across the state. At the Wake County event, Democratic activists introduced a resolution demanding Parker and Parmley resign or be fired. A similar resolution at the Durham County party convention called for a meeting to determine whether the party leaders should be removed. \n \n The Wake resolution introduced by Woods said the party \u0093must deal with sexual harassment claims in an open and transparent fashion.\u0094 \n \n Muriel Offerman, treasurer of the state Democratic Party and a Parker ally, spoke against the resolution. \u0093This is a personnel matter within the party,\u0094 she said in an interview afterward. \u0093Personnel matters are not to be discussed in public.\u0094 \n \n Other Democrats echoed Offerman\u0092s remarks, and Woods pulled the resolution before a vote took place. \n \n Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, who is seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, suggested party officials should resign or be fired if the allegations are true. \u0093We cannot tolerate sexual harassment in the workplace,\u0094 Dalton said Saturday at the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party convention. \u0093If there\u0092s any truth to the allegations, somebody should resign or be fired immediately.\u0094 \n \n Another leading Democrat seeking his party\u0092s gubernatorial nomination, former U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, issued a statement Sunday that said: \u0093Mr. Parmley has done the right thing by resigning his position with party. I know that Chairman Parker will also do what is right.\u0094 ||||| A former North Carolina Democratic Party staffer was sexually harassed by a party official, made a financial settlement with the party and signed a non-disclosure agreement to keep the incident quiet, according to emails obtained by The Daily Caller. \n \n \u201cIf this hits the media, the Democratic Party, our candidates, and our credibility are doomed in this election,\u201d reads one email exchange between state Democratic leaders. \n \n (UPDATE: Dem official named in same-sex harassment claim by male staffer) \n \n An email chain between those Democratic leaders, obtained by The Daily Caller, indicates the executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Jay Parmley, and the alleged sexual harassment victim both signed non-disclosure agreements. \n \n The email chain does not make clear who was guilty of the alleged harassment, the status of that individual\u2019s employment with the Democratic Party or the identity of the victim. \n \n State Democratic Party spokesman Walton Robinson did not respond to The Daily Caller\u2019s request for comment on the matter. \n \n President Obama\u2019s re-election team views North Carolina as an important state in the president\u2019s campaign and Charlotte, N.C. is the site of this year\u2019s Democratic National Convention. \n \n In the email chain, North Carolina Democratic statehouse candidate Watt Jones complained about the lack of what he considers competent staffers in the state party. \n \n Though North Carolina Democratic Party chairman David Parker claimed in one email that a supposed ongoing staff exodus was due to staffers leaving for \u201cgreener pastures\u201d during the campaign season, Jones rebutted that assertion. \n \n \u201cIn regards to the personnel issues, certain staff leaving for \u2018greener grass\u2019 is not the issue,\u201d Jones wrote to Parker. \u201cIn fact, some of those staffers who have recently left have also privately spoke of frustration at things occurring within Goodwin House [the North Carolina Democratic Party headquarters].\u201d \n \n Jones said that those \u201cpersonnel issues coming from Goodwin House are now related to allegations of \u2018harassment,\u2019 sexual or otherwise, involving staff.\u201d \n \n He went on to explain how the alleged sexual harassment going on within the Democratic Party\u2019s North Carolina headquarters could be detrimental to the party and may even directly contradict the Democrats\u2019 own immediate agenda. \n \n \u201cEven with an agreed non-disclosure statement and financial settlement, that appears to be short-lived,\u201d Jones wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s making its rounds all over the state and beyond. Is the person responsible still employed? Many questions are unanswered. With a Democratic Party which is suppose [sic] to be fighting to defeat Amendment One [which describes marriage as between one man and one woman] on the May 8 ballot, yet we have this in Goodwin House? How does that look?\u201d \n \n The question of appearances by Jones may imply that the harassment was same-sex in nature, which might complicate Democratic messaging in the party\u2019s efforts to defeat the anti-gay-marriage amendment. \n \n \u201cRest assured there is a statewide gathering (I am told) that are upset over this and want people held accountable,\u201d Jones continued. \u201cIn all honesty, I am being told by several reliable sources that the Associated Press is itching to get this out. Thankfully, some are trying to stop it. Do we want the Republicans to get this information? They are also asking questions.\u201d \n \n Jones added that he expects that the \u201cDemocratic Party, our Candidates, and our credibility are doomed in this election,\u201d if the alleged sexual harassment story is made public. \n \n Follow Matthew on Twitter \n \n See the emails: \n \n North Carolina Democrats\u2019 Emails", "summary": "\u2013 North Carolina's Democratic Party is in turmoil after allegations of sexual harassment and a cover-up, the News & Observer reports. Executive Director Jay Parmley has resigned amid calls for both him and Party Chairman David Parker to step down. \"Even though I have not done anything wrong, it is clear to me that I need to move on,\" Parmley wrote in a resignation letter. According to the Daily Caller, both Parmley and the alleged victim had signed non-disclosure agreements, although the emails obtained by the site don't make the identities of the victim or the alleged harasser clear. The party is accused of paying off the alleged victim, a former staffer who was fired after complaining about harassment by a senior party official earlier this year, and of having him sign the form in order to keep him quiet. Parmley and Parker, who accepted Parmley's resignation but did not step down himself, blamed politics for inflating the issue, but some Democratic activists and party officials still called for Parker to resign as well. The party \"must deal with sexual harassment claims in an open and transparent fashion,\" says one consultant in a resolution, \"and event a hint or perception of a cover-up is damaging to the party's credibility.\""}
{"document": "AMY WINEHOUSE may have beaten her drug addiction but it's left her wide open for another obsession - surgery. \n \n The troubled star is so pleased with her new \u00ef\u00bf\u00bd35,000 boobs, enhanced from a 32B to a 32D just last month, she is thinking of having them enlarged again. \n \n And Wino has told pals she is also considering BUM implants. \n \n A source said: \"Amy loves her boobs. She can't stop touching them and showing them off to friends. \n \n \"She says she feels womanly again and wants to be more curvy like she used to be. \n \n \"She thinks by having another op and bum implants that she will achieve her dream pin-up look.\" \n \n Isn't that how she used to look before she hit the drugs? \n \n Even her dad MITCH has said how good her new pair are. \n \n But I bet he won't support her going under the knife again. \n \n The odd op is OK but just look at past and present stars hooked on plastic such as JORDAN and MICHAEL JACKSON... \n \n For Wino it must be like ordering a McDonalds - \"It's Amy, and I'd like to go super size please.\" ||||| We were wondering where Amy Winehouse had got to recently, and now we know. \n \n It seems she has a new addiction... to table tennis. \n \n Advertisement - article continues below \u00bb \n \n The diva has bought a table for her Barnet home and is throwing ping pong parties. \n \n A source said: \"She barely leaves the house.\" \n \n Rock 'n' roll. \n \n Win a Louis Vuitton luggage set with Mirror.co.uk", "summary": "\u2013 Amy Winehouse has a new addiction. What vice is it this time: Cocaine? Her ex-husband? Nope. It\u2019s her new ping-pong table. \u201cShe barely leaves the house,\u201d a source tells the Mirror. In equally ridiculous Winehouse news, the recently-breast-enhanced singer is now pining for bigger boobs\u2014and considering a butt job. \u201cShe thinks by having another op and bum implants that she will achieve her dream pin-up look,\u201d a source tells the Sun."}
{"document": "This undated photo provided by Vanderbilt University shows Brandon Banks, 19, of Brandywine, Md. (Photo: AP) Story Highlights Brandon Banks surrendered to authorities \n \n Banks was the only player remaining at large in the case \n \n Banks was charged with five counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery \n \n NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Brandon Banks, one of the four former Vanderbilt University football players who were charged with rape on Friday, has surrendered to Metro Police. \n \n He will be taken to General Hospital for the mandatory HIV test and then to jail. \n \n Banks, 19 from Maryland, was the only player remaining at large in the case. \n \n EARLIER: Four indicted in rape case \n \n Brandon Vandenburg, 20, from California; JaBorian \"Tip\" McKenzie, 18, from Mississippi; and Cory Batey, 19, of Nashville also have been arrested. \n \n The four men were charged on Friday with five counts each of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery. Vandenburg was also charged with one count of unlawful photography and tampering with evidence. \n \n McKenzie, 19, surrendered at police headquarters Saturday morning. He was also taken to General Hospital for the mandatory HIV test. He was released from Metro Jail around 1 p.m. after posting a $50,000 bond, according to a dispatcher with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office. \n \n Vandenburg and Batey remain in Metro Jail in lieu of $350,000 bond following their arrests, according to Metro spokeman Don Aaron. \n \n Jessica Bliss writes for The Tennessean, a Gannett property. ||||| Three of the four former Vanderbilt football players who were indicted for allegedly raping an unconscious 21-year-old student in a dorm room on the Nashville, Tenn., campus have been arrested, authorities said. \n \n Brandon Vandenburg, 20, of Indio, Calif.; Cory Batey, 19, of Nashville; Brandon Banks, 19, of Brandywine, Md.; and Jaborian McKenzie, 19, of Woodville, Miss., were each charged with five counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery on Friday, according to the a Nashville Police Department. \n \n The four men are charged with raping an unconscious victim inside Vandenburg's Gillette House dorm room on June 23, police said. \n \n Vandenburg was also charged with tampering with evidence and unlawful photography. \n \n The incident was brought to university officials' attention after they checked the dorm's surveillance recordings regarding an unrelated matter. The footage revealed \"concerning behavior by the defendants,\" police said. \n \n The four former football players were dismissed from the team on June 29 and banned from campus pending a six-week investigation,The Associated Press reported. \n \n Both Vandenburg and McKenzie were booked into the Davidson County Sheriff's Office on Saturday. \n \n Vandenburg was taken into custody at the Nashville International Airport upon his arrival into the city on Saturday, according to a police statement. He was first taken to Nashville General Hospital for a state-mandated HIV test required for individuals charged with rape before he was booked at approximately 2:05 a.m. The former Commodores tight end is being held on $350,000 bail. \n \n McKenzie turned himself in at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. He was also taken to the hospital for a mandatory HIV test before he was taken into custody, the news release said. \n \n The former receiver was released after posting $50,000 bond, according to jail records. \n \n Batey, a former safety on the team, was arrested at his Nashville home on Friday around 3:30 p.m., taken for a blood test, and then booked into Davidson County Sheriff's Office on a $350,000 bond. \n \n Banks, who played defensive back, is still at large, police said. \n \n \"Although four people are being charged at this time, the investigation is still on-going into the actions of other individuals and the role(s) they may have played in this incident,\" District Attorney General Torry Johnson said in a prepared statement. \n \n Five additional current players on the football team are listed in the indictment as witnesses for the prosecution if the case goes to trial, the AP reported. \n \n Vanderbilt University's vice chancellor Beth Fortune said the school was \"shocked and saddened by the allegations that such an assault has taken place on our campus and that they include members of our football team.\" \n \n \"The charges brought today against the four former Vanderbilt football players allege conduct which is abhorrent and will never be tolerated,\" Fortune said in a statement released today. \"We will review our athletics program to be sure that it, like all other programs at the university, reflects our culture of community and respect for others and that our student athletes are held to the same high standards of conduct as all our students.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Four recently-dismissed members of the Vanderbilt University football team were arrested over the weekend in the alleged rape of an unconscious 21-year-old student in her dorm room. The rape allegedly occurred on June 23. University officials discovered the incident while checking dorm surveillance footage for an unrelated matter. Brandon Vandenburg, JaBorian McKenzie, Cory Batey, and Brandon Banks were all kicked off the football team on June 29 and banned from campus pending an investigation, ABC News reports. The four were all indicted on Friday with five counts of aggravated rape, and two counts of aggravated sexual battery, with Vandenburg also accused of tampering with evidence and unlawful photography. Vandenburg was arrested on Saturday when his plane arrived at Nashville International Airport, and Batey was arrested at his Nashville home, while McKenzie and Banks turned themselves in. McKenzie has since been released on a $50,000 bond, while Vandenburg and Batey remain in jail in lieu of $350,000 bond, USA Today reports."}
{"document": "The so-called \"affluenza\" teen wants another break. \n \n The Texas teenager who killed four people in a 2013 drunken-driving wreck is asking the state's Supreme Court to throw out his current two-year jail sentence. \n \n Ethan Couch was initially sentenced to 10-years probation after successfully arguing that his spoiled childhood was to blame for the accident. However, he later violated his probation by drinking and partying, and fled to Mexico. \n \n Couch was later apprehended and last year was given the two-year sentence, 180 days for each victim. \n \n Father of 'affluenza teen' avoids jail time for impersonating cop \n \n \"Affluenza\" teen Ethan Couch is serving a two-year jail sentence. (POOL/POOL) \n \n His lawyers argue that the judge only had jurisdiction over criminal cases and that juvenile matters are civil. \n \n Ethan Couch's lawyers also tried for the teen's release last year, but was rejected by a judge. At the time, they asked for the removal of District Judge Wayne Salvant from the case. \n \n The teen, who was 16 at the time, crashed his pickup truck into a crowd of people on June 15, 2013. The group was trying to help another driver. \n \n The teen killed four people in a drunken-driving wreck in 2013. (Tarrant County Sheriff's Office) \n \n His lawyers said that he was not responsible because he was coddled as a child by his wealthy parents, and initially avoided jail time. \n \n 'Affluenza' teen's request to get judge removed is denied \n \n Couch would skip parole meetings and bolted to Mexico with his mother. Tonya Couch could face up to 10 years in prison for helping her son elude law enforcement officials. \n \n Just a few months ago Ethan Couch's father Fred avoided jail time for impersonating a Texas police officer in 2014. \n \n With News Wire Services \n \n Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| facebook twitter email Share More Videos 1:06 Peaches ripe for the pickin' Pause 0:31 Tarrant County's 10 Most Wanted Criminals, July 5 2:31 Fallen Dallas officers remembered at memorial dedication 6:29 'Our world has been turned upside down' 2:21 Emergency team jumps into action to rescue stranded teen 6:00 Swift water rescue team pulls teen from creek in North Richland Hills 0:33 Video: North Fort Worth neighborhood floods 0:36 Several hundred pounds of fireworks confiscated in Fort Worth 1:41 Firsthand tour of Las Vegas Trail 1:39 Possum Kingdom Lake recovers from wildfires and drought Share Video Video link: Select Embed code: Select \n \n facebook \n \n facebook twitter \n \n twitter email Judge Wayne Salvant sentenced the 'affluenza' teen to nearly two years in jail on concurrent terms on Wednesday in a Fort Worth courtroom. Pool video \n \n Judge Wayne Salvant sentenced the 'affluenza' teen to nearly two years in jail on concurrent terms on Wednesday in a Fort Worth courtroom. Pool video ||||| Lawyers for a Texas teenager who used an \"affluenza\" defense in a fatal drunken-driving crash have turned to the Texas Supreme Court in an effort to secure his release from jail. \n \n The motion filed Friday on behalf of 19-year-old Ethan Couch argues that a judge had no authority to sentence Couch to nearly two years in jail after his case was moved from juvenile to adult court. \n \n Couch's attorneys argue that the judge only had jurisdiction over criminal cases and that juvenile matters are civil. \n \n Couch was given 10 years' probation after killing four people in a 2013 crash. He later violated his probation. \n \n RAW VIDEO: Judge's Ruling in Couch Hearing \n \n During his first appearance in adult court Wednesday, a North Texas teen who used an \"affluenza\" defense in a deadly drunken driving crash was ordered to spend nearly two years behind bars as part of his probation. (Published Wednesday, April 13, 2016) \n \n A defense expert invoked the term \"affluenza\" in arguing during the sentencing phase of the teenager's trial that he was coddled into a sense of irresponsibility. \n \n Copyright Associated Press", "summary": "\u2013 Lawyers for Ethan Couch are asking the Texas state Supreme Court to release the \"affluenza teen\" from jail, NBC DFW reports. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a judge sentenced Couch to 720 days in jail last April after he skipped a probation check-in and ran to Mexico with his mother. The pair went on the lam following the release of a video that apparently showed Couch partying in violation of his parole. Lawyers for Couch say the judge didn't have the authority to sentence Couch to jail time because the judge only has purview over criminal cases. They say Couch's is a civil case because it originated in juvenile court, the New York Daily News reports. Couch's case was transferred to adult court when he turned 19. Couch was sentenced to 10 years' probation in 2013 when he crashed his pickup truck into a group of people helping a disabled vehicle. Couch was drunk at the time, and four of the people died. A psychologist defending Couch said the teen never learned the difference between right and wrong and was suffering from \"affluenza\" thanks to his rich upbringing. Couch's lawyers filed the motion to release him from jail last Friday. The motion has already been denied twice in lower courts."}
{"document": "Crops are wilting, schools have shut their bathrooms and government officials are bathing in lagoons because of a severe shortage of fresh water in a swath of the South Pacific. \n \n The island groups of Tuvalu and Tokelau have declared emergencies, relying on bottled water and seeking more desalination machines. Parts of Samoa are starting to ration water. \n \n Supplies are precariously low after a severe lack of rain in a region where underground reserves have been fouled by saltwater from rising seas that scientists have linked to climate change. \n \n While nobody has gone thirsty yet, officials worry about the logistics of supplying everyone with enough water to survive and the potential health problems that might arise. And exactly how the islands will cope in the long term remains a question mark. \n \n \"We are praying that things will change,\" Samoan-based official Jovilisi Suveinakama said. \n \n Six months of low rainfall have dried out the islands. Climate scientists say it's part of a cyclical Pacific weather pattern known as La Nina _ and they predict the coming months will bring no relief, with the pattern expected to continue. \n \n Rising sea levels are exacerbating the problem, as salt water seeps into underground supplies of fresh water that are drawn to the surface through wells. \n \n On the three main atolls that make up isolated Tokelau, the 1,400 residents ran out of fresh water altogether last week and are relying on a seven-day supply of bottled water that was sent Saturday from Samoa, Suveinakama said. \n \n Suveinakama said that some schools no longer have drinking water available, and that the students often need to return home if they want to use a bathroom. \n \n \"In terms of domestic chores, like washing clothes, everything's been put on hold,\" he said. \"We are cautious of the situation given the possible health issues.\" \n \n Suveinakama said that Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand, has tapped emergency funds to buy desalination machines, which turn salt water into fresh water. He hopes those will be shipped to the islands soon. \n \n In Tuvalu, a nation of low lying atolls that is home to less than 11,000 people, Red Cross team leader Dean Manderson described the situation as \"quite dire.\" \n \n He said that on the island of Nukulaelae, there were only 16 gallons of fresh water remaining Tuesday for the 350 residents and that the Red Cross was sending over two small desalination machines. \n \n He said much of the well water on Tuvalu is unusable because it has become contaminated with salt water. \n \n The New Zealand government this week flew a defense force C-130 plane to Tuvalu stocked with Red Cross supplies of bottled water and desalination machines. Officials including High Commissioner Gareth Smith also flew over to assess the situation. \n \n Smith said the coconut trees on Tuvalu are looking sickly and that the edible breadfruit, which grow in trees, are much smaller than usual. He said other local fruits and vegetables, including a type of giant taro, are not growing well or are in short supply. \n \n He said people in the capital of Funafuti are permitted a ration of two buckets of water per day and that government ministers have been bathing in the lagoon to preserve water. \n \n Funafuti residents have been relying on a large desalination machine for much of their daily water supply, said Manderson. The Red Cross has been helping improve the function of that machine and has been fixing other such machines that have broken down, he added. \n \n New Zealand climate scientist James Renwick said the rainfall problems can be traced back 12 months, when the region began experiencing one of the strongest La Nina systems on record. \n \n La Nina is sparked when larger-than-normal differences in water temperature across the Pacific Ocean cause the east-blowing trade winds to increase in strength, Renwick said. That, in turn, pushes rainfall to the west, leaving places like Tuvalu and Tokelau dry. \n \n Last year's La Nina system dwindled by June but has begun picking up again just ahead of the November rainy season, Renwick said, meaning that there is no relief in sight for island groups like Tuvalu, Tokelau and Samoa. \n \n \"Low rainfall continues to be on the cards, at least through the end of the year,\" Renwick said. \n \n Officials say they are concentrating on the short-term supply problems and have not yet had time to think about longer term solutions for the islands. But they say that the combination of rising water levels and low rainfall mean makes life on the islands look increasingly precarious. ||||| Image caption Water supplies will have to be brought to Tokelau by barge from ships anchored offshore \n \n A second South Pacific community is suffering a severe water shortage due to an ongoing drought crisis. \n \n Tokelau declared a state of emergency late on Monday, following a similar move in neighbouring Tuvalu, where water is already being rationed. \n \n A New Zealand-administered territory of three islands, Tokelau's 1,400 people have less than a week's drinking water left. \n \n The lack of rainfall is blamed on the La Nina weather pattern. \n \n Officials said Tokelau had run out of natural fresh water and was relying solely on bottled water. \n \n New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said other islands in the South Pacific were also reporting water shortages. \n \n Parts of Samoa have begun rationing water. \n \n He said New Zealand was rushing to assess the situation throughout the region, amid fears the crisis could escalate. \n \n This is having a severe impact on crops, so there's likely to be a food shortage as well Murray McCully, NZ Foreign Minister \n \n New Zealand was \"making sure we deal with the drinking water issue most urgently\", he said. \n \n A New Zealand Air Force plane landed in Tuvalu on Monday carrying containers of water and desalination units. \n \n Tuvalu, one of the world's smallest independent nations, with a population of about 11,000, lies about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Tokelau is about 500km (310 miles) to the east. \n \n Impact on crops \n \n Mr McCully said the situation was urgent in parts of Tuvalu. \n \n He said there was less than a week's supply of drinking water on Funafuti, the main island of Tuvalu. \n \n \"I understand one of the other outlying islands, Nukulaelae, has a more urgent shortage and there is a desalination plant on the way there,\" Mr McCully said. \n \n \"There are going to be some flow-on effects here, clearly this is having a severe impact on crops, so there's likely to be a food shortage as well.\" \n \n La Nina causes extreme weather, including both drought and floods, and was blamed for floods in Australia, South East Asia and South America in late 2010 and early 2011. \n \n David Hebblethwaite, a water conservation expert with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, said Tuvalu had experienced low rainfall for the past three years and there had been no precipitation at all for seven months. \n \n He said Funafuti and Nukulaelae both lacked groundwater supplies, making them dependent on rainfall collected from the roofs of homes and government buildings. \n \n Mr Hebblethwaite said the islands may also need extra medical supplies if water shortages lead to sanitation issues and consequent health problems.", "summary": "\u2013 Some island groups in the South Pacific, already in danger of being swamped by rising seas, have run out of fresh water. Tuvalu and Tokelau have declared states of emergency because of the water crisis, caused by six months of low or no rainfall and by groundwater becoming contaminated with seawater, the BBC reports. New Zealand's air force has rushed bottled water and desalination machines to the areas most in need. In Tuvalu, a nation of atolls that is home to around 11,000 people, the situation is \"quite dire,\" a Red Cross team leader says. The crisis is spreading, with Samoa now rationing water, and experts believe that because of La Ni\u00f1a, the region won't see any rainfall until at least until the end of the year. The water crisis is expected to trickle down into food shortages, and sanitation and public health problems, the AP reports, and officials say the future of the island nations is looking increasingly uncertain."}
{"document": "You may have arrived at this page because you followed a link to one of our old platforms that cannot be redirected. \n \n Cambridge Core is the new academic platform from Cambridge University Press, replacing our previous platforms; Cambridge Journals Online (CJO), Cambridge Books Online (CBO), University Publishing Online (UPO), Cambridge Histories Online (CHO), Cambridge Companions Online (CCO), and Shakespeare Survey Online (SSO) which no longer exist. \n \n All content from these platforms is now available on Cambridge Core. \n \n In order to find the content you are looking for, use the search box at the top right of the page to search Cambridge Core or follow the links below to our key product areas. \n \n Useful links \n \n Collections & Series \n \n \n \n Journals \n \n \n \n Books \n \n \n \n eBook content from our publishing partners (previously published on UPO) \n \n Open access ||||| This teenage girl was buried in a Polish cemetery with a sickle over her neck, possibly to ward off demons. She was also buried with a copper headband and a copper coin, archaeologists found. \n \n How do you keep a demon from disturbing the living? A blade to the throat should do the trick. \n \n A few skeletons unearthed in a 400-year-old Polish cemetery have been discovered with sickles placed around their necks. Archaeologists believe this strange burial practice is evidence of a belief in magic and a fear of demons. \n \n The sickle burials were found at Drawsko cemetery, a site in northeastern Poland that dates from the 17th to the 18th centuries. Archaeologists, including Marek Polcyn, a visiting scholar at Lakehead University in Canada, have excavated more than 250 graves there since 2008. \n \n Among those graves were four skeletons with sickles placed at their throats, and a fifth skeleton with a sickle placed over its hips. Previously, these burials had been described as \"vampire\" burials, with the sickles interpreted as a way to prevent the dead from reanimating and terrorizing the living. But in a new study detailed in the journal Antiquity, Polcyn and co-author Elzbieta Gajda, of the Muzeum Ziemi Czarnkowskiej, now reject that characterization. (\"We deliberately dismiss the interpretation of a revenant (i.e. vampire),\" isn't something you read in an academic paper every day.) [See Photos of the Sickle Burials at Drawsko Cemetery] \n \n Instead, the archaeologists prefer to use the blanket term \"anti-demonic\" to talk about these burials, partly because vampires weren't the only kinds of evil incarnations of the dead, according to traditional folk beliefs in the region. But also, the sickle graves were afforded funerary privileges that weren't usually extended to \"vampires\" buried elsewhere: They were given Christian burials in sacred ground alongside other members of the community, and their corpses do not appear to have been desecrated or mutilated. \n \n In another sign that the people buried with sickles probably were not outsiders, scientists who studied chemical signatures locked in the teeth of these corpses found that all five individuals were locals. (They published those results in a paper in PLOS ONE last year.) \n \n \"The magical and ritual meaning of this gesture seems beyond doubt,\" Polcyn and Gajda wrote, adding, however, that the sickle might have had more than one ritualistic meaning. The tool may have been intended to keep the dead in their graves under the threat of cutting their throat, but it also might have been used to prevent evil forces from tormenting their souls. What's more, the use of a tool made of iron, which had to undergo a transformation in fire, could symbolize the passage from life to death, the authors wrote. [7 Strange Ways Humans Act Like Vampires] \n \n Even though Christianity was the dominant religion in Poland at the time this cemetery was used, traditions from old Slavic pagan faith and folk belief systems still existed, including a belief in demons. Besides the sickles, there is not much that makes these graves unique, so the scientists aren't sure exactly what about these people made them demonic. They may have been thought to have supernatural powers in life, or they might have had physical characteristics considered suspicious (which might have included \"an exceptionally hairy body,\" a unibrow, a large head and a red complexion, the authors said, citing traditional Polish folklore). \n \n These people also might have died in a traumatic fashion, without any time for the appropriate rites and rituals to make for a smooth spiritual transition into death \u2014 a concept some archaeologists call a \"bad death.\" While some of the people buried with sickles may have simply died of old age, one of them, a girl, died as a teenager. The authors speculated that she might have met a violent and untimely end, perhaps through drowning, suicide or murder. Unfortunately for archaeologists, however, this death didn't leave its mark on the girl's bones. \n \n Polcyn and Gajda wrote that they hope further scientific tests on the corpses, such as biomolecular analyses, will help them understand more specifically what led the dead in Drawsko to be buried with sickles. \n \n Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| This amber and a gold earring from burial of a lady close to Stonehenge shows the detailed decoration on other Bronze Age artifacts from the time of Stonehenge. MORE: Stonehenge Intricate Treasures Made by Children \n \n Although the purpose of the gold lozenge remains a mystery \u2014 interpretations have ranged from an elaborate button to an astronomical instrument -- its precise decorations, made of impressed lines, reveals a detailed knowledge of mathematics and geometry. \n \n On the chest of the Bush Barrow tribal chief there was a beautifully decorated gold lozenge. It was made of sheet gold with finely incised decoration. \n \n Some of the thousands of studs from the dagger. Each stud is thinner than a human hair. They were set into the wood at a density of over 1,000 per square centimeter to create a zig-zag pattern. \n \n Produced nearly 4,000 years ago, more than 1,000 years before the invention of any form of magnifying glass, the dagger was decorated with 140,000 tiny studs. The ultra-fine craftwork entailed extremely tiny components such as microscopic gold pins and gold wires. According to optic experts, only children and teenagers, and those adults who had become myopic naturally or due to the nature of their work as children, would have been able to create and manufacture such tiny objects. The eye-stressing work would have blinded most child workers. The image shows how the studs are placed in straight lines and the heads overlap each other like fish scales. \n \n This watercolor shows the dagger handle as excavated by William Cunnington in 1808. \n \n Among the buried objects, one of the finest was a dagger with an intricately decorated wooden handle. Today only fragments of the original handle survive. Here fragments of the 4,000-year-old wooden handle is mounted on a modern wood reconstruction. \n \n Reconstruction of the burial of the Bush Barrow mound. The burial contained the skeleton of a chieftain who lived almost 4,000 years ago. He was laid to rest in regal splendor with objects known today as the Stonehenge treasure. NEWS: Stonehenge Intricate Treasures Made by Children \n \n Evidence of \u201canti-demonic\u201d funerary practices, with sickles placed around the throats of the deceased possibly to ward off demons, has been found in a 400-year-old cemetery in Poland. \n \n Researchers examined more than 250 human skeletons which were excavated since 2008 from a post Medieval cemetery in Drawsko, a rural settlement site in northwestern Poland. \n \n Dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, the remains represented individuals of all ages and both sexes and included five unique interments with sickles. \n \n Photos: Intricate Treasures From Stonehenge Burial \n \n Play Video Ancient Lost Army Found? The Persian army of 50,000 soldiers supposedly perished in a sandstorm in ancient Egypt 2500 years ago. Researchers have located a valley of bones they think may belong to the fabled army. DCI \n \n \u201cIn four of these burials the sickles were placed on the bodies of the dead with the cutting edge tightly against the throat, while the fifth was located on the pelvis,\u201d Marek Polcyn, a visiting scholar at Lakehead University in Canada, and Elzbieta Gajda, of the Muzeum Ziemi Czarnkowskiej, wrote in the current issue of the journal Antiquity. \n \n The skeletons with the sickles around the throat were those of an adult male who died between 35\u201344 years of age, two adult females who died around 30\u201339 years of age, and an adolescent female who at around 14\u201319 years old. \n \n There was also an adult female aged 50\u201360 years interred with a large, arch-curved sickle placed across her hips. A stone was placed directly on top of the throat, while a coin was found in her toothless mouth. \n \n Ice Age Infant Skeletons Hint at Burial Rites \n \n Previously, it was suggested these people were buried as \u201cvampires.\u201d In this view, the sickle placed across the throat was intended to remove the head, should the vampire attempt to rise from the grave. \n \n But Polcyn and Gajda argue these burials should be rather interpreted as \u201canti-demonic.\u201d They noted the sickle burials have none of the characteristics of so-called anti-vampiric practices. \n \n They were interred in sacred ground following conventional Christian burial patterns, with the head placed towards the west, and their graves did not appear to have been desecrated. \n \n Ancient Priest's Tomb Painting Discovered Near Great Pyramid \n \n \u201cConfining the deceased in the grave by means of a sickle may have been a measure to prevent the demonized soul threatening the living, or could have been a reference to biblical symbolism in an attempt to prevent the soul from becoming demonized,\u201d Polcyn and Gajda wrote. \n \n Vampires were not the only mythical creatures feared in Poland in the 17th century. As wars, hunger, pestilence, and poverty devastated the country, Slavic pagan faiths resurrected. \n \n \u201cThe development of the Counter-Reformation was a significant turning point as it brought cultural and intellectual regression, religious fanaticism and a growing climate of terror, deliberately stoked by Catholic clergy spreading fear of the devil and witchcraft,\u201d the researchers wrote.", "summary": "\u2013 Want to keep a demon-skeleton from haunting your rural settlement? Just bury it with a sickle at its throat. That's what researchers are saying about four skeletons from the 17th and 18th centuries found buried with iron sickles around their necks in a Polish cemetery, Discovery reports. Writing in Antiquity, Marek Polcyn and Elzbieta Gajda say the skeletons\u2014two adult females, an adult male, and an adolescent female excavated with over 250 human remains starting in 2008\u2014may have been feared as possible demons in Drawsko, northwestern Poland. The sickles \"may have been a measure to prevent the demonized soul threatening the living, or could have been a reference to biblical symbolism in an attempt to prevent the soul from becoming demonized,\" the authors write. They dismiss the theory that the villagers feared vampirism, saying the burials were conventionally Christian, with heads pointing west, and the graves don't seem desecrated. Perhaps the burials followed the folk belief that a person with a \"bad death\" (like drowning, suicide, or death during childbirth) was prone to being inhabited by one of fourteen demons. Such beliefs persisted alongside Slavic pagan faith and Christianity in Poland at the time, Live Science reports. Interestingly, a fifth skeleton had the sickle around her hips, a stone at her neck, and a coin in her mouth. \"Coins were placed in the mouth to favor the deceased's passage into the afterlife,\" one expert says. \"The sickle and the stone would have prevent[ed] the dead from returning.\" (Read about self-identified vampires who have \"a real fear.\")"}
{"document": "About 190 workers, mostly Somali, were let go after they left the meatpacking line to protest changes to prayer policy \n \n Somali immigrant Halimo Ahmed places her cut on the fastpaced belt during her shift in manufacturing at Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan. ( Joe Amon, The Denver Post file ) \n \n Cargill Meat Solutions said Thursday it tried to resolve a workplace prayer dispute with Somali workers at its Fort Morgan meatpacking plant that led to the firing of about 190 employees. \n \n The workers who lost their jobs were mostly immigrants from Somalia, and their termination came after they failed to report to work for three consecutive days last week to protest what they say were changes in times allowed for Muslim prayer. \n \n Workers including Somalis trim beef in manufacturing at Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan. (Joe Amon, The Denver Post) \n \n Cargill says, however, it makes every \"reasonable attempt\" to provide religious accommodation for all of its employees at the Fort Morgan plant without interrupting operations. \n \n \"At no time did Cargill prevent people from prayer at Fort Morgan,\" said Michael Martin, a spokesman for the Wichita-based company, which is part of the agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. \" Nor have we changed policies related to religious accommodation and attendance. This has been mischaracterized.\" \n \n Cargill also said while reasonable efforts are made to accommodate employees, accommodation is not guaranteed every day and depends on changing factors in the plant. \n \n Advertisement \n \n \"This has been clearly communicated to all employees,\" Martin said. \n \n But the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is representing more than 100 of the fired employees, said Thursday that messaging from plant supervisors has not always been so clear. \n \n On Dec. 18, the Friday before employee protests began Dec. 21, \"the workers were told: 'If you want to pray, go home,' \" CAIR spokesman Jaylani Hussein said. \n \n \"To these employees, that is what it is. Maybe Cargill never changed its policy, but to these employees, they feel whatever the policy is, or how it is implemented, there was a change put in place,\" Hussein said. \n \n Cargill provides a \"reflection room\" at the plant where observant Muslim workers are allowed to pray, something that has been available since 2009. \n \n Hussein said depending on the season, the workers pray at different times of the day, typically taking five to 10 minutes away from their work. The time was carved out of a 15-minute break period or from the workers' unpaid 30-minute lunch breaks. \n \n Many of the workers banded together and decided to walk off the job in an attempt to sway plant managers to reinstate the prayer policy. \n \n \"They feel missing their prayer is worse than losing their job,\" Hussein said. \"It's like losing a blessing from God.\" \n \n On Dec. 23, Cargill fired the holdouts who had not returned to work, citing a company policy that employees who do not show up for work or call in for three consecutive days will be let go. \n \n \"It's an unfortunate situation that may be based somewhere in a misunderstanding,\" Martin said. \"But the policies have been in place, and we go over the policies for all people who are newly hired to the company when they are hired.\" \n \n All of the terminated employees worked the second shift on the plant's fabrication floor, where chilled beef carcasses are broken down into smaller cuts and packaged, Martin said. \n \n Of those involved, \"fewer than 20\" employees walked out in the middle of a shift, he said. About 160 failed to report to work, and 10 resigned. \n \n Before the walkout, Cargill employed roughly 600 Somali workers at the Fort Morgan plant. More than 400 still work there, Martin said, and accommodations are still being made to allow Muslims to leave the floor in small groups to pray. \n \n \"There has been a desire among some employees to go in larger groups of people to pray. We just can't accommodate that,\" Martin said. \"It backs up the flow of all the production. We're a federally inspected, USDA inspected plant. We have to ensure food safety. We have to ensure the products we produce meet consumer expectations.\" \n \n The workers earn $14 per hour and up and are represented by a union, Teamsters Local 455. More than 2,000 people are employed at the plant. \n \n Cargill has a policy stating that any workers who are terminated cannot reapply for a position for six months. CAIR continues to talk with Cargill, and Hussein said he hopes the six-month freeze is waived and that the workers will be allowed back. \n \n \"I'm confident in our upcoming negotiations that we can come to a resolution,\" Hussein said. \n \n Emilie Rusch: 303-954-2457, erusch@denverpost.com or @emilierusch ||||| Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share Nearly 200 Muslim workers say they were fired from a Colorado meat packing plant after walking off the job during a dispute over workplace prayer. \n \n Some of the Somali workers from Cargill and their translator (Photo: Chris Hansen/9NEWS) \n \n DENVER \u2014 About 190 workers, most of them immigrants from Somalia, have been fired from a Colorado meat-packing plant after walking off the job during a dispute over workplace prayer. \n \n The workers walked off their jobs at Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan, Colo., last month. \n \n Jaylani Hussein with the Council on American-Islamic Relations says that depending on the season, the Muslim workers prayed at different times of the day. \n \n The workers say that earlier in December the plant's policy toward allowing them to pray on the job was changed, which made some of them unable to pray at all. \n \n Hussein says that on Tuesday, Minnesota-based Cargill fired most of the workers who walked out. \n \n \"Prayer is the first priority to every Muslim. We can sustain without a job, but we cannot sustain without prayer,\" according to Khader Ducal, who is assisting the Somali workers file for unemployment. \n \n Cargill spoke to KUSA-TV to clarify their side of the story, saying their attendance and religious accommodation policy had not changed. \n \n \"In the Fort Morgan plant, a reflection area for use by all employees to pray was established in April 2009 and is available during work shifts based on our ability to adequately staff a given work area,\" Cargill said in a statement. \n \n \"While reasonable efforts are made to accommodate employees, accommodation is not guaranteed every day and is dependent on a number of factors that can, and do, change from day to day,\" the company said. \n \n The company maintains that the workers were fired due to a violation of company policy for not reporting to work for three consecutive days without calling to explain why. \n \n According to Cargill, the first shift at the Fort Morgan plant was fully staffed, but the second shift was short due to about 200 Somali employees not reporting to work. \n \n \"Multiple attempts were made to discuss the situation with local Somali employees without a successful resoluting, including a Tuesday meeting at the plant management's request,\" the Cargill statement reads. \n \n Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said multiple attempts were made to communicate to employees who did not show up for work that their jobs were in jeopardy. \n \n According to the company, plant management and union representatives met with Somali leaders without resolution earlier this week. \n \n It was at that point and due to the work policy that Cargill decided to terminate about 190 people. \n \n Under federal law, employers must provide employees with reasonable accommodation for religious practice, as long as it doesn't create an undue hardship for the company. Legal experts say those terms are often hard to define and left up to the courts to decide. \n \n A spokesperson for the Council on American Islamic Relations said in a press conference Wednesday night that a possible deal is being brokered to allow the fired workers to reapply for their jobs sometime next week. \n \n Contributing: The Associated Press \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1R3itIk", "summary": "\u2013 Nearly 200 Muslim workers\u2014mostly Somali immigrants\u2014were fired by a Colorado meat-packing plant last month for walking off the job over claims their employer was preventing them from praying, USA Today reports. \"Prayer is the first priority to every Muslim,\" a man assisting the fired employees says. \"We can sustain without a job, but we cannot sustain without prayer.\" A spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations tells the Denver Post Muslim employees were told Dec. 18, \"If you want to pray, go home.\" In response, approximately 190 Muslim employees refused to work Dec. 21. According to USA Today, most of those employees were fired Dec. 23. A company policy states if employees are out for three days without \"calling in,\" they can be fired, KUSA reports. Cargill Meat Solutions has a special area for employees to pray during the day, but it can only be used if they have enough staff to cover for the praying employees, KUSA reports. \"While reasonable efforts are made to accommodate employees, accommodation is not guaranteed every day and is dependent on a number of factors that can, and do, change from day to day,\" according to a Cargill statement. The company says that policy hasn't changed. \"It's an unfortunate situation that may be based somewhere in a misunderstanding,\" a Cargill spokesperson tells the Post. CAIR claims Cargill's prayer policies are not always clearly communicated to employees. The meat-packing plant still has more than 400 Somali employees, and the company is working with them on the prayer issue."}
{"document": "Jenn Gibbons, seen on the Chicago River in 2010, is more than halfway to her goal of raising $150,000 to help breast cancer survivors. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune / ) \n \n Chicago rowing coach and charity founder Jenn Gibbons says she plans to continue her 1,500-mile rowing journey around the perimeter of Lake Michigan after surviving a sexual assault in her rowboat Sunday. \n \n \"Quitting is an option,\" said Gibbons, who is rowing to raise awareness and money for breast cancer survivors. \"I don't think people would think I let them down or I was a failure. But it's not what I want to do.\" \n \n Gibbons, 27, was in the cabin of Liv, her 700-pound rowboat, while it was tied to a dock around 4 a.m. Sunday in an area along Lake Michigan in Schoolcraft County, Mich. Details of the attack are being withheld because the investigation is ongoing \n \n Though shaken, Gibbons spent Tuesday working with detectives and reaching out to the news media to help find her attacker. Her primary concerns, she said, are starting the healing process and finishing what she has begun. \n \n \"I've trained enough physically, spiritually and mentally,\" Gibbons said by phone. \"Every single day I have had ups and downs. I'm constantly improvising. I've trained well. This just requires pushing through an obstacle that's bigger than the rest.\" \n \n About 8 a.m. Tuesday, Gibbons posted a statement on her Facebook page and on the site row4row.org vowing to continue her journey. By the afternoon she had 60 missed phone calls and had received hundreds of emails. Support has come from a wide range of people: friends, strangers, breast cancer survivors and victims of sexual assault. \n \n \"Because this has been such a public thing from the start and I have an audience, I think it's important that I share (what happened),\" she said. \"When I do share, people have been able to relate and gain some kind of strength or inspiration from what I've been going through. And it helps me share, too.\" \n \n She also hopes it will help authorities find her attacker. Police are still investigating the incident and searching for a white man they describe as in his 30s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall with facial hair, light eyes and an average build. He was wearing a grayish green T-shirt, jean shorts and tennis shoes. A news release from Michigan police says a bright yellow Jeep Wrangler was seen in the area of the attack. It has a spare tire on the back with a yellow happy face on it. \n \n Gibbons expects to continue her journey around the lake later this week, riding 80 miles a day on a bicycle with a support crew. She plans to get back on the water near Muskegon, Mich., sometime next week. Some changes will be made to ensure her safety, she said, including that she no longer will be traveling alone. Her trip is expected to end when she gets back to Chicago in mid-August, as was originally planned. \n \n Recently named one of 20 inspiring women by Today's Chicago Woman magazine, Gibbons has been rowing 10 to 13 miles a day since she left from Diversey Harbor in her bright yellow vessel June 15. Her plan was to stop only to visit 10 port towns along the lake to raise money for her charity Recovery on Water \u2014 the team's boats cost about $25,000 each \u2014 and highlight the vital role exercise plays in the fight against breast cancer. \n \n Before she left she packed 210 dehydrated meals and hundreds of Luna bars into the Liv. She sleeps buckled up inside the 19-foot boat, which has two air- and watertight cabins and a ventilator for fresh air. So far she has raised $80,000, more than halfway to her goal of $150,000. \n \n Gibbons, who grew up in Battle Creek, Mich., and rowed for Michigan State University, never expected the trip to be easy. \n \n The wind, \"which will not let me get from A to B,\" has been especially vexing, she said. \"I'm dependent on the weather, and it changes every day.\" \n \n But the last several weeks have been particularly tough. Setbacks included 6-foot waves that had her throwing up on the Liv's ceiling, a broken GPS, a problematic anchor and the death of a grandmother July 13. \n \n \"I want progress \u2014 but today can't be that day,\" she wrote July 18 after being grounded by wind gusts. \"Practicing acceptance and remembering to believe in myself. I can and will do this. I can and will do this.\" \n \n Still, Gibbons also has written about plenty of joyful, inspiring moments. On June 27 she woke up at 5 a.m. to find a kayaking cancer survivor next to her boat. He paddled with her for a few miles, sharing his cancer experience and how it led him to meet his wife. He told her how, as an elite marathoner in his 30s, he started a program to get survivors exercising in Sheboygan, Wis. \n \n It's the same goal Gibbons is pursuing. \n \n \"Thank you Tim for spending your morning with me and sharing your story with me,\" she wrote on her blog. \"You are amazing-an inspiration-a gift. GO ROW.\" \n \n Anyone with information on the attack should call Michigan State Police at 1-866-411-0018. \n \n mmanchir@tribune.com \n \n jdeardorff@tribune.com ||||| So here I am, nearly a year later and back to the blog I started years ago, the Lake Michigan adventure that I\u2019m proud of, thankful for and always learning from. \n \n And here I am again- sharing and vulnerable- because that\u2019s how I roll. \n \n The new bike adventure website will launch in the next two weeks. It\u2019s exciting- and I thought about writing this blog when we went live with it- but I also think it\u2019s important that I give this blog a proper farewell. \n \n February of 2013 I sold Liv after my Lake Michigan adventure and with letting her \u201cgo\u201d, I think I also began to come in to a new phase of recovery, of hurt, of life, of growth. \n \n When you plan a single event, or in my case, 59 days of events to consume your life- it\u2019s not just about the 59 days. I spent nearly two years planning, training and fundraising to make my way around the perimeter of Lake Michigan. I put stress on every relationship I had, my body, my finances- just about anything that could take a toll, did. While I came home and was hungry for adventure- I was also (perhaps, unconsciously) hungry to heal. It wasn\u2019t just the 59 days I had to \u201ccome down\u201d from, it was the years of dedication, of sacrifice, of love and energy spent. \n \n Over the last year I\u2019ve been stopped by strangers on the street, at the pharmacy, at the gym- sharing their support of me, my cause, and my work. I spoke and traveled the country to talk about my adventure and to inspire others to overcome adversity. I had always been public about my life and it always helped people understand and connect to what I was doing-I always thought of it as a strength. \n \n While I tried hide it, 2013 was also full of a lot of pain and healing wounds I never knew I had. Privately, I struggled with my assault. I leaned on people to stall the process of accepting problems I spent months denying I had. I hurt people I love. I spent a lot of time questioning my identity \u2013 who was I if I wasn\u2019t the girl that rowed around Lake Michigan? What was I worth without it and who was I supposed to become now that it was over? \n \n I struggled with it all- I felt powerless, weak, and depressed- all those not so fun things and not so fun things to talk about. I overcame them with therapy, fell back in to them again- overcame them again, numerous times. The healing process was painful, long, and I can honestly say- the most challenging thing I have ever faced. \n \n As far as I know it will always be a process- but it hasn\u2019t been easy. I\u2019m sharing this here and now because I don\u2019t want there to be any misconceptions about me or the last year before we launch this new website and adventure. \n \n I could have kept the last year to myself, but I don\u2019t want anyone to think that I went from rowing and experiencing sexual assault to hopping on a bike with ease two years later. That\u2019s not what happened. I don\u2019t want someone to find this blog or learn about me, unaware that I went through all those things or didn\u2019t struggle with them. It was hard. It was damn hard. And I didn\u2019t do it alone. \n \n I am beyond thankful to my family and friends for getting me through this last year. My boyfriend Andy and my dog Sam deserve trophies for their endless amounts of unconditional love and support. The real heros are these two. \n \n I\u2019m human, it\u2019s a beautiful thing, You\u2019re human, it\u2019s a beautiful thing. \n \n So hello, goodbye\u2026. to this adventure. See you soon for the next one and all the good, the bad, the ugly it brings. Thank you for sharing this journey with me, for all of your love and your support. \n \n GO ROW! \n \n -Jenn", "summary": "\u2013 A 27-year-old woman rowing 1,500 miles around Lake Michigan for charity says she will continue her journey despite being sexually assaulted on Sunday, reports the Chicago Tribune. Jenn Gibbons was attacked while sleeping in her rowboat by a man who was apparently following her journey online. \"Every single day I have had ups and downs,\" said Gibbons, founder of Recovery on Water, a charity that emphasizes the importance of exercise in fighting breast cancer. \"I'm constantly improvising. I've trained well. This just requires pushing through an obstacle that's bigger than the rest.\" \"Quitting is an option,\" said Gibbons. \"I don't think people would think I let them down or I was a failure. But it's not what I want to do.\" Gibbons has rowed 10 to 13 miles a day since beginning her journey on June 15, and raised $92,000 toward her goal of $150,000. For more details about Gibbons' journey, check out her website Row4row.org, or to donate, go here."}
{"document": "One unsuspecting woman was wearing her engagement ring for over a year without even realizing it. \n \n How exactly is this possible, you might ask? It all started when an Australian man named Terry made his girlfriend Anna a necklace out of Huon pine \u2015 a wood native to Tasmania \u2015 for their one-year anniversary in 2015. Unbeknownst to Anna, Terry had hidden an engagement ring inside the necklace. \n \n Courtesy of the couple The ring was hidden inside the necklace for over a year. \n \n For a year and a half, Anna wore that necklace almost every day without knowing there was anything, let alone an engagement ring, inside. \n \n Courtesy of the couple Anna sporting the anniversary necklace. \n \n During a trip to Smoo Cave in northern Scotland in November 2016, Terry was finally ready to pop the question and to reveal the big surprise. \n \n \u201cI picked Smoo Cave because it was a place we had talked about visiting since we first met, and \u2018smoo\u2019 comes from an old Norse word for \u2018hiding place,\u2019 so I think I get extra points for that one,\u201d Terry told HuffPost. \n \n Just before the proposal, Terry asked Anna for the necklace, telling her he was going to take a nice photo of it propped up on some rocks. \n \n That\u2019s when he grabbed a knife to secretly break a seal he had placed on the piece of jewelry. \n \n Courtesy of the couple \"I made the necklace with two small bits of Huon pine glued together with a thin sheet of paper between them (and a space carved out for the ring to fit into). The glue held it together but the paper acted like a seam that I could split open with a knife,\" Terry explained. \n \n He told Anna, \u201cOh, I forgot to give you your necklace back,\u201d pulled the jewelry from his pocket, got down on one knee and cracked it open while asking her to marry him. \n \n \u201cShe stood there with this completely confused and dumbfounded look on her face, and when she finally worked out what had just happened, she yelled, \u2018Yes!\u2019 and pounced on me,\u201d he told HuffPost. \n \n Courtesy of the couple Terry set up a camera to take photos of the proposal. \n \n \u201cIt actually took her a couple of moments to understand that the ring had been in the necklace the entire time since I gave it to her,\u201d he continued. \u201cShe flipped out \u2015 \u2018Wait, it\u2019s been in there the entire time?! I could have lost it, you f**king idiot!\u2019, which was a hilarious mix of happy and angry.\u201d \n \n Courtesy of the couple The happy couple post-proposal. \n \n The couple is saving up to buy a home and hopes that they will someday be able to host their wedding at the house. \n \n \u201cWe are hoping to buy a house with land so we can have the wedding at home with our friends and family, in a very relaxed fashion that we think matches us \u2015 rather than having a gigantic, glamorous wedding, which isn\u2019t like us at all,\u201d Terry said. ||||| There are many different ways a man can propose to his girlfriend - you could go all out and spend \u00a3220,000 on an elaborate day, you could write love letters for years that contain a hidden message, or you could simply get down on one knee in your living room and pop the question. \n \n Another approach would be to get your girlfriend to unknowingly wear her engagement ring for over a year before proposing. For that is exactly what an Australian man called Terry did. \n \n On their one year anniversary, Terry gave his girlfriend Anna a necklace that he\u2019d made himself. It was made out of Huon pine - a wood native to Tasmania - but little did Anna know there was something much more precious inside. \n \n The necklace contained a hidden engagement ring. \n \n \u201cI had always loved the idea of giving someone a gift where they didn't know its true value until years later,\u201d Terry explained to The Independent. \n \n \u201cAfter my girlfriend and I had been together for eleven months I decided I wanted to ask her to marry me, but I wanted to do something unique. I also wanted to start doing wood carving and I had this idea for the necklace, so I decided I would give it a go. I found the ring I knew suited her and started working on it.\u201d \n \n \n \n \n \n For a year and a half, Anna wore the necklace almost every day with no clue that there was something special about it. \n \n \u201cI gave the necklace to her on our one year anniversary and she absolutely loved it. She wore it every day and everywhere we went, and pretty much never took it off,\u201d Terry said. \n \n \u201cThere were some occasions where I was really worried; at one point, I thought she was going to trade it with a blacksmith at a market (the blacksmith loved the necklace, and she loved the blacksmith\u2019s work) but luckily I didn't need to crash tackle her. \n \n \u201cMy biggest moment of panic was when we went through airport security the first time. I hadn't thought about the fact that she might be asked to put it through the X-Ray, which could have very quickly turned into an airport security proposal!\u201d \n \n \n \n \n \n But in November 2016, Terry decided to finally pop the question. \n \n On a trip to Smoo Cave in northern Scotland, the true contents of the necklace was revealed. \n \n \u201cI picked Smoo Cave because it was a place we had talked about visiting since we first met, and \u2018smoo\u2019 comes from an old Norse word for \u2018hiding place,\u2019 so I think I get extra points for that one,\u201d Terry told HuffPost. \n \n How did he do it? Terry asked Anna for the necklace, saying that he wanted to take a nice picture of it propped up on some rocks. \n \n \n \n \n \n \u201cIt had a really small amount of glue holding the two parts together,\u201d he explained, \u201cSo I loosened it with a knife quickly before we took the picture (which broke the top part off unfortunately...) and then put it in my pocket ready. \u201d \n \n Anna didn\u2019t see him break the seal though. \n \n \u201cOh, I forgot to give you your necklace back,\u201d Terry said to his girlfriend, and as he got the necklace out of his pocket, he got down on one knee, opened the necklace and asked her to marry him. \n \n \u201cShe stood there with this completely confused and dumbfounded look on her face, and when she finally worked out what had just happened, she yelled, \u2018Yes!\u2019 and pounced on me,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cIt actually took her a couple of moments to understand that the ring had been in the necklace the entire time since I gave it to her. She flipped out - \u2018Wait, it\u2019s been in there the entire time?! I could have lost it, you f***ing idiot!\u2019, which was a hilarious mix of happy and angry.\u201d \n \n Terry had set up a camera to take pictures of him and Anna too. \n \n The couple are currently saving up to buy a house, where they hope they\u2019ll eventually be able to host their wedding. \n \n \u201cWe are hoping to buy a house with land so we can have the wedding at home with our friends and family, in a very relaxed fashion that we think matches us - rather than having a gigantic, glamorous wedding, which isn\u2019t like us at all,\u201d Terry said. \n \n The Independent's Millennial Love group is the best place to discuss to the highs and lows of modern dating and relationships. Join the conversation here.\u200b", "summary": "\u2013 An Australian man may have outdone pretty much everyone when it comes to perfecting the marriage proposal. Using only first names, the man named Terry tells HuffPost the story of how he gave his girlfriend Anna a necklace on their one-year dating anniversary. Using Huon pine, a wood native to Tasmania, he carved the necklace himself, and she wore it almost every day for the next year. What she didn't know was that inside the necklace he'd hidden an engagement ring. \"It was literally under her nose,\" writes the Independent. Flash forward to November 2016. They took a trip to Smoo Cave in Scotland, a place they'd talked about visiting since they first met. On location, Terry asked for the necklace so he could take a photo of it. Secretly, he broke the seal she didn't know was there with a knife. With his camera rolling, Terry pulled the necklace out of his pocket, got down on one knee, cracked it open, and popped the question. After initial shock and confusion, Anna \"finally worked out what had happened\" and yelled \"Yes!\" before she \"pounced on me,\" he tells HuffPost. Too sappy for you? She also kind of flipped out, saying: \"It's been in there the entire time? I could have lost it, you f---ing idiot!\" Terry tells the Independent he had a few nervous moments along the way, too: At one point Anna considered trading the necklace with a blacksmith for some of his work. They're now saving to buy a house and hope to marry in it. Smoo, by the way, means \"hiding place.\" (This newborn helped his dad propose.)"}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By Alex Seitz-Wald \n \n PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been ousted as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the party's convention. It's an abrupt end to a chairmanship marked by controversy, which came to a head this weekend following revelations from leaked internal emails. \n \n \"Going forward, the best way for me to accomplish those goals is to step down as Party Chair at the end of this convention,\" Wasserman Schultz said in a lengthy statement Sunday announcing her resignation, referring to her desire to unify the party. \n \n Wasserman Schultz said she plans to step down at the end of the convention, though some Democrats are already saying she may not last that long. \"As Party Chair, this week I will open and close the Convention and I will address our delegates about the stakes involved in this election not only for Democrats, but for all Americans,\" Wasserman Schultz added. \n \n Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge has been selected to serve as chair of the Democratic National Convention, which kicks off Monday. Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Donna Brazile will serve as Interim Chair through the election, a DNC spokesperson said on Twitter. \n \n As recently as Friday, there was no sign of trouble and Wasserman Schultz was set to lead the convention, according to sources. \n \n Wasserman Schultz spoke at two Hillary Clinton rallies in Florida Friday and Saturday, including the one where presumptive vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine appeared publicly for the first time. \n \n But opposition to Wasserman Schultz, both public and private, had been gaining steam following the publication late last week of leaked emails which seemed to show a plot by DNC officials to damage Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary. \n \n The revelations created doubts from various sectors of the party about how Wasserman Schultz could oversee a convention meant to showcase party unity. \n \n By late Saturday, opposition inside the party \"spread like wildfire,\" according to a Democratic source close to the matter. It resulted in a tense confrontation Sunday when officials told Wasserman Schultz she had to go. \n \n Wasserman Schultz had become toxic to supporters of Sanders, who accused her of rigging the Democratic presidential nominating process in favor of Clinton. \n \n Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz Richard Drew / AP \n \n In a statement, Sanders said that Wasserman Schultz had made \"the right decision\" but repeated his criticism of the party for what he describes as the DNC putting its thumb on the scale during the primary contest. \n \n \"Debbie Wasserman Schultz has made the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party,\" he said. \"While she deserves thanks for her years of service, the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people. The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race.\" \n \n But starting even before that, many Democrats had privately lost confidence in her leadership. \n \n \"She's essentially a pariah in every corner of the party,\" said one veteran Democratic strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal politics. \"This has needed to happen for a long time.\" \n \n For instance in late May, after a news report that Democrats were considering ousting Wasserman Schultz, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called her to say he would not put out a statement defending her. \n \n Wasserman Schultz also overrode the White House and the Clinton campaign in her choice of communications director for the DNC last fall. The key role went vacant for five months as the various parties tried to find a candidate acceptable to her, with some allies criticizing the process and outcome. \n \n Even Clinton allies questioned the DNC's heavy-handed approach to dealing with the Sanders campaign during a data breach incident in December, worrying that it would undermine the credibility of a nominating process they hoped to win. \n \n Wasserman Schultz had already effectively lost control of the DNC after Clinton's campaign inserted operative Brandon Davis to run operations on a day-to-day basis. \n \n The Clinton campaign also recently sent a second staffer, Adam Parkhomenko, from its Brooklyn headquarters to serve in a senior role on the committee. \n \n But internal DNC emails posted online by Wikileaks late last week became the catalyst for her official removal. \n \n One email showed the party's finance chairman suggesting the DNC use what they assumed to be Sanders' atheism against him in Kentucky and West Virginia, religious states where it might not play well. \n \n Others showed Wasserman Schultz criticizing Sanders for not being a member of the party and saying he would never be president. \n \n The emails were apparently stolen by hackers working for the Russian government, and Clinton officials have said their posting is an attempt to sway the election for Donald Trump. \n \n The emails implicate other DNC officials, including CEO Amy Dacey, a close Wasserman Schultz ally who is well respected by other Democrats, and communications department officials. \n \n Meanwhile, Wasserman Schultz is facing a surprisingly tough congressional reelection campaign back home in Florida against a primary candidate backed by Sanders. \n \n Wasserman Schultz, who began her tenure as chair in 2011, proved herself to be a prodigious fundraiser for fellow Delegates and an effective party surrogate and attack dog. \n \n \"I want to thank my longtime friend Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her leadership of the Democratic National Committee over the past five years,\" Clinton said a statement accepting the chairwoman's resignation. \n \n Wasserman Schultz served as a co-chair of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and Clinton said Sunday that the Floridian will serve as \"honorary chair\" of her campaign's 50-state program and continue to serve as a surrogate for her campaign nationally and in Florida. \n \n Her detractors inside the party had resigned themselves to Wasserman Schultz's leadership through November, comforted by the fact that she had been marginalized by Clinton aides. \n \n Even some critics in the Clinton campaign and White House thought it would be better to keep Wasserman Schultz than to risk presenting an image of disunity by forcing her out. \n \n On Sunday, critics passed around a tweet Wasserman Schultz sent last week to her counterpart at the Republican National Committee, Reince Preibus. \"Hey @Reince \u2014 I'm in Cleveland if you need another chair to help keep your convention in order,\" she wrote. \n \n Priebus, who faced his own challenges managing a fractured party at the GOP's convention in Cleveland last week, told reporters Sunday that Wasserman Schultz's resignation was \"inevitable,\" adding \"it shows what an uphill climb the Democrats are facing this week in unifying the party.\" ||||| (CNN) The Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday without its outgoing Democratic National Committee chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, following a chaotic scene at a morning meeting where she was loudly jeered by Bernie Sanders supporters. \n \n \"I have decided that in the interest of making sure that we can start the Democratic convention on a high note that I am not going to gavel in the convention,\" Wasserman Schultz told the Sun Sentinel newspaper in an interview. \n \n Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is also the Democratic National Committee's secretary, handled the gaveling instead. \n \n \"Delegates, alternatives, standing committee members and all of our honored Democrats and other guests here in Philadelphia and all of you who have joined us by television, radio and online, here in the United States and around the world,\" she said, \"I hereby call the 47th quadrennial Democratic National Convention to order.\" \n \n Wasserman Schultz will also not speak tonight or throughout the duration of the convention, a Democrat close to her says. She will remain in Philadelphia until Friday when she formally steps down as leader of the committee. \n \n Wasserman Schultz changed her plans as the fallout deepened from leaked DNC emails that appeared to show the committee favoring presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Sanders during the primary. It became clear Monday that the convention floor could erupt in anger if she gaveled the convention into session or sought to speak. \n \n And the Democratic National Committee issued an apology to Sanders moments after the convention opened, likely hoping to help soothe tensions heading into the week. \n \n \"On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Sen. Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email,\" the statement said. \"These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process. The DNC does not -- and will not -- tolerate disrespectful language exhibited toward our candidates. Individual staffers have also rightfully apologized for their comments, and the DNC is taking appropriate action to ensure it never happens again.\" \n \n The morning Florida delegate meeting descended into chaos when Wasserman Schultz took the stage, with critics holding up signs with the word \"emails,\" and Sanders supporters booing the congresswoman loudly, even after she began speaking. \n \n \"We have to make sure that we move forward together in a unified way,\" Wasserman Schultz said during brief remarks. \"We know that the voices in this room that are standing up and being disruptive, we know that is not the Florida that we know. The Florida that we know is going to make sure that we continue to make jobs.\" \n \n The audience was roughly half supportive of Wasserman Schultz and half detractors, though the angry participants were louder than the other half. Those attendees began to chant, \"Shame! Shame! Shame!\" while Wasserman Schultz was speaking. \n \n Sanders tried to quell some of his dissatisfied supporters at a rally before his expected speech Monday. \n \n \"We have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine,\" Sanders said, which prompted some attendees to shout him down. \n \n JUST WATCHED Sanders booed after voicing support for Clinton Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Sanders booed after voicing support for Clinton 01:18 \n \n Alternate plans \n \n Wasserman Schultz announced Sunday she is stepping down as chairwoman of the DNC at the end of the party's convention. The drama reinforced concerns about Democratic party unity. \n \n Former Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver tried to show a unified Democratic Party on Monday, the morning after Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation. \n \n \"This happened, we knew it happened then, now is the time to go forward,' Weaver told CNN's Chris Cuomo on \"New Day\" on Monday. \"Now is the time to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump.\" \n \n Wasserman Schultz talked with both President Barack Obama and Clinton before making announcing her upcoming resignation, a Democratic source said. \n \n \"Going forward, the best way for me to accomplish those goals [which include electing Clinton president] is to step down as Party Chair at the end of this convention,\" Wasserman Schultz said in the statement. \n \n \"As party chair, this week I will open and close the Convention and I will address our delegates about the stakes involved in this election not only for Democrats, but for all Americans,\" she said. \n \n JUST WATCHED Sanders campaign manager: We must elect Clinton Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Sanders campaign manager: We must elect Clinton 00:56 \n \n DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile will serve as interim chair through the election. She had been a CNN political commentator, but CNN and Brazile have mutually agreed to suspend their contract, effective immediately, although she will remain on air during the convention week in an unpaid capacity, CNN said. CNN will revisit the contract once Brazile concludes her role. \n \n Separately, a Democratic operative said Hispanic leaders close to Clinton and her high command were discussing Housing Secretary Julian Castro as a possible successor to Wasserman Schultz at the DNC helm, among a number of other candidates whose name are being mentioned. \n \n Chants of \"Debbie is done!\" and \"Debbie resigned!\" broke out at a pro-Sanders rally Sunday in Philadelphia after the news was announced. \n \n Party officials decided Saturday that Wasserman Schultz would not have a major speaking role or preside over daily convention proceedings this week. The DNC Rules Committee has named Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, as permanent chair of the convention, according to a DNC source. She will gavel each session to order and will gavel each session closed. \n \n \"She's been quarantined,\" another top Democrat said of Wasserman Schultz, following a meeting Saturday night but before her announcement that she was leaving. \n \n Both sides of the aisle react \n \n Obama issued a statement, saying, \"For the last eight years, Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has had my back. This afternoon, I called her to let her know that I am grateful.\" \n \n And Clinton thanked Wasserman Schultz for her leadership of the party. \n \n \"I am grateful to Debbie for getting the Democratic Party to this year's historic convention in Philadelphia, and I know that this week's events will be a success thanks to her hard work and leadership,\" Clinton said. \n \n After slamming Wasserman Schultz as \"highly overrated,\" Trump, speaking at a rally in Roanoke, Virginia, knocked Clinton for being disloyal to the soon-to-be former DNC chair. \n \n \"How about that for disloyalty in terms of Hillary Clinton. Because Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been so much for Hillary Clinton,\" Trump said. \"These politicians. There's no loyalty there. No loyalty. None whatsoever.\" \n \n \"It gets a little heat and they fire her,\" Trump said. \"Debbie was totally loyal to Hillary and Hillary threw her under a bus and it didn't take more than five minutes to make that decision.\" \n \n Wasserman's Republican counterpart, Reince Priebus, said, \"I think the day's events show really the uphill climb Democrats face this week.\" \n \n \"The extreme left will not be satisfied by one person's resignation,\" the Republican party national chairman added. \n \n Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Clinton should follow Wasserman Schultz out the door. \n \n \"Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned over her failure to secure the DNC's email servers and the rigged system she set up with the Clinton campaign,\" he said in a statement. \"Now Hillary Clinton should follow Wasserman Schultz's lead and drop out over her failure to safeguard top secret, classified information both on her unauthorized home server and while traveling abroad.\" \n \n Weaver called Wasserman Schultz's departure a win on CNN's \"Erin Burnett OutFront\" on Sunday. \n \n \"I think what the signal was today is that the voices of Bernie Sanders supporters have been heard,\" he said. \"And other people, frankly, in the party, Hillary Clinton supporters, who felt this was the last straw, that she had to go, and this shows they have been heard and gives us opportunity to move forward toward November -- united to deal with the problem of Donald Trump.\" \n \n Wasserman Schultz's stewardship of the DNC has been under fire through most of the presidential primary process, but her removal from the convention stage comes following the release of nearly 20,000 emails. \n \n One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Sanders' faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement. \n \n JUST WATCHED Sanders: No question DNC was supporting Hillary Clinton Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Sanders: No question DNC was supporting Hillary Clinton 02:08 \n \n Before the announcement, Sanders on Sunday told Tapper the release of the DNC emails that show its staffers working against him underscores the position he's held for months: Wasserman Schultz needs to go. \n \n \"I don't think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC, not only for these awful emails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people, and I don't think her leadership style is doing that,\" Sanders told Tapper on \"State of the Union,\" on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. \n \n \"I am not an atheist,\" he said. \"But aside from all of that, it is an outrage and sad that you would have people in important positions in the DNC trying to undermine my campaign. It goes without saying: The function of the DNC is to represent all of the candidates -- to be fair and even-minded.\" \n \n He added: \"But again, we discussed this many, many months ago, on this show, so what is revealed now is not a shock to me.\" ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites.", "summary": "\u2013 Embattled Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced Sunday that she will step down, CNN reports. The announcement that she will resign following the party convention, which begins Monday, comes on the heels of leaked emails that appear to show that DNC officials were working to sabotage Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Wasserman Schultz's role at the convention already had been reduced to simply opening and closing the event. \"I am confident that the strong team in place will lead our party effectively through this election to elect Hillary Clinton as our 45th president,\" she said in a statement, adding, \"Going forward, the best way for me to accomplish those goals is to step down as party chair at the end of this convention.\" Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge will chair the convention, the New York Daily News reports. And, per NBC News, Vice Chair Donna Brazile will steer the DNC through the election as interim chair. \"I am grateful to Debbie for getting the Democratic Party to this year's historic convention in Philadelphia, and I know that this week's events will be a success thanks to her hard work and leadership,\" Clinton said in a statement. Republican nominee Donald Trump tweeted, \"I always said that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was overrated. The Dems Convention is cracking up and Bernie is exhausted, no energy left!\""}
{"document": "Police in Ohio have filed an aggravated murder charge against a 20-year-old man accused of killing his fianc\u00e9e\u2019s mother late last month, PEOPLE confirms. \n \n Jeffrey Scullin Jr., who had been engaged to the daughter of sixth-grade teacher Melinda Pleskovic, was arrested on Tuesday by Strongsville police. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bond. \n \n Get push notifications with news, articles, and more! \n \n Strongsville Police Chief Mark Fender announced the arrest during a news conference held hours after Scullin was taken into custody. \n \n Pleskovic, 49, was found dead inside her home on Oct. 23. She\u2019d been stabbed and shot. \n \n In a strange development, Sculllin was one of the two people to call 911 to report his future mother-in-law\u2019s death. \n \n Chief Fender told reporters that Pleskovic\u2019s husband, Bruce Pleskovic, called 911 that Monday after returning to his home with Scullin to find Melinda on the floor in a pool of blood. \n \n \u201cI think my wife is dead,\u201d he told a dispatcher. \n \n \u2022 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. \n \n Jeffrey Scullin Jr. Strongsville Police Department \n \n Melinda Pleskovic Facebook \n \n During the call, Bruce said that there had been break-ins at their home in recent weeks, most recently the Thursday before Melinda\u2019s killing. \n \n But police suspect he was acting under information given to him by Scullin \u2014 the only person, they say, who had reported seeing people attempting to illegally enter the residence. \n \n Scullin, who had also been living at the Pleskovics\u2019 home, told the 911 operator in his own call that he saw no signs of a break-in, according to audio of the call obtained by PEOPLE. He said that the doors to the home had been locked. \n \n \u201cWe just came home. She\u2019s on the kitchen floor,\u201d he said. \u201cI took her son and my daughter outside. Her husband is inside with her now.\u201d \n \n \u201cWe found her in the kitchen. She\u2019s not moving,\u201d he continued. \n \n Asked by the dispatcher if it appeared Melinda had been beaten, Scullin said, \u201cShe has blood all around her. I didn\u2019t look. I just grabbed the child and left. There\u2019s a lot of blood.\u201d \n \n A possible motive and further details about how the crime were committed have not been released. \n \n Scullin has not yet entered a plea, and it was unclear Thursday if he\u2019s retained legal counsel who could comment on his behalf. \n \n He and Melinda\u2019s daughter were set to marry last weekend. Instead, they spent the day at her funeral where he reportedly served as a pallbearer. ||||| Melinda was a beloved figure in the community. She was a mother of three children and a sixth grade teacher who taught at Strongsville City Schools for more than 20 years. ||||| The blood of Strongsville school teacher Melinda Pleskovic was found on the blade of a knife located in a pickup truck driven by her daughter's fiance, court records show. \n \n In addition, police say Jeffrey Scullin's DNA was found on the knife handle and that more blood was found on a passenger side door. Police describe the knife as a 'large, tactical' weapon. \n \n Scullin, 20, is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on charges of aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, making false alarms and tampering with evidence. \n \n He is being held under a $1 million bond. \n \n The court document filed by Strongsville police investigators is the first true glimpse of how Scullin came to emerge as a suspect in Pleskovic's shooting and stabbing death Oct. 23 inside her Blazing Star home. \n \n Scullin, who lived with Pleskovic, 49, and her husband, was set to marry the couple's daughter just days after the killing. Instead, the family held a funeral and Scullin served as a pallbearer. \n \n Police reports show the Pleskovics had complained for a year about pranks and break-ins at their home One attempted break-in, four days before the slaying, was reported by Scullin. The false alarm charge is connected to that burglary report, documents show. \n \n It was Scullin and Pleskovic's husband who called 911 after arriving home and discovering Melinda Pleskovic's body on the kitchen floor. \n \n Surveillance cameras were examined and confirm that the family had spent time at Applebees prior to the slaying. \n \n Police are also examining Scullin's cell phone as well as the phones of the Pleskovic family for possible evidence.", "summary": "\u2013 A 911 caller in Ohio who told the dispatcher \"there's a lot of blood\" after he came across the body of his future mother-in-law is now being accused of her murder. \"Jeffery William Scullin Jr. has been charged with aggravated murder,\" Strongsville Police Chief Mark Fender told reporters at a Tuesday press conference, which WOIO notes took place eight days after the killing of 49-year-old Melinda Pleskovic. Scullin, 20, was engaged to Pleskovic's daughter and lived in the Pleskovic home. People reports he arrived at the home with Pleskovic's husband, Bruce, on Oct. 23 to find the sixth-grade teacher's body on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. She'd been shot and stabbed several times. Bruce Pleskovic told a 911 dispatcher there'd been recent break-ins at their home, but cops say he may have thought that based on info fed to him by Scullin. Scullin, who made a separate 911 call, told the dispatcher it didn't look like anyone had broken in. He says he grabbed his own daughter and Pleskovic's son\u2014WKYC notes the 18-year-old has Down syndrome\u2014and went outside without surveying the scene more carefully. Scullin was set to marry Pleskovic's daughter on the Saturday after the slaying, but instead he was said to have served as a pallbearer at her funeral. Per court records cited by WKYC, a knife with Pleskovic's blood was found in Scullin's pickup truck, among other evidence. Scullin is being held on a $1 million bond. (This man killed his mom and two brothers weeks before his planned wedding.)"}
{"document": "Cleveland (CNN) Ted Cruz on Thursday strongly defended his refusal to endorse Donald Trump during his Republican National Convention speech, saying he's not \"in the habit\" of backing politicians who attack his family. \n \n \"I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,\" Cruz said at a morning meeting where he faced sharp questions from the Texas delegation in Cleveland. \n \n Cruz stood by his decision in a remarkable 25-minute back-and-forth with his own constituents, defying appeals from his own Texas delegation to put the party above his inhibitions and back Trump. \n \n Cruz sensationally withheld an endorsement of Trump in his speech Wednesday, earning a chorus of boos from the floor while getting upstaged in a power play by the GOP nominee himself. \n \n In a dramatic development, as Cruz wrapped up his speech, Trump suddenly appeared in the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. He walked to join his family in a VIP area and flashed a thumbs-up -- a gesture that transmitted clear anger at the Texas senator's behavior. \n \n Cruz, his party's runner-up, uttered Trump's name just once -- to congratulate him -- and instead pitched the ideological brand of conservatism that endears him to the GOP's base. \n \n \"I congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night,\" Cruz said. \"And like each of you, I want to see the principles that our party believes prevail in November.\" \n \n JUST WATCHED Laura Ingraham scolds Trump holdouts: Honor your pledge Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Laura Ingraham scolds Trump holdouts: Honor your pledge 01:54 \n \n But as it was clear Cruz was going to end his speech without endorsing Trump, delegates began to boo and some chanted \"We want Trump!\" \n \n \"Don't stay home in November,\" Cruz said toward the end of his otherwise very well-received speech. \"Stand and speak and vote your conscience.\" \n \n As delegates began to protest, Sen. Cruz's wife, Heidi Cruz, was heckled by Trump supporters shouting \"Goldman Sachs!\" and escorted out by security. Heidi Cruz, who is an employee of Goldman Sachs, declined to answer questions from reporters, saying, \"I don't talk to the media, thanks.\" \n \n The stunning political theater between the top two contenders in the Republican primary race blew open divisions in the party that the convention is designed to heal, and suggested Cruz believes Trump will lose in November. \n \n Cruz's appearance at the Cleveland convention had been the subject of intense anticipation over his attitude toward Trump, after their intensely personal exchanges in the late stages of the primary race. \n \n He got a prolonged standing ovation as he walked on stage for a speech that appeared to be an attempt to establish himself as the guardian of conservative values that some activists doubt Trump shares. \n \n Blocked from Adelson suite \n \n Cruz's rebuke ignited a hot scene around the senator as soon as he left the stage. People averted their eyes from Cruz and his wife as they walked with their security detail on the skybox level of boisterous Republicans. \n \n On the donor suite level, people approached Cruz and insulted him, a source told CNN's Dana Bash. One state party chair reacted so angrily that they had to be restrained. \n \n Cruz, who has long sought the support of GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, was turned away when he tried to enter Adelson's suite. \n \n Andy Abboud, a senior aide to the Las Vegas casino magnate, said Cruz was initially invited to come up to visit the Adelsons, but when he failed to endorse Trump the invitation was rescinded. \n \n \"When he didn't endorse, they were stunned and disappointed,\" Abboud told CNN. \n \n \"We could not allow Ted Cruz to use the Adelsons as a prop against Donald Trump,\" he added. \"The Adelsons support Donald Trump and made that clear. They like Ted Cruz, but there was no way the Adelsons were going to be the first stop after not endorsing. That would be disrespectful to our nominee.\" \n \n Trump did stop by the suite, and Abboud tweeted out a picture of Trump with Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson. \n \n The Adelson's with their choice for President! pic.twitter.com/gYsHBeT9AS \u2014 Andy Abboud (@AndyAbboud) July 21, 2016 \n \n Trump, whose insults of Cruz were a constant on the campaign trail over the past year, tweeted that Cruz didn't honor the pledge GOP candidates had signed to back the eventual Republican nominee. \n \n \"Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!\" \n \n Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal! \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016 \n \n New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- a former presidential candidate and now a Trump backer -- blasted Cruz's speech in an interview with Bash. \n \n \"I think it was awful,\" Christie said. \"And quite frankly, I think it was something selfish. And he signed a pledge. And it's his job to keep his word.\" \n \n Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said on CNN that \"the only way to describe it is political suicide.\" \n \n A source close to Cruz said the senator wasn't shocked by the mood after the speech. \n \n \"He expected people to not approve,\" the source said. \"Not surprised at the reaction.\" \n \n Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who accepted the nomination as Trump's vice presidential nominee at the end of Wednesday's session, sidestepped when asked about Cruz's speech. \n \n \"I am just grateful for all the support we are receiving and I am excited about the future,\" Pence said. \n \n JUST WATCHED Wednesday fireworks at the RNC in 90 seconds Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Wednesday fireworks at the RNC in 90 seconds 01:30 \n \n Eric Trump's reaction: \"The audience didn't seem to like it right?\" \n \n Asked about the impact of the non-endorsement, Eric Trump responded, \"I don't think it makes any difference in the world.\" \n \n Hillary Clinton's campaign seized on Cruz's speech as well, tweeting: \"Vote your conscience\" with a link to her website. \n \n Delegates unhappy as well: 'He failed the nation' \n \n The reaction from the floor was also swift and harsh. \n \n Newt Gingrich, appearing after Cruz, argued that Cruz's advocacy for constitutionalism meant that he, implicitly, endorsed Trump -- words he himself did not say. \n \n \"So to paraphrase Ted Cruz, if you want to protect the Constitution this fall, there's only one possible way and that's to vote the Trump-Pence ticket.\" \n \n Richard Black, a delegate from Virginia who chaired Cruz's campaign, said after Cruz's speech that it was \"doubtful\" he would support him again. \n \n \"In the end, each individual has a duty to the nation that transcends the duty to themselves,' Black said. \"That's where he failed... He failed the nation.\" \n \n Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, who backed Cruz, told CNN he was \"disappointed\" by Cruz' speech. \n \n On him saying \"vote your conscience\", Franks said, \"for the people in this room, a vote of conscience is a Trump vote.\" \n \n Michigan GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga, a former Marco Rubio supporter, called Cruz' speech \"a mistake.\" \n \n Huizenga said it was also a mistake for the Trump campaign to give Cruz a coveted prime-time speaking slot without some type of \"pre-condition\" that he would formally endorse Trump. \n \n Jonathan Barnett, a Republican national committeeman from Arkansas, walked off the floor after Cruz's speech. \n \n \"He's self-centered. It's all about Ted Cruz. All he did is ruin his political career,\" Barnett said. \"I think he's finished.\" \n \n Barnett said this is not the kind of grace one shows their party's nominee: \"Reagan wouldn't have done that. He endorsed Ford.\" \n \n Arizona delegate Bruce Ash expressed a similar sentiment. \n \n \"Cruz missed his moment. All he had to do was say 'Trump' and he used the dog whistle for 'conscience.' A very disappointing message,\" Ash texted. \n \n Cruz's difficult challenge \n \n The speech was difficult from the start: Cruz's goal was to walk a tightrope and keep alive his political viability for 2020 without alienating Trump's legion of supporters. \n \n JUST WATCHED Trump's plane interrupts Ted Cruz Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump's plane interrupts Ted Cruz 00:55 \n \n It was the latter that tripped him up. \n \n Cruz came to the dais facing significant pressure to endorse Trump from his campaign aides and surrogates. Yet he is still at a moment of power and relevance: Only 45, a Latino senator who ended his campaign holding onto more political capital than he has ever enjoyed in his career. \n \n His challenge was to remain well-liked in a GOP that, at least for now, is under the control of a man Cruz has indicated that he does not respect. Cruz effectively placed a risky bet that the Republican Party will judge Trump harshly and reward him in the new era for not caving. \n \n \"If skillfully played, his stock will rise,\" Randall Dunning, a Texas delegate who has misgivings about Trump, said the day before he spoke. \n \n Wes Brumit, a Cruz delegate from Texas, defended Cruz's non-endorsement Wednesday night. \n \n \"He did mention all the points Trump mentioned: building a wall, fighting ISIS. He just didn't come right out and endorse,\" said Bumit, who sported a red \"Ted Cruz for President\" T-shirt and a cowboy hat. \"He said everyone should be able to vote their conscience. And that's OK with me.\" \n \n JUST WATCHED Trump: Heidi the best thing Cruz has got going for him Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump: Heidi the best thing Cruz has got going for him 04:28 \n \n As for those who loudly booed Cruz? \"All the boos were exactly the New York values that Ted has talked about.\" \n \n Bumit added: \"I think Mr. Trump has some things to apologize for to Cruz before Sen Cruz can come onboard fully for Trump.\" \n \n But the question now is how skillful Cruz played it. If Trump loses narrowly, holdouts like Cruz could be held responsible in 2020 for not unifying the party. And it is clear there are Trump loyalists who now say they are loathe to back him. \n \n JUST WATCHED Trump doubles down on JFK assassination-Cruz dad link Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump doubles down on JFK assassination-Cruz dad link 01:33 \n \n Cruz and Trump, once political allies, turned on one another as they became the top two Republicans in the race. And their tension exploded when Trump's associates fanned flames of salacious tabloid rumors about Cruz and later attacked Cruz's father. \n \n Since withdrawing from the race, Cruz has repeatedly declined to endorse Trump, but maintained that he could always come around to backing the Republican nominee. Yet their past tension -- and the personal attacks -- cast a cloud over any accord between the two aspirants. \n \n Cruz's chief strategist Jason Johnson tweeted: \"Since it's obvious the shock is contrived, let me ask: What the Hell did they expect from the son of the man who killed JFK? Light'n up.\" \n \n Since it's obvious the shock is contrived, let me ask: What the Hell did they expect from the son of the man who killed JFK? Light'n up. \u2014 Jason Johnson (@jasonsjohnson) July 21, 2016 \n \n Former Cruz aide Brian Phillips also defended the senator: \"Just more proof this is about submission. We were told for months Trump didn't need Cruz, but when he doesn't endorse they go apoplectic.\" \n \n Just more proof this is about submission. We were told for months Trump didn't need Cruz, but when he doesn't endorse they go apoplectic. \u2014 Brian Phillips (@RealBPhil) July 21, 2016 \n \n The remarkable moment at the convention was the second time Cruz was upstaged by Trump Wednesday. \n \n At a rally on the Cleveland waterfront, as Cruz spoke gingerly to fellow Republicans about \"our nominee\" and the uncertain future under his former rival, Trump's plane flew in the clear skies behind him. \n \n \"That was pretty well orchestrated\" Cruz said as the Trump-emblazoned aircraft buzzed through the air and the crowd booed. \n \n Turning to his campaign manager, Jeff Roe, Cruz said, \"Jeff, did you email them to fly the plane right when I said that?\" ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 Things got ugly quickly at the Quicken Loans Arena after Ted Cruz stunned the crowd by refusing to endorse Donald Trump. Heidi Cruz \"was escorted out by security as crowd gets angry,\" tweeted CNN's Manu Raju. Former Cruz aide Ken Cuccinelli says he helped get Heidi out of the arena because he was worried about her safety. \"They were coming out of their seats, coming on down. Very inappropriate, threatening behavior,\" he says. Cuccinelli and Raju say audience members shouted \"Goldman Sachs,\" the bank where Heidi works. Cruz was heavily booed during his speech, and sources tell CNN that it didn't get easier for the Texan at the donor suite level. The sources say people walked up to Cruz and insulted him to his face, and one particularly irate state GOP chairman had to be physically restrained. BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray tweeted that Washington state GOP chief Susan Hutchison has confirmed that she confronted Cruz and called him a traitor. Other sources say Cruz tried to enter the suite of megadonor Sheldon Adelson but was turned away."}
{"document": "BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao, who travels to Washington this week for a state visit after a year marked by disputes and tension with the United States, said the two countries could mutually benefit by finding \"common ground\" on issues from fighting terrorism and nuclear proliferation to cooperating on clean energy and infrastructure development. \n \n \"There is no denying that there are some differences and sensitive issues between us,\" Hu said in written answers to questions from The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. \"We both stand to gain from a sound China-U.S. relationship, and lose from confrontation.'' \n \n To enhance what he called \"practical cooperation\" on a wide range of issues, Hu urged an increase in dialogues and exchanges and more \"mutual trust.\" He said, \"We should abandon the zero-sum Cold War mentality,\" and, in what seemed like an implicit rejection of U.S. criticisms of China's internal affairs, said the two should \"respect each other's choice of development path.\" \n \n Hu took aim at the international currency system, now dominated by the dollar, calling it a \"product of the past.\" China has moved to make its currency, the renminbi convertible on international markets, and Hu pointed to Chinese efforts to boost its use in trade and investment. But he cautioned against any suggestion that the renminbi, also called the yuan, might soon become a new reserve currency. \"It takes a long time for a country's currency to be widely accepted in the world,\" Hu said. \n \n Hu, the secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party since 2002 and China's president since 2003, rarely speaks in interviews or gives news conferences. His last extensive comments to American media outlets came in 2008, in a joint meeting around the time of the Beijing Olympics. His last comments to Western media were in written format last November to a French and a Portuguese newspaper. \n \n Under the ground rules, Hu decided which questions to answer from lists submitted separately by the Post and the Journal. \n \n Hu made an official visit to the White House in 2006, but President George W. Bush denied him the privilege of a full state visit, offering only a lunch. He was in Washington in April for President Obama's nuclear security summit. \n \n The Obama administration plans to use the summit to refocus attention on China's record on human rights and political freedoms, after spending much of the past two years seeking to engage the Chinese leadership on a broad array of global issues including climate change, helping stabilize the global economy, and dealing with the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. \n \n The human rights issue - which many administration critics believe was underplayed over the past two years - gained a new spotlight in October, when the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. Also last fall, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao linked political reform to continued economic progress in a speech in Shenzhen, at the United Nations in September and later in an interview with Time magazine and CNN. \n \n Hu, in his written answers Sunday, said China would continue to develop \"socialist democracy.\" His comment on the topic seemed to suggest that China's leadership at once understands the growing demand for more pluralism from its increasingly affluent citizens, while at the same time signaling that any further opening will come only within the strict confines of the current, Communist-led system. \n \n Political reform, Hu said, must \"meet people's growing enthusiasm for participating in political affairs.\" But he added: \"The political structuring we pursue in China is aimed at advancing the self-improvement and development of the socialist political system.\" \n \n Hu pointed to China's economic success of the past three decades as a validation of its political model. ||||| BEIJING\u2014Chinese President Hu Jintao emphasized the need for cooperation with the U.S. in areas from new energy to space ahead of his visit to Washington this week, but he called the present U.S. dollar-dominated currency system a \"product of the past\" and highlighted moves to turn the yuan into a global currency. \n \n Hu Goes to Washington See photos of past visits. View Slideshow Getty Images Mr. Hu arrived in the U.S. Apriul 12, 2010. \n \n \"We both stand to gain from a sound China-U.S. relationship, and lose from confrontation,\" Mr. Hu said in written answers to questions from The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post . \n \n Mr. Hu acknowledged \"some differences and sensitive issues between us,\" but his tone was generally compromising, and he avoided specific mention of some of the controversial issues that have dogged relations with the U.S. over the past year or so\u2014including U.S. arms sales to Taiwan that led to a freeze in military relations between the world's sole superpower and its rising Asian rival. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Associated Press U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Beijing earlier this month. \n \n On the economic front, Mr. Hu played down one of the main U.S. arguments for why China should appreciate its currency\u2014that it will help China tame inflation. That is likely to disappoint Washington, which accuses China of unfairly boosting its exports by undervaluing the yuan, making its products cheaper overseas. The topic is expected to be high on U.S. President Barack Obama's agenda when he meets Mr. Hu at the White House on Wednesday. \n \n Mr. Hu also offered a veiled criticism of efforts by the U.S. Federal Reserve to stimulate growth through huge bond purchases to keep down long-term interest rates, a strategy that China has loudly complained about in the past as fueling inflation in emerging economies, including its own. He said that U.S. monetary policy \"has a major impact on global liquidity and capital flows and therefore, the liquidity of the U.S. dollar should be kept at a reasonable and stable level.\" \n \n Mr. Hu's responses reflect a China that has grown more confident in recent years\u2014especially in the wake of the global financial crisis, from which it emerged relatively unscathed. \n \n Mr. Hu reiterated China's belief that the crisis reflected \"the absence of regulation in financial innovation\" and the failure of international financial institutions \"to fully reflect the changing status of developing countries in the world economy and finance.\" He called for an international financial system that is more \"fair, just, inclusive and well-managed.\" \n \n Mr. Hu, who also heads China's ruling Communist Party, rarely interacts with the international media. The Wall Street Journal submitted a series of questions to China's Foreign Ministry for Mr. Hu to answer. The Washington Post also submitted questions. The Foreign Ministry supplied Mr. Hu's responses to seven questions\u2014but did not address questions about imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, China's growing naval power and complaints about alleged Chinese cyberattacks, among others. \n \n Mr. Hu's veiled criticism of the Fed reflects widespread feelings among developing nations that U.S. interest-rate policy is devaluing the dollar, prompting flows of capital overseas and creating inflation elsewhere. China and other developing countries would like the Fed to factor in those consequences when it makes decisions. Fed officials counter that their mandate is to bolster the U.S. economy and that a stronger U.S. economy is in the interests of China and other countries, which depend heavily on trade and investment from the U.S. \n \n This could be a major issue of contention between Messrs. Hu and Obama. The U.S. blames Chinese currency undervaluation\u2014not Fed policy making\u2014for worsening competitive and inflation problems overseas. \n \n \"This is a new ballgame in the first inning,\" says Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer about China's rise. In an interview with WSJ's Rebecca Blumenstein, Bremmer discusses the growth of Chinese economic and military power and President Hu's U.S.visit. \n \n Some of Mr. Hu's most significant comments dealt with the future of the dollar and currency exchange rates. \n \n \"The current international currency system is the product of the past,\" he said, noting the primacy of the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency and its use in international trade and investment. \n \n The comment is the latest sign that the dollar's future continues to concern the most senior levels of the Chinese government. Beijing fears not only that loose U.S. monetary policy is fueling inflation, but that it will erode the value of China's holdings of dollars within its vast foreign-exchange reserves, which reached $2.85 trillion at the end of 2010. \n \n China's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, created an international stir in March 2009 by calling for the creation of a new synthetic reserve currency as an alternative to the dollar. Mr. Hu's comments add to the sense that China intends to challenge the post-World War II financial order largely created by the U.S. and dominated by the dollar. \n \n Mr. Hu called attention to China's accelerating effort to expand the role of its own currency, describing recent moves to allow greater use of the yuan in cross-border trade and investment\u2014while acknowledging that making it a fully fledged international currency \"will be a fairly long process.\" \n \n China's moves already have spawned a thriving market for offshore trading of yuan in Hong Kong, and are widely seen as first steps toward making the yuan an international currency in line with China's new prominence as the world's second largest economy. Mr. Hu offered an enthusiastic endorsement of what are officially described as currency \"pilot programs.\" They \"fit in well with market demand as evidenced by the rapidly expanding scale of these transactions,\" he said. \n \n Mr. Hu didn't signal any changes on the most sensitive aspect of China's currency policy: the exchange rate. \n \n WSJ's Jake Lee speaks to Heard on the Street Asia Editor Mohammed Hadi about Chinese President Hu Jintao's comments on currencies, balancing the Chinese economy and China's growing clout abroad. \n \n Last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated the U.S. position that a stronger yuan is in China's own best interests, because it would help tame rising inflation that has become a key risk to China's rapid growth, which is underpinning the global economic recovery. A stronger yuan would reduce the price of imports in local-currency terms. \n \n But Mr. Hu shrugged off the U.S. argument, saying that China is fighting inflation with a whole package of policies, including interest-rate increases, and \"inflation can hardly be the main factor in determining the exchange rate policy.\" \n \n Further, Mr. Hu suggested that inflation was not a big worry, saying prices were \"on the whole moderate and controllable.\" He added: \"We have the confidence, conditions and ability to stabilize the overall price level.\" \n \n The U.S. argues that the yuan's real exchange rate\u2014that is, the exchange rate as adjusted for the higher inflation level in China than the U.S.\u2014is rising at a 10% annual rate. Treasury officials have argued to China that its policy options are limited\u2014either it can boost the exchange rate to fight inflation, or inflation will effectively boost the value of China's currency. \n \n While the U.S. says some Chinese economic officials buy that argument, it hasn't been widely adopted within China, as Mr. Hu's comments illustrate. But the U.S. feels that economics and time are on its side. Even so, the administration and Congress will continue to press China to boost the pace of its currency appreciation. \n \n Mr. Hu renewed a Chinese pledge to offer a level playing field in China for U.S. companies, which have complained about aggressive Chinese moves to usurp their technology and shut them out of massive government-procurement contracts. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Reuters China's new stealth fighter, which was recently tested in flight. \n \n \"All foreign companies registered in China are Chinese enterprises,\" Mr. Hu said, responding to concerns that China discriminates in government procurement against foreign businesses as part of its drive to encourage so-called indigenous innovation. \n \n He added: \"Their innovation, production and business operations in China enjoy the same treatment as Chinese enterprises.\" \n \n The U.S. has been pressing China to revamp its plans for indigenous innovation, which foreign companies say put them at a disadvantage in competition with China's state-owned firms, which limits the types of government development projects and requires that companies get government approval to participate. China has pledged to join the World Trade Organization's government procurement agreement, which limits a country's ability to discriminate. But the U.S. and other countries say that so far China's WTO offer is inadequate because it exempts provinces, municipalities and state-owned enterprises. Last month China pledged to amend a buy-Chinese provision. During the Hu visit, the U.S. hopes to see some other commitments on this front from China. \n \n Mr. Hu began his answers with a relatively upbeat assessment of China-U.S. relations, which he said had \"on the whole enjoyed steady growth\" since the start of this century. \n \n He spoke of expanding cooperation from economy and trade into new areas like energy, infrastructure development and aviation and space. \"We should abandon the zero-sum Cold War mentality,\" he said, and \"respect each other's choice of development path.\" \n \n Enlarge Image Close Reuters Smoke rises from South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island after being hit by artillery shells fired by North Korea \n \n On the diplomatic front, Mr. Hu entirely glossed over what has been one of the most dramatic developments of the past year\u2014a series of disputes between a more assertive China and its neighbors that has given the U.S. an opening to shore up its relations with a part of the world that felt neglected by Washington while it fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. \n \n In the past year, China has feuded with Japan over the seizure of a Chinese fishing boat and its crew off disputed islands; opened deep differences with South Korea because of its subdued response to military provocations by North Korea; and alarmed countries in Southeast Asia by declaring the South China Sea and its energy and mineral riches one of its \"core interests.\" \n \n \"Mutual trust between China and other countries in this region has deepened in our common response to tough challenges, and our cooperation has continuously expanded in our pursuit of mutual benefit and win-win outcomes,\" Mr. Hu said, ignoring the regional turmoil. \n \n \u2014Jason Dean in Beijing \n \n and Bob Davis in Washington \n \n contributed to this article. ||||| Chinese leader Hu Jintao is being feted in Washington this week with a lavish state banquet at the White House and other pomp usually reserved for close friends and allies _ all intended to improve the tone of relations between a risen, more assertive and prosperous China and the U.S. superpower in a tenuous economic recovery. \n \n FILE - In this Jan. 10, 2011 file photo, Chinese President Hu Jintao delivers a speech at a plenary session of the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in Beijing. Hu... (Associated Press) \n \n The shaky trust between the United States and China has been eroding recently because of an array of issues _ currency policies and trade barriers, nuclear proliferation and North Korea, and both sides seem to recognize the need to recalibrate relations. \n \n The U.S. is one of China's biggest markets, with $380 billion in annual trade largely in Beijing's favor. Washington increasingly needs Beijing's help in managing world troubles, from piracy off Africa to Iran's nuclear program and reinvigorating the world economy. \n \n \"It is absolutely critical for the two sides to be setting a tone that says 'hang on a second, we are committed to an effective, positive relationship,'\" said Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Charles Freeman, a former trade negotiator in the George W. Bush administration. \n \n The state banquet President Barack Obama is hosting will be Hu's first. In the days before his visit, senior officials from both countries have spoken publicly in favor of better ties. \n \n Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a speech Friday that the countries needed to manage their conflicts but their shared interests were so entwined as to constitute entanglement. \n \n \"History teaches us that the rise of new powers often ushers in periods of conflict and uncertainty,\" Clinton said. \"Indeed, on both sides of the Pacific, we do see trepidation about the rise of China and the future of the U.S.-China relationship. We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict.\" \n \n Chinese officials have emphasized what they see as common concerns while acknowledging the complexity of the relationship. \n \n \"When the relationship is strained we need to bear in mind the larger picture and not allow any individual issue to disrupt our overall cooperation,\" Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said in a speech Friday. \n \n Such maxims, however, don't apply to issues China defines as its \"core interests,\" including Taiwan, Tibet, and the overarching authority of the Communist Party. That's a condition Hu's visit won't change. \n \n Hu, whose four-day trip starts Tuesday, is expected to talk up China's intended peaceful rise in a speech to business leaders and opinion-makers in Washington on Thursday and to highlight the benefits of China's market and investment when visiting Chicago. \n \n Aware of China's plummeting image in American opinion, Chinese Foreign Ministry functionaries have in recent weeks been looking for ways to make the usually stiff Hu, and China as a country, appear more human, something akin to reformist patriarch Deng Xiaoping's donning a 10-gallon hat in Houston in 1979 just after the opening of diplomatic relations. \n \n For the protocol-obsessed Chinese leadership, a highlight of the visit will be Wednesday's state banquet _ an honor denied Hu on his last trip to the White House in 2006. President George W. Bush thought state banquets should be reserved for allies and like-minded powers and instead gave Hu a lunch. Even worse, a member of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned by China, disrupted Hu and Bush's joint appearance, and an announcer incorrectly called China \"The Republic of China,\" the formal name of democratically ruled Taiwan. \n \n In this visit, no major agreements are expected. Talks over a joint statement ran aground until last-minute negotiations in Beijing last week. But the shared recognition to put things right and the bumpy relations of the last year augur for a better outcome. \n \n The recent disputes make the summit more necessary than ever, said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Beijing's Renmin University. \n \n \"If you look back to relations over the last year, any progress is significant,\" he said. \n \n A successful visit also stands to raise Hu's standing domestically as he heads toward retirement late next year and seeks to place his political proteges in positions of influence. \"A demonstration that Hu can handle the U.S. well and show that China is now well respected by Washington should help Hu to consolidate his legacy,\" said Oxford University China scholar Steve Tsang. \n \n Still more difficult will be stopping the larger drift in relations amid the countries' changing fortunes. Beijing feels its economic, military and diplomatic strength entitles it to more deference while Washington tries to shore up its superpower authority, forging alliances and ties with other countries amid the changing global order. \n \n While the U.S. is weighted down by high unemployment, massive budget deficits and sluggish growth, China has roared ahead, with the economy expanding 9.6 percent in the third quarter of last year. \n \n China now holds the world's largest foreign currency reserves at $2.85 trillion and a major chunk of U.S. government debt. At current rates, economists estimate China will overtake the U.S. as the world's largest economy within 20 years, possibly by the end of this decade. That transition could be bumpy, with China's authoritarian one-party communist political system and sense of historical grievance setting it at odds with the democratic West. \n \n Feeling its oats, Beijing has largely rebuffed U.S. appeals for help in reining in bellicose North Korea, curbing Iran's nuclear program and faster appreciation of China's currency and dismantling of trade barriers. Chinese officials and the nationalistic state-run media have criticized Washington's renewed attention to Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia, its arms sales to Taiwan and its continued naval patrols in the Yellow and South China seas as attempts to constrain China's influence in its backyard. \n \n Chinese officials have accused the U.S. of orchestrating the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. And just last week, Chinese military commanders greeted U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' offer for closer military dialogue by sending a prototype for a new stealth fighter on its first test-flight. \n \n In recent months, about the only thing the two seem to have agreed on is that the U.S. and China did not have enough common ground to form a Group of 2, or \"G-2\", to solve the world's troubles. \n \n The U.S.-China relationship \"is as important as any bilateral relationship in the world,\" Clinton said Friday. \"But there is no such thing as a G-2. Both of our countries reject that concept.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Chinese President Hu Jintao is speaking to the American media\u2014albeit through written answers to questions he selected from lists submitted to him by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal\u2014for the first time since 2008. Among the topics? \"Common ground,\" the dollar, and the yuan. Hu, who will be in Washington this week for a state visit, said China and the US could both gain by finding \"common ground\" on issues like fighting terrorism, clean energy, and nuclear proliferation\u2014and only \"stand to ... lose from confrontation.\" Other highlights: On US criticism of his country's internal affairs: Hu seemed to pooh-pooh it, notes the Post, writing the two should \"respect each other's choice of development path.\" On the dollar's role as global reserve currency: \"The current international currency system is the product of the past.\" On the yuan: It \"has played a role in the world economic development. But making [the yuan] an international currency will be a fairly long process.\" Regarding the economic crisis of 2008: It reflected \"the absence of regulation in financial innovation\" and \"its root cause lies in the serious defects of the existing financial system.\" One such defect: \"International financial institutions failed to fully reflect the changing status of developing countries in the world economy and finance.\" The questions he didn't answer: Those having to do with Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, China's growing naval power, and alleged Chinese cyberattacks. Click for more on Washington's plans for this week's \"lavish state banquet.\""}
{"document": "In this photo from Tuesday, March 1, 2016, a sign stands at the northbound entrance to the recently renamed Robin Williams Tunnel in Sausalito, Calif. A tunnel with rainbow arches that connects the Golden... (Associated Press) \n \n In this photo from Tuesday, March 1, 2016, a sign stands at the northbound entrance to the recently renamed Robin Williams Tunnel in Sausalito, Calif. A tunnel with rainbow arches that connects the Golden... (Associated Press) \n \n SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 A tunnel with rainbow arches that connects the Golden Gate Bridge to greater Marin County has officially become the Robin Williams tunnel. \n \n The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1XZUbzl ) that the new Robin Williams Tunnel signs were installed Monday night. The tunnel was unofficially known as the Waldo Tunnel. \n \n State lawmakers approved a resolution last year to change the tunnel's name to honor the late actor and comedian, who grew up and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. \n \n The two signs \u2014 one for each side of the tunnel \u2014 cost $3,000. Private donations paid for the cost. ||||| Robin Williams tunnel officially gets new signs \n \n The new Robin Williams Tunnel sign was installed February 29 at the site of the tunnel connecting the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. The tunnel was previously only unofficially known as the Waldo Tunnel. (Photo courtesy Andrew Payne.) less The new Robin Williams Tunnel sign was installed February 29 at the site of the tunnel connecting the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. The tunnel was previously only unofficially known as the Waldo Tunnel. ... more Image 1 of / 57 Caption Close Robin Williams tunnel officially gets new signs 1 / 57 Back to Gallery \n \n Several months after legislation to name the rainbow-arched so-called Waldo tunnel connecting the Golden Gate bridge to Marin County, the newly dubbed Robin Williams tunnel finally got official. \n \n The tunnel's moniker, which was officially confirmed last June, was meant as a dedication to the late actor and comedian's life. Many thought that the tunnel's rainbow border was a natural reminder of his character Mork from \"Mork & Mindy,\" who wore multi-colored suspenders on the show. \n \n The $3,000 signs \u2014 one on each side of the tunnel \u2014 were paid for using private donations, as a Caltrans spokesman told SFGATE last summer. \n \n The person who started the campaign to change the tunnel's name, Belvedere resident Julie Wainwright, posted a photo on Twitter of the new sign being installed. \n \n The tunnel was previously unofficially known as the Waldo Tunnel because it is on the Waldo Grade, which is named after William Waldo, a Whig Party candidate who ran for governor in 1853. \n \n \"He was an integral part of our community here in the Bay Area,\" she wrote on the campaign's Change.org page last year. \"We claim him as our own.\" \n \n Williams was a Marin resident himself prior to his death in August, 2014.", "summary": "\u2013 A tunnel with rainbow arches that connects the Golden Gate Bridge to greater Marin County has officially become the Robin Williams tunnel, the AP reports. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the new Robin Williams Tunnel signs were installed Monday night. The tunnel was unofficially known as the Waldo Tunnel. State lawmakers approved a resolution last year to change the tunnel's name to honor the late actor and comedian, who grew up and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two signs\u2014one for each side of the tunnel\u2014cost $3,000. Private donations paid for the cost."}
{"document": "CLOSE The latest comedian accused of joke theft is Conan O'Brien and his writing team. Conan\u2019s team says that they were unaware of Alex Kaseberg's jokes until after they\u2019d written their own. USA TODAY \n \n Conan O'Brien at City Hall in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2016. (Photo: VEGARD WIVESTAD, EPA) \n \n It could be the next big celebrity trial: Conan O'Brien defending himself and his writers in federal civil court against accusations of \"joke-stealing\" \u2014 the worst thing you could say about a comedian, according to O'Brien. \n \n But don't go signing up for courtroom tickets just yet. Experts in copyright law say the 2-year-old copyright infringement lawsuit filed against O'Brien, his writers for his late-night show, Conan, and Time Warner over a handful of topical jokes may never get before a jury, despite a ruling by a judge that the case can proceed. \n \n The stakes are high, not just in time and litigation costs but in \"reputational\" costs: No comedian wants to be known as a joke thief. \"Accusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder,\" O'Brien said in a deposition in the case. \"I think it's absolutely terrible.\" \n \n Thus, O'Brien and the plaintiff in the case, a freelance joke writer in San Diego named Robert \"Alex\" Kaseberg, have to weigh the risks and benefits of going to trial and possibly losing, or negotiating a settlement that could leave a whiff of suspected thievery in the Conan writers' room. \n \n \"Comics rarely sue one another, and to some degree this case illustrates why,\" says New York University law professor Christopher Sprigman , a leading expert in intellectual property law involving comedy. \"The judge (in the O'Brien case) ruled the case could go forward but the ruling makes it difficult\" for the plaintiff to prevail. \n \n New York intellectual property lawyer and mediator Arnie Herz says the ruling showed the judge \"did not say that anyone did anything wrong, she was saying there was enough to go to a jury.\" \n \n But will it? It's impossible to predict, Sprigman says, but settling could be tricky for O'Brien. \n \n \"Among comics, joke stealing is really, really bad behavior \u2014 no one wants to go down as a joke thief, so the settlement has to make absolutely clear that no one is admitting any wrongdoing,\" Sprigman says. \"(O'Brien) has got to worry about how his fellow comedians would react to that.\" \n \n \"It's no joking matter,\" cracks Herz, who says most IP cases are settled before trial. If a \"reasonable settlement\" can be achieved, it behooves all involved to resolve the case, he says. \n \n \"There are strong economic reasons to resolve this (before trial) because these are not easy cases to prevail, there are high standards plaintiffs have to prove,\" says Herz. \"At a trial, it depends on how a jury views the plaintiff and Conan O'Brien. The plaintiff and his lawyers could end up with nothing, so they don't want to put in a ton of time and money and end up losing.\" \n \n O'Brien's legal woes were on display Monday after U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino ruled Friday that a jury can decide whether O'Brien and his writers stole three jokes dealing with Tom Brady, Caitlyn Jenner and the Washington Monument from Kaseberg's social media feed and blog between December 2014 and June 2015. (Two other jokes were dropped from the case.) \n \n The Brady joke had Brady giving his MVP truck \"to the man who won the game for Patriots\" \u2014 Pete Carroll. The Jenner joke involved Caitlyn's gender transition and towns with streets named after Bruce Jenner. And the Washington Monument jibe was a penis joke based on news that the obelisk is actually 10 inches shorter than previously thought and maybe it was due to cold weather. \n \n But the judge warned that jokes based on current events and news are entitled only to \"thin\" copyright protection \u2014 meaning the jokes in question have to be virtually identical in order to find a defendant guilty of copyright infringement, says Sprigman. Also, a jury would have to conclude that the defendant had access to the jokes and willfully copied them, Herz adds. \n \n Conan O'Brien during the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 11, 2016. (Photo: JON OLAV, EPA) \n \n Unlike patents, creators can't get ownership of ideas or facts or events on which jokes are based, only the manner in which they are expressed, Herz says. Plus, the allegedly stolen joke has to be \"fixed\" in a tangible means of expression, either recorded or published. \n \n \"If it turns out the jokes copied from a Twitter feed were virtually identical to the jokes as told (by O'Brien), then maybe he wants to take the reputational hit and settle,\" Sprigman says.\"If there's doubt about whether they were copied or are identical, he could go to trial and roll the dice. It\u2019s a pickle no matter what.\" \n \n Intellectual property lawsuits involving comedy are exceedingly rare; it's been \"decades and decades\" since the last one, says Sprigman, co-author of a 2008 paper, There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy, that explored how comedians protect their jokes against thieves by enforcing their own comedy-community norms, and not through intellectual property law. \n \n He and his co-author, Dotan Oliar, interviewed comedians, their lawyers and their agents, and found that comics have long employed out-of-court means of addressing accusations of theft. \n \n \"They typically handle it through community policing, they have a set of norms on joke thievery and they enforce them through various means,\" Sprigman says. \"Copyright lawsuits typically don\u2019t work that well (in these cases) \u2014 they're expensive and often they don't have good results for plaintiffs.\" \n \n Neither O'Brien nor his lawyers returned messages from USA TODAY. Same for Kaseberg and his lawyer. \n \n But on Wednesday, O'Brien's publicists at 42 West in New York issued a statement on his behalf in an email to USA TODAY from Amanda Nesbitt: \"We are very pleased that the court has granted summary judgment and dismissed two of the jokes at issue. We can't comment further on pending litigation, but we are extremely confident that once the facts are presented to a jury, we will be fully vindicated.\" \n \n Kaseberg said on his blog he's a comedy writer who's contributed hundreds of jokes to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for 20 years. In a February 2015 post, he describes his version of how his jokes allegedly were stolen by O'Brien's writers. \n \n \"The only consolation I can take from this horrifying violation is I wrote three jokes that were good enough to be on the monologue on Conan. And they all got good laughs,\" he said. \"Since I cannot watch the show again \u2013 it is too painful \u2013 and I have lost respect for one of my comedy idols, that consolation will have to be enough.\" \n \n Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2rjBrAh ||||| \n \n Conan O\u2019Brien makes an appearance at Harvard University on Feb. 12, 2016. (Charles Krupa/AP) \n \n U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino recently refused to toss out an unusual lawsuit accusing late-night host Conan O\u2019Brien and his writing staff of stealing jokes from a professional joke writer\u2019s blog and Twitter feed, claiming some were entitled to \u201cthin copyright protection.\u201d \n \n Robert \u201cAlex\u201d Kaseberg, a writer who has penned more than 1,000 jokes for Jay Leno, accused O\u2019Brien of telling five of his jokes in his monologue on \u201cConan.\u201d Kaseberg said he wrote and posted the jokes online between Dec. 2, 2014, and June 9, 2015. \n \n Kaseberg wrote on his blog he was convinced O\u2019Brien\u2019s team was stealing his material after the third time he heard the comedian tell a joke he had recently posted. \n \n \u201cTwo times there is an impossibly slight possibility of a joke-writing coincidence, three times there is no possibility of a coincidence,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAnd always used on the monologue one day or, in the case of the third time, six hours after it appeared on my blog and or Twitter.\u201d \n \n Kaseberg said he reached out to O\u2019Brien\u2019s writing team but was rebuked. He then filed suit against O\u2019Brien, his writing staff, Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner in July 2015. O\u2019Brien and the other parties denied any joke theft and requested that the case be dismissed. \n \n In her opinion issued Friday, the judge allowed the suit to proceed to trial but threw out two jokes. The suit will proceed on the other three. \n \n The judge noted the difficulty of proving that a joke was stolen. \n \n \u201cFacts, of course, are not protected by copyright,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAnd although the punchlines of the jokes are creative, they are nonetheless constrained by the limited number of variations that would (1) be humorous (2) as applied to the specific facts articulated in each joke\u2019s previous sentence and (3) provide mass appeal. This merits only thin protection.\u201d \n \n Because of such \u201cthin protection,\u201d there has not been an intellectual property lawsuit concerning comedy in \u201cdecades and decades,\u201d New York University law professor Christopher Sprigman told USA Today. \n \n \u201cComics rarely sue one another, and to some degree this case illustrates why,\u201d he added. \u201cThe judge ruled the case could go forward but the ruling makes it difficult\u201d for Kaseberg to win. \n \n Even so, Kaseberg\u2019s lawyer, Jayson Lorenzo, called the ruling \u201ca victory for comedy writers, especially lesser known writers,\u201d in a statement to the New York Times. \n \n The three jokes in question, according to court documents: \n \n The Tom Brady joke \n \n Kaseberg: \u201cTom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Brien: \u201cTom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP \u2026 to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think that\u2019s nice. I do. Yes. So Brady\u2019s giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.\u201d \n \n The Caitlyn Jenner joke \n \n Kaseberg: \u201cThree towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Brien: \u201cSome cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets\u2019 names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner Cul-de-sac it will now be Cul-de-no-sack.\u201d \n \n The Washington Monument joke \n \n Kaseberg: \u201cThe Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Brien: \u201cYesterday surveyors announced that the Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than what\u2019s been previously recorded. Yeah. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather.\u201d \n \n \u201cThe only consolation I can take from this horrifying violation is I wrote three jokes that were good enough to be on the monologue on \u2018Conan.\u2019 And they all got good laughs,\u201d Kaseberg wrote on his blog in 2015. \u201cSince I cannot watch the show again \u2014 it is too painful \u2014 and I have lost respect for one of my comedy idols, that consolation will have to be enough.\u201d \n \n O\u2019Brien also appeared to be emotionally affected by the situation. \n \n \u201cAccusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder,\u201d O\u2019Brien said during a deposition in the case, according to the Hollywood Reporter. \u201cI think it\u2019s absolutely terrible.\u201d \n \n The trial is on pace to take place in August, CBS reported. \n \n More from Morning Mix \n \n Mom saves her daughter\u2019s life before being fatally struck by car on Mother\u2019s Day \n \n \u2018I was in total shock\u2019: Ohio police officer accidentally overdoses after traffic stop \n \n Mass. school punishes twins for hair braid extensions. Their parents say it\u2019s racial discrimination. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites.", "summary": "\u2013 Conan O'Brien might soon find himself in court over allegations that are nightmarish for any comedian: He's accused of stealing jokes. As USA Today reports, a judge has allowed a federal civil suit to go forward in which Robert \"Alex\" Kaseberg accuses O'Brien and his writers of stealing jokes he posted online in 2014 and 2015. It's possible, perhaps even likely, the case will be settled before it goes to trial, given how tricky intellectual property cases can be. \"Accusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder,\" said O'Brien himself in a deposition. Kaseberg makes his case in a blog post here. The judge said three jokes in particular are in question. Here they are, via the Washington Post: Kaseberg: \"Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll.\" O\u2019Brien: \"Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP \u2026 to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think that\u2019s nice. I do. Yes. So Brady\u2019s giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.\" Kaseberg: \"Three towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless.\" O\u2019Brien: \"Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets\u2019 names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner Cul-de-sac it will now be Cul-de-no-sack.\" Kaseberg: \"The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage.\" O\u2019Brien: \"Yesterday surveyors announced that the Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than what\u2019s been previously recorded. Yeah. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather.\""}
{"document": "The torrent of leaks these past few days haven\u2019t left much to the imagination, but HTC\u2019s Peter Chou has just officially pulled back the curtain on the first phone to ship with Facebook Home \u2014 the HTC First \u2014 at Facebook\u2019s Menlo Park headquarters. \n \n According to HTC CEO Peter Chou the First will be the \u201cultimate social phone,\u201d though he declined to dig into the device\u2019s specs during his brief moments on-stage. The device will ship in four colors, and will support AT&T\u2019s LTE network right out of the gate. Can\u2019t wait for your chance to take it for a spin? The First will be available for $99 (with a 2 year contract naturally) starting on April 12, and pre-orders for the device kick off today. Those of you outside the U.S. will be able to join in the fun shortly too, as Mark Zuckerberg also noted that the phone would find its way to UK carriers Orange and EE in short order. \n \n The mid-range First will be available in black, white, red and blue, and sports a 4.3-inch display that jibes with earlier reports. Facebook Home obviously serves to obscure the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean build that\u2019s actually running the show, while one of Qualcomm\u2019s dual-core Snapdragon 400 chipsets (and not the MSM8960 that was previously reported) provides the horsepower from inside that smooth, curved chassis. It\u2019s not a bad looking phone and the internals aren\u2019t quite as lousy as many had expected them to be, but all this begs a very important question \u2014 will anyone actually buy this phone when you can fire up Facebook Home on your (supported) Android handset for a whopping zero dollars? \n \n I mean, c\u2019mon \u2014 I\u2019m a sucker for even mildly neat hardware, but so far neither HTC nor AT&T (whose CEOs both appeared on-stage to talk about how darned great the thing is) could provide a compelling reason why it\u2019s worth buying. LTE? A handsome design? Neither of those are exactly hard to come by these days, are they? Facebook has said that the First will feature better integration for all those notifications you\u2019re bound to get than if you had just installed the app, but at this point there\u2019s little way of knowing how big a difference it\u2019ll actually make. HTC knows how to make great hardware and I don\u2019t mean to diminish that, but a lame device that\u2019s been put together well is still a lame device. \n \n This marks the second time that the social networking giant and the beleaguered Taiwanese OEM have collaborated on a peculiar hardware play. The first, if you\u2019ll recall, were HTC Status (nee Chacha) and the Salsa released back in 2011\u2013 their main claim to fame was a dedicated Facebook button for quick access to your friends and feeds. Considering that neither device was exactly a runaway hit, it\u2019s no surprise to see that Facebook and HTC have taken things in a different, more substantial direction with the One. Of course, the First is going to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Facebook Home devices \u2014 Zuckerberg also pointed to a Facebook Home Program which allows hardware manufacturers to build Facebook Home into their own forthcoming handsets. ||||| Facebook Launches Home, Its Android Phone Project \n \n After years of construction, Facebook is at long last revealing its effort to build \u201ca new home\u201d on Android. \n \n \u201cToday we are finally going to be talking about that Facebook phone. Or, more accurately, we are going to talk about how you can turn your Android device \u2026 into a great social phone,\u201d Mark Zuckerberg said, kicking off the event at company headquarters in Menlo Park. \u201cWe think this is the best version of Facebook there is.\u201d \n \n Facebook Home, as the product is known, isn\u2019t a phone, per se, but rather a series of customizations that replaces the look and feel of a standard Android phone with a set of Facebook apps, home screens and messaging experiences. \n \n As we first reported in a series of articles more than a year ago, the project to create a custom Facebook phone on top of Android \u2014 code-named Buffy \u2014 has been going on for some time. \n \n Facebook has since spent a lot of time noting that it is not building a phone \u2014 which is technically true. However, it has built the software guts of one, and it even partnered with HTC to put a hardware face on its the project. \n \n Zuckerberg stressed that what Facebook is doing isn\u2019t building a phone or an operating system, but rather an experience that is a family of apps that becomes your home screen on a standard Android device. \n \n \u201cYou don\u2019t need to fork Android to do this,\u201d Zuckerberg said. Facebook Home will be an update on Google Play to the social network\u2019s existing Facebook app. It will be available initially only for phones, with tablet support coming within several months. \n \n Updates to Facebook Home will also come monthly, the company said, arguing that yearly updates such as those made to Android just aren\u2019t frequent enough. \n \n Zuckerberg reiterated why the company is focused on the software rather than a single phone. Zuckerberg said that a great phone might sell 10 million or 20 million units \u2014 one percent of Facebook\u2019s total user base. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re not building a phone, and we\u2019re not building an operating system, but we are also building something that is a lot more \u2026 than an ordinary app,\u201d he said. \n \n Zuckerberg took aim at the app-centric approach taken by most modern smartphones, saying phones should be about people rather than programs. \n \n Facebook isn\u2019t the only company trying to move away from an app-centric world. Windows Phone, for example, has a People hub that focuses on all the ways that someone connects with a person and their photos and updates. \n \n Apps, of course, are still a part of phones, so an app launcher is just a swipe away. \n \n One particular feature should be more than just an app, Zuckerberg said, and that\u2019s messaging. The company has built a new experience where \u201cChat Heads\u201d \u2014 little pictures of your friends \u2014 pop up when a new message comes in. \n \n Beyond the cute head shots, Chat Heads allow messaging to take place in any app, rather than requiring a user to either stop what they are doing or risk ignoring the person seeking their attention. \n \n \u201cIt really feels like your friends are always there,\u201d said Joey Flynn, the Facebook designer who created the messaging experience. \n \n Chat Heads work with both text messages and incoming Facebook messages. ||||| The social network dials up a new way to hook people on its mobile-phone software. And HTC will release the first phone with Home pre-installed. \n \n Facebook Home on Android (Credit: James Martin/CNET) \n \n Facebook unveiled a new \"Home\" on Android at a press event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters today -- a family of apps meant to keep mobile audiences always affixed to its social network. \n \n Facebook Home consists of a set of the social network's apps that become the home of your Android phone. With Home, the device's home screen transforms into \"Cover Feed,\" or a visually rich and swipe-able version of News Feed for your phone. Home also includes a more picture-perfect version of messaging, complete with a Facebook-invented feature called \"Chat Heads,\" with colorful notifications that include friends' pictures. \n \n \"We're not building a phone and we're not building an operating system,\" Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. \"We're building something a whole lot deeper than an ordinary app.\" \n \n Facebook showed off the software, which can be downloaded to a limited number of Android phones starting April 12, and also invited partner HTC to unveil the HTC First, the first smartphone to come with Facebook Home pre-installed. (See CNET Reviews' Editor's Take here.) HTC CEO Peter Chou said the new device, arriving exclusively with AT&T;, represented a \"great opportunity to bring mobile and social together.\" \n \n HTC First comes with Facebook Home \n \n Today, phones are designed around apps, not people, Zuckerberg said. \"We want to flip that around.\" \n \n The social network aims to turn the current model on its head with a Facebook-centric view of your world. With Home, Messaging in particular has been tailored around people. The Facebook Home-modified functionality offers users a way to engage in multiple conversations with a single tap, and includes something called \"Chat Heads,\" which are basically interactive profile pictures that you can have a little extra fun with. \n \n Chat Heads offer message previews and allow members to dive into conversations with one tap. They're enmeshed within the entire phone experience, which means you'll find active Chat Heads sitting atop the screen as you do other things. The flying heads, which you can flick around with reckless abandon, work with both Facebook messages and standard text messages. \n \n Chat Heads (Credit: James Martin/CNET) \n \n Advertisements will not be a part of Facebook Home at launch, but ads will find their way over to the experience at some point, Zuckerberg said. \n \n Today's event clarifies a number of reports from a rumor mill that's been running fast and furious ever since Facebook announced the event one week ago. The company, according to a bevy or credible-sounding reports and alleged photo leaks, was expected to showcase a new HTC device running a tweaked version of Android that makes the social network's apps and functions native to the smartphone. \n \n Investors initially weren't all that keen on the suspected Android news, though some seemed to have a change of heart Wednesday after JPMorgan analysts quelled fears about the social network's mobile users jumping ship to other applications. JPMorgan has a $35 price target for Facebook, which closed Wednesday at $26.25 a share. ||||| Facebook's throwing its hat in the Android ring in a big, big way. Today at an event at the company's campus in California, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Home, a deep software integration with Android that puts Facebook services front and center. Zuckerberg left the HTC First announcement to HTC's Peter Chou, spending more time mentioning ways you could turn your Android phone into something much more social. We spend as much as 25 percent of our time on our phone using Facebook and Instagram, he said, so why not design a phone around \"people, not apps?\" \n \n \"We want to build the best experience for every person, on every phone\" \n \n Home is a family of Facebook apps that overhauls your entire device, turning it into a Facebook phone. An app called Coverfeed overhauls the homescreen and the lockscreen, giving you updates on what your friends are doing without you having to launch an app, or even unlock your phone \u2014 and you'll get ads in all the same places. You can comment or like posts from your homescreen \u2014 it feels incredibly native. Everything is full-screen and incredibly visual, really looking nothing like Android. \n \n Messaging is one of the key features of Facebook Home \u2013 Zuckerberg made no bones about believing the way we currently message is broken. Messaging on Facebook Home is everywhere \u2014 you'll see a round icon with the face of whoever you're talking to, called \"Chat heads,\" over top of any app you're using. Just tap your friend's face, and up comes your chat window. It looks a little ridiculous, and you're going to spend a lot of time poking people in the face, but it's a much more integrated chat solution than we've ever seen on Android. It works with SMS and Facebook messaging, but Chat heads try to obscure which you're actually using \u2014 it's all about who you're chatting with, not what service you're using to do so. \n \n The whole setup is very gesture-based, allowing to to switch between apps and notifications pretty quickly. The new launcher shows your favorite apps in one screen, and the full app drawer on the other, plus offers a quick way to post a photo or a status update. Much of the overhaul is about making all of Facebook's services not only easy to see, but easy to add to from anywhere on your phone. \n \n \n \n \n \n \"There's no chrome, no nav \u2014 it's about the content first\" \n \n There are badges and notifications on every app that let you know when something new is happening, when someone is communicating with you. Notifications are sorted by friend, rather than app \u2014 it says when your friend is doing something, rather than letting you know that an app has something new for you. Instead of navigating through a list of apps, opening Photos to see photos and Calendar to see your events, Facebook wants to make your phone a lot more like your News Feed. \n \n Zuckerberg spent a lot of time talking about how open Android is, and how it allowed Facebook to change a lot about the OS without a lot of work. \"You don't need to fork Android\" to do what Facebook is doing, he said. And for Facebook, it all starts with the homescreen, which Zuckerberg said we look at 100 times a day. \n \n \"It's not just mobile first, but mobile best\" \n \n We're hearing Home will be available beginning April 12th, but only in a limited capacity \u2014 it will initially be available on the HTC One and One X, and the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4, and Galaxy Note II. It'll be rolling out broadly, but not at first. It can be installed from the Play Store, and if you have Facebook installed on your phone it will automatically prompt you to download the app. It's coming to a \"wide range of devices,\" including tablets, though it won't come to larger screens for several months. The company promised to redesign every month, bringing new features and new device support. \n \n \n \n ||||| Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF \n \n We've been talking about it for years now\u2014half dread, half excitement\u2014and now it's no longer just our imaginations. The Facebook Phone is as real as it's probably ever going to get: it's called Facebook Home a complete Android takeover that converts your smartphone. \n \n It's important to know what Facebook Home, \"the Facebook Phone,\" isn't. Facebook isn't building a phone in the same way that Apple builds a phone. This isn't an iPhone competitor, or even an Android competitor. It's not even a Facebook version of Android. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Facebook Home is apps. \n \n This is Facebook looking to plant itself in front of your eyeballs as much as possible with a homescreen entirely dedicated to the social network itself. Facebook Home is about what you're reading and tapping, not a hunk of plastic in your hand. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Home changes the entire way you interface with your phone\u2014you'll access all of your non-Facebook apps by clicking on your own profile picture. As soon as you turn on your phone (or wake it), you'll see your \"Coverfeed\"\u2014a super-condensed version of your News Feed that takes up the entire display, and completely replaces both the lockscreen and homescreen. \n \n There will be ads in this here Coverfeed, yes, because that's how Facebook makes money to exist. \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n But there will be a lot more: an ever-updating digest of what's happening with your pals. A giant photo someone shared. A link someone shared. Status updates. You can read whatever's next by swiping from one to the other, and double tap to like\u2014no need to pop open a Facebook app. \n \n There are some nifty gestures at work: tap and hold to zoom out of a photo you like, and you can pop off a comment with another tap. Notifications\u2014say, a new Facebook IM\u2014will stack up on your Coverfeed, but can be bunched up by tapping and holding, or dismissed entirely by swiping them away. It looks decently natural. \n \n Advertisement \n \n You can launch your favorite apps without leaving Facebook Home. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Messaging your friends and/or sexual partners is one of the more novel touches with Facebook Home\u2014it uses a nifty-looking and horribly named system called \"Chatheads.\" Chatheads are small pictures of your friends that are shortcuts for conversation. They pop up revealing your friend's profile photo, and a simple tap pulls up the conversation, whether it's over IM or chat. Switching from one conversation to another is just a matter of tapping between faces, and if someone tries to get in touch with you, their face will appear over whatever it is you're doing: listening to music, browsing Google Maps, or playing a game. \n \n It's nice to see SMS and IM treated exactly the same, because really, it doesn't matter which medium is carrying your dispatches. \"Hey\" is \"hey.\" \n \n Advertisement \n \n Home will be available to download in a week, with a tablet version out sometime later this year. It will update every single month\u2014or so Mark Zuckerberg says\u2014which means the software that dominates your screen will be refreshed more regularly than usual. That's great. \n \n Advertisement \n \n It looks beautiful. It'll come pre-loaded on the $100, AT&T-exclusive HTC First. Don't hold your breath for anything on iOS, ever. It may or may not wreck your battery life, what with the constant background updating and frenzy of graphical status updates and baby photos. We'll have to wait and see. \n \n Advertisement \n \n It looks beautiful, I can tell you that much. Or you can just look at these pictures and decide that. And the thinking behind Home\u2014that your digital social life is a good anchor for your entire phone, and that Facebook is the best representation of this social life\u2014is sound. Most apps are pointless, and most of the apps you even bother to download aren't used that frequently. Home eschews the skittle bag of specialized programs and assumes you'll be happy just cruising Facebook stuff most of the time. This rationale is a big part of what makes Windows Phone so brilliant. Your phone is already like a spoon for friendship, so if this all comes together, Facebook Home will maybe be like a spork. Or a feeding trough. \n \n But do you want this\u2014this pretty takeover? Do you want Facebook to be your phone, rather than a small part of it on equal footing with a calculator app? I do not know. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Update: We looked at some Facebook reps use the HTC First. Home screen navigation appears fast and nimble, with full-screen images flipping past as fast as their finger swipes. Selecting, reordering, grouping, and dismissing the Chat Heads icons was equally responsive with very little lag. Even when running standalone apps like Instagram, the UI appeared quite zippy. \n \n Additional reporting by Andrew Tarantola \n \n Advertisement \n \n Special thanks to BorrowLenses.com - The premiere online rental house where still photographers and videographers can rent virtually everything.", "summary": "\u2013 The \"Facebook phone\" is here and, as expected, it is not a phone built by Facebook. Instead, the company unveiled \"Facebook Home,\" a download that converts an Android phone into a Facebook-centric device, reports CNET. It will be available on a limited basis April 12 at the Google Play store. That's the same day HTC is rolling out its HTC First, the first phone to ship with Facebook Home in place. (It will run $99 with a two-year contract from AT&T, reports TechCrunch.) \"We're not building a phone and we're not building an operating system,\" says CEO Mark Zuckerberg. \"We're building something a whole lot deeper than an ordinary app.\" Sam Biddle, Gizmodo: \"Facebook Home means replacing the important parts of your phone with Facebook stuff. As much as possible, apps are replaced by Facebook features\u2014FB chats instead of texts, FB Camera instead of... camera, and so forth. And of course, an at-a-glance feed of everything your friends are doing\u2014Facebook activity jacked directly into your brain.\" David Pierce, the Verge: \"An app called Coverfeed overhauls the homescreen and the lockscreen, giving you updates on what your friends are doing without you having to launch an app, or even unlock your phone. You can comment or like posts from your homescreen \u2014 it feels incredibly native. Everything is full-screen and incredibly visual, really looking nothing like Android.\" Ina Fried, AllThingsD: It's not \"a phone per se, but rather a series of customizations that replaces the look and feel of a standard Android phone with a set of Facebook apps, home screens, and messaging experiences.\""}
{"document": "This undated photo provided by the Des Moines Police Department shows Scott Michael Greene, of Urbandale, Iowa. Des Moines and Urbandale Police said in a statement Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, that they have... (Associated Press) \n \n This undated photo provided by the Des Moines Police Department shows Scott Michael Greene, of Urbandale, Iowa. Des Moines and Urbandale Police said in a statement Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, that they have identified Greene as a suspect in the killings early Wednesday morning of two Des Moines area police... (Associated Press) \n \n DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) \u2014 The Latest on two officers in the Des Moines, Iowa, area who were killed in what authorities describe as ambush-style attacks (all times local): \n \n 12:35 p.m. \n \n An Iowa college says two Des Moines-area police officers who were ambushed and killed were both graduates of its criminal justice program. \n \n Simpson College President Jay Simmons says the deaths of Des Moines Sgt. Anthony Beminio and Urbandale officer Justin Martin are tragic and the loss is \"almost too much to bear.\" \n \n Police say a white man with a history of racial provocations and confrontations with police killed the two officers in separate incidents early Wednesday. \n \n Beminio graduated from Simpson College in Indianola in 2001 and played football. \n \n Martin graduated last year. Professor Fred Jones remembers him as a \"kind, gentle, compassionate man\" who went into police work because he wanted to serve the public. Martin had interned at the Urbandale Police Department during his senior year. \n \n Simpson's wrestling team will wear blue socks to honor the officers at its meet Thursday. \n \n ___ \n \n 12:30 p.m. \n \n Attorney General Loretta Lynch has strongly condemned the killings of two Des Moines area police officers. \n \n Lynch says the shootings early Wednesday are the latest in a \"series of senseless attacks\" and that \"violence has no place in the United States of America.\" \n \n She says violence is \"especially intolerable\" when it's directed at law enforcement officers who risk their lives to protect the public. \n \n The shootings follow the fatal ambushes this summer of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. \n \n Lynch says the Justice Department is determined to give officers the tools they need to do their jobs safely and effectively. \n \n Scott Michael Greene is suspected in the fatal shootings of Urbandale officer Justin Martin and Des Moines Sgt. Anthony \"Tony\" Beminio. Greene surrendered late Wednesday morning to a state employee. \n \n ___ \n \n 11:45 a.m. \n \n Police have confirmed that weeks before a man was apprehended as a suspect in the killings of two Des Moines area police officers, he was removed from a high school football game because he displayed a Confederate flag during the national anthem. \n \n Urbandale Police Chief Ross McCarty told reporters that Urbandale officers removed Scott Michael Greene from the football game. McCarty says some spectators complained after Greene waved the flag in front of spectators who are minorities. \n \n Greene shot a video of the Oct. 14 incident that he posted online. \n \n He complained to officers that his constitutional rights were being violated because they were throwing him out, but police told him he was on private property and needed to leave. \n \n Greene is suspected in the shooting deaths of Urbandale officer Justin Martin and Des Moines Sgt. Anthony \"Tony\" Beminio. \n \n ___ \n \n 11:20 a.m. \n \n Police say a man suspected in the killings to two Des Moines area officers surrendered to a state Department of Natural Resources officer. \n \n Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek says Scott Michael Greene flagged down the officer Wednesday morning in rural Dallas County, west of Des Moines, and presented his identification. \n \n He was taken into custody and is now being treated at a Des Moines hospital. \n \n Greene is suspected in the shooting deaths of Urbandale officer Justin Martin, with the force since 2015, and Sgt. Anthony \"Tony\" Beminio, who joined the department in Des Moines in 2005. \n \n Martin was single. Beminio was married with children. \n \n Parizek says Greene is suspected in the killings but hasn't yet been charged. \n \n ___ \n \n 10:40 a.m. \n \n The 66-year-old mother of the suspect in the killing of two Iowa police officers was arrested two weeks ago accused of assaulting her son. \n \n A criminal complaint shows Patricia Greene yelled at her son, Scott Michael Greene, to remove his daughter's service dog from her house Oct. 17. \n \n The complaint says Scott Greene was wearing his deceased father's dog tags and that his mother tried to tear them from around his neck. Greene grabbed his mother's hand and she hit and scratched his face. \n \n Scott Greene showed an officer cellphone video of the confrontation. \n \n His mother was released on a $1,000 cash bond and a judge ordered that she have no contact with her son. She is due in court on the charge later this month. \n \n The complaint doesn't say why Greene's daughter has a service dog. \n \n ___ \n \n 9:40 a.m. \n \n Police say the suspect in the killings of two Des Moines area police officers is in custody. \n \n Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek says Scott Michael Greene was taken into custody without incident Wednesday morning in Dallas County, just west of Des Moines. \n \n Greene is suspected in the killing of a Des Moines police officer and an Urbandale police officer earlier Wednesday. \n \n ___ \n \n 9:15 a.m. \n \n The man wanted in connection with the killing of two Des Moines area police officers has a record of confrontation with police and others. \n \n Iowa court records show 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene, of Urbandale, was jailed and charged with interference with official acts after resisting Urbandale police officers trying to pat him down for a weapon on April 10, 2014. A complaint signed by an Urbandale officer says Greene resisted verbal commands, was hostile and combative. It says he was known to be armed. He entered a guilty plea and was fined. \n \n Two days later Urbandale police were called to answer a complaint of harassment at the apartment complex where Greene lived. The complaint says he threatened to kill another man during a confrontation in the parking lot. He was charged with harassment, pleaded guilty and received a suspended jail sentence and a year of probation. \n \n Records show he completed a court-ordered substance abuse and psychological evaluation. \n \n Des Moines police say Greene is a suspect in the shootings early Wednesday in Des Moines and the suburb of Urbandale. \n \n 9 a.m. \n \n Police say a \"series of leads and investigative tips\" led them to identify a suspect in the killing of two Des Moines area police officers. \n \n Des Moines Sgt. Paul Parizek wouldn't give details about how investigators determined 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene, of Urbandale, was a suspect in the separate shootings early Wednesday in Des Moines and the suburb of Urbandale. \n \n Parizek says officers don't know where Greene is located. \n \n Police have closed long stretches of the roads, about two miles apart, where the officers were found in their cars. \n \n The Urbandale officer was dead at the scene and the Des Moines officer died at a hospital. \n \n ___ \n \n 7:40 a.m. \n \n Police say they have identified a suspect in the early morning killing of two Des Moines area police officers, warning he is likely armed and should be considered dangerous. \n \n Police said in a statement Wednesday that they are hunting for 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene, of Urbandale. \n \n He is described as white, 5 feet 11 inches tall, 180 pounds with brown hair and green eyes. He was last known to be driving a blue 2011 Ford F-150 pickup truck with Iowa license plates 780 YFR. \n \n The truck is equipped with a ladder rack. \n \n Investigators identified Greene as a suspect as they scrambled to respond to the killings of officers in Urbandale and Des Moines in separate shootings. \n \n ___ \n \n 5:10 a.m. \n \n Police in Des Moines, Iowa, say two officers who were killed in ambush-style attacks were both shot while they were sitting in their patrol cars. \n \n Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said Wednesday that authorities are developing suspect information but there was nothing that authorities were ready to share with the public. \n \n Parizek was emotional during a news conference. He says there is \"clearly danger\" right now for police officers in the area because the officers were gunned down while sitting in their cars doing nothing wrong. He says the department has doubled up its officers to better protect them. \n \n The first officer, an Urbandale officer, was shot about 1:06 a.m. About 20 minutes later, a Des Moines officer was found shot about 2 miles away. \n \n ___ \n \n 4:50 a.m. \n \n Authorities say two police officers in the Des Moines, Iowa, area were shot to death in ambush-style attacks about 2 miles apart. \n \n The Des Moines Police Department said in a news release that officers responded to a report of shots fired at about 1:06 a.m. and found an Urbandale Police Department officer who had been shot. \n \n Des Moines officers responded to help. About 20 minutes later, a Des Moines officer was found shot about 2 miles away. Both officers have died. \n \n The Des Moines Police Department said suspect information is being developed. The agency didn't immediately release any other information but said a news conference was planned for 5 a.m. \n \n Urbandale is a city in the Des Moines metro area. \n \n ___ \n \n 4:30 a.m. \n \n Police in Des Moines, Iowa, say two officers have been shot and killed in ambush-style attacks. \n \n The Des Moines Police Department said in a news release that the shootings took place early Wednesday. Officers responded to a report of shots fired at about 1:06 a.m. and found an Urbandale Police Department officer who had been shot. \n \n Des Moines officers responded to assist. About 20 minutes later, a Des Moines officer was found shot. Both officers have died. \n \n The Des Moines Police Department said suspect information is being developed. The agency didn't immediately release any other information but said a news conference was planned for 5 a.m. ||||| The interactive transcript could not be loaded. \n \n Rating is available when the video has been rented. \n \n This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| The suspect for the deadly ambush shootings of two Iowa police officers appears to have previously clashed with cops in a recent video \u2014 after he brought a Confederate flag to a high school sports game. \n \n Scott Michael Greene, 46, is the lone suspect for the Wednesday morning slayings of Urbandale Police Officer Justin Martin and Des Moines Police Sgt. Tony Beminio. He turned himself in after an hours-long manhunt. \n \n Authorities released little information about Greene, and did not reveal a motive for the massacre. \n \n But Greene has a history of police confrontations, and might have even filmed one just last month. \n \n Two Iowa cops killed in 'ambush-style attacks,' suspect caught \n \n There is a YouTube page in his name, with videos apparently filmed in Iowa and featuring a man resembling Greene. \n \n One video, posted Oct. 16, shows a man arguing with Urbandale police officers for 10 minutes outside of an athletic event at the city's high school. It is titled \u201cPolice Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School 10/14/16.\u201d \n \n The man filming the video, who is never seen on camera, accuses the officers of grabbing and shoving him as they order him off the property for creating a disturbance. \n \n The man says black people in the stadium stands assaulted him and stole a flag from him. \n \n An officer says it was a Confederate flag, and that the man should have expected trouble for waving it while \u201cstanding in front of several African-American people.\u201d \n \n An officer asks the man if he knows a student in the game, or just came to wave the flag. \n \n \u201cWell, I was using my constitutional rights,\u201d the man replies. \n \n \u201cI was peacefully protesting.\u201d \n \n In a comment under the video, the man said he was \u201coffended by the blacks sitting through our anthem.\u201d \n \n Scott Michael Greene. (Des Moines Police Department ) \n \n \u201cThousands more whites fought and died for their freedom. However this is not about the Armed forces, they are cop haters,\u201d the user wrote. \n \n The man sent this video to the local news station WHO-TV, hoping they would do a story about it. \n \n \u201cHe said, \u2018I have a story about someone\u2019s civil liberties being violated and I have this video,\u201d assignment editor Amanda Vizcarra told the Daily News. \n \n She said he sent the clip during the station\u2019s overnight shift, and no one there gave it serious consideration. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s just him recording officers at a football game,\u201d Vizcarra said. \n \n \u201cWe didn\u2019t do anything with it.\u201d \n \n An image from a YouTube video posted by a user in Iowa named Scott Greene, showing a man with a Confederate Flag near black spectators at a football game. (Scott Greene/via YouTube) \n \n The user posted another video, called \u201cCivil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School 10/14/16,\u201d which shows a man resembling Greene holding a Confederate Flag at a sports game. Black spectators behind him look clearly outraged. \n \n The school's stadium is at an intersection where Greene allegedly shot one of the officers on Wednesday. \n \n The YouTube account also features a video posted just two days ago, showing high school cheerleaders dancing at a gymnasium event. \n \n Police did not immediately confirm whether Greene is man behind the videos, or if the clips have any connection to the killings. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a relevant piece to our current investigation,\u201d Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said in an afternoon press conference. \n \n But cops confirmed Greene has a daughter at Urbandale High School \u2014 and that officers booted him from a football game there Oct. 14. \n \n Officers on the scene of one of the deadly police shootings Wednesday morning. (Charlie Neibergall/AP) \n \n Police also issued trespass warnings to Greene for the school, and he threw back \u201cindirect\u201d threats of legal action, Urbandale Police Chief Ross McCarty said. \n \n Greene had at least one previous brushup with police, and faced legal action for it. \n \n He was charged with misdemeanor interference in 2014 for resisting an officer's attempt to pat him down for weapons, according to the Des Moines Register. \n \n An officer described Greene as \"noncompliant, hostile, combative\" in a complaint and said Greene \"made furtive movements toward his pockets.\" \n \n Greene eventually pleaded guilty to the charge. \n \n Two days after his 2014 police encounter, Greene called a man the N-word and threatened to kill him, according to another complaint. He pleaded guilty to a harassment charge and was sentenced to one year of probation. \n \n Greene also faced assault and criminal mischief charges in 2001, but they were dismissed, court records show. \n \n Just two weeks ago, Greene's 66-year-old mother was arrested for allegedly assaulting him. Police said the two got into a fight when the mother ordered Greene to remove his daughter's service dog from her home. \n \n The mother could not be reached for comment and her voicemail box was full on Wednesday. ||||| CLOSE Scott Michael Greene was described as combative in a previous encounter with police. USA TODAY NETWORK \n \n Scott Michael Greene (Photo: Des Moines Police) \n \n An Urbandale man accused of gunning down two police officers Wednesday had a history of abrasive and racially charged run-ins with police and school officials. \n \n Scott Michael Greene, 46, was kicked out of Urbandale High School\u2019s football stadium on Oct. 14 after he claimed that spectators stole a Confederate flag he brought to a football game. \n \n And in April 2014, he faced a harassment charge after he called a man the N-word and threatened to kill him. \n \n \u201cMost of our officers have some understanding of Mr. Greene,\u201d Urbandale Police Chief Ross McCarty told reporters at a news conference Wednesday. \u201cThey\u2019ve taken trips to his house or delivered service to him.\u201d \n \n Dallas County sheriff's deputies and Iowa State Patrol officers took Greene into custody around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, two hours after police officials identified him as the lone suspect in the shooting deaths of Urbandale Officer Justin Martin and Des Moines police Sgt. Anthony Beminio. \n \n FBI spokeswoman Sandy Breault confirmed Wednesday that federal agents are assisting local Des Moines area investigators in combing through evidence to get a picture of what motivated the attacks. \n \n Breault said agents are \u201cscouring\u201d social media pages purportedly connected to Greene, including a Facebook page that includes \u201cfriends\u201d who are Iraqi, Nigerian or Saudi nationals. \n \n Strange behavior \n \n Greene lived with his mother in a modest tan home in the 3400 block of 70th Street. People in the neighborhood said he left a less-than-favorable impression. \n \n He seemed \u201ceager\u201d to make strange remarks that seemed aimed at getting people to engage him in conversation, said Bart Brandon, who has lived for nine years in a neighboring house. \n \n At least one court document suggests Greene struggled with a mental health issue. A probation officer who oversaw Greene following the harassment arrest wrote in a June 2015 report that he received a mental health evaluation and was taking recommended medications. \n \n Phyllis Nace, a neighbor living across the street from Greene and his mother, said Greene spiraled into a depression after his Vietnam veteran father died from cancer in 2010. His 66-year-old mother, Patricia Greene, has been trying to support him, Nace said. \n \n \u201cIt kind of spun Scott where he went into depression over a number of losses all in the same month,\u201d Nace said. \u201cHe\u2019s been trying to work through it.\u201d \n \n CLOSE Urbandale police Chief Ross McCarty said that his department had previous run-ins with shooting suspect Scott Michael Greene, including some in which he made indirect threats to the Urbandale schools. Rodney White/The Register \n \n Discord at home \n \n Patricia Greene moved out of the house after a recent fight with her son that resulted in a serious misdemeanor domestic abuse charge filed against her, said Brandon, a next-door neighbor. \n \n According to a criminal complaint, Scott Greene called police on Oct. 16 to report that his mother slapped him in the face around 5:15 p.m. Greene told two Urbandale police officers that he and his mother were fighting earlier in the day over a service dog belonging to Greene\u2019s daughter that he kept in the house, according to the complaint. \n \n Greene ended the argument by going to his bedroom downstairs, but his mother reportedly later yelled at him. At one point, Patricia Greene tried to grab a necklace her son wore that included his father\u2019s dog tags, telling him, \u201cYou don\u2019t deserve these,\u201d according to the complaint. \n \n Greene told police that his mother slapped him during the scuffle. The contact left an abrasion on his face that the officers saw, according to the complaint. In addition to the criminal charge, a restraining order was issued blocking Patricia Greene from having contact with her son, court records show. \n \n Patricia Greene has not entered a plea to the charge of domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury. Attempts to contact her Wednesday were unsuccessful. She is scheduled for an arraignment Nov. 30. \n \n In a 2007 bankruptcy filing, Greene was listed as a father to a 17-year-old son, a 16-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old daughter. \n \n Little is known at this point about Greene's employment history. John Stenberg, owner and CEO of Pigott, confirmed Wednesday that Greene worked at the Ingersoll Avenue furniture store from June 2006 through August 2013. Brandon said Greene told him this year that he was working at a hardware store. \n \n MORE COVERAGE: \n \n Football game disruption \n \n No criminal charges were filed against Scott Greene stemming from the Oct. 14 incident when he was kicked out of the Urbandale football game, but he was given a warning for trespassing. \n \n YouTube videos from a person identifying himself as Scott Greene show a confrontation between him and Urbandale police officers outside Frerichs Field in Urbandale last month. \n \n CLOSE Urbandale school officials confirmed there was an \u201cincident\u201d involving Scott Michael Greene at a football game in mid-October. Greene is accused of fatally shooting two metro-area police officers Nov. 2, 2016. The Register \n \n One video showed Greene confronting officers and questioning why he was being asked to leave school property. \n \n Greene said several \u201cAfrican-American\u201d people behind him stole his Confederate flag. The officers told him that holding the Confederate flag is in violation of an Urbandale school district code. \n \n \u201cIt was almost like a mugging,\u201d Greene said in the video. \u201cI had my property and I was holding it, and they stole it from me.\u201d \n \n In a comment posted online with the YouTube video, an individual who said he was Scott Greene said: \u201cI was offended by the blacks sitting through our anthem. Thousands more whites fought and died for their freedom. However, this is not about the armed forces, they are cop-haters.\u201d \n \n Thwarting a burglary \n \n More recently, Greene told people in his Urbandale neighborhood that he helped thwart a burglary at Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe early the morning of Oct. 27, Brandon said. \n \n Greene told his neighbor that he was walking a dog sometime before 5 a.m. when he noticed a strange vehicle near the store, across the street from his mother\u2019s house, and called 911. \n \n Brandon said it was strange when Greene knocked on his door around 6 a.m. to eagerly tell him about the burglary and his role in stopping it. \n \n \u201cTo me he seemed like he was kind of enjoying being the good guy,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cHe clearly didn\u2019t have any problems calling law enforcement, so I don\u2019t understand why he all of a sudden is against law enforcement.\u201d \n \n Store owner Paul Wilson confirmed the burglary, and he said Martin, the slain Urbandale officer, responded to the call. The young officer was \"as good as gold\" in helping through the situation, he said. \n \n Wilson said someone broke into his safe and appeared to be preparing to steal inventory before police arrived. \n \n Greene arrived in the store later in the morning to talk with Wilson and \u201csympathize,\u201d he said. \n \n Greene said he wished he was able to confront the suspect, then showed him a baton, Wilson said. \n \n \u201cHe whacks out this telescoping baton and said, \u2018Well, first I\u2019ll break their collarbone, and if that doesn\u2019t work they get to meet Mr. 9mm,\u2019\u201d Wilson said, referring to a handgun. \u201cThat\u2019s not normal.\u2019 \n \n \u201cHe was talking about how he was armed all the time and he was a stress victim from the military,\u201d the store owner continued. \u201cI didn\u2019t have a good feeling about having the guy around.\u201d \n \n Col. Greg Hapgood of the Iowa National Guard said his branch of the military shows no record of Greene\u2019s service. Hapgood said he doesn\u2019t believe Greene had served in any branch of the military but deferred confirmation to the National Archives, which did not respond to a request Wednesday. \n \n Resisting a pat-down \n \n Greene was charged with a simple misdemeanor count of interference with official acts on April 10, 2014, when he resisted an attempt by officers to pat him down for weapons at an Urbandale residence on Colby Parkway, according to a criminal complaint. \n \n The officers wanted to search Greene after noticing that he had a pouch on his belt that resembled a holster. \n \n Greene was \u201cnon-compliant, hostile, combative and made furtive movements toward his pockets\u201d before the arrest, Officer Chris Greenfield wrote in the complaint. Greenfield also noted that Greene was \"known to go armed.\" \n \n Greene pleaded guilty to the charge about two weeks later. \n \n Two days later, Greene reportedly threatened to kill a man in the parking lot of the same apartment complex and was charged with first-degree harassment, according to another complaint. \n \n In that incident, Greene was accused of approaching a man in the parking lot and shining a flashlight in his eyes. \n \n Greene, who lived in the apartments, called the man the N-word and told the man \u201cI will kill you, (expletive) kill you,\u201d according to the complaint. Greene pleaded guilty to a lesser harassment charge on June 30, 2014, and was sentenced to one year of probation. \n \n \n \n \n \n Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/2eUwqeh", "summary": "\u2013 Police say the man suspected of killing two Iowa officers early Wednesday has what the AP calls \"a history of racial provocations and confrontations with police.\" The Des Moines Register reports court records show 46-year-old Scott Greene was charged with resisting a pat down in April 2014 after an officer believed they saw a holster on Greene's belt. Greene pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Two days after that incident, Greene was charged with harassment after he confronted a man in the parking lot of his apartment complex, called the man a racial slur, and threatened to kill him. Greene was sentenced to probation. He was given a mental health evaluation in June 2015. In an incident just last month, Greene was kicked out of a high-school football game after he displayed a confederate flag in front of a number of black spectators during the national anthem. A man who appears to be Greene recorded two officers after he was removed from the stadium and posted the video on YouTube, the New York Daily News reports. The man in the video says he was \"using my constitutional rights\" and that he was upset by \"blacks sitting through our anthem.\" He accuses officers of violating his rights. He tried and failed to get a TV news station to run the video. \"It's just him recording two officers at a football game,\" a station editor says. \"We didn't do anything with it.\" Police have not released a motive in the killing of officers Justin Martin and Tony Beminio. Greene turned himself in in connection with the killings."}
{"document": "Shanghai's Crackdown on... Pajamas \n \n As Beijing restricts online dissent and Urumqi clamps down on separatists , Shanghai is cracking down on... (wait for it)... pajama-wearing in public. \n \n The wearing of colorful, boldly-printed pajamas in public has been popular in the city for years, and well-documented on Flickr as well as National Geographic. \n \n But with the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai just three months away, city officials have launched a public etiquette clampdown targeting the unseemly practice. \n \n The South China Morning Post reports that the city's Qiba neigborhood \"has mobilized neighborhood committee officials and volunteers since July to talk people out of the habit of wearing pajamas in public.\" \n \n The article also consults Chinese sociologist Zhang Jiehai, who says pajama-wearing in public began \"as a matter of practicality because people lived in cramped conditions with no clear line between public space and private place.\" \n \n Private pajama parties, anyone? \n \n report this ad ||||| Guest Passes let you share your photos that aren't public. Anyone can see your public photos anytime, whether they're a Flickr member or not. But! If you want to share photos marked as friends, family or private, use a Guest Pass. If you're sharing photos from a set, you can create a Guest Pass that includes any of your photos marked as friends, family, or private. If you're sharing your entire photostream, you can create a Guest Pass that includes photos marked as friends or family (but not your private photos). Learn more about Guest Passes!", "summary": "\u2013 Shanghai wants to look its best when it hosts the 2010 World Expo in a few months, so it's spreading the word to residents: Pajamas are for inside the house. Concerned about the popular habit of wearing boldly colored PJs on city streets, officials have launched a public campaign to discourage the practice. Boing Boing notes that the trend has been immortalized on Flickr and in National Geographic. The fashion statement began \"as a matter of practicality because people lived in cramped conditions with no clear line between public space and private place,\" a Chinese sociologist tells the South China Morning Post."}
{"document": "Please enable Javascript to watch this video \n \n MEMPHIS, Tenn. \u2014 Cardi B's Bodak Yellow has been at the top of the charts for weeks, and now, a Raleigh Egypt High teacher is using it to motivate students to succeed. \n \n Candous Brown said she wants her students to succeed, so it hurt her when some students misbehaved during a field trip a couple weeks ago. \n \n \"A couple of them had displayed some behavior that was not befitting of seniors,\" said Brown. \n \n Her former students challenged her to make a change through music. \n \n \"I was in my car, and I was like I'm still kind of heated about their behavior,\" she said. \n \n So Brown took a hit song her students love and scribbled down her own lyrics encouraging seniors to be a better role model. \n \n \"That's how you're supposed to run the school came about. You are the leaders. You're the ones that supposed to set the bar,\" said Brown. \n \n She recorded herself singing the song and posted it to Facbeook. \n \n It spread fast. \n \n \"I saw it on Facebook, and I was like this is my teachers singing in this video?\" said senior Kayln Grandberry. \n \n The video is now viewed more than 20,000 times. \n \n Students quickly memorized the lyrics. \n \n \"And now when they see each other, they tell each other you're supposed to run the school. You're supposed to be the leaders, so they can keep each other in check with it,\" said Brown. \n \n They even performed Brown's song at a recent pep rally. \n \n \"I've seen a change from the week I was upset with them until now. Now, they know,\" said Brown. \n \n She plans on making more songs. Students said they can't wait. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video \n \n MEMPHIS, Tenn. \u2014 An English teacher at Raleigh-Egypt High School in Memphis didn't let a few snow days keep her from helping students with their class assignment. \n \n Candous Brown took to Facebook Wednesday morning for a live teaching session with about 40 of her students. \n \n It was Brown's first shot at Facebook live and she says after the initial jitters it was like a walk in the park. \n \n \"This is my first time going live. I've never done this before. Hopefully y'all can hear me,\" Brown said on Facebook Live. \n \n Wednesday Brown kicked off her Facebook English class from her Millington home. \n \n Brown's students have been on \"snow break\" since Tuesday and needed some help with a class assignment. \n \n \"A couple of kids had sent a message saying they were trying to do their work while the break was still on. and that they were confused about some of the questions. and they requested a lesson live over Facebook,\" Brown said. \n \n Pretty soon there were 40 students taking part in the Facebook class. \n \n Brown made it clear up front they shouldn't be fooled by her kitty-kat pajamas and that she was still very much in charge. \n \n \"I'm not about to play this game about not having a pencil and you better have your book,\" Brown said. \n \n Brown says her students are reading \"Guns, Germs and Steel\" by Jared Diamond and had what are called \"text-dependent questions.\" \n \n \"The text-dependent actually help them progress through the test to make sure they understand any probing questions they may have about the text I can go ahead and clarify them,\" Brown said. \n \n Brown believes the Facebook live class was a huge success but gives her students all the credit. \n \n \"For them to actually have the drive and determination the will to actually want to do this outside of school? I'm proud of them I'll say that I'm very proud of them,\" \n \n This isn't Brown's first dip in the Facebook pool. In October she turned a popular rap song into a motivational tool after some her students misbehaved while on a field trip.", "summary": "\u2013 To teach or not to teach\u2014that is the question. And Candous Brown chose \"to teach\" on Wednesday morning, even though her school in Memphis, Tenn., was closed for a snow day. WREG notes that the English instructor at Raleigh-Egypt High School was still in her \"kitty-kat pajamas\" and ready for a second day off from school due to the inclement weather when she got a message from a couple of her students who were trying to do their classwork from home on a text they were reading. \"They were confused about some of the questions and they requested a lesson live over Facebook,\" Brown says, noting she'd never used the Facebook Live video feature before. But she logged on and gave it a whirl, and before long, those initial couple of students were joined by about 40 others who wanted in on the live classroom discussion. It's not the first time Brown has made headlines. In October, she caught the media's eye after she made a rap song imploring senior students to act appropriately in school; some had recently misbehaved on a field trip and upset her, per WREG. \"Now when they see each other, they tell each other 'you're supposed to \u2026 be the leaders,'\" she said after her rap went viral. This time, though, she says all kudos should go to the kids for their motivation to learn over going outside for a snowball fight. \"For them to actually have the drive and determination, the will to actually want to do this outside of school?\" she says. \"I'm very proud of them.\" (These teachers motivated by promising to eat worms and frog legs.)"}
{"document": "This collection is comprised of contributions from curators and subject matter experts; and includes news articles, blogs, social media sites, and organizational websites related to the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing and its aftereffects ||||| Add a location to your Tweets \n \n When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 NBA Commissioner Adam Silver dropped the hammer on LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling today, announcing that the league was banning Sterling for life from \"any association with the Clippers organization or the NBA.\" Sterling will not be allowed to attend any NBA games or practices, be involved in Clippers personnel decisions, or attend board of governors meetings. He'll also be fined $2.5 million, which Silver said was the maximum allowed under the NBA constitution. In addition, Silver said he'll move to force the sale of the Clippers. Silver said the NBA had investigated the incident and interviewed Sterling, and concluded that Sterling was the man on infamous taped conversations, \"and that the hateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling.\" He said he would encourage the other owners to force Sterling to sell the team, which can be done with a three-quarters vote. \"This has been a painful moment for all members of the NBA family,\" he said, adding that he felt \"personal outrage\" over the comments. In addition: Asked if an owner should be pushed out for comments made in private, Silver replied, \"Whether or not these remarks were initially shared in private, they are now public, and they represent his views.\" Silver said he hadn't formally polled the owners, but that he'd spoken to several and \"I have their full support.\" He said he was confident they would agree to oust Sterling. Asked if the league was seeking more African-American ownership, Silver said the league was diverse, but \"I'd always like to see it become more diverse.\" Asked about Magic Johnson specifically, he said Johnson knows that \"he is always welcome as an owner in this league ... and a close friend of the NBA family.\" Johnson tweeted out his approval of Silver's move. \"In Commissioner Adam Silver we have a great leader leading our league,\" he said, adding, \"The people who I'm happiest for are Coach Doc Rivers, the Clippers players, and fans.\" Silver had singled out Rivers and Chris Paul to thank them for their leadership."}
{"document": "Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Christmas market was evacuated and cordoned off by police \n \n A van has been driven into shoppers at a Christmas market in the French city of Nantes leaving 10 people injured. \n \n In two previous incidents over the weekend, attackers shouted \"God is great\" in Arabic, raising fears of copycat attacks. \n \n In Nantes, the driver is said to have stabbed himself and officials said he appeared to be unbalanced. \n \n President Francois Hollande has called for an emergency cabinet meeting and urged the public not to panic. \n \n Prime Minister Manuel Valls also called for \"cool-headedness\". \n \n In Dijon on Sunday, a driver shouting \"Allahu Akbar\" ploughed his vehicle into pedestrians, injuring 13 people. On Saturday, a man using the same phrase was shot dead by police after attacking them. \n \n Analysis: Hugh Schofield, BBC News, Paris \n \n Image copyright AFP Image caption Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the attacker in Nantes seemed to be \"unbalanced\" \n \n The French authorities are reluctant to say anything to encourage the idea that there is any kind of pattern behind the three attacks. \n \n For the first incident at the police station in Tours, it is clear that there was a religious motivation. The man left evidence of his conversion to extremist Islamist views. \n \n In Dijon, the man who drove into pedestrians also shouted \"God is great\" in Arabic. But he is known to have had a history of mental illness. This was not terrorism, is the official line. Similarly in Nantes, there is a strict embargo on speculation about the motives for the attack. \n \n All of which is perfectly understandable. But many people will be asking themselves if there is not some copycat effect being played out. Also, even if it is established the car attacks were the work of unbalanced individuals, might not Islamist propaganda have played some role in pushing them to the act? \n \n Monday's van attack in the western French city took place at about 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT). \n \n According to initial reports, the van drove towards a stall selling hot wine. \n \n Image copyright AFP Image caption The white van was driven into a busy Christmas market, injuring several shoppers \n \n One of the traders at the market told local newspaper Presse Ocean: \"The white van was speeding towards the customers and onlookers.\" \n \n After the vehicle came to a halt, the driver stabbed himself several times, causing himself serious injuries, a source close to the investigation told AFP news agency. \n \n The reasons for the attack were not clear, the source said, adding: \"As things stand, we have no account pointing to any religious demands.\" \n \n Speaking in Nantes, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, said the attacker did not appear to be motivated by politics or religion and seemed to be \"unbalanced\". \n \n The Christmas market was evacuated and cordoned off by police. A bomb disposal unit was brought in to inspect the van. \n \n Weekend attacks \n \n In Dijon, the man was arrested after targeting pedestrians in five different parts of the city in the space of half an hour. \n \n The prosecutor in Dijon said the attacker had a long history of mental illness and the incident was not linked to terrorism. \n \n In Saturday's incident, a man stabbed three police officers in the city of Tours before being shot dead. \n \n Anti-terrorism investigators have opened an inquiry into that attack. ||||| (CNN) -- A van plowed into shoppers at an outdoor Christmas market Monday in Nantes, France, injuring at least nine people in addition to the driver, police said. \n \n Four had serious wounds, plus the driver, police said. \n \n The driver stabbed himself twice after the incident, but is expected to survive, said Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for France's Interior Ministry. \n \n French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will head to Nantes Monday evening to meet with the families of the victims and rescue officials, Brandet told CNN affiliate BFM-TV. \n \n The investigation is just beginning, he said, but so far the Nantes prosecutor has said the incident appears to be an isolated case and not a terrorist attack. \n \n Authorities are investigating a notebook found with the attacker, Brandet said. \n \n It was not immediately clear whether the incident was related to one Sunday in Dijon, France, in which witnesses said a man shouting \"God is great\" in Arabic rammed his vehicle into pedestrians. \n \n At least 12 people were injured by that vehicle, said police in Dijon, a city in eastern France. A man has been arrested in connection with the case, they said. \n \n BFM-TV reported that eyewitnesses heard the driver shout the phrase \"Allahu Akbar\" -- Arabic for \"God is great.\" \n \n On Saturday, a man stabbed three police officers in central France while allegedly calling out the same phrase. French counterterrorism authorities are investigating that attack. \n \n And France's Prime Minister said earlier Monday that his country has never faced as serious a terrorism threat as it does right now. \n \n Police haven't revealed any possible motives in the vehicle incidents. \n \n CNN's Jim Bittermann, Sandrine Amiel and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 France has been rattled by the second attack on pedestrians in two days. In the latest incident, a man drove a van into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in the city of Nantes, injuring at least 10 people, five seriously. Police say the 25-year-old driver tried to kill himself with a knife after the attack, but he survived and was hospitalized in serious condition, the Guardian reports. On Sunday, a man shouting \"Allahu akbar\" ran over 11 pedestrians in Dijon, and the day before that, a man shouting the same thing was shot dead after attacking police officers with a knife near the city of Tours. France's interior minister says the latest attack appears to be an isolated incident and not a terrorist attack, although police are investigating a notebook found with the driver, reports CNN. Authorities have called for calm and are \"reluctant to say anything to encourage the idea that there is any kind of pattern behind the three attacks,\" notes Hugh Schofield at the BBC. \"But many people will be asking themselves if there is not some copycat effect being played out,\" he writes. \"Also, even if it is established the car attacks were the work of unbalanced individuals, might not Islamist propaganda have played some role in pushing them to the act?\""}
{"document": "Seven people attempted suicide by drinking a poisonous liquid outside the gates of the China Youth Daily in Beijing yesterday morning, the newspaper said on its social media account. \n \n Pictures circulated online showed five men and two women lying on the pavement outside the newspaper building. \n \n A stream of white foam could be seen running out of one man's mouth in the pictures. \n \n All seven were taken to hospital, and police were investigating the case, the Daily said. \n \n Southern Metropolis Daily reported that the seven had drunk pesticide and were petitioners from Qingyang in Sihong county in eastern Jiangsu province. \n \n Their land was seized by the local government and they were petitioning because they were not satisfied with the compensation the authorities paid, the newspaper said. \n \n \"Too many houses were forcibly demolished in Qingyang and a local court has ruled the demolition as illegal,\" Wang Jinshan, another petitioner from the same town, told the South China Morning Post. \n \n The seven were held in an illegally run detention centre, or \"black jail\", after they took their petitions to a higher level of government, Southern Metropolis Daily said. \n \n An official from Jiangsu was guarding the emergency room where two of the petitioners were being treated, stopping journalists from going in yesterday, The Beijing News reported. \n \n The injuries the seven suffered were no longer life threatening, according to the newspaper. \n \n Human rights group say that petitioning, which goes back to imperial times, often leads to people with complaints being held in illegal detention centres by the authorities. \n \n People can petition for years without their grievances being addressed and they occasionally resort to extreme measures to draw public attention to their cases. ||||| 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": "\u2013 Twelve people in China have highlighted their grievances by swallowing pesticide in public and falling to the ground, frothing at the mouth, the Telegraph reports. In one incident, a group of seven people from Jiangsu province (all from the same family, says the Daily Mail) went outside a newspaper office in Beijing Wednesday morning and drank the pesticide. One told a journalist from the state-run paper that they were protesting against local officials who had thrown them off their property and destroyed their home five years ago. They received little or no compensation, depending on which report you read. \"We had no other option but to resort to this to make ourselves heard,\" said the wife of a 58-year-old protester. \"We\u2019ve been driven to homelessness. We\u2019ve been driven into a corner\u2014the government gave us no way out.\" She said her husband had gone to Nanjing to protest and was tossed into an illegal \"black jail\" for three days without sleep, food, or water. In another incident, five protesters came to Beijing and drank pesticide over a complaint that wasn't reported. Among the first protesters, four are still in life-threatening condition, but nothing is known of the latter five. Petitioning goes back centuries in China, where millions of people travel to Beijing every year to voice grievances, but rarely make headway with officials."}
{"document": "WASHINGTON Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster who was widely credited with bringing a more disciplined approach to Donald Trump's presidential election campaign, will become White House counselor when he takes office next month. \n \n In her new post, Conway will play a key advisory role, helping to manage Trump's messaging and legislative priorities, the transition team said in a statement on Thursday. It praised Conway, 49, as the first woman campaign manager to guide a winning U.S. presidential campaign. \n \n Trump also tapped three loyalists to lead his communications team. The Republican National Committee's Sean Spicer will be press secretary, while Hope Hicks, Jason Miller and Dan Scavino will round out the communications team. \n \n Both before the Nov. 8 election and after, Conway, as a senior adviser on the transition team, has been a frequent presence on U.S. television news programs, often called upon to defend or explain Trump's thinking. \n \n Conway \"played a crucial role in my victory,\" Trump said in the transition team statement. \"She is a tireless and tenacious advocate of my agenda and has amazing insights on how to effectively communicate our message.\" \n \n Trump, a New York businessman, takes office on Jan. 20. \n \n Conway, interviewed by ABC's \"Good Morning America\" shortly after the announcement, was asked when Trump would hold his first news conference. She avoided directly answering the question. Trump has held several rallies since winning the election but has not taken formal questions from reporters. \n \n He canceled a Dec. 15 news conference to discuss how he would handle his vast business interests once in the White House and said he would reschedule that for January. \n \n Conway told ABC that Trump was focusing on forming his Cabinet. \"He's been very busy doing that,\" she said. \n \n Because of her prominent role in the campaign and transition team, there had been considerable speculation over what post Conway, a veteran political strategist, might occupy in Trump's administration. \n \n Conway, who has four children, said she did not immediately accept a position offered to her early on in the transition period because she had to weigh her family obligations. \n \n \"I would say that I don\u2019t play golf and I don\u2019t have a mistress so, I have a lot of time that a lot of these other men don't,\" Conway told Fox Business Network. \n \n \"I see people on the weekend spending an awful lot of time on their golf games and that\u2019s their right, but the kids will be with me, we live in the same house, and they come first.\" \n \n (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Frances Kerry) ||||| (CNN) President-elect Donald Trump tapped former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway as \"counselor to the president,\" the presidential transition team announced Thursday morning. \n \n The transition team said Conway, the first female campaign manager to win a presidential race, will work with White House senior leadership on messaging and to help execute the administration's legislative priorities. \n \n \"In her position, Conway will continue her role as a close adviser to the President and will work with senior leadership to effectively message and execute the Administration's legislative priorities and actions,\" the Trump transition said in a statement. \n \n Conway's role would be similar to Karen Hughes' position in the Bush 43 administration -- placing her close to the President, and handing her responsibility for much of the big-picture communication duties for the White House, a transition source told CNN's Jim Acosta. \n \n The source drew parallels between Conway and Hughes, and also compared Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon to Bush's political maven Karl Rove, and chief of staff Reince Priebus to his Bush counterpart, Andy Card. \n \n In an interview on \"New Day\" the day of the announcement, Conway told host Chris Cuomo that the job \"portfolio will be whatever the President wants it to be.\" \n \n \"It is likely to include communications, and is likely to include data and strategy,\" she said. \"I'm just really pleased and frankly very humbled to take on this role in the West Wing.\" \n \n Trump praised Conway in the announcement, calling her \"a trusted adviser and strategist who played a crucial role in my victory,\" adding she has \"amazing insights on how to effectively communicate our message.\" \n \n Conway said in the statement that she was \"humbled and honored to play a role in helping transform the movement he has led into a real agenda of actions and results.\" \n \n A veteran pollster, Conway was a fixture in Trump's inner circle after joining the campaign in early July. \n \n She took over as campaign manager after Paul Manafort's departure and a period of tumult in August, following the conventions. She played a critical role in organizing the campaign's operations and was a near-constant presence on television and social media as she helped craft the Trump campaign's message. \n \n Prior to joining the Trump campaign, Conway headed a super PAC that supported Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential bid, called \"Keep the Promise I.\" Though she became one of Trump's most trusted advisers, Conway had previously criticized Trump for having \"built a lot of his business on the backs of the little guy.\" \n \n Nevertheless, Conway emerged from the campaign as an indispensable part of Trump's coterie. She had publicly debated about the possibility of taking a job in the Trump administration, and expressed some concern about having time for her four children and making full-time move from New York to Washington. \n \n Still, Conway made clear that she was interested in serving in some capacity, saying at an event hosted by Politico in early December \n \n \"In terms of going into the West Wing, I will do whatever the President-elect and the vice president-elect ... believe is my best and highest use for them,\" she had said. \n \n CNN's Jim Acosta contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 Kellyanne Conway was devoted as Donald Trump's campaign manager (so much so she says she's getting death threats as a result), and her loyalty has now been rewarded. The president-elect announced Thursday that Conway will serve as his counselor in the Oval Office, Reuters reports, noting in a transition team statement that Conway \"played a crucial role in my victory.\" \"She is a tireless and tenacious advocate of my agenda and has amazing insights on how to effectively communicate our message,\" his statement continues. Conway had announced Tuesday that she'd be moving to DC with her family, noting at the time that \"I will either stay outside and run the political super-structure, or I will go into the West Wing and take a position right next to the president,\" per Fox News. The transition team says that Conway, who CNN notes was the first woman campaign manager to lead a successful White House run, will facilitate the new administration's legislative missions and assist other senior White House officials with messaging. Conway, who jumped into the Trump fray in early July and replaced Paul Manafort as campaign manager in August, had previously stumped for Ted Cruz as head of one of his super PACs, where she had laid into Trump for \"[building] a lot of his business on the backs of the little guy.\" Conway says in the transition team statement that she's \"humbled and honored to play a role in helping transform the movement he has led into a real agenda of actions and results.\" She had noted to Fox on Tuesday: \"I have the president-elect\u2019s trust and I have his ear.\""}
{"document": "William Marotta, the Topeka man who answered a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple seeking sperm to conceive a child, will appeal Wednesday\u2019s court ruling that labeled him a \"presumptive father\" and not a sperm donor. \n \n \"We have every intention to appeal,\" his attorney, Benoit M.J. Swinnen, said Thursday. Swinnen said the decision finding Marotta the presumptive father was a surprise to him, noting the key decision said his client didn't meet the definition of a sperm donor. \n \n \"If there is a definition, I haven't read it,\" Swinnen said. \n \n Earlier Thursday, Marotta was interviewed by The Topeka Capital-Journal about the case that has raised national discussion. He was interviewed less than a day after Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi ruled he is the \"presumptive father as a matter of law,\" not a sperm donor. \n \n Whether Mattivi ruled in favor of Marotta saying he was a sperm donor or in favor of the state of Kansas saying he was a presumptive father, Marotta said it was expected the side getting the adverse ruling would appeal. \n \n Marotta said thinks the Kansas Supreme Court will hear the case. \n \n He said he \"almost\" is at the point he would go to jail rather than pay child support if the court ordered him to do so. \n \n At the same time, Marotta knows the Kansas Department for Children and Families likely could garnish his wages to collect the child support. \n \n Swinnen questioned whether the timing of the court decision had a political edge to it, noting there was an anti-abortion rally and discussion in the Legislature dealing with changing how Supreme Court justices are nominated and surrogate mothers. \n \n \"It begs the question of whether the decision was political,\" Swinnen said. \n \n The Marotta story has attracted a lot of attention. \n \n When the ruling was released Wednesday, Marotta said, \"The first thing that crossed my mind is, 'Here we go again.' \" He was referring to the groundswell of reaction when the case surfaced in 2013. \n \n His coworkers and commenters on social media have been supportive, he said. \n \n He has had positive responses from Australia and New Zealand, and a friend relayed a message from a Dane who said the physician requirement in Denmark would be a \"joke.\" \n \n Early on Thursday, CBS News called Marotta to schedule an interview to be aired Friday morning. \n \n When told the Marotta case was discussed on \"The View,\" a daily national TV talk show on Thursday, Marotta said, \"It wouldn't surprise me.\" \n \n The story has captured national attention because a same-sex couple was seeking the sperm and because the \"small detail\" that a physician didn't perform the artificial insemination as required by Kansas law, which didn't seem rational to some people, Marotta said. \n \n Marotta said he wouldn't have a relationship with the girl born to one of the lesbian women, who is now 4, which was the agreement outlined in a contract he and the two women signed. \n \n In her written decision, Mattivi said that because Marotta and the same-sex couple failed to secure the services of a physician during the artificial insemination process, he wasn\u2019t entitled to the same protections given sperm donors under Kansas law. \n \n Not using a physician during the artificial insemination of the mother is the heart of the ruling. \n \n \u201cKansas law is clear that a 'donor of semen provided to a licensed physician for use in artificial insemination of a woman other than the donor\u2019s wife is treated in law as if he were not the birth father of a child thereby conceived, unless agreed to in writing by the donor and the woman,' \u201d Mattivi wrote. \n \n \u201cIn this case, quite simply, the parties failed to conform to the statutory requirements of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician at some point in the artificial insemination process, and the parties\u2019 self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental rights and responsibilities\" to the child, the judge concluded. \n \n The judge said she was bound by the \"ordinary meaning and plain language of K.S.A. 23-2208(f), and (she) may not look the other way simply because the parties intended a different result than that afforded by the statute.\" \n \n Marotta contended he was only a sperm donor to a same-sex couple seeking a child, but the Kansas Department for Children and Families argued he is a father who owes child support to his daughter. \n \n Marotta delivered the sperm in containers three times to the couple. ||||| TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) \u2014 A man who provided sperm to a lesbian couple in response to an online ad is the father of a child born to one of the women and must pay child support, a Kansas judge ruled Wednesday. \n \n Topeka resident William Marotta had argued that he had waived his parental rights and didn't intend to be a father. Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi rejected that claim, saying the parties didn't involve a licensed physician in the artificial insemination process and thus Marotta didn't qualify as a sperm donor, The Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/LHwLyW) reported. \n \n \"In this case, quite simply, the parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician at some point in the artificial insemination process, and the parties' self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,\" Mattivi wrote. \n \n The Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have Marotta declared the father of a child born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009. The state was seeking to have Marotta declared the child's father so he can be held responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance the state provided, as well as future child support. \n \n Marotta opposed that action, saying he had contacted Schreiner and her partner at the time, Angela Bauer, in response to an ad they placed on Craigslist seeking a sperm donor. He said he signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities. \n \n Attorneys for the state contended the contract was moot because the parties didn't follow a 1994 Kansas law requiring a licensed physician to perform the artificial insemination when donors were involved. \n \n During oral arguments at a hearing in October, Timothy Keck, co-lead counsel for the state, said the case focused on child support. Marotta's attorney, Benoit Swinnen, cited several court rulings he said support the argument that Marotta is legally a sperm donor and not required to pay child support. \n \n Swinnen also argued that the Kansas statute doesn't specifically require the artificial insemination to be carried out by a physician. \n \n Court documents show Schreiner indicated she didn't know the name of the donor or \"have any information\" about him in her application for child support. However, a sperm donor contract between Marotta and the couple includes his name, and the agency noted the couple talked about their appreciation for him in an interview with The Capital-Journal. \n \n A filing Wednesday by the DCF argues the sperm donor contract overlooks \"the well-established law in this state that a person cannot contract away his or her obligations to support their child.\" \n \n The right for support belongs to the child, not the parents, the filing says. \n \n The agency said it also received different versions of the donor contract from Marotta and Schreiner, suggesting that the document \"may be invalid on its face.\" \n \n \"We stand by that contract,\" Swinnen said. \"The insinuation is offensive, and we are responding vigorously to that. We stand by our story. There was no personal relationship whatsoever between my client and the mother, or the partner of the mother, or the child. Anything the state insinuates is vilifying my client, and I will address it.\"", "summary": "\u2013 The latest twist and turn in the case of a man who provided sperm to a same-sex couple who then had a daughter: A Kansas judge ruled Wednesday that William Marotta is the \"presumptive father as a matter of law,\" not a sperm donor, and must pay child support. Marotta says he gave containers of sperm to Jennifer Schreiner and Angela Bauer three times after responding to their Craigslist ad looking for a donor, then signed a contract waiving his parental rights. But none of that matters, the judge ruled, since the couple didn't use a licensed physician for artificial insemination, which is required under a 1994 state law, the AP and Topeka Capital-Journal report. \"Quite simply, the parties failed to conform to the statutory requirements of the Kansas Parentage Act,\" the judge said, noting she \"may not look the other way simply because the parties intended a different result than that afforded by the statute.\" Marotta's lawyer says \"we have every intention to appeal.\" And Marotta tells the Topeka Capital-Journal he is \"almost\" at the point where he'd pick jail over paying child support. The state brought the case against Marotta after the couple sought state benefits; the state wanted him to be on the hook for about $6,000 worth of public assistance and future child support for the now 4-year-old girl."}
{"document": "In an interview with \"CBS This Morning\" co-host Gayle King, Dylan Farrow detailed the alleged sexual abuse by her adoptive father, actor and director Woody Allen. At the age of 7, Dylan told her mother, actress Mia Farrow, that Allen had molested her. \n \n Allen has always denied the allegations and has never been charged with a crime. Dylan Farrow has stood by her story for more than two decades. She first went public with her accusations in 2014 with an open letter in the New York Times. \n \n Below is Allen's full response to \"CBS This Morning\": \n \n \"When this claim was first made more than 25 years ago, it was thoroughly investigated by both the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital and New York State Child Welfare. They both did so for many months and independently concluded that no molestation had ever taken place. Instead, they found it likely a vulnerable child had been coached to tell the story by her angry mother during a contentious breakup. \n \n Dylan's older brother Moses has said that he witnessed their mother doing exactly that \u2013 relentlessly coaching Dylan, trying to drum into her that her father was a dangerous sexual predator. It seems to have worked \u2013 and, sadly, I'm sure Dylan truly believes what she says. \n \n But even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time's Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn't make it any more true today than it was in the past. I never molested my daughter \u2013 as all investigations concluded a quarter of a century ago.\" ||||| A wave of celebrities has begun speaking out against Woody Allen, more than two decades after his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow alleged that he molested her, which Allen has long denied. \n \n In December, Farrow wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times asking why actors who spoke out against other Hollywood men in the #MeToo movement continued to support Allen. In the days since the piece was published, Mira Sorvino and Greta Gerwig expressed regret for working with Allen. Rebecca Hall and Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet said they would donate their salaries from working on Allen\u2019s films to anti-sexual violence organizations. \n \n Not everyone who has worked with Allen has condemned him. Alec Baldwin, who has appeared in three of Allen\u2019s films, said in a Jan. 16 tweet that the \u201crenunciation\u201d of Allen is \u201cunfair and sad.\u201d \n \n Allen has long denied Farrow\u2019s allegation, and he has never been charged with a crime. The allegations were first made in 1992. In 2014, after Allen received a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes, Farrow detailed the allegations in an open letter in the New York Times. Allen again denied the allegations in an op-ed published in the Times in 2014. \n \n \u201cOf course, I did not molest Dylan,\u201d Allen wrote. \u201cNo one wants to discourage abuse victims from speaking out, but one must bear in mind that sometimes there are people who are falsely accused and that is also a terribly destructive thing.\u201d \n \n In response to an inquiry from TIME about Farrow\u2019s allegations and Allen\u2019s response to celebrities speaking out against him, a spokesperson for Allen did not immediately comment but said a statement would be issued on Thursday. Farrow will give her first television interview about the allegation on CBS This Morning on Thursday as well. \n \n \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t I be angry? Why shouldn\u2019t I be hurt? Why shouldn\u2019t I feel some sort of \u2014 outrage that after all these years being ignored and disbelieved and tossed aside?\u201d Farrow told CBS This Morning. \u201cAll I can do is speak my truth and hope that someone will believe me instead of just hearing.\u201d \n \n Here\u2019s a list of actors who have worked with Allen and spoken out against him since allegations against Harvey Weinstein sparked the #MeToo movement last fall. TIME will continue to update this list. \n \n Rachel Brosnahan \n \n Actress Rachel Brosnahan attends the 23rd Annual Critics' Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on January 11, 2018 in Santa Monica, California. Axelle/Bauer-Griffin\u2014FilmMagic \n \n Brosnahan, who currently stars in Amazon\u2019s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Jan. 17 that she regrets working with Allen on his 2016 limited Amazon series Crisis in Six Scenes. \n \n \u201cLook, I had a great experience working on that project,\u201d Brosnahan said. \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s the decision that I have made in my life that is the most inconsistent with everything I stand for and believe in, both publicly and privately. And while I can\u2019t take it back, it\u2019s important to me, moving forward, to make decisions that better reflect the things that I value and my worldview.\u201d \n \n Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet \n \n Timothee Chalamet attends the 43rd Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards on January 13, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic) Jon Kopaloff\u2014FilmMagic \n \n The Call Me By Your Name star announced in a Jan. 15 Instagram post that he would donate his salary from an upcoming film directed by Allen to anti-sexual assault organization RAINN, the LGBT Center in New York and Time\u2019s Up, an anti-harassment movement launched by Hollywood women. Chalamet appeared in Allen\u2019s upcoming film A Rainy Day in New York. \n \n \u201cI am learning that a good role isn\u2019t the only criteria for accepting a job \u2014 that has become much clearer to me in the past few months, having witnessed the birth of a powerful movement intent on ending injustice, inequality and above all, silence,\u201d Chalemet said. \u201cI want to be worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave artists who are fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.\u201d \n \n Farrow responded in a tweet: \u201cGlad to see this.\u201d \n \n Natalie Portman \n \n Actor Natalie Portman celebrates The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards with Moet & Chandon at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. Michael Kovac\u2014Getty Images \n \n In an interview with Oprah on CBS This Morning, Portman, one of the woman involved in the Time\u2019s Up initiative, said that she believes Farrow. Portman previously appeared in Allen\u2019s 1996 film, Everyone Says I Love You. \n \n \u201cI believe Dylan,\u201d Portman said. \u201cI would want to say that: \u2018I believe you, Dylan.'\u201d \n \n Rebecca Hall \n \n Rebecca Hall attends Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women's Filmmaker Program Luncheon at Locanda Verde on October 17, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic) Roy Rochlin\u2014FilmMagic \n \n Hall, who will appear with Chalamet in A Rainy Day in New York, announced in an Instagram post on Jan. 12 that she would donate her salary from the film to Time\u2019s Up. In her post, Hall said that she was \u201cgrateful\u201d that Allen had given her one of her first big roles \u2014 in his 2008 film Vicky Christina Barcelona \u2014 but said she\u2019s been reflecting on Farrow\u2019s allegations in recent weeks. \n \n \u201cAfter reading and re-reading Dylan Farrow\u2019s statements of a few days ago and going back and reading the older ones \u2013 I see, not only how complicated this matter is, but that my actions have made another woman feel silenced and dismissed,\u201d Hall wrote. \u201cThat is not something that sits easily with me in the current or indeed any moment, and I am profoundly sorry.\u201d \n \n Mira Sorvino \n \n Actress Mira Sorvino attends the premiere of \"Mothers and Daughters\" at The London on April 28, 2016 in West Hollywood, California. Jason LaVeris\u2014FilmMagic \n \n Sorvino, who won an Academy Award for her role in Allen\u2019s 1995 film Mighty Aphrodite, apologized to Farrow in an open letter published on HuffPost on Jan. 10. \n \n \u201cI am so sorry, Dylan,\u201d wrote Sorvino, one of the woman who accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. \u201cI cannot begin to imagine how you have felt, all these years as you watched someone you called out as having hurt you as a child, a vulnerable little girl in his care, be lauded again and again, including by me and countless others in Hollywood who praised him and ignored you.\u201d \n \n Greta Gerwig \n \n Actress Greta Gerwig attends The 11th Annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards at Spring Studios on November 3, 2014 in New York City. Gary Gershoff\u2014WireImage \n \n In an interview with the New York Times published on Jan. 9, the Lady Bird director said she regretted working with Allen in his 2012 film To Rome With Love. \n \n \u201cIf I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film. I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again,\u201d Gerwig said. \u201cDylan Farrow\u2026 made me realize that I increased another woman\u2019s pain, and I was heartbroken by that realization.\u201d \n \n David Krumholtz \n \n Actor David Krumholtz of the television show Living Biblically speaks onstage during the CBS/Showtime portion of the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 6, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) Frederick M. Brown\u2014Getty Images \n \n Krumholtz, who appeared in Allen\u2019s 2017 film Wonder Wheel, said in a Jan. 5 tweet that he regrets working with Allen. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s one of my most heartbreaking mistakes,\u201d said Krumholtz, known for his roles in The Deuce and 10 Things I Hate About You. \u201cWe can no longer let these men represent us in entertainment, politics or any other realm. They are beneath real men.\u201d \n \n Ellen Page \n \n LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 27: Actress Ellen Page attends the premiere of \"Flatliners\" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on September 27, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic) Jason LaVeris\u2014FilmMagic \n \n In a Facebook post on Nov. 10, Page said working on Allen\u2019s 2012 film To Rome With Love was \u201cthe biggest regret of my career.\u201d \n \n \u201cI am ashamed I did this,\u201d Page wrote. \u201cI had yet to find my voice and was not who I am now and felt pressured, because \u2018of course you have to say yes to this Woody Allen film.\u2019 Ultimately, however, it is my choice what films I decide to do and I made the wrong choice.\u201d \n \n Griffin Newman \n \n Griffin Newman attends Amazon Prime Video's The Tick New York Comic Con 2017 - Press Room at The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on October 7, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Getty Images for Amazon) Todd Williamson\u2014Getty Images for Amazon \n \n Newman, who has a small role in Allen\u2019s upcoming film A Rainy Day in New York, said in a series of tweets on Oct. 14 \u2014 days after the allegations against Weinstein broke \u2014 that he believes Woody Allen is guilty. He said he donated his salary from the film to RAINN. ||||| Only on \"CBS This Morning,\" Dylan Farrow is speaking candidly for the first time on television about her sexual assault allegations against her adoptive father, actor and director Woody Allen. At the age of seven, Farrow told her mother, actress Mia Farrow, that Allen had molested her. \n \n Allen has always denied the allegations. \n \n Farrow has stood by her story for more than two decades. She first went public in 2014 with an open letter in the New York Times. Now, she's sharing her story to \"CBS This Morning\" co-host Gayle King who spoke with her at Farrow's Connecticut home. \n \n Some of the details she described are graphic. \n \n DYLAN FARROW: I want to show my face and tell my story. \u2026 I want to speak out. Literally. \n \n Dylan Farrow shares her story with \"CBS This Morning\" co-host Gayle King CBS News \n \n At 32, Dylan Farrow has been married for almost eight years. She's the mother of a 16-month-old girl. And she's still carrying the emotional scars she says she got at the hands of her father. \n \n FARROW: I loved my father. I respected him. He was my hero. And that doesn't obviously take away from what he did. But it does make the betrayal and the hurt that much more intense. \n \n GAYLE KING: Let's go to August 4, 1992. And if you could tell us what happened that day. \n \n FARROW: I was taken to a small attic crawl space in my mother's country house in Connecticut by my father. He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother's toy train that was set up. And he sat behind me in the doorway, and as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted\u2026 As a 7-year-old I would say, I would have said he touched my private parts. \n \n KING: Mmhmm. Okay \n \n FARROW: Which I did say. \n \n KING: Alright. Alright. \n \n FARROW: As a 32-year-old, he touched my labia and my vulva with his finger. \n \n KING: Where was your mother? \n \n FARROW: She went shopping that day. \n \n KING: And then after you told her, what happened? \n \n FARROW: She was upset. \u2026 My first impulse was that I had done something wrong. \n \n Mia Farrow took Dylan to the pediatrician, but when the doctor asked her where she had been touched, the little girl pointed to her shoulder. \n \n FARROW: She said, \"Why didn't you tell the doctor what you told me?\" And I told her that I was embarrassed. And then we went back in. \n \n KING: You went back in and then you told him. \n \n FARROW: And I told the doctor. \n \n KING: The same thing that you had told your mother. \n \n FARROW: Yes. \n \n (L to R) Actress Mia Farrow, son Satchel, Woody Allen, daughter Dylan David Mcgough/DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images \n \n Allen had suggested that Dylan changed her story because she had been coached by her mother. Months earlier, Mia had found in his apartment nude pictures of her daughter, Soon-Yi, whom she had adopted during an earlier marriage. Allen confessed to an affair with Soon-Yi. The two remain a couple to this day, married for more than 20 years. \n \n KING: You could see why he might make that claim. He would say that she was filled with rage after his affair with Soon-Yi had been discovered, and that she was out for revenge and full of rage. \n \n FARROW: And what I don't understand is how is this crazy story of me being brainwashed and coached more believable than what I'm saying about being sexually assaulted by my father? \n \n KING: Because your mother was very angry, so that she would try to coach you, and try to get you to turn against your father. \n \n FARROW: Except every step of the way, my mother has only encouraged me to tell the truth. She has never coached me. \n \n KING: I wanted to play a clip from \"60 Minutes.\" An interview that he did at the time where he was asked about that incident. Are you okay with looking at it? You're ok? \n \n FARROW: [Nods] Mmhmm. \n \n \"60 MINUTES\" INTERVIEW WITH ALLEN: Isn't it illogical that I'm going to at the height of a very bitter acrimonious custody fight, drive up to Connecticut where nobody likes me and I'm in house full of enemies \u2013 I mean Mia was so enraged at me and she had gotten all the kids to be angry at me \u2013 that I'm going to drive up there and suddenly on visitation, pick this moment in my life to become a child molester. It's just, it's just incredible. I could if I wanted to be a child molester, I had many opportunities in the past. I could have quietly made a custody settlement with Mia in some way and done it in the future. You know, it's so insane. \n \n KING: What do you say to that? \n \n FARROW: [Crying] I'm really sorry. \n \n KING: Don't apologize, don't apologize. \n \n FARROW: I thought I could handle it. I \u2013 \n \n KING: Are you crying because of what he said or seeing him? What is upsetting you? \n \n FARROW: He's lying and he's been lying for so long. And it is difficult for me to see him and to hear his voice. I'm sorry. \n \n Allen had adopted Dylan and her 13-year-old brother, Moses, the previous December. The couple also had a younger son, Ronan. But as Mia Farrow's boyfriend, Allen had been a part of Dylan's life since she was a baby. Dylan says that the incident in the attic wasn't the only time his behavior had been inappropriate. \n \n KING: What would he do? \n \n FARROW: He would follow me around. He was always touching me, cuddling me and if I ever said, you know, like I want to go off by myself, he wouldn't let me. \n \n KING: Some could say that's a very doting and loving father. \n \n FARROW: Except he wasn't this way with Ronan. \n \n KING: What else would he do? \n \n FARROW: He often asked me to get into bed with him when he had only his underwear on and sometimes when only I had my underwear on. \n \n Woody Allen was never charged with a crime in this case. Both New York state child welfare investigators and a report by the Yale New Haven hospital found that the abuse did not happen. The Connecticut state prosecutor on the case, Frank Maco, questioned the Yale New Haven report's credibility saying there was probable cause to charge Allen but he thought Dylan was too fragile to face a celebrity trial. \n \n \n \n KING: Do you wish that they would have gone ahead and filed the charges because then you would have had to taken the stand? \n \n FARROW: You know, honestly yes. I do wish that they had, you know, even if I'm just speaking in retrospect. I was already traumatized. \u2026 Here's the thing. I mean, outside of a court of law, we do know what happened in the attic on that day. I just told you. \n \n We reached out to the former Connecticut prosecutor, Frank Maco. He told us that in his experience, \"There was no manipulation by Mia Farrow.\" He adds nothing in the state police investigation indicated that Farrow was in any way being controlled or manipulated. \n \n \"When this claim was first made more than 25 years ago, it was thoroughly investigated by both the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital and New York State Child Welfare. They both did so for many months and independently concluded that no molestation had ever taken place. Instead, they found it likely a vulnerable child had been coached to tell the story by her angry mother during a contentious breakup. \n \n \"Dylan's older brother Moses has said that he witnessed their mother doing exactly that \u2013 relentlessly coaching Dylan, trying to drum into her that her father was a dangerous sexual predator. It seems to have worked \u2013 and, sadly, I'm sure Dylan truly believes what she says. \n \n \"But even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time's Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn't make it any more true today than it was in the past. I never molested my daughter \u2013 as all investigations concluded a quarter of a century ago.\" \n \n Dylan Farrow on Time's Up, actors who work with Woody Allen \n \n Farrow is also speaking up to have her voice included in the Time's Up and #MeToo conversations. Over the past two weeks, several celebrities have voiced their support for Dylan, including actress Natalie Portman. \n \n This week, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet announced he's donating his entire salary from his work in an upcoming Woody Allen movie to three charities that fight sexual abuse and harassment, including Time's Up. He wrote on Instagram: \"I want to be worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave artists who are fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.\" \n \n In an interview on \"CBS Sunday Morning,\" Portman said, \"I believe Dylan. I would want to say that. I believe you, Dylan.\" \n \n Dylan was visibly moved by seeing the support from Portman. \n \n FARROW: Now I'm going to start crying but, wow. \n \n She's been searching for that acknowledgement, most of her life. \n \n FARROW: With so much silence being broken by so many brave people against so many high profile people, I felt it was important to add my story to theirs because it's something I've struggled with for a long time and it was\u2026.It was very momentous for me to see this conversation finally carried into a public setting. \n \n As the #MeToo movement continues, Dylan took to social media to call out celebrities who have starred in Woody Allen's films. \n \n KING: Are you angry with the people, with the celebrities that are starring in his movies, that hold him in high regard and continue to compliment him? \n \n FARROW: I'm not angry with them. I hope that, you know, especially since so many of them have been vocal advocates of this Me Too and Time's Up movement that, um, they can acknowledge their complicity and maybe hold themselves accountable to how they have perpetuated this culture of \u2013 of silence in their industry. \n \n KING: And how are they complicit? \n \n FARROW: Because I have been saying this \u2013 I have been repeating my accusations unaltered for over 20 years and I have been systematically shut down, ignored or discredited. If they can't acknowledge the accusations of one survivor's how are they going to stand for all of us? \n \n KING: People say it's a family matter. It was many years ago. I don't really know the details of this case. \n \n FARROW: So find out. I mean, it's really like I said, it's so easy in this day and age. It's a family matter but here's another thing. I am a real person and I've been struggling, coping on my good days, with the aftershocks of being sexually assaulted as a small child and that's real. And that matters. \n \n KING: How has this affected your life? \n \n FARROW: It's affected every part of my life. You know, growing up, and like I said, I pushed it to the side, I tried to pretend or tried to convince myself that this was something moving forward that I did not need to bring with me even though it came anyway. It's impacted everything. \n \n Married and a mother to a 16-month-old daughter, Dylan is an advocate for victims of sexual abuse. \n \n FARROW: I have a wonderful husband and I have this amazing little girl now. \n \n KING: So what will you tell her when the time comes? What will you tell her about how to be in this world? \n \n FARROW: That if she was ever in a position that she's not helpless. Because one of the things I remember very clearly as a small child is this feeling of helplessness.", "summary": "\u2013 One person vigorously reupping her claims in the wake of the #MeToo movement: Dylan Farrow, who continues to insist her father, Woody Allen, molested her when she was a child at the home of her mother, Mia Farrow. On Thursday, Farrow appeared on CBS This Morning and says she wishes there'd been a trial since \"I was already traumatized\" from the alleged assault on August 4, 1992. That's when Farrow says her \"hero\" led her to the attic of Mia Farrow's Connecticut residence and \"touched my labia and my vulva with his finger.\" Dylan Farrow was 7 at the time. The now-32-year-old mom told interviewer Gayle King she felt it was necessary to finally come forward on TV, saying, \"I want to show my face and tell my story. ... I want to speak out. Literally.\" And she has supporters in high places, including Mira Sorvino and Natalie Portman, per Time. Although Allen vowed in 2014 to never again comment on the allegations from his adopted daughter, he broke that vow Thursday. \"I never molested my daughter,\" the director says in a statement to CBS News. He adds two investigations\u2014one by a hospital's child abuse clinic and another by child welfare investigators in New York\u2014previously \"concluded that no molestation had ever taken place\" and it was \"likely a vulnerable child had been coached to tell the story by her angry mother during a contentious breakup. ... Sadly, I'm sure Dylan truly believes what she says.\" Dylan Farrow refutes that, noting that \"my mother has only encouraged me to tell the truth,\" adding she wonders why \"this crazy story of me being brainwashed\" is more believable than her own account. (One person who's backing Allen this week: Alec Baldwin.)"}
{"document": "Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump's warning on Wednesday morning that US missiles \"will be coming\" to Syria was notable not only for its military and geopolitical implications, but because he tipped off US plans in exactly the same manner for which he's criticized his predecessor. \n \n In 2013, as the Obama administration was weighing a response to the Syrian government after it violated President Barack Obama's \" red line \" for its use of chemical weapons, Trump argued that the US should \"stay the hell out of Syria\" and criticized the administration for \"broadcasting\" its strategy. \n \n \"Why do we keep broadcasting when we are going to attack Syria. Why can't we just be quiet and, if we attack at all, catch them by surprise?\" Trump tweeted in response. \n \n Why do we keep broadcasting when we are going to attack Syria. Why can't we just be quiet and, if we attack at all, catch them by surprise? \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2013 \n \n He argued that he \"would not go into Syria, but if I did it would be by surprise and not blurted all over the media like fools.\" \n \n \"For the first time in the history of military operations a country has broadcast what, when and where they will be doing in a future attack!\" Trump also wrote back then. \n \n For the first time in the history of military operations a country has broadcast what, when and where they will be doing in a future attack! \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2013 \n \n Read More ||||| WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers said on Saturday their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons program, but the restrained assault appeared unlikely to halt Syrian President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s progress in the 7-year-old civil war. \n \n The United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles overnight in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Syria a week ago, targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities, including a research and development center in Damascus\u2019 Barzeh district and two installations near Homs. \n \n The bombing was the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his superpower ally Russia, but the three countries said the strikes were limited to Syria\u2019s chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war. \n \n The air attack, denounced by Damascus and its allies as an illegal act of aggression, was unlikely to alter the course of a multisided war that has killed at least half a million people. \n \n U.S. President Donald Trump called the operation a success. \n \n He proclaimed on Twitter: \u201cMission accomplished,\u201d echoing former President George W. Bush, whose use of the same phrase in 2003 to describe the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely ridiculed as violence there dragged on for years. \n \n \u201cWe believe that by hitting Barzeh, in particular, we\u2019ve attacked the heart of the Syrian chemicals weapon program,\u201d U.S. Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie said at the Pentagon. \n \n However, McKenzie acknowledged elements of the program remain and he could not guarantee that Syria would be unable to conduct a chemical attack in the future. \n \n The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that Trump told her that if Syria uses poisonous gas again, \u201cThe United States is locked and loaded.\u201d \n \n The Western countries said the strikes were aimed at preventing more Syrian chemical weapons attacks after a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on April 7 killed up to 75 people. They blame Assad\u2019s government for the attack. \n \n In Washington, a senior administration official said on Saturday that \u201cwhile the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use\u201d in the attack. \n \n Speaking at a summit in Peru, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence seemed less sure of the use of sarin, saying that Washington may well determine that it was used along with chlorine. \n \n ASSAD \u2018RESILIENCE\u2019 \n \n Ten hours after the missiles hit, smoke was still rising from the remains of five destroyed buildings of the Syrian Scientific Research Center in Barzeh, where a Syrian employee said medical components were developed. \n \n There were no immediate reports of casualties. \n \n Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption \u201cMorning of resilience\u201d. \n \n Late on Saturday Syria time, a large explosion was heard in a Syrian government-controlled area in a rural region south of Aleppo, according to the Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory said the cause of the explosion was unknown, as well as its target. \n \n Russian and Iranian military help over the past three years has allowed Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him. \n \n The United States, Britain and France have all participated in the Syrian conflict for years, arming rebels, bombing Islamic State fighters and deploying troops on the ground to fight that group. But they have refrained from targeting Assad\u2019s government, apart from a volley of U.S. missiles last year. \n \n Although the Western countries have all said for seven years that Assad must leave power, they held back in the past from striking his government, lacking a wider strategy to defeat him. \n \n Syria and its allies also made clear that they considered the attack a one-off, unlikely to do meaningful harm to Assad. \n \n A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia. \n \n Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the strikes were \u201cunacceptable and lawless.\u201d \n \n Syrian state media called them a \u201cflagrant violation of international law,\u201d while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called it a crime and the Western leaders criminals. \n \n Russia had promised to respond to any attack on its ally, but the Pentagon said no Russian air defense systems were used. Syria fired 40 unguided surface-to-air missiles - but only after the Western strikes had ended, the Pentagon said. \n \n \u201cWe are confident that all of our missiles reached their targets,\u201d McKenzie said. \n \n A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer, deployed to Al Udeid Air Base, launches a strike as part of the multinational response to Syria's use of chemical weapons is seen in this image from Al Udeid Air Base, Doha, Qatar released on April 14, 2018. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS \n \n British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as \u201climited and targeted,\u201d with no intention of toppling Assad or intervening more widely in the war. \n \n Washington described the strike targets as a center near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons; a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs; and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post. \n \n The Pentagon said there had been chemical weapons agents at one of the targets, and that the strikes had significantly crippled Syria\u2019s ability to produce such weapons. \n \n Trump spoke to May and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss results of the strikes, the leaders\u2019 offices said. \n \n U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all Security Council members to exercise restraint and avoid escalation in Syria, but said allegations of chemical weapons use demand an investigation. \n \n In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged Russia to drop its \u201cpretence\u201d that Syria was not behind the chemical attack on Douma and use its influence to force the Assad government to destroy its chemical weapons. \n \n \u201cRussia has used its position as a member of the United Nations Security Council to veto resolutions designed to ensure that this chemical weapons crime is thoroughly investigated and cannot be repeated,\u201d he told a news conference on Sunday. \n \n \u201cIt should stop all the denial and the pretence that it wasn\u2019t an action by the Syrian government and ensure that the chemical weapons are destroyed, that the ability of the regime to use chemical weapons is eliminated and that this type of criminal conduct does not occur again.\u201d \n \n WEAPONS INSPECTIONS \n \n Inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW were due to try to visit Douma on Saturday to inspect the site of the suspected gas attack. Moscow condemned the Western states for refusing to wait for their findings. \n \n Russia, whose relations with the West have deteriorated to levels of Cold War-era hostility, has denied any gas attack took place in Douma and even accused Britain of staging it to whip up anti-Russian hysteria. \n \n The Western countries took precautions to avoid unexpected conflict with Russia. French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Russians was warned beforehand to avert conflict. \n \n Dmitry Belik, a Russian member of parliament who was in Damascus and witnessed the strikes, told Reuters: \u201cThe attack was more of a psychological nature rather than practical. Luckily there are no substantial losses or damages.\u201d \n \n In Douma, site of the suspected gas attack, the last buses were due on Saturday to transport out rebels and their families who agreed to surrender the town, state TV reported. That effectively ends all resistance in the suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta, marking one of the biggest victories for Assad\u2019s government of the war. \n \n Slideshow (18 Images) \n \n The Western assault involved more missiles than a U.S. attack last year but struck targets limited to Syria\u2019s chemical weapons facilities. The U.S. intervention last year had effectively no impact on the war. \n \n Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons after a nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in Douma. Damascus is still permitted to have chlorine for civilian use, although its use as a weapon is banned. Allegations of Assad\u2019s chlorine use have been frequent during the war although, unlike nerve agents, chlorine did not produce mass casualties as seen last week. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| 19:06 \n \n Western leaders put off a final decision on military strikes in Syria on Thursday, opting for further consultation between allies. \n \n Donald Trump and Theresa May spoke on the phone on Thursday evening and agreed Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime had \u201ca pattern of dangerous behaviour\u201d with chemical weapons that cannot go unchallenged. Both leaders are yet to announce what action they will take in Syria alongside France. \n \n \n \n The French government said it had \u201cproof\u201d that the Syrian regime was responsible for Saturday\u2019s alleged chemical attack in Damascus, which reportedly killed at least 50 people and injured hundreds, according to president Emmanuel Macron. \n \n \n \n The US defence secretary, James Mattis, said Washington was gathering evidence about who carried out the attack and his main concern about the American military response was how to stop the tensions \u201cescalating out of control\u201d. \n \n \n \n Preparations for a possible Russian counterattack on the British base RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus were under way on Thursday in the event of US-led military action in Syria. \n \n American TV network NBC reported that blood and urine samples from the victims of Saturday\u2019s attack had traces of a nerve agent and chlorine, indicating that Assad\u2019s government was responsible. \n \n President Trump stepped back from his promise of an imminent missile strike in Syria, tweeting that he \u201cnever said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!\u201d \n \n Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are set to arrive in Damascus to start an investigation into the chemical attack. They are not due to visit the site of the incident until Saturday, however. \n \n Russia\u2019s UN ambassador said his top diplomatic priority was to avert war in Syria, but he did not rule out the possibility of US-Russian conflict. \n \n Sweden has proposed a draft resolution to UN security council that would include immediately sending a high-level disarmament mission to Syria to address outstanding issues on the use of chemical weapons \u201conce and for all\u201d in a bid to de-escalate the situation. \n \n \n \n For a full report on the UK\u2019s response to the Syria crisis, read more here: \n \n Cabinet backs May's call for robust response to Syria crisis Read more \n \n Our correspondents in Washington, Paris and Moscow have the latest on the international perspective: \n \n Syria crisis: US concerned military strike would 'escalate out of control' Read more \n \n For more on the situation inside Syria, read Martin Chulov\u2019s report: \n \n 'The US won't win': Damascenes poised for next move in Syria conflict Read more \n \n Thanks for following. Have a peaceful evening.", "summary": "\u2013 President Trump on Thursday appeared to temper his threat of an imminent missile strike on Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack. \"Never said when an attack on Syria would take place,\" the president tweeted. \"Could be very soon or not so soon at all!\" The tweet comes after his warning on Wednesday that US \"missiles will be coming,\" itself a response to Russia's threat that it would shoot down any American weaponry. The second half of Trump's Thursday tweet branched into a different but related subject: \"In any event,\" he wrote, \"the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our 'Thank you America?'\" Amid the tension, Reuters reports that a \"global effort\" is underway to simmer things down, with a US-Russia hotline in use to prevent an accidental conflict over Syria. Still, in another development Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron told French TV that \"we have the proof that chemical weapons\u2014at least chlorine gas\u2014were used,\" per the Guardian. He said a decision on how to respond would be made when \"most effective.\" And British Prime Minister Theresa May summoned her Cabinet from vacation to discuss joining any US-led military action. Another potential reason behind Trump's Thursday tweet: He was taking criticism for doing what he once criticized President Obama of doing\u2014talking about a military attack in advance on Syria. \"Why can't we just be quiet and, if we attack at all, catch them by surprise?\" he wondered in 2013, one of multiple critical tweets on the subject, notes CNN. The network also ran a mashup of several times Trump declared the US will stop telling its enemies about military plans."}
{"document": "U.S. stock markets were preparing to open in the wake of Sandy on Wednesday, ending a shutdown that left investors unable to trade for two days and sparked recriminations over whether Wall Street should have been better prepared to handle the impact of such a storm. \n \n After four days away from the markets --Saturday, Sunday and two days of storm-related delays -- the New York Stock Exchange is open for business again. Jonathan Cheng reports on the markets returning to business as usual, post-Sandy. Photo: Reuters. \n \n The New York Stock Exchange said Tuesday that it plans to open as usual at 9:30 a.m. and that its trading floor and headquarters in lower Manhattan were \"fully operational\" despite widespread blackouts and flooding in that part of the city. The Nasdaq Stock Market and other exchanges will open as well. Bond markets will follow suit. \n \n After a historic two-day closure because of Superstorm Sandy, Asian markets are anticipating the reopening of the U.S. stock exchanges. The WSJ's Ken Brown talks about why U.S. firms and banks were unprepared to act on the backup plan during the disaster. \n \n While investors and industry officials breathed a sigh of relief, critics argued that the storm exposed how ill-prepared exchanges and their Wall Street customers are for such an event. Regulators on Tuesday said they plan to probe whether more needs to be done to get exchanges and the trading community ready for such disasters. \n \n Enlarge Image Close European Pressphoto Agency Regulators plan to probe the readiness of exchanges during disasters. Here, a firetruck outside the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. \n \n \"The whole saga has demonstrated just how little the exchanges have prepared for a natural, pandemic or terrorist threat since 9/11,\" said Christopher Nagy, an exchange and trading-firm consultant who formerly handled the routing of orders for brokerage firm TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. \"This is another in a long line of examples of exchange failures and an exercise in losing consumer confidence.\" \n \n Conflicts between the exchanges and customers arose Sunday, when Big Board operator NYSE Euronext said it was seeking to close its trading floor for the hurricane but keep electronic trading open, something that it hasn't done before. \n \n Banks and brokerages complained that they hadn't properly tested such a mode of trading, and that doing so would mean bringing workers into their offices just as Sandy was approaching. \n \n NYSE and customers have been at odds over this emergency backup plan for more than a year. Customers expressed similar concerns ahead of Hurricane Irene in 2011, according to people involved in the discussions. Irene went easy on Lower Manhattan, and didn't require the backup plan. \n \n After Irene, NYSE kept the same emergency plan in place but many firms didn't test their systems. Throughout the weekend and Monday and Tuesday, exchange officials and customers in private pointed the finger at one another for not having a proper emergency system in place, according to people involved in some of the conversations. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Associated Press The streets surrounding the New York Stock Exchange are deserted as financial markets remain closed for the second day due to superstorm Sandy. \n \n The industry pushed back, arguing that without the Big Board's floor in operation, brokers weren't sure they could trust the markets to set opening and closing stock prices. \n \n Trading firms said on conference calls with exchange officials Sunday night that they weren't prepared for the NYSE plan, known as \"Print as N,\" named after the designation for the Big Board used by computerized trading algorithms. \n \n New York's Blackout Skyline Compare New York's usual skyline with its blackout skyline View Interactive \n \n \"The comfort level wasn't there\" with the NYSE's plan on Sunday night, said Jamie Selway, managing director at ITG, a New York brokerage firm, who participated in many of the industry calls ahead of the storm. \"People either didn't understand it or trust it.\" \n \n Instead, the industry agreed to shut down the markets. \n \n Banks, brokers and exchanges continued Tuesday morning to test a new backup plan put together Monday that would shift NYSE operations to its all-electronic platform. But as weather eased, the exchange announced it would open its trading floor. \n \n The Securities and Exchange Commission, which approved the NYSE backup plan in 2009, expects to review the NYSE's tests and preparations and determine how the industry can be better prepared for the next disaster, according to an agency official. The regulator isn't involved with testing of computer trading systems. \n \n But some critics say the SEC needs to do more to ensure that exchanges and trading firms are prepared for natural and man-made disasters. \"The regulators had a responsibility, particularly after 9/11, to see to it that every exchange had a backup plan that would ensure that regional disruptions wouldn't cause them to go down,\" said former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt. \n \n For now, the agency is primarily focused on getting markets back into working order. Throughout Tuesday, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro participated in calls with NYSE officials about the exchange operator's ability to resume trading Wednesday. \n \n While a remote possibility, the SEC has the option of halting trading midday if trading gets overly erratic. \n \n Trading could start Wednesday with a flurry as investors with pent up orders rush to get their trades in, investors said. \n \n With many roads flooded and mass transit still in disarray, NYSE officials helped trading-floor workers arrange rides and carpools to reach the exchange for the market opening. The NYSE needs about 100 staff and traders on hand to effectively open its stock exchange, according to exchange officials. \n \n The NYSE building remained accessible from the north despite floodwaters encroaching on lower Manhattan, NYSE Euronext Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Leibowitz said. \n \n The NYSE switched over to its backup power generator Monday night when Consolidated Edison Inc. cut power to sections of lower Manhattan amid Sandy's surge, Mr. Leibowitz said. On Tuesday morning, extra fuel was delivered to the exchange, enabling it to run for 40 hours, and plans were to further top up the supply as the day progressed. \n \n Reopening the NYSE floor is critical for U.S. stock markets because of the NYSE's role as the primary exchange for many blue-chip listings. NYSE Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer plans to be at the Big Board for the market open, an exchange spokesman said. \n \n Nasdaq officials had pushed for stock-market trading to resume Wednesday, telling customers that they intended to keep Nasdaq OMX Group's downtown Manhattan headquarters closed and run operations from data centers in Carteret, N.J., Shelton, Conn., and Philadelphia. \n \n Nasdaq's chief executive, Robert Greifeld, will work in Carteret on Wednesday morning, according to a person familiar with the matter. \n \n \u2014Matt Jarzemsky contributed to this article. \n \n Write to Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com, Scott Patterson at scott.patterson@wsj.com and Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@dowjones.com \n \n A version of this article appeared October 31, 2012, on page C1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Questions Cloud Market Reopening. ||||| The devastation was so widespread and so severe many residents cannot find the words to describe what they have seen. \n \n Loading Photo Gallery \n \n By Dan Goldberg and Brent Johnson/The Star-Ledger \n \n MORRISTOWN \u2014 No light, no power, no rest. \n \n More than 24 hours after Hurricane Sandy pummeled New Jersey, crews worked through the night to assess the damage, and formulate a plan to rebuild in months what Sandy destroyed in moments. \n \n This morning, Gov. Chris Christie said, New Jersey enters a new phase. \n \n Today is when the state must transition from remorse to recovery, he said. \n \n And there is plenty of work to be done. \n \n The devastation was so widespread and so severe many residents cannot find the words to describe what they have seen. Christie called the losses \u201calmost incalculable.\u201d \n \n Homes gone, landmarks crumbled and loved ones lost. At least seven people in New Jersey have died because of the storm. \n \n The governor plans to tour the shore today with President Obama and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in the afternoon \u2014 after a 9 a.m. cabinet meeting and a tour of Sayreville. \n \n \n \n Early Tuesday morning on MSNBC, Christie said the president\u2019s handling of the disaster \u201chas been great.\u201d When asked about the elections at a press conference later in the day, he said: \u201cThis administration at the moment could give a damn less about the Election Day. ... I've got much bigger fish to fry.\u201d \n \n \u201c(Tuesday) was a bit of a day of sorrow for a lot of people,\u201d Christie said. \u201cAnd we need to feel that. It\u2019s appropriate to feel that. We need to feel it and take it in. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. But as long as sorrow does not displace resilience, then we\u2019ll be just fine.\u201d \n \n Moonachie, which had four feet of river water running through town, is slowly drying out, police said. \n \n \u201cThere are no more rescue efforts, and the water has receded quite a bit,\u201d said borough police officer Jeff Napolitano. \n \n Waters are also beginning to recede in Hoboken, though the city is still a mess. Late Tuesday night, the National Guard rolled in, using high-wheeled vehicles to bring supplies to the beleaguered city and help thousands of residents who found themselves trapped by flood waters. \n \n Forecasters predict the state will have some time to clean up. Light sprinkles are expected today but nowhere near enough rain for there to be more flooding, said Walter Drag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. \n \n \u201cSandy has moved on,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of cleanup now.\u201d \n \n Utility crews spent most of Tuesday night riding around New Jersey, assessing damage and restoring service where possible. Though progress was made, more than half the state will again wake up without power. \n \n \n \n Loading Photo Gallery \n \n Estimates vary on when it will return, but Christie said it could take more than a week for service to be fully restored. \n \n \u201cTo the people of New Jersey, hang in there,\u201d the governor said on Tuesday. \n \n As of 3:30 a.m. today, JCP&L; was able to restore power to about 13,000 customers during the night, but there are still 958,000 to go. \n \n \u201cToday, the goal is still to be assessing damage,\u201d said Jennifer Young, a spokeswoman for the power company. \u201cWhere we can, we will also make repairs. This is the worst storm damage we\u2019ve seen in our company\u2019s history. It is far worse than what we saw during Irene and the snowstorm last October. With the damage we are seeing, it is really going to take a while to get all customers back online.\u201d \n \n PSE&G;, which had a peak of 1.4 million outages, reported at 5 a.m. that about 900,000 customers without power. Atlantic City Electric still has 121,000, down from a peak 152,000. \n \n But if you are looking forward to a bit of trick-or-treating to break the monotony of a dark, disconnected home, think twice before heading out, especially if you have children. \n \n Christie advised against walking in the streets in the wake of so many felled trees and downed power lines. \n \n \n \n Loading Photo Gallery \n \n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine it is going to be safe for kids to go around for Halloween,\u201d he said on Tuesday. \u201cIf we have to reschedule Halloween for another day \u2026 we want kids to have Halloween, but I also want kids to be safe and alive.\u201d \n \n The lack of power \u2014 and the uncertainty of its return \u2014 has forced the state to ask resident to conserve water. \n \n \u201cPower companies are working hard to restore electricity to water utilities, but right now it\u2019s impossible to say how long these facilities will have to be operated on backup generators,\u201d state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said in a press release. \u201cEveryone must pitch in immediately and take steps to reduce water consumption. Without conservation now, homes and businesses could find themselves without water in the near future if backup generation fails. We need full and immediate cooperation.\u201d \n \n Star-Ledger staff writer Jenna Portnoy and the Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| People in the coastal corridor battered by superstorm Sandy took the first cautious steps Wednesday to reclaim routines upended by the disaster, even as rescuers combed neighborhoods strewn with debris and scarred by floods and fire. \n \n People walk through the houses destroyed in the aftermath of yesterday's storm surge from superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) (Associated Press) \n \n Marcus Konner, 22, boards his home in the aftermath of a storm surge from Hurricane Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) (Associated Press) \n \n A car is upended on a mailbox on Surf Avenue in Coney Island, N.Y., in the aftermath of Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted... (Associated Press) \n \n People stop along the Brooklyn waterfront to look at the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 in New York. Much of lower Manhattan is without electric power following the... (Associated Press) \n \n One World Trade Center and large portions of lower Manhattan and Hoboken, N.J., are seen without power from Jersey City, N.J., Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, the morning after a powerful storm that started out... (Associated Press) \n \n This photo provided by Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows people boarding a bus, as partial bus service was restored on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Mass transit, including buses, was suspended during... (Associated Press) \n \n A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded as a result of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 in Hoboken, NJ. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes) (Associated Press) \n \n But while New York City buses returned to darkened streets and the New York Stock Exchange prepared to reopen its storied trading floor, it became clear that restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days _ and that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transportation networks that link them together could take considerably longer. \n \n \"We will get through the days ahead by doing what we always do in tough times _ by standing together, shoulder to shoulder, ready to help a neighbor, comfort a stranger and get the city we love back on its feet,\" New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. \n \n The scale of the challenge was clear across the Hudson River in New Jersey, where National Guard troops arrived in the heavily flooded city of Hoboken to help evacuate thousands still stuck in their homes. And new problems arose when firefighters were unable to reach blazes rekindled by natural gas leaks in the heavily hit shore town of Mantoloking. \n \n As New York began its second day after the megastorm, commuters noticed an uptick in traffic and a small sign of normalcy: people waiting at bus stops. \n \n On the Brooklyn Bridge, closed earlier because of high winds, joggers and bikers made their way across the span before sunrise. One cyclist carried a flashlight. Car traffic on the bridge was busy, and slowed as it neared Manhattan. \n \n By late Tuesday, the winds and flooding inflicted by the fast-weakening Sandy had subsided, leaving at least 55 people dead along the Atlantic Coast and splintering beachfront homes and boardwalks from the mid-Atlantic states to southern New England. \n \n The storm later moved across Pennsylvania on a predicted path toward New York State and Canada. \n \n At the height of the disaster, more than 8.2 million lost electricity _ some as far away as Michigan. Nearly a quarter of those without power were in New York, where lower Manhattan's usually bright lights remained dark for a second night. \n \n But, amid the despair, talk of recovery was already beginning. \n \n \"It's heartbreaking after being here 37 years,\" Barry Prezioso of Point Pleasant, N.J., said as he returned to his house in the beachfront community to survey the damage. \"You see your home demolished like this, it's tough. But nobody got hurt and the upstairs is still livable, so we can still live upstairs and clean this out. I'm sure there's people that had worse. I feel kind of lucky.\" \n \n Much of the initial recovery efforts focused on New York City, the region's economic heart. Bloomberg said it could take four or five days before the subway, which suffered the worst damage in its 108-year history, is running again. All 10 of the tunnels that carry commuters under the East River were flooded. But high water prevented inspectors from immediately assessing damage to key equipment, raising the possibility that the nation's largest city could endure an extended shutdown of the system that 5 million people count on to get to work and school each day. The chairman of the state agency that runs the subway, Joseph Lhota, said service might have to resume piecemeal, and experts said the cost of the repairs could be staggering. \n \n Power company Consolidated Edison said it would be four days before the last of the 337,000 customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn who lost power have electricity again and it could take a week to restore outages in the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Westchester County. Floodwater led to explosions that disabled a power substation Monday night, contributing to the outages. \n \n Surveying the widespread damage, it was clear much of the recovery and rebuilding will take far longer. \n \n When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stopped in Belmar, N.J., during a tour of the devastation, one woman wept openly and 42-year-old Walter Patrickis told him, \"Governor, I lost everything.\" \n \n Christie, who called the shore damage \"unthinkable,\" said a full recovery would take months, at least, and it would likely be a week or more before power is restored to everyone who lost it. \n \n \"Now we've got a big task ahead of us that we have to do together. This is the kind of thing New Jerseyans are built for,\" he said. President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the state Wednesday to inspect the storm damage. \n \n By sundown Tuesday, however, announcements from officials and scenes on the streets signaled that New York and nearby towns were edging toward a semblance of routine. \n \n First came the reopening of highways in Connecticut and bridges across the Hudson and East rivers, although the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, and the Holland Tunnel, between New York and New Jersey, remained closed. \n \n A limited number of the white and blue buses that crisscross New York's grid returned Tuesday evening to Broadway and other thoroughfares on a reduced schedule _ but free of charge. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he hoped there would be full service by Wednesday. Still, school was canceled for a third straight day Wednesday in the city, where many students rely on buses and subways to reach classrooms. \n \n In one bit of good news, officials announced that John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark International Airport in New Jersey would reopen at 7 a.m. Wednesday with limited service. New York's LaGuardia Airport remains closed. \n \n The New York Stock Exchange was again silent Tuesday _ the first weather-related, two-day closure since the 19th century _ but trading was scheduled to resume Wednesday morning with Bloomberg ringing the opening bell. \n \n Amtrak also laid out plans to resume some runs in the Northeast on Wednesday, with modified service between Newark, N.J., and points south. That includes restoring Virginia service to Lynchburg, Richmond and Newport News, Keystone trains in Pennsylvania, and Downeaster service between Boston and Portland, Maine. \n \n But flooding continues to prevent service to and from New York's Penn Station. Amtrak said the amount of water in train tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers is unprecedented. There will be no Northeast Regional service between New York and Boston and no Acela Express service for the entire length of the Northeast Corridor. No date has been set for when it might resume. \n \n But even with the return of some transportation and plans to reopen schools and businesses, the damage and pain inflicted by Sandy continued to unfold, confirming the challenge posed by rebuilding. \n \n In New Jersey, amusement rides that once crowned a pier in Seaside Heights were dumped into the ocean, some homes were smashed, and others were partially buried in sand. \n \n National Guard troops arrived in Hoboken on Tuesday night to find live wires dangling in the floodwaters that Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were rapidly mixing with sewage. \n \n About 2.1 million homes and businesses remained without power across the state late Tuesday. When Tropical Storm Irene struck last year, it took more than a week to restore power everywhere. The state's largest utility, PSE&G, said it was trying to dry out substations it had to shut down. \n \n Outages in the state's two largest cities, Newark and Jersey City, left traffic signals dark, resulting in numerous fender-benders at intersections where police were not directing traffic. And in one Jersey City supermarket, there were long lines to get bread and a spot at an outlet to charge cellphones. \n \n Trees and power lines were down in every corner of the state. Schools and state government offices were closed for a second day, and many called off classes for Wednesday, too. The governor said the PATH trains connecting northern New Jersey with Manhattan would be out of service for at least seven to 10 days because of flooding. All the New Jersey Transit rail lines were damaged, he said, and it was not clear when the rail lines would be able to open. \n \n In Connecticut, some residents of Fairfield returned home in kayaks and canoes to inspect widespread damage left by retreating floodwaters that kept other homeowners at bay. \n \n \"The uncertainty is the worst,\" said Jessica Levitt, who was told it could be a week before she can enter her house. \"Even if we had damage, you just want to be able to do something. We can't even get started.\" \n \n The storm caused irreparable damage to homes in East Haven, Milford and other shore towns. Still, many were grateful the storm did not deliver a bigger blow, considering the havoc wrought in New York City and New Jersey. \n \n \"I feel like we are blessed,\" said Bertha Weismann, whose garage was flooded in Bridgeport. \"It could have been worse.\" \n \n And in New York, residents of the flooded beachfront neighborhood of Breezy Point in returned home to find fire had taken everything the water had not. A huge blaze destroyed perhaps 100 homes in the close-knit community where many had stayed behind despite being told to evacuate. \n \n John Frawley, 57, acknowledged the mistake. Frawley, who lived about five houses from the fire's edge, said he spent the night terrified \"not knowing if the fire was going to jump the boulevard and come up to my house.\" \n \n \"I stayed up all night,\" he said. \"The screams. The fire. It was horrifying.\" \n \n There were still only hints of the economic impact of the storm. \n \n Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicted it will end up causing about $20 billion in damage and $10 billion to $30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated losses up to $15 billion _ big numbers probably offset by reconstruction and repairs that will contribute to longer-term growth. \n \n \"The biggest problem is not the first few days but the coming months,\" said Alan Rubin, an expert in natural disaster recovery. \n \n Some of those who lost homes and businesses to Sandy were promising to return and rebuild, but many sounded chastened by their encounter with nature's fury. They included Tom Shalvey of Warwick, R.I., whose 500-square-foot cottage on the beach in South Kingstown was washed away by raging surf, leaving a utility pipe as the only marker of where it once sat. \n \n \"We love the beach. We had many great times here,\" Shalvey said. \"We will be back. But it will not be on the front row.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Contributors to this report included Associated Press writers Angela Delli Santi in Belmar, N.J.; Geoff Mulvihill and Larry Rosenthal in Trenton, N.J.; Katie Zezima in Atlantic City, N.J.; Samantha Henry in Jersey City, N.J.; Pat Eaton-Robb and Michael Melia in Hartford, Conn.; Susan Haigh in New London, Conn.; John Christoffersen in Bridgeport, Conn.; Alicia Caldwell and Martin Crutsinger in Washington; David Klepper in South Kingstown, R.I.; David B. Caruso, Colleen Long, Jennifer Peltz, Tom Hays, Larry Neumeister, Ralph Russo and Scott Mayerowitz in New York. ||||| NEW YORK Some limited air travel is expected to return to the New York City metro area on Wednesday following the superstorm Sandy. \n \n Superstorm floods New York City \n \n The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark International Airport in New Jersey will open at 7 a.m. with limited service. They were closed in the storm. \n \n It's unclear what carriers will have flights operating. \n \n \"As airports ramp up service this week, passengers are strongly urged to confirm with their individual carriers regarding flight status in the coming days before traveling to the airports,\" read a Port Authority statement, CBS New York station WCBS-TV reports. \n \n The Port Authority says some carriers would be landing planes with no passengers at JFK starting Tuesday night to be prepared for flights Wednesday. \n \n Watch: Aerials of flooded LaGuardia Airport in NYC \n \n New York's LaGuardia Airport remains closed. \n \n East Coast airports, including Washington's Reagan National, were largely deserted for a second straight day as airlines cancelled 7,000 Tuesday flights, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports. \n \n There were a few hopeful travelers. Among them were Colby Kuhns and his new bride, who were anxious to start their honeymoon. \n \n \"We came in this morning and it was out of one of those Apocalypse movies where everybody's gone,\" Kuhns said. \n \n Sandy creates transportation nightmares across U.S. \n \n The storm caused one of the largest disruptions of the U.S. aviation system since 9/11. \n \n Since Sunday, airlines have cancelled more than 16,000 flights, and 2,116 more have already been scrubbed for Wednesday. Every major carrier is taking a hit. \n \n United Airlines has cancelled more than 2,100 flights; American Airlines more than 1,800 flights; Southwest/AirTran just about 1,800 flights; and US Airways has cancelled more than 1,500 flights. \n \n Industry analysts say airlines stand to lose more than $200 million to Sandy. \n \n And frustrated travelers, like Rod Johnson, are running short on patience. \n \n \"So far today I've had my flight cancelled four different times,\" Johnson said. \n \n Superstorm's most dramatic images \n \n Rail travel through the storm zone is not much better. While Washington's Metro service limped back to life Tuesday, Amtrak's northeast corridor, between D.C. and Boston, remains shut down. \n \n Some Amtrak service may resume Wednesday. But spokesman Steve Kulm says track inspections must be done. \n \n \"We have over 300 miles that we own and operate, that we need to go out and inspect to make sure everything is safe and ready to go for the operation -- when we are ready to get back to operations,\" Kulm said. \n \n It will take longer for air service to get back to normal -- it could be the end of the week. It will take so long because there are so many planes and flight crews out of position. The whole system essentially has to be reset. Even after a snowstorm in New York, it can take two days to unwind the travel logjam. Sandy is, of course, is much, much worse. ||||| Eventually they loaded him onto a city bus that carried them out of the flooded area, and later into an ambulance that took him to Maimonides Hospital. He was treated for cuts, muscle strains and hypothermia . \n \n Video \n \n Fifteen people in the Far Rockaway section of Queens and nine in Coney Island were charged with burglary and other offenses in connection with looting at stores. Among them was a 29-year-old woman who faced a weapons charge \u201cafter the safe she was carrying from a store was found to contain a firearm,\u201d Mr. Browne said. \n \n For those who did not have basements that flooded or buildings that slipped off their foundations, there were lines at the gasoline stations that have power to pump fuel for generators and for cars. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie \u2019s office warned drivers to be careful because lines were so long that they had stretched onto the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike. One Twitter feed that had been following the hurricane on the Jersey Shore began sending out updates about where to buy gas. \n \n A wide stretch of Lower Manhattan remained dark, as did the Jersey Shore, waterfront neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, and most of Long Island . \n \n But the first section of Manhattan that lost power on Monday night, after an explosion and fire at a substation on East 14th Street, had had its lights turned back on, a Consolidated Edison executive said. Doing that restored power to about 2,000 of more than 220,000 customers below 39th Steet in Manhattan. The rest will probably have to wait until Friday or Saturday, said John Miksad, Con Ed\u2019s senior vice president for electric operations. \n \n Power also returned to the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. But repairing all of the downed wires in other boroughs and in Westchester County could take another week, Mr. Miksad said. \n \n In New Jersey, executives at Public Service Electric and Gas Company said 900,000 customers were still without power, down from a peak of 1.7 million on Tuesday. Some of the company\u2019s main lines, carrying power to substations for local distribution, still needed to be repaired, officials said. But they said electricity was on again in Newark, Elizabeth and parts of Jersey City, and they expected to have all power restored by Nov. 9. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Another big utility, Jersey Central Power and Light, said nearly 950,000 customers did not have electricity. About half were in Monmouth and Ocean Counties along the shore. \n \n Video \n \n Connecticut Light and Power reported that more than 318,000 customers were out, including about two-thirds of its customers in Greenwich and New Canaan and 9 out of 10 in Weston. \n \n Mr. Cuomo said restoring power to Long Island, where the storm knocked out power to 90 percent of the Long Island Power Authority \u2019s customers, posed particular difficulties. He said 1,800 utility workers from other areas, mostly upstate, were being sent there to provide extra help. \n \n It was clear that it would be a while before many of the small businesses that were so much a part of the city \u2014 visually, with their kaleidoscope of street-level storefronts, and economically \u2014 recovered. It was just as clear that it would be days before many restaurants reopened. Some lost large inventories when the power went out and food in their walk-in refrigerators began to spoil. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Some lost more than food. Before the storm, Andrew Carmellini, the chef at the Dutch in SoHo and Locanda Verde in TriBeCa, rented a car for around-town transportation. He left it on West 23rd Street. \u201cThe car got destroyed in the flood,\u201d he said. \u201cThe water went over the dashboard.\u201d \n \n Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said his evacuation orders remained in effect for low-lying communities from Coney Island in Brooklyn to Battery Park City in Manhattan. Mr. Bloomberg said they would not be lifted until the Buildings Department had had time to inspect buildings in those areas. \u201cI know it\u2019s annoying to everyone,\u201d he said at a briefing, \u201cbut we don\u2019t need more loss of life.\u201d \n \n Would the city be back to normal? Perhaps, he said \u2014 but not for families who were missing a child, a parent, a brother, a sister. \n \n \u201cFor all we do to recover, it\u2019s fair to say we can\u2019t replace the lives of the people lost in the storm,\u201d he began, speaking in a softer voice than he had used at earlier briefings. \u201cAny loss of life is tragic; sadly, nature is dangerous, and these things occur. The best thing we can do for those who did die is make sure this city recovers for those who come out of this and build a better life for those left behind.\u201d ||||| There may be no light in the kitchen, but there\u2019s likely food in the pantry. \n \n The city\u2019s food network roared back to life yesterday, with trucks rolling in and out of the Hunts Point Cooperative Market in The Bronx and other key distribution hubs. \n \n \u201cThat\u2019s why we have produce and people standing on line outside going into the store,\u201d said John Catsimatidis, who owns the city\u2019s 32 Gristedes supermarkets. \n \n \u201cWe are doing it hour by hour, trying to get trucks from our warehouses,\u201d he said. \u201cCustomers might notice a few things missing. What goes first? Bread and milk. We might be running a day behind.\u201d \n \n But residents of downtown neighborhoods without power, where 11 Gristedes are located, may have to trek uptown to re-stock their shelves. \n \n For most shoppers, the main inconvenience may be the lack of their favorite brands, but there are plenty of substitutes. \n \n For instance, Perdue Farms of Maryland warned local grocers that it would have trouble for the next few days because of Sandy, but other chicken suppliers are working to make up the shortfall. \n \n Some brands that distribute directly to retailers from their factories or farms may also encounter delays. \n \n City and state officials take food distribution very seriously. \n \n \u201cThe literal movement of food into the city is the problem; that\u2019s the thing that\u2019s going to be the trick,\u201d said Columbia professor Irwin Redlener, who heads the Ivy League university\u2019s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. \n \n Advances in supply-chain management mean that large cities like New York typically have only two to three days of food on hand at normal consumption levels. During the Cold War era, from the late 1940s to 1991, cities had as much as five days. \n \n Representatives from major food suppliers have a seat in the command centers of the city\u2019s and state\u2019s Office of Emergency Management. \n \n That way, food trucks can convoy with police escorts along roads and bridges closed to the public. \n \n \u201cWe have priority consideration so we can restock shelves and people can feel a return to normalcy,\u201d said James Rogers, president of the Food Industry Alliance of New York. \n \n So far, neither the state or city has needed to give food trucks escorts to keep them rolling. \n \n \u201cWe restocked three of our stores last night from The Bronx,\u201d said George Zoitas, CEO of Westside Market. \n \n \u201cWe are fully operational and fully stocked with everything. Milk, we got,\u201d he said. \n \n Other deliveries were getting back to normal. \n \n The United States Postal Service has resumed limited services in parts of the city and suburbs. \n \n FedEx said it\u2019s delivering essential medical supplies, and expects to resume regular operations soon.", "summary": "\u2013 Hurricane Sandy's fingerprints are still all over the Northeastern US\u2014particularly in New York and New Jersey\u2014but the region began slowly churning back to life today. Here's the latest on the recovery: New York City's subway is still waterlogged, but buses are expected to be out in full force by rush hour, and running free of charge, the New York Times reports. There will also be 4,000 cabs on the streets implementing a ride-sharing program. The Brooklyn Bridge has reopened. Food trucks are rolling to try to restock empty grocery shelves, the New York Post adds. The New York Stock Exchange will also reopen today, and says it expects to be \"fully operational,\" the Wall Street Journal reports. The NASDAQ and bond markets will do likewise. More than half of New Jersey is still without power, and the state is asking residents to conserve water. National Guard troops have arrived in Hoboken with high-wheeled vehicles, to bring supplies to or help evacuate the thousands trapped in their homes there, the Star-Ledger reports. Kennedy and Newark airports are open for business again, but it's unclear how many carriers will actually have flights running, and LaGuardia remains closed, CBS News reports, adding that most major East Coast airports, like Washington's Reagan National, are mostly deserted. Amtrak is restoring a good amount of its East Coast service, the AP reports, with modified service between Newark and points south, including Virginia and Pennsylvania. In Connecticut, the AP found people returning to inspect their homes via kayak and canoe. \"The uncertainty is the worst,\" said one woman who might not be able to get inside for a week. \"Even if we had damage, you just want to be able to do something. We can't even get started.\""}
{"document": "Back in October of 2014 I wrote a story titled \"Millions of Federal Student Loans Lining Up to Be Eliminated and Borrowers Repaid\". \n \n At the time I wrote that article some people said I was crazy. After all, how could people actually have their federal student loans forgiven because they were defrauded. \n \n Well the simple answer is because it is the law. It's a little known and buried law and I went into detail with examples about it. Just look at this. \n \n As I said then, \"Recently the Department of Education brought a section of federal law to light that would allow federal loans to be eliminated if, \"the borrower may assert as a defense against repayment, an act or omission of the school attended by the student that would give rise to a cause of action against the school under applicable State law.\" For more information on this, click here.\" \n \n And today the Wall Street Journal ran a story that said \"Americans are flooding the government with appeals to have their student loans forgiven on the grounds that schools deceived them with false promises of a well-paying career -- part of a growing protest against years of surging college costs.\" \n \n In the past six months, the story reports, more than 7,500 borrowers have applied to have their student loans eliminated in a process that is law today. \n \n The interesting part of the Wall Street Journal article is this quote, \"The sudden surge in claims has flummoxed the Education Department, which says the 1994 forgiveness program is overly vague. The law doesn't specify, for example, what proof is needed to demonstrate a school committed fraud. Last week, the department a began monthslong negotiation with representatives of students, schools and lenders to set clear rules, including when the department can go after institutions to claw back tuition money funded by student loans.\" \n \n If I was right in reading the tea leaves about the regulation allowing people to apply for federal student loan forgiveness when they were defrauded, then I would bet the government will be closing that door soon. So if you feel you had been defrauded I would urge you to get your claim in as soon as possible. \n \n Lawmakers will soon get significant lobbying pressure to change that law since it will lead to a huge amount of loans forgiven and money clawed back from for-profit and public schools and universities. \n \n Since there is no official claim for to use I'm aware of, I would urge you to consider taking one of three action steps. \n \n First, you may want to contact an attorney who is licensed in your state to represent you in making your claim. The attorney should be able to help with document and submit a legal and valid claim based on the specifics of your situation. You will have to pay the attorney for their services. Tell the attorney to refer to this article and this one for more details. \n \n Second, you might want to consider a less expensive option like contacting a good debt coach like Damon Day or Michael Bovee for help in submitting a well documented and professional claim to hopefully be more easily processed by the Department of Education. \n \n Finally, you can always attempt to put forward a claim yourself. Just make sure it is not a rant, it contains specific facts to backup your allegations, and state the basis for making your claim. I can't stress enough how much you need to make sure your claim is neat, tidy, easy to read, and can be easily assessed to be valid. In my decades of experience helping people with debt problems I've just seen too many people submit sloppy documentation, poor narratives, and not track their correspondence. If you decide to go the self-help route, take time to submit a professional, through, and well documented claim. Please. \n \n And to help reinforce the sound of the door preparing to slam, here is a final quote from the Wall Street Journal story, \"The Education Department has hired a special master to sort through existing claims as it drafts permanent rules.\" \n \n Get Out of Debt Guy -- Twitter, G+, Facebook \n \n If you have a credit or debt question you'd like to ask, just click here and ask away. \n \n If you'd like to stay posted on all the latest get out of debt news and scam alerts, subscribe to my free newsletter. \n \n Follow Steve Rhode on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GetOutOfDebtGuy ||||| Americans are flooding the government with appeals to have their student loans forgiven on the grounds that schools deceived them with false promises of a well-paying career\u2014part of a growing protest against years of surging college costs. \n \n In the past six months, more than 7,500 borrowers owing $164 million have applied to have their student debt expunged under an obscure federal law that had been applied only in three instances... ||||| There are millions of onetime college students in America who owe huge sums of money for student loans that bought them an education that turned out to have little market value. Now, there may be a ray of hope for their financial future. \n \n The Wall Street Journal reports that what may have once been seen as a fanciful dream of desperate student debtors is now catching on in a serious way: \n \n In the past six months, more than 7,500 borrowers owing $164 million have applied to have their student debt expunged under an obscure federal law that had been applied only in three instances before last year. The law forgives debt for borrowers who prove their schools used illegal tactics to recruit them, such as by lying about their graduates\u2019 earnings. \n \n To be clear, we are not talking here about the stereotypical \u201cOberlin art history major who found out their lavish degree was worthless\u201d that is used to brush this topic away so frequently. According to the WSJ, \u201cSo far, almost all of the borrowers applying for forgiveness under the 1994 program attended for-profit schools,\u201d those actually fraudulent institutions whose business model is to prey on the needy and ignorant and soak them in exchange for degrees with little real world value. And, the story makes clear, the government is viewing their claims as potentially valid. \n \n It is nice to imagine this debt forgiveness standard spreading to all types of universities. It would revolutionize how higher education is designed and marketed in America. But even if it only has the effect of denting the for-profit scam diploma industry, it\u2019s worthwhile. \n \n If you went to a for-profit school and owe a ton of student debt, start Googling. \n \n [Photo via FB]", "summary": "\u2013 Over the past six months, more than 7,500 Americans have applied to have their cumulative $164 million in student loans forgiven, claiming their colleges defrauded them, the Wall Street Journal reports. And as Gawker clarifies: \"We are not talking here about the stereotypical 'Oberlin art history major who found out their lavish degree was worthless.'\" No, these students are taking advantage of an almost entirely unused 1994 law that allows student loans to be forgiven if current or former students can prove their schools \"used illegal tactics to recruit them,\" the Journal reports. Student activists found the law last year, and so far it's mostly been used against for-profit chain colleges, such as ITT Technical Institutes and Art Institutes. \"I feel robbed of my life,\" one student, who owes $114,000 after attending an Art Institute, tells the Journal. Another says he was promised an industry job after graduation only to have the Art Institute get him a gig at Office Depot for $8 an hour. Meanwhile, the Education Department has been shocked by the obscure law's sudden popularity. The department is now looking at the law, which it claims is too vague and potentially costly to taxpayers. Steve Rhode at the Huffington Post writes that students who feel defrauded by for-profit schools should get their claims in ASAP, as pressure will soon start mounting on politicians to repeal the law. \"I would bet the government will be closing that door soon,\" he says."}
{"document": "Archive-It Partner 1067: The Political TV Ad Archive, a project of the Internet Archive, collects political TV ads and social media sites in key 2016 primary election states, unlocking the metadata underneath and highlighting quality journalism to provide journalists, civic organizations, academics, and the general public with reliable information on who is trying to influence them & how. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By Safia Samee Ali \n \n A Michigan official that manages tax foreclosed homes for the county where Flint sits has resigned after an audio recording of him blaming the city\u2019s water problems on \"n---ers (who) don't pay their bills\" surfaced online. \n \n Phil Stair, who was a sales manager at the Genesee County Land Bank, was recorded using racial slurs by local water activist Chelsea Lyons who later posted the recordings to the website Truth Against the Machine. \n \n In the recording, Stair is heard saying \"Flint has the same problems as Detroit, f--ing n---ers don't pay their bills, believe me, I deal with them,\u201d he said. \n \n The City of Flint Water Plant is illuminated by moonlight on Jan. 23, 2016. Brett Carlsen / Getty Images, file \n \n \u201cThey just don\u2019t pay their bills. Well, Detroit, didn\u2019t collect on their bills, so they charged everybody else, but \u2014 Flint \u2014 Flint had to pay their bill to Detroit.\u201d \n \n Lyons was worried about the Land Bank, which is tasked with the sale, rehabilitation, and demolition of tax-foreclosed homes in the county, being Flint's largest property owner to, she told MLive.com on Monday. \n \n \"The Land Bank is taking up all of the properties in Flint,\" Lyons told the publication. \"They are pushing people out of neighborhood.\" \n \n Thousands of Flint residents are facing foreclosure due to unpaid water bills \u2014 water that many are still not able to fully use. \n \n The recordings took place over two days and began after Lyons and another woman met Stair at a local bar, she said. \n \n Michele Wildman, the executive director of Genesee County Land Bank confirmed Stair's resignation to NBC News on Monday. \n \n \"We are deeply troubled by the offensive and inexcusable comments,\" she said. \"This individual does not reflect our values as a company, and we are engaging with the community to restore and regain public trust,\" she said. \n \n Corroded water pipes at a Flint, Michigan, facility. NBC News Channel - file \n \n Flint, which is over 56 percent black, was the center of the nation\u2019s largest water crisis that resulted in a surge of lead poisoning, especially among children. \n \n Flint's water was contaminated with lead for at least 18 months after the city tapped the Flint River as its water source to save money. But the water was not treated to reduce corrosion and toxicity rampantly spread to all those utilizing the city\u2019s water. \n \n A U.S. district judge in Detroit approved a settlement in a lawsuit in March, freeing up almost $100 million in state money to tear out lead or galvanized steel water lines leading to at least 18,000 Flint homes by Jan. 1, 2020. \n \n Several officials have faced criminal charges over the handling of the city's water. ||||| A local Flint official with the controversial Genesee County Land Bank suggested that the root causes of the Flint water crisis were that black people don\u2019t pay their bills, audio recordings obtained by Truth Against The Machine reveal. \n \n \u201cFlint has the same problems as Detroit\u2014fucking ni**ers don\u2019t pay their bills, believe me, I deal with them,\u201d Phil Stair, sales manager for the Genesee County Land Bank said on May 26th during a conversation with Truth Against the Machine reporter and environmental activist Chelsea Lyons in Flint. \n \n [EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: The full 20-minute audio of Stair\u2019s is at the bottom of this story] \n \n He was driving to a restaurant with Lyons and another individual, who he\u2019d met that night, when he made the comments, which were recorded and later obtained by TATM. \n \n Stair did go on to try and clarify: \u201cI don\u2019t want to call them ni**ers, shit I just went to Myrtle Beach, 24 guys, and I was the only white guy; I got friends, I mean, there\u2019s trash and there\u2019s people that do this shit. They just don\u2019t pay their bills. Well, Detroit, didn\u2019t collect on their bills, so they charged everybody else, but- Flint- Flint had to pay their bill to Detroit.\u201d \n \n Stair, a government employee through the Land Bank, which, according to its website, is a \u201cnon-profit government organization,\u201d went on to explain to the activists his theory on the water crisis\u2014one that\u2019s been parroted by Governor Snyder and many other state and local officials. \n \n \u201cDetroit was charging all its customers for the cost\u2014they weren\u2019t collecting from their residents, they were shutting water off, they were letting bills go forever, they were charging everybody else; Flint has the same problems as Detroit\u2014fucking ni**ers don\u2019t pay their bills, believe me, I deal with them.\u201d \n \n Flint, which is 56 percent African American, was forced to switch to the toxic Flint River because of Detroit\u2019s price hikes, according to Stair. \n \n \u201cNow, they need a 3-year extension on their contract to get on the new pipeline [Karegnondi Water Authority] they\u2019re building to Flint. Detroit said no, we want a 20-year agreement. Flint said no we\u2019re building the new system or whatever, and they jacked em, they jacked the price up and they [Flint] couldn\u2019t afford to pay it, so they said, well, we gotta go back to what we did in 1978.\u201d \n \n He continued: \u201cThey [Flint] had a water plant, we\u2019ll take the [water] out of the Flint River and the reservoirs\u2014there\u2019s two reservoirs upstream\u2014and we\u2019ll just treat the water, because they had to maintain that plant because Detroit was supposed to have a second source- unless you have a backup you gotta- they had to maintain their plants. So they used to maintain their water plant, they treated their water, tested it, said it was good, and they\u2019d dump it back in the river, because they couldn\u2019t mix it with the Detroit water.\u201d \n \n Stair\u2019s version of events doesn\u2019t match previous records and reporting, which show Flint\u2019s decision to switch off of Detroit\u2019s water system\u2014made by the unelected Emergency Manager appointed by Governor Rick Snyder\u2014was not about saving money in the face of Detroit price-gouging. \n \n Emails from before the 2014 water switch showed Detroit\u2019s water and sewage department bending over backwards to retain Flint as a customer; after all, Flint was DWAS\u2019s biggest customer other than the city of Detroit. \n \n [BEAT THE PRESS: DONATE TO TATM SO WE CAN PAY OUR FEARLESS JOURNALISTS AND EDITORS TO CONTINUE THEIR PURSUIT OF EXPOSING THE OLIGARCHY.] \n \n In an email dated April 15, 2013, Sue McCormick, DWAS\u2019s Director, offers Flint a 48 percent rate cut immediately, which compared to the KWA over a 30-year- period, would be 20 percent cheaper for Flint. \n \n Flint\u2019s elected officials also own a large share of the blame for the water crisis. Beginning in 2007, the city habitually overspent and underestimated their budget deficits. In a 2011 audit of Flint by the state of Michigan, it was revealed that the city had pulled millions from the water and sewage funds, transferring the money from the at-that-time solvent water fund to make up for an insolvent general fund. More importantly, the city also had increased water and sewage rates 35 percent in 2011\u2014to make up for their own spending shenanigans. \n \n Four years later, Genesee county circuit court Judge Hayman found that the transferring of funds and subsequent price hikes was illegal; he also declared the tax foreclosures many residents experienced\u2014because they couldn\u2019t afford the price-gouged rates\u2014 to be illegal. The city was ordered to issue a refund for the 35 percent hike, but, in reality, the credits applied to water and sewer bills didn\u2019t fully make up for the rate hike, and the overall water and sewer rates continued to increase. Detroit Free Press found that Flint residents paid the highest water rates in America in a 2015 study. \n \n So, Stair\u2019s version of events, which points to Detroit\u2019s unyielding price hikes as the catalyst for Flint deciding to temporarily switch to the Flint River while KWA being built, doesn\u2019t match reality. \n \n He later doubles down on the type of people he feels have caused the blight in Flint. \n \n As his conversation with the environmental activists continued, they asked him to elaborate: \u201cIs the east side [of Flint] the bad side?\u201d \n \n \u201cYeah,\u201d Stairs begins. \n \n STAIR: \u201cWell, I call the south side, where we were, that\u2019s the new east side cause we [land bank] tore most of it down; all them derelict motherfuckers have moved down to the south side. They\u2019re destroying that.\u201d \n \n LYONS: \u201cWho is?\u201d \n \n STAIR: \u201cFuckin\u2019 deadbeats who, when they tear the houses down, they gotta go somewhere, they go on the south side. It just shifts- it just shifts the shit. The people are still the people, they fucked the houses up, then they leave and when we tear em down, they just go somewhere else and just fuck those houses up. I bought my house for $23,000 dollars in 1981, and they sold that house right there for $4,000 dollars about four years ago. So, 30 years it didn\u2019t\u2026 but\u2026 it doesn\u2019t owe me anything.\u201d \n \n LYONS: \u201cSo, like, did this used to be, like, a white neighborhood?\u201d \n \n STAIR: \u201cIt\u2019s still white. Well, this street isn\u2019t so much, but overall, it\u2019s still pretty white\u201d (editor\u2019s note\u2014as stated earlier, Flint is 56 percent African American). \n \n This kind of raw opinion on, as Stair puts it, the \u201cderelicts and deadbeats\u201d residing in Flint, is disturbing considering, as sales manager, he and his colleagues at the Land Bank are supposed to be guiding the residents of Flint to economic recovery in order to \u201crestore value to the community,\u201d as stated on the Land Bank\u2019s website. \n \n Stair didn\u2019t hold back on elected officials, blaming Michigan Governor Snyder for not doing enough to prevent the crisis. \n \n \u201cIt was really a failure on the part of the Governor to step in,\u201d he said. \u201cSo when Detroit jacked em [Flint], the Governor should\u2019ve stepped in and said \u2018you bankrupt city,\u201d cause they were under negotiations; Detroit filed bankruptcy, you\u2019re not going to jack a city like Flint; and you\u2019re gonna, we\u2019ll give give you a little increase, but you\u2019re going to extend their contract. He didn\u2019t step in so, what they do? They [Flint] had to go with the other thing [KWA] and they fucked it up. It\u2019s just a total fuck-up. The Governor should have said, no, you\u2019re going to give an extension for 3 years, and you\u2019ll get a little increase from what you\u2019ve been getting, and nothing would\u2019ve happened. Now they\u2019re afraid to get on the new pipeline because they don\u2019t want to mess with the water again.\u201d \n \n On this part, Stair is both correct and misinformed. Detroit was indeed raising its water prices to Flint. But one of the driving reasons has barely been reported. \n \n As Jacobin Magazine reported, Detroit, like other cities, got burned by betting their taxpayers\u2019 money as the subprime mortgage house of cards was about to fall. \n \n The water crisis in Michigan is also intertwined with the subprime mortgage meltdown, which is closely related to financial deregulation. In 2005\u20137, Detroit had the highest rate of subprime mortgage foreclosures in the United States. While increasingly deregulated banks were aggressively marketing adjustable-rate subprime mortgages to working-class African Americans in Detroit, they were also selling risky financial instruments to the city government. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 allowed the swaps market to metastasize from $180 billion in 1998 to $6 trillion in 2004 to $57 trillion by the summer of 2008. In 2005, during this \u201cwild west\u201d period for predatory lenders, Detroit entered into a $1.4 billion dollar deal with UBS AG and Merrill Lynch Capital Services (later acquired by Bank of America). The deal included two layers of speculative financial instruments, one of which was an \u201cinterest rate swap\u201d to fund DWSD. The swap deal constituted a bet that interest rates would rise. After interest rates plummeted as a result of the 2008 crash, DWSD was forced to pay $537 million in swap termination payments to banks. In order to pay the termination fees, DWSD increased water rates, and took out $489 million in further bond debt in 2012. That year, Bloomberg reported that \u201cdebt service has climbed to more than 40 percent of revenue\u201d at DWSD. As a result, nearly half of Detroiters\u2019 water payments were going to pay debt service to banks, inflated by the banks\u2019 predatory swap deal. In April 2013, ongoing DWSD rate increases provided a public rationale for Flint\u2019s emergency manager, Ed Kurtz, to switch from DWSD to the Flint River, although the actual reasons remain murky. \n \n So, as you can see, it was more of a city-government-recklessly-placing-bets-with-other people\u2019s-money kind of thing\u2014and then price gouging its residents when they lost the bet\u2014than a \u201cni**ers\u201d don\u2019t pay their bills\u201d kind of thing. \n \n But he\u2019s correct in that Snyder should have stepped in to stop Flint from switching off of Detroit\u2019s water system; he knew Detroit had offered to cut its rate nearly in half; he knew the Flint River had a legacy for being a toxic water body that plants like GM dump toxic waste in; he knew the water treatment plant in Flint was not updated or up to the standards needed to treat Flint River water; and he knew the EPA had warned the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality that, upon switching to the Flint River, not adding anti-corrosives to the lead pipes would cause lead to dislodge into the drinking water. \n \n But alas, when your goal as Governor is to push privatization and fracking\u2014which the KWA checks both boxes\u2014you look the other way. \n \n The Genesee County Land Bank was founded by Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI 5th), who was the Genesee County Treasurer at the time. In fact, Stair claims he was personally hired by Kildee as the first Land Bank employee. \n \n \u201cI was the first employee they hired\u2026he\u2019s a congressman now, but he was the county treasurer,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cWho?\u201d inquires an activist. \u201cDan Kildee,\u201d clarifies Stair. \n \n Stair also told the activists how the Genesee County Land Bank\u2014which many Flint residents refer to as the Genesee County \u201cLand Grab\u201d\u2014operates. \n \n \u201cWell they [residents] don\u2019t pay their bills [water]. Because they [the city] don\u2019t shut it off, so if they don\u2019t shut it off, they just keep using the water; they [the city] lien it on their taxes, then they don\u2019t pay their taxes, it gets wiped out, the house forecloses, the Landbank and the treasurer gets the house, and if it doesn\u2019t get sold at auction, Land Bank gets the house, so we get 200 occupied houses a year, [Inaudible].\u201d \n \n \u201cI mean it\u2019s poverty, it\u2019s poverty, you can\u2019t fix poverty,\u201d he said. Stair is incorrect when he says \u201cthey don\u2019t shut it off\u201d: thousands of residents have received water shut off notices in recent months\u2014for poisoned water. \n \n Only after residents continue to not pay for the undrinkable water is the water shut off, followed by a threat of a tax lien on a resident\u2019s property. Recently, 8,000 residents received tax lien threats for unpaid poison water bills. The Flint City Council voted 8-1 to place a one-year moratorium on the tax liens; on June 14th, the Snyder-appointed Receivership Transition Advisory Board\u2014essentially a shadow government that can overrule Flint Mayor Karen Weaver and City Council Members\u2014will meet and vote whether to ratify the City Council\u2019s vote. \n \n In a later encounter, Stair doubles down on who he feels is to blame for the crisis. \n \n \u201cLong story short, Detroit was supposed to supply a second line that came up like through Troy to Flint as a backup because there was just a single line. Because there was just the one pipeline, Flint had to maintain their water treatment plant all the years that they had it. So, when Detroit wanted to jack em on the price because their contract ran out and they just wanted three years until the new pipeline, they said no. Flint couldn\u2019t pay for it.\u201d \n \n As shown earlier, this is untrue\u2014Detroit had offered a nearly 50 percent price reduction immediately to Flint. \n \n \u201cThe governor should\u2019ve stepped in and told broke-ass Detroit: you\u2019re not gonna jack broke-ass Flint,\u201d Stair continued. \u201cYou\u2019re gonna give them the water, we\u2019ll give you a little increase, and give them their time, don\u2019t fuck with em, don\u2019t do a- didn\u2019t happened.\u201d \n \n When asked about why the state hasn\u2019t done anything to help the Flint residents living in crisis, Stair responded \n \n \u201cThey have. Oh, millions of dollars are coming here. Millions\u2026to fix the fuck-up. If he would\u2019ve just told Detroit: give them the water\u2026 nothing would\u2019ve changed.\u201d \n \n \u201cNow they gotta do the pipes and everything, it\u2019s such a clusterfuck.\u201d \n \n As far as the \u201cmillions of dollars\u201d coming to Flint, yes, there are grants on top of promises on top of lawsuits that all assured millions of dollars were coming to Flint. However, at every junction down the line, those millions of dollars got redirected and appropriated to other purposes. The most relevant number that demonstrates the funding going to help Flint: since the beginning of the crisis more than three years ago, fewer than 800 lead pipes\u2014of the estimated 20,000 that are slated for removal\u2014have been replaced in the city. \n \n Corruption in Flint runs deep; as do the racist undertones of its officials. Government officials, both elected and appointed, have a habit of blaming Flint\u2019s problems on the poorest and most vulnerable. In reality, the families trying to get by in a dilapidated city suffer through rate hikes, water shutoffs and tax liens while the taxpayer-funded employees get raise after raise after raise. \n \n On Tuesday, Part two of this story will publish, consisting of other damning audio from Stair regarding certain illegal substances being used at government offices in Flint and other water-crisis-related audio from Stair. \n \n For all inquiries, contact us at truthagainstmachine@gmail.com \n \n BEAT THE PRESS: DONATE TO TATM SO WE CAN PAY THESE FEARLESS JOURNALISTS AND EDITORS TO CONTINUE THEIR PURSUIT OF EXPOSING THE OLIGARCHY. \n \n UPDATE June 4th, 9:15pm eastern: \n \n In response to Truth Against The Machine\u2019s exclusive, U.S. Congressman Dan Kildee (D-MI 5th) tweeted: ||||| A Genesee County Land Bank official resigned today, a day after a tape surfaced of him using a racial epithet to describe Flint residents. \n \n Before 9 a.m., a small crowd chanted in front of the Genesee County Land Bank office, calling for Sales Manager Phil Stair\u2019s resignation. \n \n Stair\u2019s resignation was announced a short time later. \n \n Environmental activist Chelsea Lyons posted a recording of Stair using a racial slur to blame African-American residents of Flint who didn\u2019t pay their water bills as a reason for the city\u2019s water crisis. \n \n On the audio recording, Stair can be heard saying \u201cn*ggers don't pay their bills.\u201d \n \n \u201cI had no idea that he was going to say the things that he said. That was not exactly the thing I was going for,\u201d says Lyons, who says she has concerns about Land Bank policy. \n \n Lyons recorded Stair over two days last week, including stops at local bars in Flint. \n \n \u201c[Stair] didn\u2019t appear to be drunk. He was drinking, though he didn\u2019t appear to be inebriated in anyway,\u201d says Lyons, who\u2019s part of a group of environmental activists who have been campaigning in Flint. \n \n The head of the Genesee County Land Bank accepted Stair\u2019s resignation today. \n \n Michele Wildman apologized for Stair\u2019s remarks at the Genesee County Board of Commissioners meeting. \n \n \u201cWe are outraged by the offensive statements and committed to taking all steps necessary to rebuild public trust,\u201d says Wildman. ||||| FLINT, MI -- A woman who secretly recorded a former executive at the Genesee County Land Bank making a racial slur about Flint residents says she plans to release additional recordings from the conversation in coming days. \n \n \"There are more audio files coming ... We're not going to let this die,\" said Chelsea Lyons, an environmental activist and independent journalist who recorded Philip Stair, former sales manager of the Land Bank, after meeting him at a local bar. \n \n Stair, who's white, was recorded saying \"Flint has the same problems as Detroit -- f**ing ni***** don't pay their bills, believe me, I deal with them.\" \n \n The recordings were first reported online by Truth Against The Machine. In the audio, Stair also calls tenants in Flint houses \"derelict mother fu*****\" and \"fu***** deadbeats.\" \n \n \"They fu** the houses up and then leave, and we tear them down,\" Stair said of how he saw the cycle of property foreclosures in Flint. \n \n Official resigns after using n-word to describe Flint residents \n \n Stair has resigned from his position at the Land Bank and Executive Director Michele M. Wildman apologized on behalf of the agency Monday, June 5. \n \n Wildman told the Genesee County Board of Commissioners that Stair's comments don't reflect attitudes inside the Land Bank and said she expected to immediately speak to employees about the situation Monday. \n \n The executive director said the agency may hire a consultant and add training for staff to ensure the office is treating residents with respect. She also said she never suspected Stair harbored the feelings she heard him speak on the audio recording. \n \n \"If I had ever been aware he would have used a racial slur, I would have dealt with it immediately,\" she said. \n \n Wildman said she had yet to speak to Stair about the incident and said his resignation was on her desk when she arrived at work Monday. \n \n Lyons said the Stair case is important not only because of the racial slur he used but because of how many people have been pushed out of Flint because tax foreclosures that put so much property into the Land Bank's possession, which owns about 13,000 properties in the county, almost 12,000 of which are in Flint. \n \n Wildman said she's willing to discuss the tax foreclosure process and how the Land Bank carries out its work demolishing structures and putting properties into productive use with Lyons or others who have concerns. \n \n Lyons called the Land Bank \"a disaster, which is why I wanted to talk to (Stair) in the first place. \n \n \"I had no idea he was going to say the things that he said. That was not exactly what I was going for,\" she said. \n \n Lyons declined to say what was said on the unreleased audio recording that she said were made over the course of two days last month. ||||| UPDATE: Activist says more recordings on the way of official who used racial slur \n \n FLINT, MI -- The sales manager of the Genesee County Land Bank has resigned his position after water activists recorded him saying Flint's problems were caused by \"ni***** (who) don't pay their bills.\" \n \n Michele M. Wildman, executive director of the Land Bank, said Monday, June 5, that she has accepted the resignation of Phil Stair, a longtime employee of the agency. \n \n Stair, who's white, was recorded making the comment by Chelsea Lyons, an environmental activist and independent journalist who has been active recently in the Flint water crisis. \n \n \"Flint has the same problems as Detroit -- f**ing ni***** don't pay their bills, believe me, I deal with them,\" Stair is heard to say on the recording posted online by Truth Against The Machine. \n \n Lyons said she's concerned by the Land Bank's role as Flint's largest property owner. The agency takes over tax-foreclosed properties, carrying out demolitions, rehabilitations and sales. \n \n \"The Land Bank is taking up all of the properties in Flint... They are pushing people out of neighborhood,\" Lyons said this morning. \n \n The recording of Stair took place over two days and started after Lyons and another woman met him after having received a tip that he was at a local bar, Lyons said. \n \n Wildman addressed the county Board of Commissioners Monday morning, saying she accepted Stair's resignation and apologized for his remarks. \n \n \"I am deeply troubled by (the statements),\" she said. \"The citizens of Flint deserve to have trust in their public officials.\"", "summary": "\u2013 As thousands of residents in Flint, Mich., are confronted with the possibility of foreclosure due to unpaid water bills\u2014for water that many still can't use, NBC News notes\u2014an official who worked for a county nonprofit that handles foreclosed homes has stepped down after audio emerged of what he thinks caused Flint's woes. \"Flint has the same problems as Detroit: F---ing n---ers don't pay their bills,\" ex-Genesee County Land Bank sales manager Phil Stair can be heard saying on the tape, obtained by local environmental activist Chelsea Lyons, who put the recordings on the Truth Against the Machine website Sunday. \"Believe me, I deal with them,\" Stair goes on during his May 26 talk with Lyons, in which he blames the city of Detroit for driving Flint away from its water system via price-gouging (which Lyons notes doesn't exactly sync with other accounts of Detroit's role). Per MLive.com, Lyons had received a tip Stair was hanging out at a local bar and headed over to talk to him about the GCLB, which began two days of taped conversations. Lyons notes Stair was drinking when they chatted, though he \"didn't appear to be drunk,\" per Michigan Radio. In Stair's story, he also blames Gov. Rick Snyder for not stopping Flint from turning away from Detroit's water system (which Lyons agrees with), then continues on about Flint's residents, some of whom he calls \"derelict mother f---ers\" and \"f---in' deadbeats.\" \"I don't want to call them n---ers; s---, I just went to Myrtle Beach, 24 guys, and I was the only white guy,\" he says. \"I mean, there's trash and there's people that do this sh--.\" GCLB's director confirmed Monday to NBC that Stair was no longer an employee, saying the group was \"deeply troubled\" by his \"offensive and inexcusable\" remarks. Lyons' full story, with more \"damning audio\" set to be released Tuesday, is here."}
{"document": "New York Rep. Peter King indicated Sunday he's seeking more clarity about the events surrounding retired Gen. David Petraeus' resignation as director of the CIA. \n \n \"How the FBI could've been investigating this this long . . . To me if it was, the FBI director had the obligation to tell the president or the National Security Council at the earliest date. So it seems this has been going on for several months, and yet now it appears that they're saying the FBI did not realize until election day that General Petraeus was involved, it just doesn't add up,\" the Republican congressman said on CNN's \"State of the Union.\". \n \n \"I have real questions about this. I think the timeline has to be looked at,\" the House Homeland Security Committee chairman said. \"I'm suggesting there's a lot of unanswered questions.\" \n \n King has called for Petraeus to testify before Congress this week. \n \n Read more about: CIA, Peter King, David Petraeus ||||| President Barack Obama's long-time political strategist, David Axelrod, said on Sunday House Speaker John Boehner's comments on the approaching fiscal cliff were \"encouraging.\" \n \n \"I think that the speaker's comments have been encouraging, and obviously there's money to be gained by closing some of these loopholes and applying them to deficit reduction. So I think there are a lot of ways to skin this cat so long as everybody comes with a positive, constructive attitude toward the task,\" Axelrod said on CBS' \"Face the Nation.\" \n \n Axelrod noted that exit polls showed about 60 percent of Americans agreed with the president on raising taxes on the wealthiest. \n \n \"It is obvious that we can't resolve the challenge here simply by cutting the budget - we've cut by a trillion-one. There are more cuts to be made, but you need new revenues. But everyone - every objective person who's looked at this agrees on that. So, the question is where is that revenue going to come from?\" Axelrod said. \"The president believes it's more equitable to get that from the wealthiest Americans who have done very well and frankly don't need those tax cuts.\" \n \n Read more about: David Axelrod, John Boehner, Bipartisanship ||||| 5 years ago \n \n Washington (CNN) \u2013 Sen. Charles Schumer, the third ranking Senate Democrat, said Sunday that he and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham will officially restart immigration reform talks that crumbled two years ago. \n \n Schumer told NBC's \"Meet the Press\" Sunday that he and Graham have a plan designed to appeal to stakeholders on all sides of the highly contentious issue and he's optimistic that it can get through a gridlocked Congress. \n \n \n \n - Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker \n \n \"[Sen.] Graham and I are talking to our colleagues about this right now. I think we have a darn good chance using this blueprint to get something done this year,\" Schumer said. \n \n The plan includes four key elements: stronger border security, creation of non-forgeable proof-of-citizenship documents, fairer legal immigration for desirable candidates, and a tough-love path to citizenship for those already in the U.S. \n \n That path, Schumer said, would require applicants to learn English, wait their turn behind immigrants who've used proper legal channels, hold down a steady job, and refrain from criminal activity. \n \n The long-simmering issue of immigration reform has been thrust into the spotlight again on the heels of Republicans' Election Day losses in races where the Latino vote played a key role. Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee, won only 27% of the Latino vote. \n \n In the days since the election, Republican lawmakers, political commentators and thought leaders have taken on a more conciliatory tone when discussing immigration. Graham himself was quick to point out that Republicans missed an opportunity. \n \n \"Conservatism would sell with Hispanics. They're hard working, entrepreneurial, pro-life, pro-military,\" Graham said Sunday on CBS. \"But the truth of the matter is the immigration debate that we engaged in in 2006 and 2007 has built a wall between the Republican Party and the Hispanic community because of the tone and rhetoric.\" \n \n Graham made clear that he wasn't inclined to miss the opportunity the next time around. \n \n \"It's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. Just don't reload the gun. So I intend not to reload this gun when it comes to Hispanics. I intend to tear down this wall and pass an immigration reform bill.\" \n \n But it remains to be seen how much support can be rallied. Schumer and Graham have made several attempts to tackle immigration reform. In 2010, President Barack Obama expressed support for Schumer and Graham's efforts, saying he was \"pleased\" to see a promising bipartisan framework. \n \n \"We had put together a comprehensive detailed blueprint on immigration reform. It had the real potential for bi-partisan support based on the theory that most Americans are for legal immigration but very much against illegal immigration,\" Schumer said. \n \n However, their efforts drew fire from all sides, with the progressive publication The American Prospect at one point calling their plan \"ridiculous\" and GOP party committees in Graham's home state of South Carolina censuring him for his congressional votes on immigration. Talks eventually stalled. \n \n On Sunday, Schumer didn't offer any more specifics about the timeline for talks or implementation. He did emphasize the need for compromise from both sides and a strong role for moderate Republican voices as the talks unfold. ||||| The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday he believes former CIA Director David Petraeus was \"straight up\" with the committee during his confirmation hearings. \n \n \"Absolutely, I am,\" Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said on ABC's \"This Week. \"I don't know the exact date of when all of this, the process began. We're confident David Petraeus was very straight up with us during the confirmation hearing.\" \n \n Petraeus, who resigned Friday after admitting to an extramartial affair, was confirmed in June 2011. It's unclear when the affair began. \n \n Chambliss also said he was satisfied with having Acting CIA Director Mike Morell testify instead of Petraeus at a hearing this week looking at the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Petraeus could testify in the future, Chambliss said. \n \n \"He and I have already had a conversation,\" Chambliss said. \"He's trying to put his life back together right now, that's what he needs to focus on.\" \n \n Read more about: This Week, David Petraeus, Saxby Chambliss ||||| Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol said Sunday the GOP should consider allowing the Bush-era tax cuts expire for incomes above $1 million, \"half of whom voted Democratic.\" \n \n \"The leadership of the Republican Party and the leadership of the conservative movement has to pull back, let people float new ideas. Let's have a serious debate,\" Kristol said on \"Fox News Sunday.\" \"Don't scream and yell if one person says 'You know what? It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.' It really won't, I don't think.\" \n \n President Barack Obama has said his reelection indicates the American people want taxes to go up on incomes above $250,000. And House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has indicated he's willing to accept increased revenues, but won't increase tax rates. \n \n \"I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000, make it $500,000, make it $1 million,\" Kristol said. \"Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood?\" \n \n Read more about: Taxes, Bush Tax Cuts, Bill Kristol ||||| Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said Sunday there was \"absolutely not\" a link between David Petraeus' resignation as CIA director and the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. \n \n \"The events in Benghazi and his resignation? Absolutely not,\" Feinstein said on \"Fox News Sunday\" when asked if there was a link between the two events. \"I think if you really think this thing out, anyone will come to that conclusion.\" \n \n The California Democrat said it would be a \"committee decision\" regarding whether to call Petraeus as a witness in their investigation into Benghazi. The former CIA director was scheduled to testify at hearing later this week, but has been replaced on the docket by Acting CIA Director Mike Morell. Feinstein said the committee would decide whether or not to call Petraeus after that hearing. \n \n Feinstein also made clear her shock at Petraeus' departure. \n \n \"For me, it's a heart break,\" she said. \"This is a truly bright man, a credible person, a great leader. ... This is very, very hard. I do think he did the right thing.\" \n \n Feinstein said she didn't learn of the affair until she received press inquiries on Friday. \n \n \"We received no advanced notice,\" she said. \"It was like a lightning bolt.\" \n \n Feinstein said the committee would \"absolutely\" investigate why the FBI didn't inform the Intelligence Committee before Friday, since the FBI is required by law to keep the committee up to date on investigations that could impact national security. \n \n Read more about: Dianne Feinstein, Fox News Sunday, David Petraeus, Benghazi", "summary": "\u2013 The election might be over, but the talk shows must go on and in case you hadn't heard, David Petraeus had an affair and quit his job as CIA chief, causing much gnashing of teeth and many protestations of shock\u2014shock!\u2014on your television dial. Without further ado, as per Politico: Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein: \"Absolutely not\" any link between Petraeus' departure and \"the events in Benghazi. I think if you really think this thing out, anyone will come to that conclusion.\" Feinstein on the FBI's failure to alert the intel committee about the investigation: \"We received no advanced notice. It was like a lightning bolt.\" She \"absolutely\" plans to investigate. Feinstein speaking personally about Petraeus: \"For me, it's a heartbreak. This is a truly bright man, a credible person, a great leader. ... This is very, very hard. I do think he did the right thing.\" House Homeland Security Committee chair Pete King: \"It seems this has been going on for several months, and yet now it appears that they're saying the FBI did not realize until Election Day that General Petraeus was involved, it just doesn't add up. I have real questions about this. I think the timeline has to be looked at.\" King wants Petraeus to testify about the Benghazi attack regardless. Senate Intel Committee vice chair Saxby Chambliss: \"Absolutely ... we're confident David Petraeus was very straight up with us during the confirmation hearing.\" Further, \"he and I have already had a conversation. He's trying to put his life back together right now, that's what he needs to focus on.\" And in non-Petraeus news, Bill Kristol on the 'fiscal cliff:' \"I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000, make it $500,000, make it $1 million. Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood?\" Chuck Schumer on immigration reform, via CNN: \"(Lyndsey) Graham and I are talking to our colleagues about this right now. I think we have a darn good chance using this blueprint to get something done this year,\" David Axelrod on John Boehner's new revenue leaf: \"I think that the speaker's comments have been encouraging, and obviously there's money to be gained by closing some of these loopholes and applying them to deficit reduction. So I think there are a lot of ways to skin this cat so long as everybody comes with a positive, constructive attitude toward the task.\""}
{"document": "Detectives investigating the case of multiple murders by Philip Onyancha Friday questioned the woman believed to have recruited the self confessed serial killer. \n \n Elizabeth Wambui was picked up on Thursday and is being held at Kasarani police station as police strive to uncover the mystery murders. \n \n The teacher at Gatamaiyu secondary school in Ruiru had earlier been reported missing. \n \n The manhunt for the female teacher began on Tuesday after Onyancha who has confessed to killing 19 people alleged that she recruited him into the blood sacking cult while he was a student at Kenyatta Mahiga high school in 1996. \n \n According to police Commissioner Mathew Iteere, no stone will be left unturned until into the mystery murders are resolved. \n \n The investigating team led by head of special crime prevention police unit Richard Katola accompanied by the murder suspect are at the moment visiting different areas within Dagoretti constituency where the suspect is alleged to have committed more murders. \n \n During police interrogation and interviews with journalists, the suspect said he planned to accomplish his mission of killing 100 people in a span of five years and was mainly targeting women and children under 10 because they are weak. \n \n The suspect will be taken to court next week. \n \n On Thursday, the suspect took police to Nakuru where he was greeted by a big crowd who turned up to see the self confessed serial killer as he led the police to a lodging in Town where he is alleged to have killed and hid a middle aged lady in a wall unit two months ago. \n \n Onyancha was arrested in Nairobi on Thursday last week, after he was traced through a mobile tracking system. \n \n This was after he made a call to extort money from the father of a boy he had killed. \n \n Mr Onyancha said he was grateful to the police for arresting him because it had helped him speak against the \"evil spirits\" which have been haunting him. \n \n Police say they have arrested three of the suspect's accomplices in connection with the murders and are intending to widen their operations to other parts of the country as more evidence emerges. \n \n Born in February 1980 in Kerich, Onyancha and his siblings were brought up by their mother after their father died when he was young. \n \n His mother and brothers live in Nairobi. \n \n Onyancha's victims who have so far been identified include Anthony, Catherine from Nairobi, Jackline Wamboi and Helen Nyambura from Thika and Chepkurui in Naivasha. \n \n Three bodies are yet to be identified. ||||| Kenyan police are hunting for an alleged cult leader who is said to have instructed a self-confessed serial killer to take up his killing spree. \n \n Philip Onyancha, 32, was arrested on Sunday after confessing to killing 17 people, mainly women. \n \n He said he was recruited into a cult while at school by a teacher, who told him to kill 100 people and drink their blood for good fortune. \n \n The teacher, who recently moved schools, was not at work on Thursday. \n \n The BBC's Ruth Nesoba in Kenya's Central Province says police have been questioning the school authorities about her possible whereabouts. \n \n Suspicious \n \n For the last three days, Mr Onyancha has been leading the police on a gruesome tour of the country. \n \n With the media in tow, he has been showing them the places in Nairobi, Central Province and Rift Valley where he says he murdered his victims. \n \n \"My target was to kill 100 women. I managed 17 and there were 83 to go,\" he told Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper. \n \n On Wednesday, he took them to a private home where he had worked three years ago as a security guard. \n \n There the remains of a woman were recovered from a sewer. \n \n Mr Onyancha also led the police to cheap lodges where he admitted killing several prostitutes. He has also admitted kidnapping several children. \n \n So far, four bodies have been found and he had led police to the sites of several unresolved murders. \n \n The BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross says that for the police, these admissions conveniently close the cases. \n \n For that reason some Kenyans are left feeling a little suspicious as to whether Mr Onyancha's version of events is entirely true, he adds.", "summary": "\u2013 A high school teacher has been detained in Kenya, after a self-confessed serial killer said that she told him to kill 100 people for good fortune. Philip Onyancha, 32, has confessed to killing 17 people, mostly women, and says he did so because teacher Elizabeth Wambui inducted him into her blood-drinking cult when he was in school in 1996, the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation reports. \u201cMy target was to kill 100 women,\u201d Onyancha said. \u201cI managed 17 and there were 83 to go.\u201d He said he targeted women and young children because they were weak. Police nabbed Onyancha last Thursday when he called the father of one of his victims to extort money from him. Since then, he\u2019s been remarkably helpful, leading them to various murder sites around the country. He\u2019s neatly resolved so many unsolved murders that some Kenyans suspect he\u2019s lying, a BBC correspondent reports."}
{"document": "Six months is not a long time when measured against the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which goes back generations. It is considerably longer when measured in the context of the Iranian nuclear program, which could achieve the capacity to produce undetected a bomb\u2019s worth of fissile material in only twice that time. \n \n So the criticism that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has spent too much time -- six months, to be precise -- in shuttle diplomacy between the Israelis and Palestinians is both churlish and well-taken. His efforts have resulted in the Israelis and Palestinians tentatively agreeing to sit down for new peace talks after a lapse of almost three years. Working to bring about a settlement is a worthwhile investment of U.S. time and energy -- but not if it comes at the expense of a more urgent priority, which is peacefully resolving the Iranian nuclear issue. \n \n The obstacles to an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement are well-known and long-standing, and they haven\u2019t lessened with time. That said, the payoff for success would be huge. An agreement would liberate the Palestinians from the yoke of occupation, improve Israel\u2019s safety, deprive extremists worldwide of an excuse for anti-Semitic and anti-American violence, demonstrate the value of U.S. diplomacy, and, not coincidentally, secure a legacy for Kerry. \n \n As other Mideast peace efforts have proved, however, brokering talks requires an enormous investment of U.S. resources. The U.S. will need to keep a close accounting of opportunity costs, especially once the new Iranian president is installed in August, presenting U.S. diplomats with a chance to resolve the standoff over Iran\u2019s nuclear program through negotiations. \n \n Positive Signs \n \n Kerry\u2019s initiative offers two elements that may give it an advantage over the many previous failed efforts. He has put together an economic investment package of about $4 billion for the Palestinians, which may expand their constituency for peace. And he has appointed a U.S. team to assess what security measures Israel would need if a Palestinian state were created. (Palestinian negotiators probably would assign more credibility to a U.S. appraisal than an Israeli one.) \n \n And yet. Kerry\u2019s effort comes at a time when the kind of leadership typically associated with peacemaking appears to be lacking on both sides. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have given no indication that they are any more willing to make the concessions necessary for a permanent peace agreement than they were the last few times talks broke down. \n \n Certainly, Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is financially troubled, can use the assistance Kerry is offering. And Netanyahu has an interest in talking, if not necessarily resolving anything. His government wants to win goodwill internationally and forestall actions like the European Union\u2019s decision last week to prohibit the award of grants, prizes and financial instruments to Israeli entities operating in the West Bank. The Israelis also hope Abbas will drop his threat to seek war-crimes charges against Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court. \n \n As this fragile process proceeds, the U.S. should be careful to husband its resources. It\u2019s constructive for U.S. diplomats to get the parties to the table. But U.S. involvement must necessarily be guided by the willingness of the Israelis and Palestinians to compromise. Otherwise, the process may create false expectations and end up reinforcing the extremist view that Israeli-Palestinian peace is impossible. It may also complicate efforts to resolve the currently more consequential conflict with Iran. \n \n Attack Fears \n \n With the installation of advanced centrifuges at its uranium-enrichment plants and construction of a heavy water reactor that can make plutonium, Iran is speeding toward a nuclear-weapons capacity. Netanyahu is again threatening that Israel may unilaterally launch military strikes against Iran\u2019s facilities. That would be far from ideal, as an Israeli attack might set off a larger regional conflagration. \n \n A negotiated deal with Iran is conceivable. President-elect Hassan Rohani demonstrated a conciliatory approach as a past nuclear negotiator. Having ruled that nuclear weapons are un-Islamic, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may settle for the soft power of possessing limited nuclear-enrichment capabilities rather than the hard power of possessing actual bombs, if Iran is offered meaningful sanctions relief. \n \n Given the enormous distrust between Iran and the U.S., getting to that kind of agreement would require a major U.S. government undertaking of tremendous delicacy. That should be a top priority -- and would be a worthy legacy -- for John Kerry. \n \n To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net. ||||| Veteran Middle East peace processors are arguing that naysayers are in bad odor this week, now that John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, has seemingly defied the skeptics. \n \n Kerry has actually achieved what so many American officials have achieved before -- which is to say, getting the Israelis and Palestinians to agree, provisionally, to sit down and yell at each other before retreating to their respective corners, thus providing the next secretary of state a chance to score yet another \"Groundhog Day\" Middle East breakthrough. \n \n I'm not discounting Kerry's achievement, by the way (though I wish he'd spend more time focused on the Syrian civil war and the tragic, slow-motion collapse of Egypt). It isn't easy to bring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas together to talk about anything, and Kerry's indefatigability and sincerity are impressive. \n \n His reported choice for Middle East peace envoy, Martin Indyk, is also impressive. Indyk (a friend, though a friend who is often peeved at me for my opinions) is a former ambassador to Israel and feels the need for such a two-state solution in his bones. Although he is well versed on this issue, he was sidelined, as were other former Middle East peace negotiators, during the reign of Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton (who famously sidelined the entire issue of Middle East peacemaking). It's a welcome sign that he might be back. \n \n But as I've written before, I think Kerry is on a fool's errand, and I think the collapse of these talks, which is almost inevitable, could have dangerous consequences. Remember what followed the collapse of the Camp David peace process in 2000: years of violence, including horrific bus-bombing campaigns. \n \n To believe in this process, as Kerry envisions it, you have to blind yourself to at least two realities. \n \n The first is that Hamas exists and is in control of the Gaza Strip, whether we like it or not. Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which will be bargaining with Israel, will represent at best half of Palestine. How do you negotiate a state into existence that is divided between two warring factions? It isn't even clear if the Palestinian Authority is fully in control of those parts of the West Bank that Israel deigns to let it control. (I will save for another time the deeper discussion of whether the maximum an Israeli government could offer the Palestinians represents the minimum the Palestinians could plausibly accept.) \n \n You also have to blind yourself to the reality that the Jewish settlement movement on the West Bank is now the most powerful political force in Israel. This is a movement whose leaders and Knesset representatives and cabinet ministers will subvert any peace process that would lead to the dismantling of even a single settlement, including any of the dozens of well-populated ones far beyond Israel's West Bank security barrier. \n \n Oh, and by the way, to believe in this process you have to believe that the parties are ready to divide Jerusalem. \n \n Instead of pursuing direct talks between the two sides, Kerry would be better off first negotiating with them separately. \n \n With the Israelis, Kerry (and his boss) should talk about the demographic, security and moral challenges of governing a population that doesn't want to be governed by Israel. He would be pushing on a bit of an open door -- the increasingly centrist Netanyahu (who is becoming more and more alienated from his robustly right-wing Likud party), seems to understand now that continued occupation (an occupation that exists at this point mainly to support the settlers) is undermining Israel's international legitimacy and its future as a Jewish-majority democracy. \n \n Kerry is understood in Israel as a true friend; his lobbying could be effective. If the Israelis would take small, unilateral steps on settlements, they could change the Palestinian calculus and improve Israel's reputation (which has become a genuine national-security concern). \n \n On the other side, Kerry might want to try a bit more aggressively to help the Palestinian Authority become a viable governing body with a functioning economy and a bureaucracy that is reasonably free of corruption. Strengthening the Palestinian Authority (and working to weaken Hamas) while cajoling the Israelis to wean themselves from their addiction to settlements are two steps Kerry could take to advance negotiations. \n \n It's true that Kerry has gotten the Israelis to agree to release some Palestinian prisoners. And he may convince the Palestinians to cease, for a while, their campaign to delegitimize Israel in the international arena. But these developments, by themselves, won't advance the larger cause. \n \n I'd like to be proved wrong, but given my doubts about the viability of a two-state solution -- even a solution negotiated by the most visionary and large-hearted of Palestinian and Israeli leaders -- I'm not imagining great success for Kerry in the coming months. \n \n (Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist. Follow him on Twitter.)", "summary": "\u2013 Congratulations, John Kerry. You've not only managed to get Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree on new peace talks, you've even managed to score some prisoner releases in advance. What's next? Only for both sides to \"sit down and yell at each other before retreating to their respective corners, thus providing the next secretary of state a chance to score yet another 'Groundhog Day' Middle East breakthrough,\" writes Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg View. Kerry, in short, is on a \"fool's errand.\" Why the pessimism? For one thing, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority represent only \"half of Palestine\"\u2014these talks ignore the reality of Hamas. \"How do you negotiate a state into existence that is divided between two warring factions?\" And then there's the ever-expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Israel has plenty of politicians who would rather torpedo the peace process than give up even one of them. Kerry might have a better shot negotiating such problems separately with each side, writes Goldberg. \"I'd like to be proved wrong, but given my doubts about the viability of a two-state solution ... I'm not imagining great success for Kerry in the coming months.\" In fact, this just may make things worse. Click for Goldberg's full column. (The Bloomberg editors, meanwhile, think Kerry would be better served focusing on Iran's nuclear program.)"}
{"document": "Sub-title: Trend \"has flipped\" says researcher \n \n Picture: \n \n It used to be that the kids out in the bushes smoking marijuana were the trouble makers, but new research shows that this group academically outperforms their peers who smoke both marijuana and tobacco. \n \n In one of the largest, long-term studies of substance co-use among teens, Dalla Lana School of Public Health researchers examined trends of tobacco and marijuana use from 1981 to 2011 and found that marijuana smokers receive higher grades than those who smoke both substances. \n \n \u201cIn the past, cannabis use was associated with more problematic behaviours, but this trend has flipped,\u201d said Michael Chaiton, assistant professor in epidemiology and public health policy at U of T\u2019s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. \n \n \u201cYouth tobacco users are likely to have poor academic performance and engage in socially deviant behaviours, like vandalism, theft or assault.\u201d \n \n The study, published in the Journal of School Health\u2019s March issue, analyzed self-report survey data from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health\u2019s Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, including a total of 38,331 students in grades 7, 9 and 11. A user and/or co-user are de\ufb01ned as someone reporting daily tobacco and/or marijuana use in the past month. Poor academic performance, which is linked to increased risk of tobacco, marijuana and a variety of other risky behaviours, was measured as an indicator of problem behaviour to see if it was related to substance use or co-use. \n \n Marijuana use peaked about a decade ago, but overall attitudes towards the drug have become more normalized, so many teens see it as safer than tobacco, although this is not inherently true, researchers say. Smoking rates have declined by about six per cent among school-aged youth in the last decade, but researchers believe smoking cigarettes has become a new signal of social deviation in this group. \n \n \u201cYouth smokers are becoming a more vulnerable population with high levels of substance use and mental health comorbidities,\u201d said Chaiton, who is also a scientist at the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. \n \n Other interesting study insights include: \n \n 92 per cent of teen cigarette smokers also use marijuana; \n \n 25 per cent of teen marijuana users also smoke cigarettes; \n \n In 1999, co-use was at an all-time high at 12 per cent, with boys in lower grades most likely to be a part of this group; \n \n Students with lower academic performance were more likely to be co-users than users of either substance alone; \n \n There\u2019s a growing \u201cstraight edge\u201d cohort, with 90 per cent of Ontario students not using either substance. \n \n \u201cDrug prevention programs should be aligned with student realities, which means acknowledging and addressing patterns of co-use,\u201d said Maritt Kirst, co-author of the study and assistant professor in social and behavioural health sciences at U of T\u2019s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. \n \n \u201cThis study identifies which youth are most at risk and can help public health professionals tailor prevention programs accordingly.\u201d \n \n Study authors also suggest that marijuana prevention programs may take a renewed focus on the drug\u2019s harmful effects instead of underscoring the drug\u2019s illegal status \u2013 the traditional approach of such programs. \n \n Nicole Bodnar is a writer with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. ||||| \n \n Andrea Janus, CTVNews.ca \n \n \n \n \n \n Students who only smoke marijuana do better at school than classmates who smoke just tobacco, or who smoke both tobacco and pot, says a new study, which tracked substance use among teens over 30 years. \n \n Researchers from the University of Toronto\u2019s Dalla Lana School of Public Health analyzed data from a survey administered to nearly 39,000 Ontario students between 1981 and 2011. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health asked students in Grades 7, 9 and 11 about their tobacco and marijuana use, and their academic performance. \n \n The study found that marijuana-only users did better at school than their counterparts who smoked only cigarettes or who smoked both cigarettes and marijuana. However, the findings reflect the fact that fewer students smoke tobacco today compared to 30 years ago, and those that do make up a very \u201cmarginalized, vulnerable\u201d population, says lead study author Michael Chaiton, assistant professor in epidemiology and public health policy. \n \n About 92 per cent of tobacco users also use marijuana, the study found. However, only 25 per cent of marijuana uses also smoke tobacco. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s better relatively,\u201d Chaiton says of marijuana-only users\u2019 academic performance. \n \n Marijuana users don\u2019t outperform non-users, Chaiton says. \n \n \u201cNow there is a distinction between marijuana use and co-use with other substances, and it\u2019s an indication of the changing social norms. So it\u2019s not an absolute that they do better; it\u2019s that social norms have changed and the population of people who use marijuana are more like the general population.\u201d \n \n The study was published in the March edition of the Journal of School Health. \n \n In the 1980s, when the study began, there was less marijuana use among students. And those who did smoke pot also smoked tobacco. At the time, pot use among tobacco smokers was very low. \n \n Thirty years later, that had switched, the researchers found. As tobacco use declined, marijuana use shot up. And among the remaining tobacco users, marijuana use is now very high. \n \n One reason for the statistical switch, Chaiton says, is the effectiveness of anti-tobacco messaging in recent years. \n \n \u201cThe population of youth smokers right now is one that is a fairly marginalized population, quite a vulnerable population, so they are at high rates of cannabis use but also of other drugs and other behaviours,\u201d Chaiton says. \u201cSo the change in trends is that this is a social phenomenon. This is not that tobacco is causing this, it is something that has changed socially in the role of tobacco in society.\u201d \n \n Now that marijuana smoking has become more of a social norm, Chaiton says, programs aimed at keeping youth from risky behaviours such as drug abuse must take into account two factors: that more students now smoke marijuana compared to 30 years ago, and that students who smoke tobacco are more likely to use marijuana or other drugs and engage in at-risk behaviours such as vandalism and theft. \n \n As marijuana use becomes more prevalent and socially acceptable, Chaiton says, the focus must turn to developing programs for youth that properly educate them on the risks. \n \n Tobacco and marijuana are \u201csimilar drugs in many different ways,\u201d Chaiton notes, and \u201cpeople dramatically underestimate the risks associated with cannabis use, particularly among youth.\u201d \n \n \u201cI would argue that we need to start talking about them in the same way and start addressing them in the same types of interventions,\u201d he says, particularly given the growing public discussions about decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. \n \n \u201cIf we do legalize or change the regulations in dramatic ways, that does change the social environment again and that can, as we\u2019ve seen a number of times, cause big shifts in youth and we could see another big shift in marijuana use among youth.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 A little more ammo for the pro-marijuana crowd: A major study out of Canada finds that students who smoke pot do better in school than those who smoke tobacco or indulge in both, reports CTV. But, no, it's not about marijuana making kids smarter. In fact, kids who abstain from smoking of any kind do best of all. Chalk it up instead to the growing acceptance of pot. \"It\u2019s an indication of the changing social norms,\" says the lead author of the study from the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. \"So it\u2019s not an absolute that they do better; it\u2019s that social norms have changed, and the population of people who use marijuana are more like the general population.\u201d The study looked at data over the last 30 years and compared kids in grades 7, 9, and 11 in 1981 with their counterparts in 2011. As the U of T News puts it, \"it used to be that the kids out in the bushes smoking marijuana were the trouble makers,\" but the trend seems to have reversed itself. Now the kids smoking tobacco exclusively are the \"marginalized\" ones. The study found that 92% of students who smoke cigarettes also smoke pot, but only 25% of pot smokers also smoke tobacco. The biggest group was the 90% who reported smoking neither, and researchers say that's the way to go. \"People dramatically underestimate the risks associated with cannabis use, particularly among youth,\" says the UT scientist."}
{"document": "SOCHI, Russia -- He came to these Olympics determined to stay his chilled-out, snowboarding self at the pressure-packed Winter Games and, in his own words, continue to \u201cmarch to his own beat.\u201d \n \n With that attitude and special flair, 20-year-old Sage Kotsenburg of Park City, Utah, marched off with the first gold medal of the 2014 Sochi Olympics in men\u2019s slopestyle on Saturday at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. \n \n This marked the Olympic debut of one of the livelier extreme sports and Kotsenburg won it with an eye-popping first run in the final, earning 93.50 points. Taking the silver was Staale Sandbech of Norway and Mark McMorris of Canada grabbed the bronze medal. \n \n McMorris, the gold-medal favorite before he broke a rib at the X Games in late January, put up a brave showing with his painful injury. He reached the final by virtue of pulling out all the stops with his second run in the semifinal, and scored 88.75 in his second run in the final. \n \n This event had been in the spotlight because snowboarding icon Shaun White pulled out on Wednesday, a day before the start of competition, citing the potential risk of injury. One of the other medal favorites, from Norway, had to pull out because of a broken collarbone sustained in a training run. \n \n White's withdrawal left Kotsenburg, Chas Guldemond and Ryan Stassel as the remaining medal hopes for the United States. But Kotsenburg was the only one of the three to make it out of the semifinals. \n \n Kotsenburg said after the semifinals that his parents were back home watching, too nervous to come to Russia. But he planned on calling them between sessions. \n \n Kotsenburg chatted away with reporters in the mixed zone after the semifinals, oblivious to any pressure. Stress apparently is not in his DNA. \n \n \u201cI really want to medal just as much as the next guy, but my attitude in the run, if I land, that\u2019s cool,\u201d he said. \u201cIf not, I need to try harder obviously. That\u2019s just how I snowboard. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m super mellow, laid-back. I\u2019m not like the normal guy that goes in the gym and trains. I haven\u2019t been in the gym since September.\" \n \n ALSO: \n \n U.S. men's bobsled team wants to be slide ruler in Sochi \n \n Speedskater Shani Davis and teammates expect big things \n \n Freestyle skier Maggie Voisin withdraws after injuring her ankle \n \n lisa.dillman@latimes.com \n \n Twitter: @reallisa ||||| Sage Kotsenburg (USA) celebrates after winning gold in men's slopestyle finals at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. (Photo: Nathan Bilow, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Sage Kotsenburg won the slopestyle competition, giving the United States its first Sochi gold medal \n \n Kotsenburg beat out favorite Mark McMorris, who finished with bronze \n \n Norway's Staale Sandbech earned silver \n \n KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia \u2013 American Sage Kotsenburg won the first gold medal of the Olympics on Saturday in men's slopestyle snowboarding, and he did it by trying a trick he had never done before. \n \n It was a spur-of-the-moment decision by an underdog snowboarder, overshadowed on his own team by superstar Shaun White, who had pulled out of the slopestyle competition earlier this week. \n \n As Kotsenburg, who earned his spot in the finals by placing second in the semifinals earlier Saturday, prepared for his run, he called his older brother, Blaze, who was at home in Park City, and U.S. coach Bill Enos to share a crazy idea. \n \n He wanted to throw a trick called \"Back 16 Japan\" on his first run in the Olympic finals, never mind that he hadn't tried the move in practice or prior competition. No one talked him out of it. \n \n \"I ended up landing it, and winning with it,\" Kotsenburg said, laughing. The trick is four and a half backwards spins (1620 degrees of rotation), while grabbing the backside of his board (Japan). \n \n Kotsenburg, the third rider in the 12-man final, received a score of 93.50 on that first run, and that score held up through the nine competitors that followed him, and through all of the second run. \n \n BRENNAN: Torch bearer must apologize \n \n MEDAL PROJECTIONS: Picking winners in every event \n \n Canadian Mark McMorris cleanly landed a pair of triples in his second run and received a score of 88.75, stunning both McMorris and the large Canadian contingent who had traveled to Rosa Khutor to watch him and his two countryman. Norway's Staale Sandbech, the second-to-last competitor, knocked Morris from silver to bronze with a score of 91.75. \n \n \"I would have loved to be in the gold medal position, but to have been through what I've been through the last two weeks, to be standing on the podium in general feels like a gold medal to me,\" said McMorris, who suffered a broken rib at the X Games last month and failed to earn one of the automatic spots in the final out of qualifying Thursday. \"I wanted to go big, land clean, hit technical tricks and, yeah, you've got to be happy with how you rode, and it's up to them to make the decisions.\" \n \n Thus controversy will mark slopestyle's debut at the Games. \n \n McMorris said he believed when he finished his second run that he should have scored in the 90s, and that he had given a performance that should have been good enough for gold or silver. \n \n It wasn't a slight at Kotsenburg, whom McMorris and other Canadians praised, but an indictment of what riders say is a confusing judging process. \n \n \"I just don't know what the judges wanted to see on the course today,\" said Canadian Max Parrot, who finished fifth with a score of 87.25. \n \n Kotsenburg did not attempt a triple jump, and won with a run that emphasized creativity, style and a technical combination of spins and grabs, including his own creation named the Holy Crail, which he used twice in his winning run. \n \n \"It's pretty sick to see that some weird, creative stuff got rewarded,\" Kotsenburg said. \n \n Indeed the judges and competitors alike seemed to notice and appreciate his array of unique moves. \n \n \"He got his own personal style, and I'm happy that he showed that to the whole world. I think his style is pretty rad,\" Parrot said. \n \n Kotsenburg was the only American in the final, after two teammates failed to advance out of Saturday's semifinal, and White withdrew 48 hours before qualifying began. White, who will compete in the halfpipe next week, didn't have a triple jump in his arsenal of slopestyle tricks, but Kotsenburg didn't need one to win. \n \n And now snowboarding has a new American star \u2013 a 20-year-old Utahan with scruffy long hair and a vocabulary full of snowboarding lingo. \n \n Mike Jankowski, the U.S. team's head coach for halfpipe and slopestyle, said Kotsenburg is the purest type of snowboarder, who approaches every run in practice and competition as a chance to have fun and be creative. \n \n Together they ate a small lunch between the semifinals and finals, concluding the meal by deciding to \"go snowboarding.\" It's the type of conversation they could have had on any mountain on any day \u2013 it just happened to be on the biggest stage in slopestyle history. \n \n \"He's the best ambassador you could have for snowboarding right now,\" Jankowski said. \"He's showing the true love of the sport.\" \n \n PHOTOS: Best of slopestyle action", "summary": "\u2013 The first gold medal for the US\u2014in fact, the first gold medal of the Sochi Games, period\u2014is in the books, courtesy of the self-described \"super mellow\" Sage Kotsenburg of Park City, Utah. The 20-year-old won the not-so-mellow slopestyle snowboarding competition, reports the LA Times. Not familiar? It's the event that Shaun White pulled out of because it's too dangerous, that medal favorite Mark McMorris competed in despite breaking a rib at the X Games last month (he won bronze today), and that another favorite from Norway missed because he broke his collarbone in a training run. So how did Kotsenburg win? With a trick he had never tried before, of course, not even in practice. USA Today describes it as \"four and a half backwards spins (1620 degrees of rotation), while grabbing the backside of his board.\" Prior to the race, Kotsenburg said pressure wasn't his thing. \u201cI really want to medal just as much as the next guy, but my attitude in the run, if I land, that\u2019s cool,\u201d he said. (Click to read about the ring glitch during the opening ceremony.)"}
{"document": "Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By Cassandra Vinograd \n \n The seaside French city of Cannes has banned burkinis, full-body swimsuits worn by some Muslim women, from its beaches. \n \n Cannes \u2014 home of an annual star-studded annual film festival \u2014 is located not far from Nice, where more than 80 people died in a July terror attack on the city's beachfront promenade. \n \n A Muslim woman wears a \"burkini\" on a beach in Sydney. TIM WIMBORNE / Reuters file \n \n Mayor David Lisnard cited that tragedy and subsequent attack on a northwest France church in an ordinance forbidding swimwear that doesn't respect \"good morals and secularism.\" \n \n \"Beachwear manifesting religious affiliation in an ostentatious way, while France and its religious sites are currently the target of terrorist attacks, could create the risk of disturbances to public order,\" the ruling says. \n \n A spokeswoman for his office confirmed that the ordinance \u2014 in effect through the month of August, peak tourist season on the French Riviera \u2014 applies to burkinis. Violators face a fine. \n \n French soldiers patrol the Promenade in Cannes on Aug. 5. Dan Kitwood / Getty Images \n \n Security has been stepped up across France in wake of the Nice attack, with soldiers prominently patrolling the beaches and promenades of the Riviera. \n \n The ordinance was issued on July 28 but only publicized on Friday. \n \n Lisnard told the Nice Matin newspaper that the ban was designed to \"protect the population\" in the context of France's ongoing state of emergency and terror threat. \n \n When asked if he thought the ordinance would send a negative message to the numerous Muslim tourists in Cannes, Lisnard replied: \"Not at all.\" \n \n Religious groups vehemently disagreed, with France's Muslim Federation of the South calling it an \"illegal\" and \"abusive\" use of power with the unique purpose of stigmatization and exclusion. \n \n \"The federation ... is absolutely scandalized,\" it said in a statement. \n \n France's approach to religious attire has long stoked controversy: The country in 2010 passed a law that bans the burqa, an Islamic veil that completely covers women's faces and bodies. ||||| Image copyright AP Image caption Women wearing burkinis will be invited to change into a more \"respectful\" costume \n \n The mayor of Cannes in southern France has banned full-body swimsuits known as \"burkinis\" from the beach, citing public order concerns. \n \n David Lisnard said they are a \"symbol of Islamic extremism\" and might spark scuffles, as France is the target of Islamist attacks. \n \n France is on high alert following a series of incidents including July's truck attack in nearby Nice. \n \n Anyone caught flouting the new rule could face a fine of \u20ac38 (\u00a333). \n \n They will first be asked to change into another swimming costume or leave the beach. \n \n Nobody has been apprehended for wearing a burkini in Cannes since the edict came into force at the end of July. \n \n What do Muslim women think of the ban? \n \n This is not the first time that women's clothing has been restricted in France. In 2011 it became the first country in Europe to ban the full-face Islamic veil, known as the burka, as well as the partial face covering, the niqab. \n \n Earlier this week a private waterpark near Marseille cancelled a burkini-only day after being subjected to criticism. \n \n Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The authorities will need to distinguish between swimmers in burkinis and wetsuits \n \n The ruling \n \n \"Access to beaches and for swimming is banned to any person wearing improper clothes that are not respectful of good morals and secularism. \n \n \"Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order.\" \n \n The reaction in the French press \n \n The French media has questioned the legality of the ban. Le Monde points out that no French law bans the wearing of full-body swimsuits. \"The law on the full-face veil only bans covering the face in public... The burkini, which covers the body but does not hide the face, is thus a totally legal garment.\" \n \n France TV Info's legal blog, Judge Marie, says the risk of disturbing public order, invoked by the Cannes mayor, seems rather tenuous. \"The basic freedom to come and go dressed as you please seems to me to be infringed in a way that is disproportionate to this risk,\" the blog says. \n \n Meanwhile, a commentary in left-of-centre paper Liberation accuses the Cannes mayor of trying to score a political point: \"David Lisnard\u2026 is not responding to a specific issue, but is sending a radical message to his constituents, to his electorate.\" \n \n BBC Monitoring \n \n Mr Lisnard confirmed to local media that other religious symbols such as the kippah (Jewish skullcap) and the cross would still be permitted, and the ban would not apply to the veil that some Muslim women wear over their hair. \n \n He said: \"I simply forbid a uniform that is the symbol of Islamic extremism. \n \n \"We live in a common public space, there are rules to follow. \" \n \n The League of Human Rights (LDH) said it would challenge the ban in court. \n \n \"It is time for politicians in this region to calm their discriminatory ardour and defend the spirit of the Republic,\" local LDH leader Herve Lavisse said. \n \n The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) is also expected to mount a legal challenge against the decision. Its lawyer Sefen Guez Guez called the ban \"illegal, discriminatory and unconstitutional\".", "summary": "\u2013 Many would consider a full-body swimsuit less offensive than a skimpy bikini. Not the mayor of Cannes, apparently. David Lisnard says \"burkinis\"\u2014modest swimwear worn by some Muslim women\u2014are a \"symbol of Islamic extremism\" and aren't allowed on the French city's beaches. Should a woman be spotted wearing one, she'll be asked to change into something else or leave, David Lisnard tells the BBC. Offenders of the city's new rule\u2014in effect since July 28, reports NBC News\u2014may also face a $42 fine. French law bans people from wearing the burka and niqab in public, but there's no nationwide ban on burkinis. \"Access to beaches and for swimming is banned to any person wearing improper clothes that are not respectful of good morals and secularism,\" says Lisnard. \"Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order.\" However, Lisnard says the Jewish kippah and Christian cross will still be allowed on beaches. A rep for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France calls the ban \"illegal, discriminatory, and unconstitutional,\" while the League of Human Rights says it will take its opposition to court."}
{"document": "Former first lady Michelle Obama, hugs Bruktawit Tesfaye, 11, a 5th grade student from Capital City Public Charter School in Washington, who introduced Obama at the Partnership for a Healthier American... (Associated Press) \n \n WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Michelle Obama on Friday criticized a Trump administration decision to delay federal rules aimed at making school lunch healthier, saying kids will end up \"eating crap\" instead. \n \n Mrs. Obama told a health conference in Washington that more nutritionally sound school meals are needed since millions of kids nationwide eat federally subsidized breakfast and lunch at school. Without mentioning President Donald Trump by name, she urged parents to think about the government's recent decision and to \"look at motives.\" \n \n \"You have to stop and think, 'Why don't you want our kids to have good food at school? What is wrong with you and why is that a partisan issue?\" Mrs. Obama said. \"Why would that be political?\" \n \n \"Moms, think about this. I don't care what state you live in, take me out of the equation, like me, don't like me, but think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap,\" she said. \n \n During a nearly hourlong conversation led by Sam Kass, the Obamas' personal chef during their White House years and executive director of the anti-childhood obesity initiative she spearheaded as first lady, Mrs. Obama also spoke briefly about her future plans. Her family's last day in the White House was Jan. 20, and she said she and former President Barack Obama would spend the year figuring out what comes next. \n \n In one of his first major acts, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced on May 1 that the department will delay an upcoming requirement to reduce the amount of sodium in school meals. Purdue said he also planned to keep issuing waivers to a regulation requiring that more whole grains also be served. Schools could also serve 1 percent flavored-milk instead of the nonfat variety now required. \n \n The school meal changes reflect suggestions from the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and companies that sell food to schools. The group often battled with the Obama administration, which phased in the healthier school meal rules starting in 2012. \n \n The move partially rolls back rules the former first lady supported as part of her \"Let's Move\" anti-childhood obesity initiative, but leaves most of the Obama administration's school meal rules in place. Those rules include requirements that students must take fruits and vegetables on the lunch line. Some schools have asked for changes to that policy, saying students often throw those items into the trash. \n \n \"If kids aren't eating the food, and it's ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition \u2014 thus undermining the intent of the program,\" Perdue said in making the announcement at a school in Leesburg, Virginia. \n \n But Mrs. Obama said it's time for adults to take charge and not put kids in charge. \n \n \"How about we stop asking kids how they feel about their food because kids, my kids included, if they could eat pizza and french fries every day with ice cream on top and a soda they would think they were happy, until they get sick,\" she said. \n \n \"That to me is one of the most ridiculous things we talk about in this movement,\" the former first lady continued. \"You know what? Kids don't like math either. What are we going to do? Stop teaching math?\" \n \n Her appearance at the annual conference, sponsored by the Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit organization that was created to support her anti-childhood obesity work, was Mrs. Obama's second major public outing since leaving the White House. Last month in Orlando, Florida, she participated in a question-and-answer session during the American Institute of Architects' annual conference. \n \n The Obamas have started to re-emerge into the public arena after laying low and cooling their heels on vacations since leaving the White House. Mrs. Obama said she and her husband are busy settling into their new home and offices in Washington and making sure daughters Malia and Sasha are doing well. They also have books to write and money to raise for the presidential center they plan to build on the South Side of her native Chicago. \n \n \"We're not gone. We're just breathing,\" Mrs. Obama said. \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap ||||| Speaking at a conference in the nation's capital, Michelle Obama harshly criticized the Trump administration for delaying federal rules intended to improve school lunches. Obama promoted healthy eating and lifestyle while first lady. (Published Friday, May 12, 2017) \n \n Former first lady Michelle Obama took aim at a Trump administration decision to delay federal rules aimed at making school lunches healthier. \n \n Speaking at an annual health conference in Washington, D.C., Obama said more nutritious school lunches are important since millions of kids eat federally subsidized school breakfast and lunch. Without mentioning President Donald Trump, she said parents should stop and \"think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap.\" \n \n \"If we want to make this country great, our kids need to be healthy,\" Obama said. \"Not some, but all.\u201d \n \n In one of his first major actions, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the department will delay an upcoming requirement to reduce the amount of sodium in school meals. \n \n Michelle Obama Sits Down With Oprah Winfrey \n \n Michelle Obama, who spoke with Oprah Winfrey in an interview that aired on CBS on Monday night, says the White House needs a \"grown-up,\" and that the nation will come to appreciate President Barack Obama. (Published Friday, Dec. 23, 2016) \n \n Purdue said he'll also keep issuing waivers to a regulation requiring that more whole grains be served at schools. \n \n \n \n \"You want to talk about nanny state and government intervention, well, 'you just buy the food and be quiet and you don't need to know what is in it,'\" Obama said. \"That is essentially what a move like this is saying to you moms.\" \n \n Obama said if Americans want to make the country great again, children in the United States need to be healthy. \n \n \"It's not politics, it's parenting,\" Obama said. \n \n As first lady, Obama led a nationwide effort to reduce childhood obesity with her \"Let's Move\" initiative. She vowed to continue fighting for a healthier America. \n \n \"You've got me as a partner for as long as I can be of use,\" she added. \n \n President Bill Clinton, supermodel Cindy Crawford, actress Gabrielle Union and celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito also spoke at the annual event. \n \n Copyright Associated Press / NBC Chicago ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Michelle Obama was addressing the Healthier America summit in Washington \n \n Michelle Obama has launched a fierce defence of the healthy eating initiatives she championed as first lady. \n \n At a public health summit in Washington, she hit back after the Trump administration loosened nutritional standards aimed at making US school lunches healthier. \n \n \"Think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap,\" she said. \n \n One in five American children is obese, government figures show. \n \n In thinly-veiled criticism of the policies of the new administration, Mrs Obama told the audience: \"This is where you really have to look at motives, you know. \n \n \"You have to stop and think, why don't you want our kids to have good food at school? What is wrong with you? And why is that a partisan issue? Why would that be political? What is going on?\" \n \n She added: \"Take me out of the equation - like me or don't like me. But think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap. \n \n \"Why would you celebrate that? Why would you sit idly and be okay with that? Because here's the secret: If someone is doing that, they don't care about your kid.\" \n \n Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Michelle Obama encouraged healthy eating to combat obesity in children \n \n While in the White House, Mrs Obama championed the \"Let's Move\" campaign, which encourages exercise and healthy eating among young people. \n \n The 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act made federal grants for school meals conditional on reductions in calories, sodium and trans fat content and increases in fruit, vegetables and whole grains. \n \n However, earlier this month, US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue postponed reductions in sodium, relaxed requirements for whole grains and allowed sweetened flavoured milk back. \n \n He said some aspects of the standards had \"gone too far\". \n \n The agriculture department said the change would give schools \"greater flexibility\".", "summary": "\u2013 Michelle Obama slammed Trump administration efforts to delay or roll back her healthy-eating initiatives Friday, saying parents should \"think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap.\" The former first lady, speaking at a health conference in Washington, DC, said healthy school lunches should not be a partisan issue, NBC Chicago reports. \"If we want to make this country great, our kids need to be healthy,\" she said. \"Not some, but all.\" She urged parents to examine the motives of those opposing anti-childhood obesity measures. \"You have to stop and think, 'Why don't you want our kids to have good food at school?\" she said. Earlier this month, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue, saying some new standards had \"gone too far,\" took measures including postponing sodium restrictions and waiving whole grain requirements, the BBC reports. In her talk Friday, Obama rejected the criticism that her policies led to kids throwing away food. \"How about we stop asking kids how they feel about their food because kids\u2014my kids included\u2014if they could eat pizza and french fries every day with ice cream on top ... they would think they were happy, until they get sick,\" she said, per the AP. \"You know what? Kids don't like math either. What are we going to do? Stop teaching math?\" (Michelle Obama has ruled out a run for higher office.)"}
{"document": "GENEVA The ozone layer that shields life from cancer-causing solar rays is showing its first sign of recovery after years of dangerous depletion, a U.N. study said on Wednesday, in a rare piece of good news on the environment. \n \n Experts said it was largely down to global action - a 1987 ban on man-made gases that damage the fragile high-altitude screen. The agreement would help prevent millions of cases of skin cancer and other conditions, they added. \n \n The ozone hole that appears over Antarctica has also stopped growing bigger every year, though it will be about a decade before it starts shrinking, said the report co-produced by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Programme. \n \n \"International action on the ozone layer is a major environmental success story ... This should encourage us to display the same level of urgency and unity to tackle the even greater challenge of tackling climate change,\" said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. \n \n Past studies have suggested the ozone layer has stopped getting worse. \n \n \"Now for the first time in this report we say that we see indications of a small increase in total ozone. That means recovery of the ozone layer in terms of total ozone has just started,\" said WMO senior scientific officer Geir Braathen. \n \n The 1987 Montreal Protocol that banned or phased out ozone depleting chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once widely used in refrigerators and spray cans, would prevent 2 million cases of skin cancer annually by 2030 according to UNEP. \n \n The agreement would also help avert damage to wildlife, agriculture, human eyes and immune systems, the agency added. \n \n CLIMATE IMPACT \n \n The ozone layer was expected to recover towards its 1980 level by mid-century, or slightly later for Antarctica, where it gets dangerously thin every year between mid-August and November or December. \n \n \"The development you saw during the 1990s that the ozone hole got bigger from year to year - that development has stopped, so it has levelled off,\" said Braathen. \n \n \"We think in about 2025 or thereabouts we'll be able to say with certainty that the ozone hole is getting smaller,\" he added. \n \n Progress could be sped up by as much as 11 years if existing stocks of ozone-depleting substances - many of them stored up in old fridges and fire-extinguishers - were destroyed. \n \n The largest ozone hole on record was about 30 million square km in 2006. The hole now covers about 20 million square km - big enough for the moon to pass through - but may not have peaked this season. \n \n The size of the hole varies from year to year, partly due to temperature in the upper atmosphere. \n \n The reduction of ozone-damaging chemicals would also help the environment, the report said, as many of the substances were also greenhouses gases blamed for global warming. \n \n But the rising levels of other greenhouses gases in the atmosphere had \"the potential to undermine these gains,\" said the report. \n \n One of the ozone-depleting substances that was supposed to have been phased out - carbon tetrachloride, a solvent - was still being released into the atmosphere suggesting, the report said, illicit production and usage over the past decade. \n \n (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Andrew Heavens) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Roger Harrabin reports on the findings \n \n The ozone layer that shields the earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays is showing early signs of thickening after years of depletion, a UN study says. \n \n The ozone hole that appears annually over Antarctica has also stopped growing bigger every year. \n \n The report says it will take a decade before the hole starts to shrink. \n \n Scientists say the recovery is entirely due to political determination to phase out the man-made CFC gases destroying ozone. \n \n The study was published by researchers from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). \n \n \"International action on the ozone layer is a major environmental success story... This should encourage us to display the same level of urgency and unity to tackle the even greater challenge of tackling climate change,\" said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. \n \n Dr Ken Jucks from the US space agency Nasa told BBC News that humans \"have started to do the right thing in order to convert the atmosphere back towards what it was before the industrial revolution started\". \n \n Scientists cannot be absolutely certain yet that the hole will heal itself. Prof David Vaughan from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said that test results from his organisation would throw extra light on the WMO's findings. \n \n Image caption The largest hole in the ozone layer appears over Antarctica \n \n \"We have to be a bit cautious, but this does look on the face of it like some very good news,\" he told BBC News. \"Our own data from the Antarctic will take a few weeks to process but we hope to confirm the findings. If it's accurate, it underlines the potential power of international agreement.\" \n \n CO2 still problematic \n \n The good news on ozone comes in the wake of bad news on the gases fuelling climate change. The WMO said this week that atmospheric greenhouse gases had reached a record high. \n \n Tackling a gas like carbon dioxide (CO2) which is central to so many facets of human life is of a completely different order to reducing a few chemicals for which substitutes can be found. \n \n The 1987 Montreal Protocol that banned or phased out ozone-eating depleting chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once widely used in refrigerators and spray cans, would prevent two million cases of skin cancer annually by 2030, according to UNEP. \n \n It would also help prevent damage to wildlife, agriculture, peoples' eyes and immune systems, the agency added. \n \n The WMO say ozone should recover towards its 1980 level by mid-century, or slightly later for Antarctica, where it gets dangerously thin every year between mid-August and November or December. \n \n It says progress could be improved by as much as 11 years if existing stocks of ozone-depleting substances - many of them stored up in old fridges and fire-extinguishers - were destroyed.", "summary": "\u2013 An environment story without warnings of impending doom: The ozone layer that blocks cancer-causing rays from the sun is finally starting to recover thanks to global action, according to the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program. While it will probably take until the middle of this century to recover to where it was in 1980, experts from the world bodies say a 1987 ban on chemicals, including the chlorofluorocarbons once used in fridges and aerosol cans, appears to have paid off, preventing hundreds of thousands of cases of skin cancer in the process, Reuters reports. Researchers hailed the findings as an example of what can happen when the political will is there to protect the environment. Humans \"have started to do the right thing in order to convert the atmosphere back toward what it was before the Industrial Revolution started,\" a NASA expert tells the BBC. WMO chief Michel Jarraud describes the ozone recovery as a \"major environmental success story\" that \"should encourage us to display the same level of urgency and unity to tackle the even greater challenge of tackling climate change.\" (In another recovery story, a sustainability-monitoring group has taken 21 species of fish off its danger list.)"}
{"document": "This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. \n \n \n \n The young man didn\u2019t need to, as the song says, smoke two joints in the morning, and smoke two joints at night. One was more than enough when it was roughly 4 feet long and weighed more than two pounds. \n \n That\u2019s what UC Santa Cruz police officers were confronted with when they descended on a rally last Saturday. The young man was not happy when his cartoonishly large joint was hauled away, according to video footage capturing the incident. \n \n \u201cDude, you\u2019re a liar. You\u2019re a liar,\u201d the young man complained as he walked beside a police officer carrying the torch-like joint. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to see you in court. I can show how you\u2019re harassing me.\u201d \n \n Every year, hundreds of students and others gather at the campus on April 20 to smoke pot. They do so with seemingly little concern for the inevitable police crackdown, which usually involves the confiscation of dime bags, bongs and other paraphernelia. \n \n But this year, campus police were in for a surprise. The joint, which was wider than your average baseball bat, more than exceeded the state\u2019s one ounce limit for those who carry medical marijuana. \n \n Jim Burns, a university spokesman, identified the young man as Gennady Tsarinsky, a 25-year-old UC Santa Cruz student. He was arrested on charges of being in possession of more than one ounce of marijuana. \n \n Burns said he didn\u2019t know what the street value of the marijuana in the joint, nor its exact weight or length. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t know if there is a precise measurement,\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cIt certainly would be safe to say several feet long.\u201d \n \n \n \n For the record, 4:46 p.m., April 24: A previous version of this post said incorrectely that Bob Marley sang \"Smoke Two Joints.\" \n \n \n \n \n \n Los Angeles has worst traffic in nation, report says \n \n Family tied up, beaten in Toluca Lake home-invasion robbery \n \n Man barricades himself inside San Pedro residence, SWAT responds \n \n Twitter: @LATimesHekutor \n \n hector.becerra@latimes.com ||||| 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": "\u2013 No, we didn't write that headline while stoned. California police actually did confiscate a mammoth joint during a 4/20 pot rally on Saturday, reports the Los Angeles Times. As the paper notes, hundreds of UC Santa Cruz students gather each year for the event, and each year campus police confiscate things like bongs and dime bags. But Gennady Tsarinsky took things to a whole new level: what police say was a four-foot-long, two-pound joint. The 25-year-old was arrested and charged with possessing more than an ounce of pot\u2014which happens to be California's limit for medical marijuana users. A video of the bust posted by LiveLeak shows a cop carrying the joint (which is bigger than a loaf of French bread) and a seemingly incredulous Tsarinsky: \"Dude, you're a liar. You're a liar,\" he's recorded as saying. \"I can't wait to see you in court. I can show how you\u2019re harassing me.\""}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| At this point in the story of the internet, it\u2019s essentially routine for trolls on social media to capitalize on news events to spread fake, racially motivated, or anti-progressive rumors. This fake trolling has the effect of distorting reality, catering to middle America\u2019s worst fears about people of other races and political beliefs, and making progressive political movements seem more extreme than they actually are. \n \n And now, it could have an effect on the opening-weekend box office for Marvel\u2019s long-awaited Black Panther. \n \n Related Black Panther is a joyous game changer for Marvel \n \n On social media, racist trolls are currently attempting to fake a battle that isn\u2019t happening by stealing photos, many of assault victims, from various parts of the internet and claiming they\u2019re evidence of attacks by black moviegoers during Thursday night showings of Black Panther. \n \n In one tweet, Twitter user Hardcorial stole selfies which were shared online in 2016 by a woman attempting to speak out about her abuse. The Twitter user claimed to have been \u201cbrutally attack\u201d [sic] by \u201cblack thugs\u201d while attending, \u201cbecause they said whites weren\u2019t allowed to watch the movie.\u201d This never happened. \n \n Another troll used a screencap of actor Steven Yun in a scene from The Walking Dead: \n \n My friend and I went to the #BlackPanther premier and he was brutally beaten for \u201cnot belonging there\u201d by an angry group who did not have tickets. Very sad, night ruined pic.twitter.com/Con2bmU2Ag \u2014 . (@WHIT3IV3RS0N_) February 16, 2018 \n \n The images being used to perpetrate the hoax occupy a wide range. One troll tweet used a random clip of K-Pop group BlackPink; another used fictional images from a 2013 Serbian video meant to raise awareness of domestic violence. \n \n But most fakes seem to be co-opting images of real violence. As documented in this tweet, one now-suspended Twitter account used a viral photo from January of a Swedish woman who was brutally attacked after resisting sexual assault; another since-suspended account used a stock image of a bloodied paper towel. Another Twitter user claimed to have witnessed an assault at the movie: \n \n \u201cWent to the #BlackPanther premier tonight and my wife was assaulted. Three black women approached us and one said \u201cThis movie ain\u2019t for you white b****\u201d and then attacked her. Security escorted us to the parking lot and we left. We just wanted to see a movie.\u201d \n \n The photo the troll used to illustrate the tweet, however, was a photo of Colbie Holderness, the ex-wife of former White House staffer Rob Porter, who resigned following accusations of domestic abuse. The photo was documentation of Porter\u2019s alleged battery of Holderness while they were married. \n \n Naturally, the fake trolling has since spawned parody trolling \u2014 the Walking Dead tweet above may also be an example of this \u2014 a hopeful sign that these false accusations of racially motivated violence toward white Black Panther viewers are being recognized for the lies they are. \n \n Was at the #BlackPanther premiere but a group of black youths said this movie wasnt for spoilt milk Mayo crackers ...I am white. They then proceeded to assault me. Im heading to the ER now.Z pic.twitter.com/qilUc5kCbe \u2014 freeponyrides (@3freeponyrides) February 16, 2018 \n \n However, as BuzzFeed noted, at least one troll has also tried to reverse the tactic by claiming a fake assault by white men \u201cin MAGA hats\u201d at a showing of the movie, which is also a lie. \n \n Meanwhile, there seems to be a real fear on the part of some moviegoers that black viewers could be targeted by white supremacists while attending the film. \n \n I want y\u2019all to be extra careful in the theaters this weekend. CAREFUL. \u2014 Questlove Gomez (@questlove) February 16, 2018 \n \n Black people around the United States, be very very careful at these movie screenings for Black Panther. These white supremacists are emboldened by this #NikolasCruz terror attack #practiceyour2ndamendmentrights \u2014 Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) February 15, 2018 \n \n This fear is not coming out of nowhere: Black Panther\u2019s opening weekend follows the deadliest school shooting in five years. In 2012, a mass shooting occurred at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater during the opening weekend of The Dark Knight Rises. And in a tense and ideologically polarized moment, Black Panther, a movie set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, is becoming heavily politicized. \n \n Black Panther is already breaking box-office records, and its success could be a game changer for films with diverse casts built around black leads. It\u2019s possible the trolling is an attempt to scare people away from the theaters and cut into the movie\u2019s bankroll \u2014 or it could be yet another example of trolling being used to create a disruptive and ever-more-extreme political environment. \n \n That\u2019s why it\u2019s good to get in the habit of being skeptical online. Always stop and do a reverse image search on any incendiary or inflammatory image you run across online, especially if it seems too awful (or too good) to be true. A reverse image search allows you to look up the original source for an image, if it previously existed on the internet. \n \n Google\u2019s reverse image search is the most popular, and if you\u2019re using Google\u2019s Chrome browser you can easily perform such a search by right-clicking on any image you see while browsing the web. Another popular reverse image search is Tin Eye, which will let you search stock image databases and can help you identify the earliest-known source for a photo. \n \n So put on your critical thinking cap and don\u2019t let the trolls scare you. Black Panther, currently sitting at a 98 percent critical approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is by all accounts worth the trip to the theater. \n \n Update: This article has been updated to reflect that previous reports that the Parkland shooter was a white supremacist appear to have been false. ||||| In one image, a user shared an actual photo of former White House staffer Rob Porter's ex-wife sporting a black eye with the caption: \"Went to the #BlackPanther premier tonight and my wife was assaulted. Three black women approached us and one said 'This movie ain't for you white b****' and then attacked her. Security escorted us to the parking lot and we left. We just wanted to see a movie.\" ||||| Trolls on Twitter are trying to stoke outrage by making false claims of racially motivated assaults at screenings of. For example, the photo in this tweet actually shows a 19-year-old Swedish woman who was assaulted at a bar last month. \n \n It has nothing to do with the film. \n \n Some trolls are using images of battered women to make their false claims. This tweet includes photos of an 18-year-old woman who was locked in an apartment by her boyfriend and assaulted for four hours . He later pled guilty to two charges of assault. \n \n This troll account used a photo of the ex-wife of former White House staffer Rob Porter \n \n Here's a sample of the other kinds of tweets sent by the same account... \n \n This Twitter user used a photo from 2009 to make a false claim about being assaulted at a showing. It's generated over 400 retweets. \n \n Fortunately, many people on Twitter are calling out these false claims. \n \n Fake posts are being created to make black people look bad and the sad part of it is some people will believe them\u2026 https://t.co/WnhyinOrrw \n \n This Twitter user went viral by calling out some of the fakes. \n \n There's a bunch of people on here posting fake assault pictures and saying it was black teens at #BlackPanther showings. God I hate people. \n \n And a lot of people are outraged by this attempt to create division. \n \n Unfortunately, the fake tweets keep coming. This account used the name and photo of Paul Nehlen, a racist and anti-Semitic man in Wisconsin who is trying to defeat Rep. Paul Ryan in a Republican primary there. Nehlen's Twitter account was recently banned \n \n The photo this tweet used is actually taken from a viral 2013 video made in Serbia that used special effects makeup to raise awareness about spousal abuse \n \n This tweet made a false claim of an assault while including a video from a South Korean pop group called BlackPink \n \n Some troll accounts also tried to circulate claims that people in MAGA hats were attacking theatergoers at Black Panther screenings. Also not true. \n \n Remember: If you see an image online and want to check where it came from, do a reverse image search. If you use Chrome as your browser, just right click on an image and select \"Search Google for Image.\" \n \n It's free and fast, and will help you fight back against fakes.", "summary": "\u2013 Reason number 149,684,594 the internet should be burned to the ground: Trolls on social media are using photos of actual victims of domestic violence to make false claims that white people are being targeted in racially motivated attacks at Black Panther screenings. BuzzFeed reports one photo shared on Twitter is actually an 18-year-old woman who was assaulted by her boyfriend for hours on end; he later pled guilty. Another shows the ex-wife of former White House aide Rob Porter who has accused him of domestic violence. \"Fake posts are being created to make black people look bad and the sad part of it is some people will believe them,\" the New York Daily News quotes one disappointed Twitter user as saying. Other images used by trolls include a young Swedish woman who was assaulted at a bar in January, a years-old stock photo, and a still from a 2013 video that used special-effects makeup to raise awareness about domestic violence. Vox advises readers to use Google's reverse image search function before believing everything they see online. \"It\u2019s possible the trolling is an attempt to scare people away from the theaters and cut into the movie\u2019s bankroll\u2014or it could be yet another example of trolling being used to create a disruptive and ever-more-extreme political environment,\" the website states. In related news, a number of Twitter users, including Questlove of the Roots, appear genuinely concerned white supremacists could target Black Panther screenings this weekend. (Meanwhile film critics say the hype is real and Black Panther is fantastic.)"}
{"document": "The midday assault came more than 24 hours after a militant group, which the Algerians said had ties to jihadis in the region, ambushed a bus carrying gas-field workers to a nearby airport and then commandeered the compound. It was one of the boldest abductions of foreign workers in years. \n \n The abductions were meant to avenge France \u2019s armed intervention in neighboring Mali, Mr. Oubla\u00efd said, a conflict that has escalated since French warplanes began striking Islamist fighters who have carved out a vast haven there. \n \n On Thursday, the United States became more deeply involved in the war, working with the French to determine how to best deploy American C-5 cargo planes to ferry French troops and equipment into Mali, according to an American military official. \n \n The United States has long been wary about stepping more directly into the Mali conflict, worried that it could provoke precisely the kind of anti-Western attack that took place in Algeria, with deadly consequences. After the raid to free the hostages, the Algerians acknowledged a price had been paid. \n \n Photo \n \n \u201cThe operation resulted in the neutralization of a large number of terrorists and the liberation of a considerable number of hostages,\u201d said Mr. Oubla\u00efd, the communications minister. \u201cUnfortunately, we deplore also the death of some, as well as some who were wounded.\u201d \n \n Algerian national radio described a scene of pandemonium and high alert at the public hospital in the town of In Amenas, where wounded and escaped hostages were sent. The director of the hospital, Dr. Shahir Moneir, said in the report that wounded foreign hostages were transferred to the capital, Algiers. \n \n In a telephone interview from the hospital, one of the Algerians who had been held captive, who identified himself as Mohamed Elias, said some of the hostages had exploited the chaos created by the Algerian assault to flee. \u201cWe used the opportunity,\u201d he said, \u201cand we just escaped.\u201d \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Senior American military officials said that aides traveling in London with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta were struggling to get basic information about the raid, and that an unarmed American Predator drone was monitoring the gas-field site. \n \n One senior official said that possibly seven to eight Americans were among the hostages \u2014 the first official indication of the number of Americans involved \u2014 and that he did not know if any had been killed in the raid. \n \n Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said his office had not been told ahead of time, an implicit criticism of the Algerian government. A spokesman said that Mr. Cameron had learned of the raid through Britain\u2019s own intelligence sources and that \u201cthe Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance.\u201d \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Mr. Cameron told reporters the situation was \u201cvery dangerous\u201d as he and other British officials appeared to prepare for bad news. The gravity of the crisis prompted him to cancel plans to deliver a major speech in Amsterdam . \n \n Japan also expressed strong concern, saying Algeria had failed not only to advise of the operation ahead of time, but to heed its request to halt the operation because it was endangering the hostages. \n \n \u201cWe asked Algeria to put human lives first and asked Algeria to strictly refrain,\u201d the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, quoted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as telling his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmalek Sellal, by telephone late Thursday. \n \n The situation is \u201cvery confused,\u201d President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande of France said at a news conference in Paris and was \u201cevolving hour by hour.\u201d Mr. Hollande gave the first official confirmation that French citizens were among the captives. \n \n Photo \n \n A European diplomat who was involved in the effort to coordinate a Western response to the hostage seizure said that the information available to the United States, France and Britain had been \u201cconfusing at best, and sometimes contradictory.\u201d \n \n Several Western officials complained that the Algerians appeared to have taken none of the usual care exercised to minimize casualties when trying to free hostages. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n \u201cThey care deeply about their sovereign rights,\u201d said the European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter\u2019s delicacy. \n \n Even before reports of the Algerian military\u2019s raid began to emerge, many hostages \u2014 Algerian and foreign \u2014 were reported to have escaped as the kidnappers failed to persuade the Algerian authorities to give them safe passage with their captives. \n \n The Algerian news site T.S.A. quoted a local official, Sidi Knaoui, as saying that 10 foreigners and 40 Algerians had managed to flee after the kidnappers made several attempts to leave with the hostages. \n \n Ireland confirmed that an Irish citizen, Stephen McFaul, had escaped. The man had contacted his family and was \u201cunderstood to be safe and well and no longer a hostage,\u201d Irish officials said. \n \n Earlier, a French TV station, France 24, quoted an unidentified hostage as saying the attackers \u201cthreatened to blow up the gas field.\u201d \n \n Algeria\u2019s interior minister, Daho Ould Kablia, said the seizure of the gas field had been overseen by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and had reportedly established his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other Qaeda leaders. \n \n The description of the leader was one of the most specific pieces of information given by the Algerians on a day of vague and contradictory accounts of the abduction and raid. Well into the night, officials warned that hostages were still being held inside the compound and that the crisis remained unresolved. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a painful situation. It\u2019s not over,\u201d said a senior Algerian official. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many are left in there. No numbers. None at all. Nothing is certain.\u201d ||||| Thirty-four hostages and 15 kidnappers have been killed in eastern Algeria after the military launched a rescue attempt, according to the group holding the hostages. \n \n Thursday's reported deaths came a day after dozens of foreigners and Algerians were taken hostage by heavily armed fighters near the In Amenas gas field. \n \n The fighters said they seized the hostages in retaliation for Algeria letting France use its airspace to launch operations against rebels in northern Mali , but security experts said the raid appeared to have been planned well in advance. \n \n Algeria's Communication Minister Mohamed Said confirmed that hostages had been killed or wounded in an ongoing army assault. \n \n \"The operation is ongoing,\" he said, speaking on national television in the first official comment on the rescue operation. \n \n The minister said \"several people\" were killed or wounded, adding that an \"important number\" of hostages were freed. \n \n The spokesman for the Masked Brigade, which had claimed responsibility for the abductions on Wednesday, told Mauritanian ANI news agency that the deaths were a result of a government helicopter attack on a convoy transporting hostages and kidnappers. \n \n The official Algerian APS news agency said nearly 600 Algerian workers and four foreign hostages - two Britons, a Frenchman and a Kenyan - had been freed during the operation. \n \n The Irish foreign ministry said an Irish man had also been freed. \n \n Refusal to negotiate \n \n The Masked Brigade spokesman said Abou el-Baraa, the leader of the kidnappers, was among those killed in the helicopter attack. He said the fighters would kill the rest of their captives if the army approached. \n \n Algeria has refused to negotiate with what it says is a band of about 20 fighters. \n \n \n \n Youcef Bouandel, professor of International Affairs, talks to Al Jazeera about the crisis \n \n Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould dismissed theories that the fighters had come from Libya, 100km away, or from Mali, more than 1,000km away. He said the well-armed gunmen were from Algeria itself, operating under orders from Moktar Belmoktar, al-Qaeda's strongman in the Sahara. \n \n ANI, which has been in constant contact with the al-Qaeda-affiliated kidnappers, said seven hostages were still being held: two Americans, three Belgians, one Japanese and one British citizen. \n \n Norwegians, French, Romanian and Malaysian citizens were also among those taken hostage. \n \n The White House said it believed Americans were among the hostages and was concerned about reports of loss of life. \n \n \"This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity,\" spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. \n \n Japanese critical \n \n Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Minoru Kiuchi, who is now in Algeria, urged the Algerian government to put an \"immediate end\" to the military operation. \n \n Britain was not given prior notice of the Algerian government operation to release hostages and would have \n \n preferred to have been informed, Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said. \n \n A Briton was among two people killed on Wednesday, after fighters launched an ambush of a bus carrying employees from the gas plant to the nearby airport. \n \n The In Amenas gas field is jointly operated by British oil giant BP, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's Sonatrach. \n \n France launched a major offensive against the rebel group Ansar al-Dine in Mali on January 11 to prevent them from advancing on the capital, Bamako. \n \n Algeria had long warned against military intervention against the rebels, fearing the violence could spill over the border. \n \n Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan, following the hostage situation from London, said Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has allied himself with the West in the fight against al-Qaeda. \n \n \"As recently as last year it seemed that he was turning the last stronghold of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the mountains up in the north where the Berber people are natives, against those Arabs that have been coming in from outside,\" he said. \"The Algerian authorities have been enjoying significant successes in targeting al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leaders.\" ||||| The attack on the Algerian gas field has raised fears of the conflict in Mali becoming an international battle bleeding across the porous borders of the Sahel and Sahara region. \n \n It also presents a major challenge to the military-dominated regime in Algiers \u2013 still in the shadow of a decade of bloody civil war \u2013 which had been accused of having an ambiguous stance towards the Mali crisis. \n \n Algeria will now firmly be dragged into resolving the Mali conflict, while also dealing with the return of major action by Islamist groups on its home turf. \n \n The hostage-taking has spelled out the complexities of the unrest in the Sahel: a tangled mix of communal tensions, economic struggle, desertification, poverty, criminality, kidnapping and smuggling, which shifts seamlessly across borders. \n \n With six days of French airstrikes failing to erode the Islamist gains in Mali, French special forces prepared to launch a land assault on Wednesday around Diabaly, 250 miles (450 km) from the capital. \n \n France's aim is to secure the vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance, which combines al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) \u2013 the terrorist network's north African wing \u2013 with Mali's homegrown Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mojwa) and Ansar Dine rebel groups. But the Algerian hostage drama at the BP oilfield far away to the north at the Algerian-Libyan border marks a turning point and a widening of the game. \n \n Attacks on oil-rich Algeria's hydrocarbon facilities are very rare, despite the country's decades of fighting an Islamist insurgency, mostly in the north. \n \n Jon Marks, associate fellow at Chatham House, London's leading foreign affairs thinktank, said: \"The attack is remarkable for a number of reasons. \n \n \"If you look at Algeria's conflict of the 1990s, out of which AQIM sprang, the major oil and gas fields of the deep south, a strategic interest to Europe, were not attacked. Even in Algeria's bloody history, this is the first time there has been major attack on a hydrocarbon facility. \n \n \"It shows the degree to which the events in Mali are an international Sahel and Sahara-wide issue. These groups are international: including Malians, people who came from the Libya conflict, but also from Algeria and Mauritania.\" \n \n He said the attack showed how deep-rooted those groups were. \"The groups we are now calling AQIM, that the French military are targeting, have roots going back decades in the region. They have been involved in cigarette smuggling, electronic goods smuggling, guns, drugs, a lot of criminality.\" \n \n He described it as a potent \"interface\" where criminality meets politics in an area that is \"more and more desperate\". \n \n Algeria, the region's economic and military powerhouse where the regime of generals holds firm despite the Arab spring elsewhere, had been a major opponent of foreign armed intervention in Mali, preferring negotiations. \n \n Until now, it fiercely clung to its policy of non-intervention in its neighbours. But has now opened its airspace to the French air force, a historic event, and vowed to secure its vast desert border with Mali, an undertaking commentators say is almost impossible in the poorly patrolled desert wastes. \n \n Although an ally of the US and France in fighting terrorism for years, Algeria has been accused by some of playing a double game in the Sahel where Islamist groups have flourished since the country's bloody war of independence. The regime's involvement in Mali and the Sahel will now become more of a focus, as the conflict looks likely to be drawn out. \n \n A poll on Wednesday found 64% of French people felt the Mali intervention would increase the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil, and armed patrols were in force at potential targets such as the Eiffel Tower. \n \n France had been acutely aware that hostage-taking in the Sahel would be the key immediate risk of its sudden Mali intervention. \n \n Unlike Algerian terrorist operations in the 1990s, AQIM has never struck on French soil. But the militant groups that seized control of northern Mali last year had targeted foreigners for years on their own turf. \n \n They already hold seven French hostages as well as four Algerian diplomats, seized several years ago. AQIM has made tens of millions of dollars from kidnapping Algerian businessmen or political figures for ransom, as well as foreigners. \n \n On the same day that France launched its sudden Mali intervention last week, it staged a rescue attempt of a French intelligence agent held for more than three years by rebels in Somalia, and referred by the fake name of Denis Allex. \n \n If the French rescue mission to save Allex was destined to deliver a warning against hostage-taking and head off reprisals against French hostages, the operation went spectacularly wrong. Two French soldiers died and the hostage was presumed to have been killed by his jailers during the failed assault. \n \n The French president, Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, was at pains once again on Wednesday to say France had \"no interest\" in Mali and was just \"serving peace\". Hollande emphasised his promise to break with murky post-colonial relations of the past. \n \n Mali is small beer within the wider context of French economic interests in west Africa, but Mali's neighbours are a different matter. Niger's uranium services one third of the French nuclear power stations which produce most of the country's electricity. \n \n It was in Niger that workers for French nuclear firm Areva were kidnapped in 2010, four are still held in the Sahel. Algeria \u2013 Africa's biggest country and France's biggest African economic partner \u2013 is a major exporter of oil and gas to Europe. The oil field hostage-taking shows the wider global interests that could now come into play. ||||| Story highlights U.S. military plans to fly French troops to nations near Mali, an official says \n \n France has been helping Mali's government battle Islamist militants from its north \n \n Several other nations have vowed support for Mali \n \n French airstrikes have recently struck near the central town of Diabaly \n \n French warplanes pounded Islamist militant targets in Mali Thursday as international efforts to help the African nation's government fight insurgents gained momentum. \n \n For a fourth consecutive day, airstrikes hit in and around Diabaly -- a town in central Mali, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the capital of Bamako -- prompting men, women and children to flee or find cover, witnesses said. \n \n \"People are desperate to get out,\" said Ibrahim Toure, a civilian who left Diabaly on Thursday. \n \n French fighter jets targeted the town since Monday, after Islamist rebels settled in a military camp on its outskirts that had been abandoned by Malian soldiers. \n \n The Islamists told Diabaly's residents they could stay, and they prevented some from leaving, said Cheick Oumar, a construction worker in the town. \n \n JUST WATCHED Is al Qaeda close to calling Mali home? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Is al Qaeda close to calling Mali home? 02:19 \n \n JUST WATCHED French 'liberators' welcomed in Mali Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH French 'liberators' welcomed in Mali 02:34 \n \n JUST WATCHED Hostage son: I'll never let him go back Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hostage son: I'll never let him go back 00:52 \n \n \"People are left without protection,\" he said. \"The rebels say they will not hurt anyone, but people are afraid they will turn Diabaly into a new Islamist stronghold and impose Sharia law.\" \n \n Mali had been one of the most successful democracies in Africa until last year, when a coup toppled the president and Islamists capitalized on the chaos by establishing themselves in the north. \n \n There, they imposed a strict interpretation of Sharia law by banning music, smoking, drinking and watching sports on television. They also damaged Timbuktu's historic tombs and shrines. \n \n The International Criminal Court has launched a war-crimes investigation amid reports that residents have been mutilated and killed for disobeying the Islamists. The United Nations has noted accounts of amputations, floggings and public executions such as the July stoning of a couple who had reportedly had an affair. \n \n As the rebels moved southward toward Bamako, such reports prompted an international response, led by the French. \n \n In addition to sending its warplanes, the French have stationed about 1,400 troops inside Mali in \"Operation Serval.\" \n \n Europe's largest powers appeared united in their goal of removing al Qaeda-linked militants from the West African nation, where Islamist rebels are fighting to form their own territory in the north. This effort gained renewed urgency after militants -- upset at Algeria for allowing warplanes to use its airspace to launch attacks in Mali -- took hostage scores of Algerian and foreign workers at an Algerian gas facility about 60 kilometers (about 40 miles) west of the Libyan border. \n \n Nations including Germany, Belgium and Canada have pledged to contribute transport planes. Others, such as Italy, are promising \"logistical support\" for the operation. \n \n The United States is supporting the French-led effort in Mali \"with intelligence and airlift,\" said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. \n \n The plan is for U.S. military aircraft, accompanied by U.S. military security forces, to fly French troops and equipment into a neighboring country -- because the airport in Bamako is \"very busy\" -- after which they can move on the ground, a U.S. defense official said. \n \n Washington has not decided whether to grant French requests for surveillance and aerial refueling services, the official said. \n \n By this weekend, U.S. trainers will be in Africa \"to offer pre-deployment training and sustainment packages\" for troops from African nations who are heading to Mali. \n \n In response to a request for help from Malian authorities, European Union foreign ministers agreed Thursday on a mission to train Mali's army, the EU said. The mission is to include instructors, support staff and force protection for 15 months, it added. The agency has said about 450 non-combat troops will be launched, perhaps by next month. \n \n French President Francois Hollande has said it was a \"necessary decision\" to enter the country. \n \n \"There are terrorist networks which, following what happened in Libya last year, have installed themselves in a large part of West Africa and are trying to destabilize the area and are involved in trafficking,\" he said Thursday. \"Our duty is to put an end to this, and France assumes its responsibility.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Some 35 hostages and 15 Islamist militants in the Algerian crisis have reportedly been killed in a helicopter attack launched by the Algerian military, reports the AP. Those numbers, however, were released by the militants, who also announced that seven of the 41 hostages taken, including two Americans, are still alive. An Algerian official had said earlier that 20 foreign hostages had escaped before the raid. Confused by the dubious math? As Francois Holland said at a press conference today, the situation is \"very confused.\" Al-Jazeera reports that the dead include lead kidnapper Abu Al Baraa. His group says the deaths occurred as they tried to leave the remote Sahara gas plant with their hostages. CNN reports that the militants, who attacked workers as they rode a bus early yesterday, had initially sought safe passage to Libya, which is 40 miles away from the facility, but an Algerian official said no dice: \"We have received their demands, but we didn't respond to them.\" While the attackers say they're responding to France's actions in Mali, British foreign secretary William Hague has raised doubts: \"That is a convenient excuse, but usually operations like this take longer to plan.\" Still, the crisis could be a bad omen for similar attacks across the region, notes the Guardian."}
{"document": "Hi I'm the driving force behind collegiate rape culture and I should be banned from campus Posted by Ian Oliver on Saturday, August 22, 2015 \n \n ____ \n \n NORFOLK \n \n ODU President John Broderick said students could face disciplinary action after a photo of sexually suggestive banners welcoming freshmen women to Old Dominion University sparked a furor on social media Saturday. \n \n The three signs at the house, which have been taken down, read: \u201c Rowdy and fun. Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time \u2026\u201d, \u201cFreshman daughter drop off\u201d with an arrow pointed to the front door and \u201cGo ahead and drop off mom too \u2026\u201d \n \n Freshmen spent much of the past few days moving in. \n \n On Twitter and the university\u2019s Facebook page Saturday, many people expressed outrage over the sentiment. \n \n ODU shared a statement on Facebook from Ellen Neufeldt, vice president of student engagement and enrollment services: \u201cMessages like the ones displayed yesterday by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not be tolerated. The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed.\u201d \n \n Late Saturday night, ODU President John Broderick emailed students and faculty to express his dismay and reiterated \"there is zero tolerance on this campus for sexaul assault and sexual harassment.\" \n \n \"This incident confirms our collective efforts are still failing to register with some,\" he wrote. \n \n He also said any student found to have violated the code of conduct would face disciplinary action. \n \n A message from Vice President of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services Ellen Neufeldt: \"Messages like the ones... Posted by Old Dominion University on Saturday, August 22, 2015 \n \n On Saturday afternoon, spray paint that matched the signs was visible on the driveway of a house in the 1500 block of W. 43rd St., presumably where the paint bled through the banners. The house, across the street from campus, appeared to be the same one pictured in the photograph that circulated on the web. \n \n A man at the house Saturday who declined to be identified said the signs were never hung there. When a reporter pointed out the spray paint on the driveway, he admitted the signs were made there but insisted they were hung at a different house on the street. \n \n A half hour later, the wayward spray paint in the driveway was covered by plywood. \n \n Katie Vizzi, a 20-year-old international business finance major, saw the banners hanging Friday afternoon as she drove home from her job as a nanny. \n \n \u201cIt was pretty trashy,\u201d she said. \n \n Especially, Vizzi said, because seeing the signs might be the first experience parents might have with the university. \n \n Neufeldt\u2019s statement said the banners \u201care not representative of our 3,000 faculty and staff, 25,000 students and our 130,000 alumni.\u201d \n \n The post linked to a video in which young people in ODU clothing, presumably students, discussed rape culture, saying victims should not be blamed. The video ended with the group saying \u201cit\u2019s on us to stop sexual assault.\u201d ||||| Related Coverage Students react to Welcome Week banners at OSU \n \n NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) \u2014 Viewers contacted 10 On Your Side after they saw upsetting signs hanging from a home just outside the Old Dominion University campus. \n \n In a photo posted on WAVY\u2019s Facebook page, the signs appear to be hanging from the home\u2019s second story balcony and read \u201cRowdy and fun. Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,\u201d another with an arrow pointing to the home\u2019s front door said \u201cFreshmen daughter drop off,\u201d and a third painted on what appears to be a large white sheet says, \u201cGo ahead and drop off mom too.\u201d \n \n \u201cI think the perception that was there was that this is not a welcoming environment, and that we do not take an approach to combat sexual assault, which is not true,\u201d said Chris Ndiritu, student government president. \n \n WAVY.com reached out to ODU. The school\u2019s spokesperson, Giovanna Genard, confirms the signs were hanging from a private residence on 43rd Street in Norfolk. Genard also provided a statement from Ellen Nuefeldt, Vice President of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services. \n \n \u201cMessages like the ones displayed [Friday] by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not tolerated. The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed. At ODU, we foster a community of respect and dignity and these messages sickened us. They are not representative of our 3,000 faculty and staff, 25,000 students and our 130,000 alumni. \n \n ODU is a community that works actively to promote bystander intervention and takes a stand denouncing violence against women. The \u201cIt\u2019s on Us\u201d video is just one example of ODU students\u2019 leadership on this topic. \n \n In addition, the University ensures all students receive education on the prevention of sexual harassment and relationship violence.\u201d \n \n The President of ODU, John R. Broderick, sent WAVY.com this statement Saturday night, which was sent to all faculty, staff and students: \n \n Dear Colleague: I am outraged about the offensive message directed toward women that was visible for a time on 43rd Street. Our students, campus community and alumni have been offended. While we constantly educate students, faculty and staff about sexual assault and sexual harassment, this incident confirms our collective efforts are still failing to register with some. A young lady I talked to earlier today courageously described the true meaning of the hurt this caused. She thought seriously about going back home. But she was heartened, she explained, when she saw how fellow students were reacting to this incident on social media. She realized this callous and senseless act did not reflect the Old Dominion she has come to love. The Student Government Association has recently developed the \u201cMonarchs Raising Up\u201d campaign educating our students on prevention of sexual and relationship violence, bystander intervention, and off-campus responsible behavior. Through video, online and in-person content, we layer education on these topics for all of our students throughout the year. All new freshman just received education this weekend on preventing discrimination and sexual assault in sessions we call \u201cFirst Class.\u201d Here is a link to a video from our student leaders responding to this event\u2013just one example of how Old Dominion University students take a stand every day in regards to respecting each other and promoting responsible behavior: https://youtu.be/NC72ruvRtdY I said at my State of the University address that there is zero tolerance on this campus for sexual assault and sexual harassment. This incident will be reviewed immediately by those on campus empowered to do so. Any student found to have violated the code of conduct will be subject to disciplinary action. Sincerely, John R. Broderick President \n \n According to the ODU website, this weekend is freshmen move-in weekend. ||||| The link you followed may have expired, or the Facebook Page may only be visible to an audience you're not in. ||||| Freshman women at Old Dominion University were given a very special welcome last week when they arrived on campus: Large banners that read \u201cRowdy and fun/Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,\u201d \u201cFreshman daughter drop off,\u201d and \u201cGo ahead and drop off mom too.\u201d Photos of the helpful offers to fornicate with women across multiple generations in the university community have since gone viral. \n \n ODU\u2019s administration responded to the signage on August 22, issuing the following statement: \n \n \n \n \u201cMessages like the ones displayed yesterday by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not [be] tolerated. The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed. At ODU, we foster a community of respect and dignity, and these messages sickened us. They are not representative of our 3,000 faculty and staff, 25,000 students, and 130,000 alumni. \n \n Ours is a community that works actively to promote bystander intervention and takes a stand denouncing violence against women. The \u2018It\u2019s on Us\u2019 video is just one example of ODU students\u2019 leadership on this topic. In addition, the University ensures all students receive education on the prevention of sexual harassment and relationship violence.\u201d \n \n Ellen Neufeldt, Vice President of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services signed her name to this statement. \n \n That same day, Old Dominion\u2019s Student Government Association also issued their own verbal condemnation of the incident. They filmed a video directly addressing the banners and stated: \n \n \u201cAn incident occurred this weekend that does not reflect the University\u2019s commitment to the prevention of Sexual Assault and Dating Violence. Not only do these actions taken by a few individuals undermine the countless efforts at Old Dominion University to prevent sexual assault, they are also unwelcoming, offensive, and unacceptable. Over the past year, our community, partners, faculty/staff, and student leaders have stood side-by-side to inform and educate our campus on Sexual Assault prevention. This issue is not new, rather, it is one that continues to be prevalent around the world. It is very important for all of us to take action and be part of the solution! These actions do not reflect the students\u2019 views at Old Dominion University. We encourage YOU to continue to raise awareness, hold each other accountable, take care of one another, and be responsible citizens of the Monarch Community.\u201d \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n At roughly 9 p.m. on the same day, university president John Broderick sent a message to the university community\u2014also posted to ODU\u2019s Facebook page\u2014emphasizing his outrage over the banners. He concludes with the suggestion that disciplinary action may be taken, though it\u2019s unclear how this behavior will be assessed in the context of the school\u2019s code of conduct: \n \n \u201cI said at my State of the University address that there is zero tolerance on this campus for sexual assault and sexual harassment. This incident will be reviewed by those on campus empowered to do so. Any student found to have violated the code of conduct will be subject to disciplinary action.\u201d \n \n \n \n The tipster who sent us a link to one of the originating Facebook post complained that the homemade signage was draped across the balcony of a house where members of a fraternity live. While the house responsible was unidentified in the post, a source on campus told us that several members of Sigma Nu live there. For comparison, here is a photograph from the chapter\u2019s Instagram account (which they\u2019ve since made private). The photo is also used as the header photo in the fraternity\u2019s official Twitter account: \n \n Advertisement \n \n Sigma Nu\u2019s official \u201cvision\u201d is \u201cExcelling with Honor,\u201d their values \u201cLove, Honor, Truth.\u201d \n \n I called the number listed on the Sigma Nu chapter\u2019s Facebook page, hoping to get a statement from the brotherhood. But when I asked if I had reached the chapter\u2019s residence, the individual who answered the phone replied, \u201cNo.\u201d Fred Dobry, Sigma Nu\u2019s national Director of Risk Reduction suggested that Sigma Nu members who live in the house were not responsible for the banners outside of their house. He tells Jezebel, \n \n Sigma Nu Fraternity is investigating this matter, and based on what we know at this point, Fraternity members at ODU are not responsible for these offensive banners. While four members of the ODU chapter live in the building where the banners were displayed, initial information indicates individuals not associated with Sigma Nu Fraternity are responsible for the banners. Our investigation is continuing. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Reporters who physically visited the house were also given the dodge. Here\u2019s the Virginian-Pilot: \n \n On Saturday afternoon, spray paint that matched the signs was visible on the driveway of a house in the 1500 block of W. 43rd St., presumably where the paint bled through the banners. The house, across the street from campus, appeared to be the same one pictured in the photograph that circulated on the web. \n \n A man at the house Saturday who declined to be identified said the signs were never hung there. When a reporter pointed out the spray paint on the driveway, he admitted the signs were made there but insisted they were hung at a different house on the street. \n \n A half hour later, the wayward spray paint in the driveway was covered by plywood. \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n Despite the chapter\u2019s silence, on August 23, Jezebel received email confirmation from ODU Interfraternity Council President Michael Faust that \u201cseveral fraternity members\u201d\u2014the chapter was not named\u2014were responsible: \n \n \u201c...in response to the incident that occurred on Friday, August 21 in which several fraternity members placed highly offensive banners off their balcony, I would like to make a point that this was an embarrassing, unacceptable action that the general Greek community strongly denounces. The actions of these few fraternity members do not represent the values that they pledged to uphold. The Interfraternity Council\u2019s judicial board will review this incident.\u201d \n \n \n \n ODU student Mary Coleman, who originally posted the image to Facebook on Saturday afternoon, wrote in an email: \u201cI feel very strongly about how the attitude towards sexual assault on campuses is met with a slap on the wrist.\u201d She suggests that campus efforts do not reflect the media\u2019s burgeoning focus on systemic sexual violence: \u201cAs a woman, it\u2019s frustrating to see the media bring awareness to the issue and then witness something related in your own community/school and see that nothing is changing.\u201d \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n Coleman\u2019s original post inspired a thread of comments, including a response from the ODU Facebook account. One of the first people to share the photo, with the caption \u201cGotta love ODU,\u201d was Norfolk police officer Ryan Shepherd. \n \n Twitter\u2019s response to these signs has ranged from amusement: \n \n Advertisement \n \n To bewilderment: \n \n To outrage: \n \n Advertisement \n \n This isn\u2019t the first time, of course, that frat boys have shown their asses in such a fashion. In 2010, DKE pledges at Yale walked around campus chanting, \u201cNo means yes/ Yes means anal,\u201d which Anna North described at this website as a \u201ctransparent plea for attention.\u201d Texas Tech frat boys put up a similar sign last year. Over the summer, a Sigma Nu member at the University of Central Florida was caught on video chanting \u201cLet\u2019s rape some sluts,\u201d only months after being accused of sexual assault by a fellow UCF student. \n \n We\u2019re currently awaiting statements from Sigma Nu Fraternity and ODU\u2019s Interfraternity Council, and will keep you updated as things continue to develop. \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n Contact the author at rachel.vorona.cote@jezebel.com. \n \n Top Image from Facebook. Embedded Images and Screengrabs from Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. \n \n Advertisement ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video \n \n NORFOLK, Virginia \u2013 Old Dominion University officials took time from their weekend to respond to some banners hung up at an off-campus home that are upsetting many. \n \n \u201cAt ODU, we foster a community of respect and dignity and these messages sickened us,\u201d said ODU spokeswoman Giovanna Genard in a statement provided to NewsChannel 3. The signs displayed at a home on 43rd street had messages like: \n \n \u201cRowdy and Fun. Hope your baby girl is ready for a good \n \n time.\u201d \n \n time.\u201d \u201cFreshman daughter drop off.\u201d \n \n \u201cGo ahead and drop off mom too.\u201d \n \n WTKR reports ODU officials say they believe the people who live at the private residents are students and say they are investigating. The University sent this statement in full: \n \n \u201cMessages like the ones displayed yesterday by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not be tolerated. The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed. At ODU, we foster a community of respect and dignity and these messages sickened us. They are not representative of our 3,000 faculty and staff, 25,000 students and our 130,000 alumni. Ours is a community that works actively to promote bystander intervention and takes a stand denouncing violence against women. The \u201cIt\u2019s on Us\u201d video is just one example of ODU students\u2019 leadership on this topic. \n \n In addition, the University ensures all students receive education on the prevention of sexual harassment and relationship violence. Any student found to have violated the code of conduct will be subject to disciplinary action.\u201d \n \n The banners also prompted a response from ODU\u2019s Student Government Association: \n \n \u201cAn incident occurred this weekend that does not reflect the University\u2019s commitment to the prevention of Sexual Assault and Dating Violence. Not only do these actions taken by a few individuals undermine the countless efforts at Old Dominion University to prevent sexual assault, they are also unwelcoming, offensive, and unacceptable,\u201d said Chris Ndiritu, President of the Student Government Association. \n \n Students tell NewsChannel 3 there are Sigma Nu fraternity brothers that live in the home. \n \n ODU President John R. Broderick sent this message to faculty, staff and students: \n \n \n \n I am outraged about the offensive message directed toward women that was visible for a time on 43rd Street. Our students, campus community and alumni have been offended. While we constantly educate students, faculty and staff about sexual assault and sexual harassment, this incident confirms our collective efforts are still failing to register with some. A young lady I talked to earlier today courageously described the true meaning of the hurt this caused. She thought seriously about going back home. But she was heartened, she explained, when she saw how fellow students were reacting to this incident on social media. She realized this callous and senseless act did not reflect the Old Dominion she has come to love. The Student Government Association has recently developed the \u201cMonarchs Raising Up\u201d campaign educating our students on prevention of sexual and relationship violence, bystander intervention, and off-campus responsible behavior. Through video, online and in-person content, we layer education on these topics for all of our students throughout the year. All new freshman just received education this weekend on preventing discrimination and sexual assault in sessions we call \u201cFirst Class.\u201d Here is a link to a video from our student leaders responding to this event\u2013just one example of how Old Dominion University students take a stand every day in regards to respecting each other and promoting responsible behavior: \n \n Sincerely, \n \n John R. Broderick\u201d \u201cDear Colleague:I am outraged about the offensive message directed toward women that was visible for a time on 43rd Street. Our students, campus community and alumni have been offended. While we constantly educate students, faculty and staff about sexual assault and sexual harassment, this incident confirms our collective efforts are still failing to register with some. A young lady I talked to earlier today courageously described the true meaning of the hurt this caused. She thought seriously about going back home. But she was heartened, she explained, when she saw how fellow students were reacting to this incident on social media. She realized this callous and senseless act did not reflect the Old Dominion she has come to love. The Student Government Association has recently developed the \u201cMonarchs Raising Up\u201d campaign educating our students on prevention of sexual and relationship violence, bystander intervention, and off-campus responsible behavior. Through video, online and in-person content, we layer education on these topics for all of our students throughout the year. All new freshman just received education this weekend on preventing discrimination and sexual assault in sessions we call \u201cFirst Class.\u201d Here is a link to a video from our student leaders responding to this event\u2013just one example of how Old Dominion University students take a stand every day in regards to respecting each other and promoting responsible behavior: https://youtu.be/NC72ruvRtdY I said at my State of the University address that there is zero tolerance on this campus for sexual assault and sexual harassment. This incident will be reviewed immediately by those on campus empowered to do so. Any student found to have violated the code of conduct will be subject to disciplinary action.Sincerely,John R. Broderick\u201d ||||| Old Dominion University issued multiple statements and circulated two YouTube videos over the weekend after a group of students put up three banners decried as offensive and an example of rape culture. \n \n Three banners were displayed at a private, off-campus house in Norfolk, Virginia, reading \"Freshman Daughter Drop Off,\" with an arrow pointing at the front door, \"Go Ahead And Drop Off Mom Too ...\" and \"Rowdy And Fun, Hope Your Baby Girl Is Ready For A Good Time ...\" The students removed the banners after the university contacted them, school officials said. \n \n ODU President John R. Broderick said Sunday in a statement that he was \"outraged about the offensive message directed toward women,\" noting that multiple students also shared his disgust on social media. \n \n A Virginia man posted the photos Friday afternoon on Facebook. A screengrab captured by The Huffington Post is displayed below:", "summary": "\u2013 Students, college officials, and the public at large are infuriated after banners hung from a private house near Virginia's Old Dominion University \"welcomed\" this year's freshman class with banners described by WAVY as \"upsetting.\" A photo captured in a screengrab by the Huffington Post (which says it was originally posted on a Virginia man's Facebook page) that started circulating online Friday shows what appear to be three white sheets hanging from the second-story balcony of a Norfolk off-campus house, with the following messages scrawled on them: \"Rowdy and fun. Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,\" \"Freshmen daughter drop off\" (with a helpful arrow pointing down to the residence's front door), and \"Go ahead and drop off mom too.\" Sources have told both NewsChannel 13 and Jezebel that members of the Sigma Nu frat live in the house. (Jezebel only got official word from the head of ODU's Interfraternity Council that \"several\" members of an unnamed fraternity were responsible.) A school spokeswoman says the signs were hung from a residence on 43rd Street, and university officials are blasting the banners. \"The moment University staff became aware of these banners, they worked to have them removed. \u2026 These messages sickened us,\" a school VP said in a statement, per WAVY, while President John R. Broderick sent a message that read, \"I am outraged about the offensive message directed toward women that was visible for a time on 43rd Street. ... While we constantly educate students, faculty and staff about sexual assault and sexual harassment, this incident confirms our collective efforts are still failing to register with some.\" A Jezebel writer tried calling the number on the Sigma Nu house's Facebook page to see if it was the same house, but she appears to have gotten the runaround, as did a reporter from the Virginian-Pilot who went to a house on that block whose driveway had spray paint in it matching that of the banners."}
{"document": "BOSTON (CN) \u2013 Showcasing the diversity of Howard Stern\u2019s appeal, a woman suing the IRS says an agent who had been calling into the show inadvertently gave the shock jock and his listeners an earful of their conversation on a private tax matter. \n \n Judith Barrigas of Sandwich, Massachusetts, filed the federal complaint Monday in Boston, nearly two years after her debut on satellite radio left her in a state of humiliation and anxiety. \n \n She says it all started on May 19, 2015, when she called the IRS to discuss a private tax matter. During that 45-minute call with agent Jimmy Forsyth, Barrigas allegedly began receiving numerous text messages from unknown people because her call was being broadcast live on \u201cThe Howard Stern Show.\u201d \n \n In addition to her phone number, which Stern fans promptly began dialing up, Barrigas says other personal information she shared during the course of the call included her tax-return and -refund issues, and the details of a repayment plan for certain tax liabilities. \n \n Stern\u2019s program draws approximately 1.2 million listeners to SiriusXM every day. \n \n The shock jock apparently got access to the call because the agent with whom Barrigas was speaking, Jimmy Forsythe, was on hold with Stern when he took the Barrigas call on another line. \n \n \u201cMr. Stern and The Stern Show joked about the publication and broadcast of Mrs. Barrigas\u2019s tax and personal information and conversation with the IRS\u2019s Agent Forsythe and used the broadcast and the humiliation of Mrs. Barrigas as a source of amusement for their listeners,\u201d the complaint states. \n \n Barrigas says hundreds of thousands of people have heard her call already thanks to Stern, and that she received hundreds of phone calls about it in the days afterward, \u201cleaving Mrs, Barrigas in a frantic, high anxiety state.\u201d \n \n Despite her efforts to close this Pandora\u2019s box, according to the complaint, Stern left the episode up for weeks on his website. By now the call is all over the internet. \n \n Barrigas says the IRS was apparently planning to ignore her complaint altogether until she not reported the incident to the consumer helpline run by local news outlet WCVB-TV. \n \n \u201cOnly upon notice from WCVB did the IRS begin an investigation into the matter and place Agent Forsythe on administrative leave,\u201d the complaint states. \n \n Representatives for the IRS and Stern have not returned requests seeking comment. \n \n Barrigas is represented by Sol Cohen of Cohen & Sales in Waltham. She seeks punitive damages, alleging invasion of privacy, emotional distress and other claims. \n \n Like this: Like Loading... ||||| An IRS agent called in to the radio show and was put on hold. Then \u2026 \n \n Donald Trump never did sue The New York Times for revealing he took a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns. He threatened, but to date, no lawsuit has come. That leaves some unanswered questions about the legality of a media outlet disclosing one's tax information, since there are many statutes that broadly guard the confidentiality of tax returns. Can Howard Stern fill the void? \n \n On Monday, Stern was sued by a woman named Judith Barrigas, whose tax information was disseminated in the oddest way. \n \n According to her complaint filed in Massachusetts federal court, she called the IRS's service center on May 19, 2015, to discuss how the tax agency had applied prior year liabilities to her tax refund. She got connected to Jimmy Forsythe, an IRS agent. \n \n Before the two connected, Forsythe had called in to The Howard Stern Show using another phone line. While on hold, Forsythe took Barrigas' call and proceeded to spend 45 minutes with her discussing her tax case. Apparently, during this conversation, someone at Stern's show heard what was happening and decided to air the discussion live on satellite radio. \n \n \"While on the phone with Agent Forsythe, Mrs. Barrigas suddenly began to receive a barrage of text messages and phone calls from unknown callers/individuals,\" states the complaint. \"The text messages were informing Mrs. Barrigas that her personal information and phone number was being aired live on The Stern Show.\" \n \n The lawsuit says that the phone call in question can still be accessed on the internet, and after what happened, Forsythe was put on administrative leave. Barrigas claims the \"outrageous violation\" of her privacy has resulted in difficulty finding employment, anxiety, loss of sleep and irregular eating patterns. \n \n She is suing the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act and for an unlawful disclosure of her tax return. \n \n But she's also asserting negligence and an invasion of her privacy against Stern and his show. \n \n \"The defendants breached their duty of reasonable care by broadcasting the private phone conversation between Mrs. Barrigas and the IRS on May 19, 2015, and thereby publicly disseminating private tax return and identity information of Mrs. Barrigas\u2019s to over one million people worldwide,\" states the lawsuit demanding compensatory and punitive damages. \n \n In Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Supreme Court protected a radio broadcaster who disclosed the contents of an illegally intercepted communication. That case turned on a media outlet's lawful obtainment of tapes and the First Amendment. Here, the IRS agent called in, but arguably there wasn't much that was newsworthy about Barrigas' tax situation. Plus, it all happened live. \n \n Now Stern and the government under Trump are co-defendants in a suit over tax disclosures. THR will provide updates on this case as it develops. In the meantime, here's the full complaint.", "summary": "\u2013 Taxpayers who call the IRS for advice should have a reasonable expectation that their call will not be broadcast on Howard Stern's radio show, according to a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts this week. In the lawsuit, Judith Barrigas says she called the IRS to discuss a private tax matter in 2015, only to discover that IRS agent Jimmy Forsythe was on the phone to the satellite radio Howard Stern Show on another line during their 45-minute call\u2014and much of their conversation had been broadcast to the show's 1.2 million listeners, Courthouse News reports. Barrigas is suing both Stern and the IRS, saying personal information including her phone number and tax details were shared with Stern's listeners. \"While on the phone with Agent Forsythe, Mrs. Barrigas suddenly began to receive a barrage of text messages and phone calls from unknown callers/individuals,\" telling her that her phone number had been aired on Stern's show, the lawsuit states, per the Hollywood Reporter. It says someone from the Stern show heard the separate Barrigas-Forsythe conversation taking place and decided to air it. The show, the lawsuit alleges, \"used the broadcast and the humiliation of Mrs. Barrigas as a source of amusement for their listeners.\" Barrigas is seeking punitive damages for invasion of privacy. Forsythe was placed on administrative leave, per the lawsuit. (Stern is worried about his friend, the current president.)"}
{"document": "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered 755 US diplomats to leave the country in retaliation for Congress\u2019 approving new sanctions for Moscow\u2019s interference in the 2016 \n \n presidential election. \n \n \u201cWe waited for quite some time that maybe something will change for the better, had such hope that the situation will somehow change, but, judging by everything, if it changes, it will not be soon,\u201d Putin said in an interview on Russian television, according to Interfax news agency. \n \n \u200bPutin made good on a threat he issued on Friday when he said he would \u200bexpel 455 US diplomatic staff in Russia and seize two American properties after the Senate and the House voted overwhelmingly for new sanctions against Moscow. \n \n The diplomats have to leave Russia by Sept. 1. \n \n He said the ouster of the US diplomatic personnel will put the two former Cold War foes on equal footing. \n \n \u201cThe personnel of the U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia will be cut by 755 people and will now equal the number of the Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States, 455 people on each side,\u201d Putin said. \n \n The Russian president left open the possibility that he could take additional measures against the US. \n \n \u201cI am against it as of today,\u201d he said. \n \n \u200bEarlier Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, appearing on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d said retaliation is \u201clong, long overdue\u201d after the Senate \u201cvoted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation\u200b. I\u200bt was the last drop.\u201d \n \n Asked how Russia would strike back, Rybakov said the Kremlin has a long list of options. \n \n \u201cWe have a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen\u200b,\u201d he said, adding \u201cI can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.\u201d \n \n Russia has denied it meddled in the election despite the US intelligence community concluding otherwise. \n \n The Senate approved the bill by a 98-2 vote last week. The House previously approved the measure by a 419-3 margin. \n \n \u200bIt awaits President Trump\u2019s signature, and the White House said he \u201cintends\u201d to sign it.\u200b \n \n Russia has denied meddling in the election despite the US intelligence community concluding otherwise. \n \n A number of congressional panels \u2013 as well as the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller \u2013 are investigating Russian involvement and whether Trump associated colluded. \n \n Moscow is also still fuming over former President Obama\u2019s decision in December to oust 35 diplomats and seize two Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland and Long Island because of the Kremlin\u2019s involvement in the election. \n \n Still, Rybakov said he hopes that the US and Russia can find common ground on other issues. \n \n \u201cI believe there are several areas where the U.S. and Russia can and should work together cooperatively. Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, countering terrorism, illicit immigration, trafficking in people, climate change, you name it,\u201d \u200bhe said.", "summary": "\u2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin says the US embassy in Moscow will have to cut staff by 755 under new Russian sanctions, reports the AP. The move comes swiftly after the sanctions were overwhelmingly approved by Congress and the White House announced that President Trump intends to sign the legislation. The measure, which will limit Trump's ability to suspend sanctions, targets Russia for interfering in the 2016 US election and for military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. According to the New York Post, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said moving forward with such sanctions would cause retaliation. \u201cWe have a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen?,\u201d he said early Sunday on ABC\u2019s This Week. \u201cI can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.\u201d An official from the US Embassy in Moscow told the Post that there are currently around 1,100 diplomatic and support staff serving in Russia."}
{"document": "In the tissue-thin pages of \u201cThe Norton Anthology,\u201d the canon of world literature looks delicate and staid, but it\u2019s as violent a Darwinian contest as any fought in the primeval forest. Strong, adaptable stories survive; muddled, time-bound stories die. Eu\u00adripi\u00addes\u2019 \u201cMedea\u201d still roars over the millennia. George Lillo\u2019s \u201cThe London Merchant\u201d might have taken the 18th century by storm, but now it sleeps with the woolly mammoth. \n \n Sigmund Freud, in his foundational work \u201cThe Interpretation of Dreams,\u201d considered why, despite the passage of 2,500 years, \u201cOedipus Rex\u201d is still capable \u201cof moving modern men no less than it moved the contemporary Greeks.\u201d He speculated that \u201cthere must be a voice within us which is prepared to recognize the compelling power of fate in \u2018Oedipus.\u2019 \u201d He went on to recognize in this dysfunctional family \u2014 long before \u201cCougar Town\u201d came to ABC \u2014 a basic pattern of psychological development: a sexual desire for one\u2019s mother and a murderous rage against one\u2019s father. Psychology has evolved since those heady days in Vienna, but there\u2019s no denying the immutable terror of Sophocles\u2019 tragedy. Like other archetypal stories, it lends itself to creative retelling, restaging and reinterpretation. \n \n Which only adds to our eager anticipation of David Guterson\u2019s new novel, \u201cEd King,\u201d a modern-day version of \u201cOedipus Rex.\u201d In the three novels since his spectacularly successful debut, \u201cSnow Falling on Cedars\u201d (1994), Guterson has focused on alienated people driven into the woods by shame, or illness, or a thirst for the truth. The disgraced king of Thebes would seem to fit comfortably in that line of his tragic loners, and, indeed, there\u2019s something weirdly titillating about seeing the ancient details of Sophocles\u2019 story transferred to the late 20th century. But that titillation isn\u2019t enough to animate this ill-conceived novel, which somebody should have strangled at birth. \n \n The opening, though, when Guterson sets down the terms of his re-imagined tale, is perversely appealing. Walter Cousins is a philandering actuary who \u201cweighs risks for a living\u201d but now finds himself troubled by fate. With his wife in the hospital, he\u2019s left alone with his children\u2019s nanny, Diane, a flirtatious young Brit who was \u201ca drop-dead ringer for the sixteen-year-old Disney darling who\u2019d been in newspapers and magazines lately for turning down the lead role in \u2018Lolita.\u2019 \u201d On a family outing to the Fine Arts Pavilion one afternoon, they all stare at a painting called \u201cOedipus and the Sphinx.\u201d With those allusions firmly in place, events proceed apace in a sweaty-palmed narrative that finds 15-year-old Diane pregnant and Walter\u2019s life on the edge of ruin. \n \n This first section is far and away the most engaging, and the themes of risk, fate and family determinism all cleverly point toward trouble. Walter\u2019s panic tests his faith in statistics and his power to control events, and Diane\u2019s transformation from cute temptress to steely extortionist is even more delicious (she\u2019s the whore with a heart of bile who enlivens every scene). But once Diane abandons her baby on a random doorstep, the novel begins to skate through unfolding events. Where Sophocles holds us arrested for a single day, Guterson zips through the years in a kind of narrative shorthand that tracks events in the Greek play without translating its meaning, its power or its horror. The characters are set at such a dulling distance from us that usually we can\u2019t feel anything but distaste for them. \n \n \u201cEd King: A Novel\u201d by David Guterson. (Knopf) \n \n Baby Ed grows up to be a wild, brilliant young man (perfect except for his slightly deformed ankles). His adoptive Jewish parents, the Kings, treat him like a prince. (Get it?) He has a nasty run-in with you-know-who on the highway. But later, as an amalgamation of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Larry Page, he makes a fortune by figuring out how to solve impossibly difficult riddles on the Internet. And then he meets a sexy older woman . . . . \n \n At that point, Guterson stops the action and addresses us directly in a licentious tone that should excite any middle-school boy who makes it this far: \u201cNow we approach the part of the story a reader couldn\u2019t be blamed for having skipped forward to.\u201d Actually, I wouldn\u2019t blame you for skipping this book entirely, but if you must, turn to page 236. What follows are three pages that might very well win the Literary Review\u2019s annual Bad Sex Award, including my personal \u201cick\u201d moment: \u201cEd smelled vulnerably digestive.\u201d In the smutty hands of Chuck Palahniuk, all this might have been a gas, but here it just made me want to take my wife\u2019s hairpins and stab out my eyes. \n \n So what exactly are we to make of this novel, which eventually sees Ed at the height of his hubris evolve into a billionaire version of Ray Kurzweil, determined to live forever \u201cin the very heart and mind of God\u201d? \n \n Almost every line is infected with an acid tone meant to punish these trite, ambitious, self-absorbed people. Guterson\u2019s criticism of the corrosive effects of vanity, money and media mania, which animated his far more thoughtful novels \u201cOur Lady of the Forest\u201d and \u201cThe Other,\u201d is in these pages relentless and obvious. He\u2019s knocking on the doors of Claire Messud, Jonathan Franzen and Lionel Shriver, but he doesn\u2019t demonstrate the requisite wit or stylistic panache to pull off that kind of satire. The result is a mirthless story that\u2019s tedious where it should be suspenseful, bitter where it should feel cathartic. \n \n A tragedy, indeed. \n \n Charles is The Post\u2019s fiction editor. You can follow him on Twitter @RonCharles. ||||| Topics: Books, Sex \n \n What\u2019s more cringe-worthy: Haruki Murakami\u2019s comparison of \u201ca freshly made ear\u201d to \u201ca freshly made vagina\u201d or the scene from \u201cEd King,\u201d David Guterson\u2019s modern retelling of the Oedipus myth, in which the title character ends 12 hours of marathon lovemaking with his mother with one last quickie in the shower? \n \n According to the U.K.\u2019s Literary Review, it\u2019s definitely the shower. The journal has awarded Guterson (also the author of \u201cSnow Falling on Cedars\u201d), its Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2011. (Whether either finalist really compares to Rowan Somerville\u2019s now-infamous 2010 sentence \u2014 \u201cLike a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her\u201d \u2014 is another question entirely.) \n \n The novel\u2019s \u201cvictory\u201d might not surprise readers and reviewers; as GalleyCat\u2019s Jason Boog points out, Ron Charles of the Washington Post anticipated that its awkward descriptions of an awkward encounter might make it a strong contender for the prize. \n \n These two paragraphs from \u201cEd King,\u201d specifically cited on the Literary Review\u2019s website, helped bring home the prize: \n \n These sorts of gyrations and five-sense choreographies, with variations on Ed\u2019s main themes, played out episodically between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., when Diane said, \u201cLet\u2019s shower.\u201d In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn\u2019t take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in 12 hours, while looking like a Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch. \n \n In a recent essay for the Financial Times, Literary Review senior editor Jonathan Beckman called the prize \u201ca comic coda to the literary year and a gentle spoof of a culture in which awards have proliferated at speed.\u201d He added: \u201cDespite murmurings to the contrary, the mere presence of a sex scene does not inevitably lead to a pillorying. Every year we rule out many examples sent to us by enthusiastic readers on the grounds of utter competence.\u201d Earlier this year, Salon published its first Good Sex Awards, judged by Laura Miller, Louis Bayard, Maud Newton and Walter Kirn. Read their discussion of \u201cWhat makes a good sex scene?\u201d here. \n \n Continue Reading \n \n Close ||||| Image caption The book was described by one reviewer as a \"sweaty-palmed narrative\" \n \n An account of a frenzied encounter in a shower has earned US writer David Guterson the annual Bad Sex In Fiction Award. \n \n He beat the likes of Stephen King with a scene from his novel Ed King, a modern version of the fable of Oedipus. \n \n The offending passage in the book is introduced as \"the part where a mother has sex with her son\". \n \n On hearing of his win, Guterson said: \"Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I'm not in the least bit surprised.\" \n \n The author, who is based in the US, was unable to attend the prize ceremony at the In and Out Naval and Military Club in London. \n \n Instead, EastEnders star Barbara Windsor presented the award to his publishers. \n \n The ceremony is now in its 19th year, having been established by Auberon Waugh in 1993. \n \n Previous winners include Norman Mailer, AA Gill, Melvyn Bragg and Tom Wolfe. \n \n The award is run by The Literary Review, which says its purpose is to \"draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it\". \n \n Guterson is the author of the best-selling Snow Falling on Cedars, which was turned into a film starring Sam Shepard and Ethan Hawke in 1999. \n \n Ed King, his fifth novel, takes the Sophoclean tragedy Oedipus Rex (the title is a pun on the original) and transports it to late 20th Century Seattle. \n \n Image caption David Guterson lives and works in Washington State \n \n The story revolves around a baby boy who is given up for adoption and goes on to become one of the world's most powerful men, killing his father and sleeping with his mother in the process. \n \n Branded a \"sweaty-palmed narrative\" by the Washington Post, the novel contains several pages of explicit exposition. \n \n One goes into exhaustive detail about an erotic massage, where the protagonist \"massaged, kneaded, stretched, rubbed, pinched, flicked, feathered, licked, kissed, and gently bit her shoulders\". \n \n But judges said they were finally swayed by a passage that begins: \"Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap.\" \n \n The scene concludes: \"Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch.\" \n \n Reviewing the novel in the Express, David Robson argued that \"Guterson's descriptions of hyperactive incest are absolutely unbearable and not in a good way\". \n \n Other nominees this year included Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey, Chris Adrian's The Great Night and Lee Child's The Affair.", "summary": "\u2013 Ron Charles of the Washington Post wins the prognosticator award among book critics. When he reviewed (and panned) David Guterson's novel Ed King, he took note of one part: \"What follows are three pages that might very well win the Literary Review\u2019s annual Bad Sex Award.\" Well, that award came out today, and ... congratulations, Mr. Guterson (who is also the Snow Falling on Cedars author). The UK publication singled out Guterson's modern version of Oedipus Rex for a lengthy scene in which the main character has some intimate moments in the shower with, yes, his mother, reports the BBC. A few examples: \"In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap.\" \u201cEd smelled vulnerably digestive.\u201d \"Then they rinsed, dried, dressed and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch.\" Salon has a more complete excerpt here, along with an antidote-like link to a discussion about good sex scenes."}
{"document": "Trump To Unveil Long-Awaited $1.5 Trillion Infrastructure Plan \n \n Enlarge this image Evan Vucci/AP Evan Vucci/AP \n \n President Trump will finally be unveiling his long-awaited $1.5 trillion plan to repair and rebuild the nation's crumbling highways, bridges, railroads, airports, seaports and water systems Monday. But, the proposal will not be one that offers large sums of federal funding to states for infrastructure needs, but it is instead a financing plan that shifts much of the funding burden onto the states and onto local governments. \n \n Critics say that will lead to higher state and local taxes, and an increased reliance on user fees, such as tolls, water and sewer fees, transit fares and airline ticket taxes. \n \n Senior White House officials who briefed reporters over the weekend say the plan is aimed at fixing the current system of funding infrastructure that they say is broken in two ways. \n \n The first is that the country has been under-investing in infrastructure, leading a state of growing disrepair. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nation a grade of D+ for the condition of transit, highway, bridge, rail, water and other infrastructure, and says the country is in need of an investment of $2 trillion more than is currently budgeted. \n \n The second way the White House says the system is broken is in the lengthy federal permitting process, which officials say can take five to 10 years or longer, driving up costs. \n \n A program that would flip funding burden \n \n Administration officials say the president's plan addresses the funding shortfall by committing $200 billion in federal funding over 10 years to stimulate state and local spending and private investment. Half of the funding, $100 billion, will be used as incentives to entice cities, counties and states to raise at least 80 percent of the infrastructure costs themselves. \n \n So, for example, if a state has a project or need identified and can come up with 80 or 90 percent of the funding for it through increased state or local taxes, like the gas tax, or with user fees like tolls, then under this plan, the federal government would kick in the rest. \n \n Critics worry that would lead to only projects that could generate revenue, such as toll roads or bridges, getting funded. \n \n That's a radical departure from the way many projects are funded now. Funding for federal-aid highways, including interstates, is usually allocated in an 80-20 federal-state split. This program would flip that funding burden. Major mass transit projects are often funded on a 50-50 federal-local basis. Again, this plan puts a much greater burden on local taxpayers and users. \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP Alex Brandon/AP \n \n To address concerns that projects in rural areas don't have the ability to generate much in user fees, the White House plan calls for spending $50 billion of the $200 billion on rural infrastructure needs. That funding would go to states in the form of block grants, giving governors and state legislatures the authority to figure out the best way to spend that money. \n \n And $20 billion would go to federal loan programs that are aimed at attracting private investment in infrastructure, and into private activity bonds. \n \n Projects with an eye to the future \n \n \n \n The White House also wants to earmark $20 billion in funding for \"transformative\" projects, which a White House official says \"have a vision towards the future.\" These would be \"projects that can lift the American spirit, that are the next-century-type of infrastructure as opposed to just rebuilding what we have currently.\" \n \n The remaining $10 billion would go into a capital financing fund, which the administration says would go toward funding federal government office building infrastructure. \n \n The $200 billion in federal funding would not be new revenue but would come from cuts \"in other areas of the federal budget,\" some of which will be outlined in the president's budget plan that will also be released Monday. That includes funding cuts to existing federal transit programs, the TIGER grant program \"and things where the administration thinks that infrastructure funds haven't been spent efficaciously,\" said a senior administration official. \n \n But the White House officials say this new infrastructure plan \"is a program that sits on top of existing programs. So we're not proposing eliminating the Highway Trust Fund, or changing the state revolving funds. So to the extent that communities are eligible for federal funds already, that eligibility remains.\" \n \n Trump wants to streamline federal environmental review \n \n The president's plan does not address a huge yearly shortfall in the federal Highway Trust Fund, which is funded by the federal gasoline tax. That tax of 18.4 cents a gallon for unleaded, 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel, hasn't been raised in 25 years and because of improvements in fuel efficiency and inflation, it raises less money now than it did when last raised in 1993. So Congress is already using deficit spending to pay for some transportation infrastructure needs funded by existing programs. \n \n In addition to the financing component of the plan, Trump wants to significantly streamline the federal environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure construction projects, which they say can often involve several different federal agencies that can drag the process out. The president's plan will call for the creation of \"One Agency, One Decision\" type of process that would put one lead federal agency in charge of completing an environmental review within 21 months. \n \n President Trump will outline some of these principles in a meeting with mayors and other state and local leaders at the White House Monday. Trump will work with Congress to make changes, if needed. The infrastructure spending plan would need 60 votes to pass in the Senate so it will need democratic support, but the White House officials say this is one issue on which there should be room to compromise, because they say the president's infrastructure plan is in line with priorities and objectives outlined by members of both parties in Congress, even if not in the way it would be funded. \n \n \"This is in no way, shape or form ... a take it or leave it proposal,\" said one senior administration official. \"This is the start of a negotiation.\" \n \n \"The president has said he is open to new sources of funding,\" the White House aide said. \"We want it to be bipartisan.\" ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will roll out an infrastructure plan on Monday that already faces significant hurdles in Congress because it does not offer as much new federal funding as Democrats want or directly address how to pay for the effort. \n \n The plan to use $200 billion in federal funds to try to stimulate $1.5 trillion in infrastructure improvements over 10 year could reshape how the federal government funds roads, bridges, highways and other infrastructure. The administration also says it will eliminate bureaucratic roadblocks to completing projects that can tie up new roads for years. \n \n White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday that in addition to the $200 billion the administration seeks for its infrastructure proposal, the White House wants $21 billion over two years for infrastructure that was part of a budget framework deal approved last week in Congress. \n \n Mulvaney said in a statement that the plan \u201creduces the regulatory burdens we face, shortening and simplifying the approval process for projects, and eliminating barriers that prevent projects from being efficiently developed.\u201d \n \n But in the face of a divided U.S. Senate and congressional elections in November, administration officials acknowledged the plan faced a difficult road to winning approval. \n \n House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Trump\u2019s plan \u201cshifts the burden onto cities and states.\u201d \n \n White House aides told reporters in a phone briefing on Saturday that the proposal, billed only as \u201cinfrastructure principles\u201d and to be part of Trump\u2019s budget plan on Monday, was just a starting point. \n \n \u201cThis in no way, shape or form should be considered a take-it-or-leave-it proposal. This is the start of a negotiation - bicameral bipartisan negotiation - to find the best solution for infrastructure,\u201d said a senior official, who was not allowed to be identified under the ground rules for the briefing. \n \n The White House is pointing to a wide variety of potential cuts in its budget proposal that could be used to offset the costs of the plan. \n \n U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst \n \n HIKE IN GAS TAX? \n \n The White House proposal will offer $100 billion in incentives to state and local governments, but will propose a smaller percentage of matching finds than the federal government has typically offered. \n \n The remaining $100 billion involves $50 billion for rural project grants distributed to all states, $30 billion for government financing of projects and $20 billion toward \u201ctransformative projects\u201d or new ideas that are not simply repairing existing infrastructure. \n \n Democrats insist that any plan must include new revenue, which could mean raising the federal gas tax. That levy has been 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, and inflation as well as rising vehicle fuel efficiency have reduced its usefulness in raising enough money to keep pace with repair needs. \n \n Government auditors note Congress transferred $140 billion to the Highway Trust Fund from 2008 through 2015. Lawmakers, to maintain current spending levels, would need to approve an additional $107 billion from 2021 through 2026. \n \n Trump has not ruled out a gas tax hike and some in Congress have said they are open to the idea. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently came out in support of an increase. \n \n Democrats in Congress called last week for $1 trillion in direct federal spending, including $100 billion on schools alone as well as billions to expand rural broadband internet service, improve airports, mass transit, roads and ports, boost energy efficiency and improve aging water systems. \n \n The Democratic proposal did not identify any specific plan to pay for improvements, but aides said they were committed to finding a way. \n \n FILE PHOTO: White House budget director Mick Mulvaney holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo \n \n The administration also plans on Monday to unveil workforce training proposals, including expanding apprenticeships and seeking changes to federal work-study programs that typically are used by students at four-year institutions. It would allow more students interested in skilled trades to use them. \n \n It will propose as well that states that accept federal funds for infrastructure projects would have to accept workers with out-of-state skilled-trades licenses on those projects. \n \n Trump will meet with state and local officials including the governors of Wisconsin, Louisiana, Virginia and Maine on Monday, before meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday. He will head to the Orlando, Florida, area on Friday to tout the plan, officials said. ||||| File- In this May 19, 2017, file photo, a man works on the Southern Nevada portion of U.S. Interstate 11 near Boulder City, Nev. President Donald Trump on Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, will unveil his long-awaited... (Associated Press) \n \n File- In this May 19, 2017, file photo, a man works on the Southern Nevada portion of U.S. Interstate 11 near Boulder City, Nev. President Donald Trump on Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, will unveil his long-awaited infrastructure plan, a $1.5 billion proposal that fulfills a number of campaign goals, but... (Associated Press) \n \n WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Monday will unveil his long-awaited infrastructure plan, a $1.5 trillion proposal that fulfills a number of campaign goals, but relies heavily on state and local governments to produce much of the funding. \n \n The administration's plan is centered on using $200 billion in federal money to leverage local and state tax dollars to fix America's infrastructure, such as roads, highways, ports and airports. \n \n \"Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and \u2014 where appropriate \u2014 tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit,\" Trump said at last month's State of the Union address. \n \n Trump has repeatedly blamed the \"crumbling\" state of the nation's roads and highways for preventing the American economy from reaching its full potential. Many in Washington believe that Trump should have begun his term a year ago with an infrastructure push, one that could have garnered bipartisan support or, at minimum, placed Democrats in a bind for opposing a popular political measure. \n \n But the administration chose to begin with health care and relations with Democrats have only grown more strained during a turbulent, contentious year. The White House, now grappling with the fallout from the departure of a senior aide after spousal abuse allegations, may not have an easy time navigating a massive infrastructure plan through a polarized Congress. It just grappled with two federal government shutdowns and will soon turns its attention to immigration. \n \n Administration officials previewing the plan said it would feature two key components: an injection of funding for new investments and help speed up repairs of crumbling roads and airports, as well as a streamlined permitting process that would truncate the wait time to get projects underway. Officials said the $200 billion in federal support would come from cuts to existing programs. \n \n Half the money would go to grants for transportation, water, flood control, cleanup at some of the country's most polluted sites and other projects. \n \n States, local governments and other project sponsors could use the grants \u2014 which administration officials view as incentives \u2014 for no more than 20 percent of the cost. Transit agencies generally count on the federal government for half the cost of major construction projects, and federal dollars can make up as much as 80 percent of some highway projects. \n \n About $50 billion, would go toward rural projects \u2014 transportation, broadband, water, waste, power, flood management and ports. That is intended to address criticism from some Republican senators that the administration's initial emphasis on public-private partnerships would do little to help rural, GOP-leaning states \n \n Early reaction to the proposal was divided. \n \n Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, saluted Trump \"for providing the leadership we have desperately needed to reclaim our rightful place as global leader on true 21st-century infrastructure.\" \n \n \"When ports are clogged, trucks are delayed, power is down, water is shut off, or the internet has a lapse, modern manufacturers' ability to compete is threatened and jobs are put at risk,\" said Timmons. \"There is no excuse for inaction, and manufacturers are committed to ensuring that America seizes this opportunity.\" \n \n But a number of Democrats and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have pushed the administration to commit far more federal dollars, funded by tax increases, or by closing tax loopholes. And environmental groups expressed worry about its impact. \n \n \"President Trump's infrastructure proposal is a disaster,\" said Shelley Poticha, of the Natural Resources Defense Council. \"It fails to offer the investment needed to bring our country into the 21st century. Even worse, his plan includes an unacceptable corporate giveaway by truncating environmental reviews.\" \n \n ___ \n \n This story has been corrected to show that the infrastructure plan is a $1.5 trillion plan, not a $1.5 billion plan. \n \n ___ \n \n Associated Press writer Joan Lowy contributed reporting. \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Crutsinger at http://twitter.com/@mcrutsinger", "summary": "\u2013 Both parties agree that America's infrastructure is in need of some serious work after decades of under-investment, but the $1.5 trillion plan President Trump plans to roll out Monday is still expected to be controversial\u2014especially because of disagreements over where the $1.5 trillion is supposed to come from. The plan involves around $200 billion in federal funding over 10 years, to be taken from cuts to other programs, including $100 billion in incentives to state and local governments to stimulate spending on infrastructure such as highways, ports, and airports, reports Reuters. Democrats had sought greater federal funding and new revenue, possibly through a hike in the gas tax, though White House aides say the Trump plan is just the starting point for negotiations. The proposal requires cities, counties, and states to put up at least 80% of a project's cost themselves before they can get 20% federal funding, which reverses the 80-20 federal-state funding split in place for many highways, NPR reports. The federal funding to be announced Monday also includes around $50 billion toward rural infrastructure projects. Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, praised the proposals, the AP reports. \"When ports are clogged, trucks are delayed, power is down, water is shut off, or the internet has a lapse, modern manufacturers' ability to compete is threatened and jobs are put at risk,\" he said. \"There is no excuse for inaction.\" Critics, however, said the plan needs more federal investment\u2014and called moves to speed the approval process, including reducing environmental reviews, a \"corporate giveaway.\""}
{"document": "The European Space Agency took the closest look yet Saturday at asteroid Lutetia in an extraordinary quest some 280 million miles in outer space between Mars and Jupiter. \n \n Spacecraft Operations Manager Andrea Accomazzo controls the Rosetta asteroid mission at the Space Operations Centre of ESA (European Space Agency) in Darmstadt, Germany, on Saturday, July 10, 2010. ESA's... (Associated Press) \n \n Spacecraft Operations Manager Andrea Accomazzo controls the Rosetta asteroid mission at the Space Operations Centre of ESA (European Space Agency) in Darmstadt, Germany, on Saturday, July 10, 2010. ESA's... (Associated Press) \n \n The comet-chaser Rosetta flew by Lutetia as close as 1,900 miles (3,200 kilometers) and had about two hours to capture images of the asteroid with its high-tech cameras, the space agency said in Darmstadt, Germany. \n \n Though Lutetia was discovered some 150 years ago, for a long time it was little more than a point of light to those on Earth. Only recent high-resolution ground-based imaging has given a vague view of the asteroid, the agency said. \n \n \"At the moment we know very little about it,\" project scientist Rita Schulz said in a webcast presentation from Darmstadt. \n \n Lutetia is believed to be 83.3 miles (134 kilometers) in diameter with a \"pronounced elongation,\" but scientists have been puzzled as to what type of asteroid it is _ a \"primitive\" one containing carbon compounds or a metallic asteroid. \n \n \"We are now going to get the details of this asteroid, which is very important,\" Schulz said. \"There will be a lot of science coming from that mission.\" \n \n Scientists hope to find in the information and images gathered by Rosetta clues to the history of comets and asteroids and of the solar system, Schulz said. \n \n For Rosetta, examining Lutetia and other asteroids is only an event on its long journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko _ the mission's, said project manager Gerhard Schwehm. \n \n Rosetta was launched in 2004 and is expected to reach its target in 2014. \n \n Though the wait is long, scientists are certain it is going to be worthwhile, Schwehm said. \n \n \"We want to study the material out of which the planets formed,\" he said. This is possible only close up, he said. ||||| Europe's Rosetta space probe has flown past the Asteroid Lutetia, returning a stream of scientific data for analysis. \n \n The rock - some 120km (75 miles) in its longest dimension - is the biggest asteroid yet visited by a satellite. \n \n Pictures showed Lutetia to be quite irregular in shape, its surface marked by a number of wide impact craters and even some intriguing grooves. \n \n Rosetta's encounter with the asteroid occurred some 454 million km from Earth, beyond the orbit of Mars. \n \n \"It's a new world discovered by Rosetta and it will keep scientists busy for years,\" said Holger Sierks, the principal investigator on the Osiris camera system which acquired the images on this page. \n \n \"The pictures are majestic; they take my breath away,\" Professor David Southwood, the European Space Agency's director of science, told BBC News. \n \n \"It is an historic day, Europe once again proving it can do major steps in Solar System exploration. Everything worked like clockwork. It really was picture perfect,\" he said. \n \n Scientists hope the data can help them determine Lutetia's true nature. Earth-based telescopes have had great difficulty in classifying the rock. \n \n Some observations had suggested it was a very primitive body, little changed since its formation (a so-called C-type asteroid). \n \n Other measurements, though, had spied what appeared to be metals in its surface, indicating the rock might have undergone a greater degree of evolution (M-type asteroid). \n \n Lutetia could even be the fragmented remains of a much larger asteroid smashed apart in a great collision. \n \n Nearly all of the Rosetta mission's instruments were switched on for a period of several hours around closest approach (1544 GMT; 1644 BST; 1744 CEST on Saturday). \n \n ASTEROID 21 LUTETIA Continue reading the main story It was discovered in 1852 by Hermann Goldschmidt in Paris \n \n Lutetia was the name of a pre-Roman town on the site of Paris \n \n The designation \"21\" refers to the order of asteroid discoveries Read Esa's Rosetta blog Dawn - Nasa's asteroid probe \n \n Multi-wavelength cameras and spectrometers, magnetic field and plasma experiments, dust instruments, a radio science experiment - all were tasked with gathering as much information as possible as the spacecraft whizzed by at the relative speed of 15km/s (9 miles/s) and a minimum distance of 3,162km (1,964 miles). \n \n \"It has an interesting surface and from the look of it, I would say it is more of a C-type asteroid - but we can't really say anything yet,\" said Dr Rita Schulz, the Rosetta project scientist. \n \n \"We must wait for the infrared data. This will be the key I think in understanding this asteroid,\" she told BBC News. \n \n About 400 images were obtained during the pass, and with each picture taking about 10 minutes to come down it will be some days, if not weeks, before all the data from the flyby is transferred Earth. \n \n Science teams expect to make public their preliminary findings at the Europlanet conference in Rome, Italy, in late September. \n \n THE ROSETTA PROBE MAKES ITS CLOSE PASS OF ASTEROID LUTETIA Asteroids are the ancient remnants left over from the formation of the Solar System Most are made of rock, but some are also composed of metal, mostly nickel and iron Their sizes range from small boulders to objects that are hundreds of km in diameter Most asteroids reside in the vast region of space that exists between Mars and Jupiter \n \n Before this flyby, the largest asteroid encountered by a spacecraft was Mathilde, which is a little over 50km (30 miles) wide. \n \n Mathilde was visited by the US space agency's (Nasa) Near-Shoemaker probe in 1997. \n \n Rosetta itself has already made one close asteroid flyby, of the Steins rock in 2008. \n \n With this latest pass complete, Rosetta is now heading out to its meeting with the Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, set for the May of 2014. \n \n The probe will go into orbit around the 4km-wide ball of ice and dust and even place a small lander called Philae on its surface. \n \n Asteroids are the object of keen interest currently. The Japanese Hayabusa mission has recently returned from the Itokawa space rock, and next year the US Dawn mission will go into orbit around Asteroid Vesta. \n \n The American President Barack Obama says Nasa should also have the goal of trying to send astronauts to an asteroid sometime in the 2020s.", "summary": "\u2013 The European Space Agency is pulling off a nifty feat 280 million miles from home. Its comet-chasing space probe Rosetta is making a flyby of the biggest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft, reports the BBC. Rosetta will be sending back photos of Lutetia, which was first spotted 150 years ago between Mars and Jupiter but remains a relative mystery. \"At the moment we know very little about it,\" said one project scientist. \"We are now going to get the details of this asteroid, which is very important\u2014there will be a lot of science coming from that mission.\" After this, Rosetta will continue on toward its main target, the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, notes AP. It's got another 4 years of flying to get there."}
{"document": "SERBIAN police have been fighting running battles with thugs and anti-gay protestors in Belgrade. The headquarters of the ruling Democratic Party was briefly set on fire with Molotov cocktails and several shops were attacked. A mobile mammography unit was stoned; cars, buses, trams and the headquarters of Serbian television were also attacked. By early afternoon more than 100 police and civilians were reported to have been injured. The demonstrators, several hundred-strong: \u201cDeath to homosexuals!\u201d and \u201cGo to Kosovo!\u201d. \n \n The attacks are believed to have been organised by small extreme nationalist groups. Last year threats from such groups led to the cancellation of the country's Gay Pride march, which was seen as a huge blow for tolerance in the country and made the government look weak. After that debacle, this year's event had become a test of the government's will. And outsiders took a keen interest. The march was addressed by Vincent Degert, the head of the EU delegation in Serbia, who said: \u201cWe are here to celebrate this very important day... to celebrate the values of tolerance, freedom of expression and assembly.\" The presence of Mr Degert showed how seriously the government was taking the test. Police with armoured vehicles protected the event. \n \n \n \n Last Thursday Svetozar \u010cipli\u0107, Serbia's minister for human rights, said he would attend the march. Ivica Daci\u0107, the interior minister, said: \u201cThis is one way to test whether we in Serbia are ready and able to organise something that most citizens dislike.\u201d But Srdjan Nogo, a member of Dveri, one of the far-right groups which was mobilising against the march, said: \u201cThey [the government] have destroyed everything, and now they want our family. This is the defence of the family and the future of the Serbian people.\u201d \n \n By mid-afternoon Serbia's leaders were rallying in defence of the march and condemning the violence. Dragan Djilas, the mayor of Belgrade, said that the damage amounted to \u20ac1m. President Boris Tadi\u0107 said that an attack on the police was an attack on the state of Serbia itself. With Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of state, due to pay him a visit on Tuesday, today's riots were a problem he could have done without. ||||| Anti-gay protesters have fought running battles with police in an effort to disrupt a Gay Pride march in Belgrade - the first in the city since 2001. \n \n Rioters threw petrol bombs and stones at armed police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. \n \n The office of the ruling Democratic Party was briefly set on fire, and at least one shot was fired. \n \n Calm was eventually restored but more than 100 people, mostly police, were injured, with another 100 arrested. \n \n Sunday's march was the first Gay Pride parade in Serbia since a 2001 event was broken up in violent clashes provoked by far-right extremists. \n \n 'Hooligan gangs' \n \n Before the march, the head of the EU mission in Serbia, Vincent Degert, addressed around 1,000 gay activists and their supporters who gathered at a park in downtown Belgrade surrounded by riot police and armoured vehicles. \n \n \"We are here to celebrate the values of tolerance, freedom of expression and assembly,\" Mr Degert told the crowd. \n \n While the Gay Pride parade was moving though the city, several hundred protesters began chanting at those taking part as they tried to get close to the march. \n \n \"The hunt has begun,\" the AFP news agency reported them as saying. \"Death to homosexuals.\" \n \n Reports told of gangs of skinheads roaming the streets, throwing petrol bombs and setting off firecrackers as police battled to hold them back. \n \n Thousands of police had sealed off central Belgrade to protect the event. \n \n While the march took place in a heavily-protected area in and around Manjez park, violence flared at several points further afield in central Belgrade. \n \n At the scene As Gay Pride ended the street protests gathered pace. I stood on Terazije boulevard watching demonstrators hurl rocks at armed police, who responded with tear gas. Some officers retreated, bleeding. Battles erupted in other parts of the city, too, and there is considerable damage to street furniture, including bus shelters and signposts. This is not the image Serbia wants the world to see. A successful gay parade was supposed to be an indication of how far this country has come from the ultranationalism and violence of the 1990s. The protection of minorities is crucial to Serbia's EU aspirations. Chaos on the streets will anger a government determined to move on from a troubled past. \n \n The Terazije boulevard was littered with rocks and debris by the time the rioting was quelled. Several cars were overturned and had been set on fire. \n \n Democratic Party spokesperson Jelana Trivan said the violence had nothing to do with moral values. \n \n \"These are hooligan gangs which must be punished severely,\" Ms Trivan said. \n \n The mayor of Belgrade, Dragan Djilas, said the rioters had used Gay Pride as an excuse for a brawl. \n \n \"What's going on now has nothing to do with the Pride parade. Unfortunately there are always people who will use every opportunity to destroy their own city. Fortunately no lives were lost - this is the most important thing.\" \n \n Marchers also bemoaned the continued evidence of agressive homophobia among some sections of Serbian society. \n \n \"It is a shame for me to march, to stand for what I am, and to have thousands of cops protect me from hysteric [sic] nationalists,\" lesbian activist Milena, 36, told Reuters. \n \n A gay pride march planned last year was cancelled amid fears of violence. \n \n On Saturday, several thousand people had protested against the march. Right-wing groups say that homosexuality is contrary to Serbian religious and family values. \n \n The Serbian Orthodox Church condemned the parade on Friday but also warned against violence against participants. \n \n The BBC's Mark Lowen says homosexuality is still largely a taboo in Serbia, a conservative and religious nation. \n \n This year's event was being seen as a test of how far the country has come from the ultra-nationalism and violence of the 1990s and on its path to EU membership.", "summary": "\u2013 Serbia's first Gay Pride parade in nearly a decade was disrupted yesterday by anti-gay riots that left 100 people injured and saw another 100 arrested. The rioters threw petrol bombs and stones at the police during the march in Belgrade, and the office of the ruling Democratic Party was briefly on fire, reports the BBC. Extreme nationalist groups are believed to be responsible; shouts of \u201cDeath to homosexuals!\u201d and \u201cGo to Kosovo!\u201d were heard, notes the Economist."}
{"document": "What The Industry Knew About Sugar's Health Effects, But Didn't Tell Us \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Karen M. Romanko/Getty Images Karen M. Romanko/Getty Images \n \n Back in the 1960s, the fact that our diets influence the risk of heart disease was still a new idea. And there was a debate about the role of fats and the role of sugar. \n \n The sugar industry got involved in efforts to influence this debate. \"What the sugar industry successively did,\" argues Stanton Glantz of the University of California, San Francisco, \"is they shifted all of the blame onto fats.\" \n \n The industry's strategies were sophisticated, Glantz says, and are similar to those of the tobacco industry. For instance, in 1965 an industry group, the Sugar Research Foundation, secretly funded a scientific review that downplayed the evidence that linked sugar consumption to blood fat levels. The review was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. \n \n Now, what's come to light in an investigation published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology is that the industry funded its own research project, but never disclosed the findings. \n \n Glantz and his collaborators, including Cristin Kearns, an assistant professor at UCSF, evaluated a bunch of sugar industry internal documents. Here's what they found: \n \n Back in 1968, the Sugar Research Foundation, a predecessor to the International Sugar Research Foundation, paid a researcher to lead a study with lab animals. \n \n Initial results showed that a high-sugar diet increased the animals' triglyceride levels, a type of fat in the blood, through effects on the gut bacteria. In people, high triglycerides can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The study also found that animals fed sugar had higher levels of an enzyme associated with bladder cancer in their urine. \n \n The study was halted before it was completed. Glantz says the researcher asked for more time to continue the study, but the Sugar Research Foundation pulled the plug on the project. \n \n The Sugar Association, a trade group based in Washington, D.C., that has organizational ties to the Sugar Research Foundation, released a statement on this new investigation. \n \n \"The study in question ended for three reasons, none of which involved potential research findings,\" the association says. The statement goes on to explain that the study was over budget and delayed. \"The delay overlapped with an organizational restructuring with the Sugar Research Foundation becoming a new entity, the International Sugar Research Foundation,\" the statement says. \n \n The trade group says sugar consumed in moderation is part of a balanced lifestyle, and in its statement the group says \"we remain committed to supporting research to further understand the role sugar plays in consumers' evolving eating habits.\" \n \n But critics argue that the industry is still trying to slow down the consensus on the health risks linked to sugar consumption. In the PLOS Biology paper, Glantz and his co-authors argue that the ongoing controversy surrounding sugar in our diets \"may be rooted in more than 60 years of food and beverage industry manipulation of science.\" \n \n In recent years, new evidence has emerged that links sugary diets to heart disease. But could we have gotten the message sooner? \n \n UCSF's Kearns argues that if the sugar industry had published its findings decades ago, it would have added to a growing body of evidence. \"Had this information been made public, there would have been a lot more research scrutiny of sugar,\" Kearns told us. \n \n Kearns says the sugar industry has \"a lot of money and influence\" and still uses its influence to cast doubt on the recommendation to limit added sugars to no more than 10 percent of daily calories. \n \n In a trade association publication last year, the president and CEO of the Sugar Association described this recommended limit on sugar, which is part of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, as \"scientifically out of bounds.\" ||||| Researchers say negative health impacts of sucrose could have been combated sooner had research been released \u2013 but industry bodies dispute the findings \n \n Sugar\u2019s demise from childhood staple to public enemy can be seen everywhere. Chocolate bars are shrinking, sugary drinks are set to be taxed and our recommended daily sugar intake has been slashed in half. But the battle against sugar might have begun sooner if the industry hadn\u2019t kept secrets to protect its commercial interests, according to new findings. \n \n In 1967, when scientists were arguing over the link between sugar consumption and increased risk of heart disease, researchers now claim that the International Sugar Research Foundation (ISRF) withheld findings that rats that were fed a high-sugar diet had higher levels of triglycerides (a fat found in the blood) than those fed starch. In a move researchers from the University of California at San Francisco have compared to the tobacco industry\u2019s self-preservation tactics, the foundation stopped funding the project. \n \n Sugar lobby paid scientists to blur sugar's role in heart disease \u2013 report Read more \n \n Cristin Kearns, one of the researchers who analysed ISRF documents, says, \u201cISRF\u2019s research was designed to cast doubt on the importance of elevated triglycerides in the blood as a heart disease risk factor. It is now commonly accepted that triglycerides are a risk factor, but this was controversial for decades. I think the scientific community would have come to consensus about elevated triglycerides being a risk factor for heart disease much sooner [if the research been published].\u201d \n \n \n \n A year later the foundation funded Project 259, looking into the effects of sucrose consumption in the intestinal tracts of rats. It found a possible link between sugar consumption and increased risk of bladder cancer, and described the findings as \u201cone of the first demonstrations of a biological difference between sucrose and starch fed rats\u201d. But the ISRF terminated the project\u2019s funding before the experiments were finished, despite the study having already lasted 27 months, and requiring only three more months. \n \n \n \n The study, the researchers argue in their new paper, published in the journal Plos Biology, could possibly have had implications for humans, and indicates how ISRF downplayed sugar\u2019s role in cardiovascular disease due to commercial interests. \n \n Kearns says, \u201cISRF\u2019s primary purpose was, and still is as the Sugar Association and the World Sugar Research Organisation, to sell more sucrose. Our previous paper and this one demonstrate that ISRF\u2019s research program was designed to support its business interests at the expense of the public.\u201d \n \n The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie Read more \n \n The problem could be much bigger than the two ISRF studies the researchers have scrutinised. The researchers conclude that the debates we now have on sugar\u2019s effects on our health are potentially rooted in six decades of the sugar industry\u2019s manipulation of scientific evidence. \n \n \u201cISRF sponsored more than 300 research projects between 1943 and 1972, and its successor organisations continue to fund research,\u201d Keanrs says. \u201cI think it\u2019s safe to say the problem is more widespread than what\u2019s outlined in the paper.\u201d \n \n \n \n In response to the paper, the ISFR\u2019s successor, the Sugar Association, said in a statement: \n \n \n \n \u201cThe article we are discussing is not actually a study, but a perspective: a collection of speculations and assumptions about events that happened nearly five decades ago, conducted by a group of researchers and funded by individuals and organisations that are known critics of the sugar industry. \n \n \u201cWe reviewed our research archives and found documentation that the study in question ended for three reasons, none of which involved potential research findings: the study was significantly delayed; it was consequently over budget; and the delay overlapped with an organisational restructuring \u2026 There were plans to continue the study with funding from the British Nutrition Foundation, but, for reasons unbeknown to us, this did not occur.\u201d ||||| A U.S. sugar industry trade group appears to have pulled the plug on a study that was producing animal evidence linking sucrose to disease nearly 50 years ago, researchers argue in a paper publishing on November 21 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. \n \n Researchers Cristin Kearns, Dorie Apollonio and Stanton Glantz from the University of California at San Francisco reviewed internal sugar industry documents and discovered that the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) funded animal research to evaluate sucrose's effects on cardiovascular health. When the evidence seemed to indicate that sucrose might be associated with heart disease and bladder cancer, they found, the foundation terminated the project without publishing the results. \n \n In a previous analysis of the documents, Kearns and Glantz found that SRF had secretly funded a 1967 review article that downplayed evidence linking sucrose consumption to coronary heart disease. That SRF-funded review noted that gut microbes may explain why rats fed sugar had higher cholesterol levels than those fed starch, but dismissed the relevance of animal studies to understanding human disease. \n \n In the new paper in PLOS Biology, the team reports that the following year, SRF (which had changed its name in 1968 to the International Sugar Research Foundation, or ISRF) launched a rat study called Project 259 'to measure the nutritional effects of the [bacterial] organisms in the intestinal tract' when sucrose was consumed, compared to starch. \n \n The ISRF-funded research on rats by W.R.F. Pover of the University of Birmingham suggested that gut bacteria help mediate sugar's adverse cardiovascular effects. Pover also reported findings that might indicate an increased risk of bladder cancer. \"This incidental finding of Project 259 demonstrated to ISRF that sucrose vs. starch consumption caused different metabolic effects,\" Kearns and her colleagues argue, \"and suggested that sucrose, by stimulating urinary beta-glucuronidase, may have a role in the pathogenesis of bladder cancer.\" \n \n The ISRF described the finding in a September 1969 internal document as \"one of the first demonstrations of a biological difference between sucrose and starch fed rats.\" But soon after ISRF learned about these results--and shortly before the research project was complete--the group terminated funding for the project, and no findings from the work were published. \n \n In the 1960s, scientists disagreed over whether sugar could elevate triglycerides relative to starch, and Project 259 would have bolstered the case that it could, the authors argue. What's more, terminating Project 259 echoed SRF's earlier efforts to downplay sugar's role in cardiovascular disease. \n \n The results suggest that the current debate on the relative effects of sugar vs. starch may be rooted in more than 60 years of industry manipulation of science. Last year, the Sugar Association criticized a mouse study suggesting a link between sugar and increased tumor growth and metastasis, saying that \"no credible link between ingested sugars and cancer has been established.\" \n \n The analysis by Kearns and her colleagues of the industry's own documents, in contrast, suggests that the industry knew of animal research suggesting this link and halted funding to protect its commercial interests half a century ago. \n \n \"The kind of manipulation of research is similar what the tobacco industry does,\" according to co-author Stanton Glantz. \"This kind of behavior calls into question sugar industry-funded studies as a reliable source of information for public policy making.\" \n \n \"Our study contributes to a wider body of literature documenting industry manipulation of science,\" the researchers write in the PLOS Biology paper. \"Based on ISRF's interpretation of preliminary results, extending Project 259's funding would have been unfavorable to the sugar industry's commercial interests.\" SRF cut off funding before that could happen. \n \n ### \n \n In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Biology: http://journals. plos. org/ plosbiology/ article?id= 10. 1371/ journal. pbio. 2003460 \n \n Citation: Kearns CE, Apollonio D, Glantz SA (2017) Sugar industry sponsorship of germ-free rodent studies linking sucrose to hyperlipidemia and cancer: An historical analysis of internal documents. PLoS Biol 15(11): e2003460. https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1371/ journal. pbio. 2003460 \n \n Funding: The Laura and John Arnold Foundation http://www. arnoldfoundation. org/ (CEK,SAG). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (grant number DE-007306). (CEK). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Samuel Lawrence Foundation https:/ / www. samuellawrencefoundation. org/ . (Provided funding for document acquisition). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Cancer Institute (grant number CA-140236). (DA). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. (CEK). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. UCSF School of Dentistry Department of Orofacial Sciences and Global Oral Health Program. (CEK). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Gary Taubes, MS, co-founder of Nutrition Science Initiative http://nusi. org/ . (Provided funding for CEK to travel to the Harvard Medical Library). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Cancer Institute (grant number CA-087472). (SAG). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. \n \n Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ||||| In 1965, the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded a review in the New England Journal of Medicine that discounted evidence linking sucrose consumption to blood lipid levels and hence coronary heart disease (CHD). SRF subsequently funded animal research to evaluate sucrose\u2019s CHD risks. The objective of this study was to examine the planning, funding, and internal evaluation of an SRF-funded research project titled \u201cProject 259: Dietary Carbohydrate and Blood Lipids in Germ-Free Rats,\u201d led by Dr. W.F.R. Pover at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom, between 1967 and 1971. A narrative case study method was used to assess SRF Project 259 from 1967 to 1971 based on sugar industry internal documents. Project 259 found a statistically significant decrease in serum triglycerides in germ-free rats fed a high sugar diet compared to conventional rats fed a basic PRM diet (a pelleted diet containing cereal meals, soybean meals, whitefish meal, and dried yeast, fortified with a balanced vitamin supplement and trace element mixture). The results suggested to SRF that gut microbiota have a causal role in carbohydrate-induced hypertriglyceridemia. A study comparing conventional rats fed a high-sugar diet to those fed a high-starch diet suggested that sucrose consumption might be associated with elevated levels of beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme previously associated with bladder cancer in humans. SRF terminated Project 259 without publishing the results. The sugar industry did not disclose evidence of harm from animal studies that would have (1) strengthened the case that the CHD risk of sucrose is greater than starch and (2) caused sucrose to be scrutinized as a potential carcinogen. The influence of the gut microbiota in the differential effects of sucrose and starch on blood lipids, as well as the influence of carbohydrate quality on beta-glucuronidase and cancer activity, deserve further scrutiny. \n \n Funding: The Laura and John Arnold Foundation http://www.arnoldfoundation.org/ . (CEK, SAG). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (grant number DE-007306). (CEK). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Samuel Lawrence Foundation https://www.samuellawrencefoundation.org/ . (Provided funding for document acquisition). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Cancer Institute (grant number CA-140236). (DA). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. (CEK). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. UCSF School of Dentistry Department of Orofacial Sciences and Global Oral Health Program. (CEK). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Gary Taubes, MS, co-founder of Nutrition Science Initiative http://nusi.org/ . (Provided funding for CEK to travel to the Harvard Medical Library). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Cancer Institute (grant number CA-087472). (SAG). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. \n \n Copyright: \u00a9 2017 Kearns et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. \n \n Introduction \n \n In 2017, whether fructose-containing sugars (e.g., sucrose) and starch have differential effects on blood lipids continues to be debated in the scientific literature [1\u20133]. Studies funded by the food and beverage industry or conducted by authors with food and beverage industry conflicts of interest have been critical of evidence indicating that fructose has unique metabolic effects, while those without such conflicts reach an opposite conclusion [4\u20136]. The seemingly intractable nature of this controversy may be rooted in more than 60 years of food and beverage industry manipulation of science. We previously reported, based on internal sugar industry documents, that the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded a 1967 review in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that discounted evidence linking sucrose consumption to coronary heart disease (CHD) [7]. Using the same methodology and internal document sources (see S1 Appendix), this paper presents data that suggest that in 1970, SRF withheld information from the public that the microbiome may be an important contributing factor to sucrose-induced hypertriglyceridemia and that sucrose consumption, compared to starch, might be associated with bladder cancer. \n \n The Sugar Association, a United States sucrose industry trade association [8] (which has organizational ties to SRF, the International Sugar Research Foundation [ISRF], and ISRF\u2019s successor, the World Sugar Research Organisation, based in London, UK [9]), has consistently denied [10\u201312] that sucrose has any metabolic effects related to chronic disease beyond its caloric effects. On January 5, 2016, the Sugar Association issued a press release [13] criticizing findings from a study published in Cancer Research [14] using multiple mouse models that suggested that dietary sugar induces increased tumor growth and metastasis when compared to a nonsugar starch diet. The Sugar Association stated that \u201cno credible link between ingested sugars and cancer has been established.\u201d In contrast, this paper provides empirical data suggesting that the sugar industry terminated funding of an animal study that was finding unfavorable results with respect to the association between dietary sugars and cancer, with possible translational importance to humans. \n \n Our study contributes to a wider body of literature documenting industry manipulation of science. Industries seeking to influence regulation have a history of funding research resulting in industry-favorable interpretations of controversial evidence related to health effects of smoking [15,16], therapeutic effects of pharmaceutical drugs [17,18], the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and weight gain or obesity [5], and the causes of climate change, [19] among other issues. The tobacco industry also has a long history of conducting research on the health effects of its products that is often decades ahead of the general scientific community and not publishing results that do not support its agenda [20\u201323]. This paper provides empirical data suggesting that the sugar industry has a similar history of conducting, but not publishing studies with results that are counter to its commercial interests. \n \n SRF launches Project 259 Based on its sponsorship of the 1967 NEJM review [24,25], SRF was aware of peer-reviewed published animal evidence suggesting a role of intestinal microbiota in the differential effects of sucrose and starch on blood lipids. The NEJM review [25] reported that starch-fed rats had significantly higher biliary excretion of bile acids [26] and lower serum cholesterol levels [27] than sucrose-fed rats. When the antibiotic sulfasuxidene was added to similar diets, the serum cholesterol level of the starch-fed rats rose, while in sucrose-fed rats, it did not [27], leading the NEJM review to report, \u201cdietary influence on the intestinal [microbiota] was therefore suggested\u201d [25]. In correspondence with NEJM review author D. Mark Hegsted in 1965, SRF Vice President of Research John Hickson posited that the differential effects of sucrose and starch on serum cholesterol might be explained by differences in the bacterial synthesis of thiamine in the intestine [28]. Hickson [28] referred to a 1964 paper, \u201cDietary Fats and Intestinal Thiamine Synthesis in Rats\u201d [29], which summarized experimental evidence from animals indicating that the dietary requirement for thiamine was dependent on the type of carbohydrate consumed. The paper reported that rats fed a thiamine-deficient diet develop symptoms of a thiamine deficiency more rapidly when fed glucose or sucrose compared to potato starch and that thiamine deficiency was delayed with the administration of antibiotics. These results, according to the article, suggested that both starches and certain antibiotics encouraged the growth of thiamine-synthesizing gut bacteria, while sucrose did not. Hickson referred to the role of intestinal thiamine synthesis in the differential effects of sucrose and starch on blood lipids as: Representative of a fact that has disturbed me for some time. The change from [sucrose] an essentially soluble [carbohydrate] to [raw starch] an essentially insoluble carbohydrate does provide a change in the [bacterial] synthesis [of thiamine in the intestine] and I have not been convinced that this factor has been eliminated [28]. In his correspondence with Hegsted, Hickson inquired about the possible role of intestinal thiamine synthesis in a then-recent clinical trial comparing the effect of carbohydrate quality on serum cholesterol levels conducted by Hegsted and colleagues [28]. In contrast to previous trials by other investigators, which had found differential effects of high-sucrose and high-starch diets on serum cholesterol, Hegsted and colleagues had found none. Hickson asked Hegsted whether these conflicting results might be related to differences in the thiamine status of experimental groups. It is not clear whether SRF communicated with Hegsted further about the role of gut microbiota and thiamine synthesis in the differential effects of sucrose and starch on blood lipids, but the industry continued to explore the topic. SRF launched Project 259 in 1968 [30] in an \u201cattemp[t] to measure the nutritional effects of the [bacterial] organisms in the intestinal tract\u201d when sucrose was consumed, compared to starch [31]. SRF explained Project 259\u2019s rationale in an internal report: It has been postulated that there might be a dietary significance in the indigestible residues of starch in the intestinal contents, which might account for the observed differences in the lipid carbohydrate-interactions between the simple sugars versus complex sugars [32]. SRF consulted with Professor Alastair Frazer, head of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, to select the experimental model [33]. Despite the conclusion of the SRF-sponsored NEJM review that animal models had little value in evaluating sucrose\u2019s CHD risks, SRF selected the germ-free rat for Project 259 (germ-free isolators to create and maintain germ-free laboratory animals had been developed in the 1940s [34]). In the 1960s, parallel studies with germ-free and conventional rats were considered a good model to examine the relationship between dietary factors, the gut microbiota, and blood lipids [29]. SRF chose W.F.R. Pover, a colleague of Frazer\u2019s at the University of Birmingham, to lead the project. He was provided US$29,304 (US$187,583 in 2016 dollars) between June 1968 and September 1970 to conduct the study [31]. \n \n Project 259 links sucrose consumption to cancer SRF, which became ISRF in July 1968, initially authorized 15 months of funding for Project 259 between June 1968 and September 1969 [35]. By ISRF\u2019s June 1969 site visit to Pover\u2019s lab, because of delays in receiving the equipment needed for the main experiment, Pover had conducted only initial studies with various rat strains and germ-free guinea pigs [32]. Pover\u2019s initial experiments produced results that ISRF representatives found to be \u201cof particular interest\u201d (Fig 1B) [32]. According to its September 1969 Quadrennial Report of Research, Among [Project 259\u2019s] observations was \u2026 that the urine from rats on the basic diet contained an inhibitor of beta-glucorinidase activity in a quantity greater than that from sucrose-fed animals. This is one of the first demonstrations of a biological difference between sucrose and starch fed rats [emphasis added] [32]. PPT PowerPoint slide \n \n PowerPoint slide PNG larger image \n \n larger image TIFF original image Download: Fig 1. Experimental design for Project 259 and results reported to ISRF. (A) Project 259 was conducted using \u201cgerm-free\u201d rats that were raised in isolators to limit their exposure to bacteria. The main study found rats fed a high-sugar diet showed a highly significant sharp decrease in triglycerides in the blood, compared to controls. (B) Project 259\u2019s lead investigator, W.F.R. Pover, told ISRF that if the same rats showed an elevated triglyceride level after they were exposed to bacteria and fed the same high-sugar diet, \u201cthe role of bacteria in determining triglyceride levels will be proven conclusively [in rats]\u201d [33]. ISRF terminated funding for the experiments before they could be completed. An initial preliminary study conducted before the main experiment found that rats fed a high-sugar diet had less of a beta-glucuronidase inhibitor in their urine than rats fed a basic PRM diet high in starch. Beta-glucuronidase is an enzyme, and high levels in the urine were known to be associated with bladder cancer in the 1960s. Image of rat vector icon credit: Rvector/Shutterstock.com. ISRF, International Sugar Research Foundation. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460.g001 The ISRF report did not include data from Project 259 and did not elaborate further on the experimental design of the studies or the significance of the finding that starch inhibited urinary beta-glucuronidase compared to sucrose. Contemporaneous scientific publications, however, provide the context: elevated urinary beta-glucuronidase had been found to be positively associated with bladder cancer [36,37]. There was also some evidence that beta-glucuronidase activity was associated with atherosclerosis [38]. This incidental finding of Project 259 demonstrated to SRF that sucrose versus starch consumption caused different metabolic effects and suggested that sucrose, by stimulating urinary beta-glucuronidase, may have a role in the pathogenesis of bladder cancer. \n \n Project 259 links the microbiome to sucrose-induced hypertriglyceridemia In August 1970, Pover reported to ISRF that the main germ-free experiment had achieved promising results (Fig 1): There has been a sharp decrease in serum triglyceride of germfree rats fed a high sugar diet; there is no overlap with the serum triglyceride figures from rats fed the basic P.R.M. diet (a pelleted diet containing cereal meals, soybean meals, whitefish meal, and dried yeast, fortified with a balanced vitamin supplement and trace element mixture [39]) so this result is highly significant. We have yet to feed the starch diet. Both serum cholesterol and serum cholesterol ester values for germfree rats on sugar diet seem elevated; this result is not as clearcut as the triglyceride result and must await statistical evaluation before we can be sure. The role of bacteria in determining serum triglyceride levels will be proven conclusively if we can demonstrate that these same rats, when conven[t]ionalised, show elevated serum T.G.s [triglycerides] when fed a sugar diet. This will take about 18 weeks [33]. ISRF had previously authorized an extension of Project 259\u2019s funding to September 1970, which was 3 months short of the time Pover needed to conclude the experiment [33]. The language in Pover\u2019s report suggests he was confident that Project 259, taken to completion, would confirm the causal role of gut microbiota in the differential effects of sucrose and starch on serum triglycerides in rats. \n \n ISRF terminates Project 259 funding On September 10, 1970, as part of a strategic assessment of industry research conducted during the transition from SRF to ISRF, Hickson reported to industry executives on the contribution of SRF\u2019s research projects to \u201celicit useful and significant information\u201d to the sugar industry [33]. Hickson described the value of Project 259 as \u201cnil\u201d [33]. After supporting the project for 27 months, ISRF did not approve the additional 12 weeks of funding needed to complete the study. Knowing that additional funding was not forthcoming from ISRF, according to ISRF\u2019s 1969\u20131970 Annual Report of Research, \u201cDr Pover ha[d] expressed hopes [to ISRF] of obtaining continuing support from other sources\u201d [33]. No published papers were listed for Project 259 in the ISRF publication, Sugar Research 1943\u20131972 [30]. We could not identify any published results. A March 1974 ISRF report includes its internal interpretation of Project 259\u2019s results: Observations showed significant increase in serum triglyceride level with rats having conventional [microbiota] on sucrose diets, whereas a decreasing effect was noted with germ-free rats, suggesting the triglycerides were formed from fatty acids produced in the small intestine by the fermentation of sucrose [30]. ISRF\u2019s summary of Project 259 confirms that the sugar industry interpreted the results as indicating that intestinal bacteria had a role in sucrose-induced hypertriglyceridemia in rats.", "summary": "\u2013 Just as the tobacco industry aimed to quash evidence of health risks linked to smoking, a new paper claims the Sugar Research Foundation decades ago suppressed research on the sugar's negative effects. The assertion comes via University of California at San Francisco researchers who reviewed internal sugar industry documents, per a release. NPR explains what they say they found: In 1968, the SRF funded a researcher's study that looked at the impact a high-sugar (versus starch) diet had on lab rats. The initial findings pointed to an increase in their triglyceride (that's a fat in your blood) levels and noted elevated levels of an enzyme linked to bladder cancer in their urine. The researcher shared initial findings, and SRF opted not to fund the previously authorized three-month extension needed to finish the research. \"Had this information been made public, there would have been a lot more research scrutiny of sugar,\" says paper author Cristin Kearns. She suspects more potential manipulation as \"ISRF sponsored more than 300 research projects between 1943 and 1972, and its successor organizations continue to fund research,\" she tells the Guardian. But one successor, the Sugar Association, argues the research published in PLOS Biology is only a \"collection of speculations and assumptions.\" It says the 1968 study was ended because it was delayed, over budget, and occurred during \"organizational restructuring\" in which the SRF became the International Sugar Research Foundation. \"There were plans to continue the study with funding from the British Nutrition Foundation, but, for reasons unbeknown to us, this did not occur.\""}
{"document": "Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Former religious affairs correspondent for the Guardian, Stephen Bates: ''It is an exposure of church hierarchy hypocrisy'' \n \n Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the former leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has admitted his sexual conduct has at times \"fallen beneath the standards expected of me\". \n \n He apologised and asked forgiveness from those he had \"offended\". \n \n In a statement, he also apologised to the Church and the people of Scotland. \n \n The cardinal resigned last Monday after three priests and a former priest had made allegations of improper behaviour against him dating back to the 80s. \n \n Cardinal O'Brien was Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric until he stood down as the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. \n \n Life in retirement \n \n In announcing his resignation, he also said he would not take part in the election for a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, known as the conclave. \n \n Analysis Some will find it a relief that the cardinal's week-long silence has ended, and the issue of \"sexual conduct\" now at least has a name. But, as Cardinal O'Brien's statement is so conspicuously devoid of any detail, it seems to raise almost as many questions as it answers - particularly about the nature and timing of the occasions of that wrongdoing. His admission that his \"conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal\" could be taken to confirm that his improper behaviour continued beyond the time of the initial allegations in the 1980s into the recent past. Cardinal O'Brien is not in a position to say what sort of inquiry will now take place. The cardinal has not been accused of anything illegal, so it will be an internal investigation and the results might not be made public. It will be carried out by the Vatican under a new Pope, not by the Church in Scotland, and any punishment would depend on the circumstances of his improper sexual conduct. Whatever else it tells us, the cardinal's statement does sit uneasily with his years of outspoken denunciation of homosexual relationships. \n \n Sunday's further statement, issued through the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, read: \"In recent days, certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them. \n \n \"However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal. \n \n \"To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness. To the Catholic Church and people of Scotland, I also apologise. \n \n \"I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement. I will play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland.\" \n \n The cardinal - who had initially said he was taking legal advice when the allegations against him were made public - had been due to retire later this month when he turned 75. \n \n The former priest and three current priests from the diocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh complained to the Pope's representative to Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, in early February about what they alleged had been inappropriate behaviour towards them in the 1980s. \n \n Earlier on Sunday, the ex-priest told the Observer he had been disappointed by the \"cold disapproval\" he had faced from the Church for \"daring to break ranks\". \n \n He also claimed to have gone public only because he feared the matter was in danger of being swept under the carpet by the church. \n \n The BBC's correspondent in Rome, David Willey, said the news would no doubt affect the mood at the papal conclave at the Vatican. \n \n He added: \"The Rome gathering is already overshadowed by allegations of scandal, intrigue and betrayal among the Vatican hierarchy. \n \n \"The credibility of the Roman Catholic Church will be further damaged by Cardinal O'Brien's confession of inappropriate sexual behaviour.\" \n \n 'Late-night drinking' \n \n Last week, the Observer reported that the former priest had claimed Cardinal O'Brien had made an inappropriate approach to him in 1980, after night prayers, when he was a seminarian at St Andrew's College, Drygrange. \n \n A second statement from another complainant said he had been living in a parish when he was visited by Cardinal O'Brien, and inappropriate contact had taken place between them. \n \n A third complainant alleged he had faced what he described as \"unwanted behaviour\" by the cardinal in the 1980s after some late-night drinking. \n \n The fourth complainant claimed the cardinal had used night prayers as an excuse for inappropriate contact, the newspaper said. \n \n Cardinal O'Brien, who was born in Ballycastle, Co Antrim, had been the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh since 1985. \n \n He has been an outspoken opponent of plans to legalise same-sex marriage in Scotland and was named \"bigot of the year\" by gay rights charity Stonewall last year. \n \n In an interview with BBC Scotland shortly before the allegations against him were made public, the cardinal said he believed priests should be able to marry and have children if they wished. \n \n He said it was clear many priests struggled to cope with celibacy. ||||| A key figure behind allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Cardinal Keith O'Brien has launched a powerful attack on the Catholic church's response to the complaints, saying he fears the church hierarchy would \"crush\" him if they could. \n \n Last Sunday the Observer revealed that the former priest, along with three serving priests, had reported O'Brien's behaviour to the Vatican, prompting the UK's most senior Catholic to resign the following day. Now the former priest, who says he was the subject of unwanted attention by O'Brien when he was a 20-year-old seminarian, has come forward to explain why he made his allegations public and to lambast the Scottish church leadership's reaction to last week's story. \n \n He is \"disappointed\" by the \"lack of integrity\" shown by the Catholic church. \"There have been two sensations for me this week. One is feeling the hot breath of the media on the back of my neck and the other is sensing the cold disapproval of the church hierarchy for daring to break ranks. I feel like if they could crush me, they would,\" he told the Observer. \n \n He added that he was shocked when Peter Kearney, director of communications for the church in Scotland, claimed O'Brien's resignation was not linked to the Observer story and that the church did not know the details of the allegations. \n \n Kearney said he was unable to comment on suggestions that a new complaint had been lodged as a result of last week's story. When asked to outline the church's programme of support for complainants, he said only that they would be directed to Antonio Mennini, the Papal Nuncio, the Vatican's ambassador to Britain, to make a formal statement. \n \n \"The vacuum the church has created has allowed whimsy and speculation to distort the truth,\" the priest said. \"And the only support I have been offered is a cursory email with a couple of telephone numbers of counsellors hundreds of miles away from me. Anyway, I don't need counselling about Keith O'Brien's unwanted behaviour to me as a young man. But I may need counselling about the trauma of speaking truth to power.\" \n \n The former cleric says he feels that he, rather than the cardinal, has been the subject of scrutiny. \"I have felt very alone and there is a tendency to become reclusive when people are trying to hunt you down.\" \n \n He said he felt particularly angered by demands that the identity of the four complainants be revealed: \"To those who want to know my name I would say, what does that change? And what do you think I have done wrong?\" \n \n He said that when the four came forward to the church, they were asked to make sworn signed statements to Mennini. But they were also warned that if their complaints became public knowledge, they would cause \"immense further damage to the church\". The church, he says, failed to act quickly and appropriately, adding that he fears the matter was in danger of being swept under the carpet. \n \n \"For me, this is about integrity. I thought it was best to let the men and women who put their hard-earned cash in the plate every Sunday know what has been happening. If you pay into something you have a right, but also a duty, to know what you are paying for.\" \n \n He said that the men's complaints were not maliciously motivated. \"I am as sinful as the next man \u2013 as my partner and pals frequently remind me. But this isn't about trying to own the moral high ground. I feel compassion for O'Brien, more compassion than the church is showing me, but the truth has to be available \u2013 even when that truth is hard to swallow.\" \n \n He also dismissed suggestions that the accusations contain an element of homophobia. \" This is not about a gay culture or a straight culture. It's about an open culture. I would be happy to see an openly gay bishop, cardinal, or pope. But the church acts as if sexual identity has to be kept secret.\"", "summary": "\u2013 At first he denied claims of sexual misconduct. Now Keith O'Brien, Britain's most powerful cardinal, has issued a statement apologizing for \"times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal. To those I have offended, I apologize and ask forgiveness.\" Facing accusations from three current priests and a former priest, the 74-year-old Catholic leader says he will spend his remaining days in retirement and have no part in public life, the BBC reports. The accusations are similar\u2014all alleging inappropriate approaches by O'Brien in the 1980s, usually after night prayers or late-night drinking. The former priest who pointed a finger at O'Brien told the Observer that he was \"disappointed\" by the Catholic church's \"lack of integrity\" and \"the cold disapproval of the church hierarchy for daring to break ranks. I feel like if they could crush me, they would.\" Despite O'Brien's apparent interest in men, he has loudly opposed same-sex marriage rights in Scotland and was awarded \"bigot of the year\" by the gay rights group Stonewall."}
{"document": "Snap is making its investors' money disappear. After plunging 23% on its first quarter earnings report, Snap shares -- of which a mere 8.7% are sold short -- have further to fall. \n \n I see three reasons for that: a man-child CEO, the competitive threat from Facebook, and an undisciplined growth strategy. (I have no financial interest in the securities mentioned in this post). \n \n On May 10, Snap reported slower revenue growth and a bigger loss than analysts expected. More specifically, its $2.21 billion loss or $2.31 a share was a whopping $1.10 higher than the FactSet consensus. \n \n That 36% sequential increase in revenue to $149.6 million fell $8.7 million below the FactSet consensus and below the 53% growth it enjoyed in the same quarter of 2016. What's more, Snap's average revenue per user fell 14.3% from the previous quarter to 90 cents on a 36% boost to 166 million daily active users. \n \n There are three compelling reasons to bet against this company's stock. \n \n 1. Man-child CEO \n \n Evan Spiegel's conduct in Snap's May 10 conference call reflects the most frightening issue for investors in its stock. Thanks to the insurmountable voting control of Spiegel and CTO Robert Murphy who hold nearly 89% of its voting power, investors in its shares have no recourse but to pay the tuition for the CEO's on the job training. \n \n And Spiegel does need lots of training -- after all he sounded convinced that he could snap (pun intended) his fingers and change how investors evaluate whether to buy or sell stock. \n \n According to Bloomberg, he \"spoke as if the quarter was a success. He deflected questions and concerns by explaining that people may just not understand the value of his platform yet, or the company\u2019s unique business model. For advertisers, the biggest hurdle is 'education' about how effective Snap\u2019s products can be, he said. And when it comes to adding users, he said Snap doesn\u2019t stoop to the 'growth hacking' tactics of rivals, like asking people to add all their phone contacts as friends, which he views as unsustainable.\" \n \n Maybe Spiegel will learn fast and turn into a great CEO. But since he is surrounded by a bubble that pampers his every whim and is securely ensconced on his throne thanks to his voting control of the stock he is likely to remain the same self-satisfied Spiegel he is today. \n \n 2. Facebook \n \n His blas\u00e9 attitude towards investors would be fine were Snap the only stock out there. \n \n For example, Facebook is eating Snap's lunch. In April, Facebook's Instagram said it had \"200 million daily users of Instagram Stories, a feature of the photo-sharing app that mimics Snapchat's popular function,\" according to the Wall Street Journal. \n \n Users say they prefer the Facebook feature. 25% of respondents in an April survey of 3,000 Americans conducted by Goodwater Capital prefer Stories on one of Facebook's platforms -- 13 percentage points more than those who said they like Snapchat's Stories better. \n \n Spiegel displayed what looks to me like overconfidence in the face of the threat from Facebook. As he said in the conference call, \u201cIf you want to be a creative company, you have got to be comfortable with and enjoy the fact that people copy your products if you make great stuff. Just because Yahoo! has a search box doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re Google.\u201d \n \n 3. Undisciplined growth strategy \n \n Facebook has a similarly entrenched CEO and suffered a big plunge in its stock after its initial public offering. But unlike Snap, Facebook had and still does have a disciplined growth strategy. \n \n In Facebook's May 2012 prospectus, it cited as a big risk that it had no mobile strategy. Today, Facebook gets 86% of its revenue from mobile advertising. This is one of the more significant proof points that Mark Zuckerberg is more capable than Spiegel when it comes to identifying important untapped growth opportunities and taking the steps needed to grab a significant market share of them. \n \n Snap's growth strategy appears undisciplined to me. The company is spending more on advertising deepening its operating loss, \"which more than doubled to $188 million and surpassed its revenue of $149.6 million,\" according to the Journal. \n \n As Snap grows, it is suffering from severe diseconomies of scale. In the first quarter of 2017, its costs per daily active user soared over 12-fold from $1.16 to $14.24 as its revenue per DAU declined 14.3%. \n \n And Snap's growth vectors -- new services and new geography -- appear flawed. For example, Snap was running into technical problems with its Android version. As BusinessInsider wrote, \"Android bugs had contributed to its slowed user growth in Q4.\" \n \n Snap seems to be trying a throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to new features. These include a \"'Snap to Store' ad offering, which ties campaigns back to foot traffic in physical stores\" -- but given Amazon's success at the expense of physical stores, this seems like two drowning men intertwining on their way down. \n \n Snap is also struggling to expand geographically -- Spiegel said that internet access in less-developed parts of the world is \"a real issue\" and he infuriated \"India over an alleged comment [he] made about not caring about 'poor countries,'\" according to BusinessInsider. \n \n Snap has $1.4 billion in cash and burned through $173 million in free cash flow in the first quarter of 2017, according to Snap. Since it has no long-term debt, Snap does not seem to be in the kind of imminent cash flow danger that would warrant selling its shares short. \n \n It could make sense to investigate an options-based strategy to bet on the decline in Snap's stock. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| Traders at the post where Snap Inc. is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Thomson Reuters Oh, Snap. \n \n The newly public company plummeted as much as 24% to $17.59 on the first day of regular trading after a disappointing earnings report that saw user growth slow to its lowest pace in years. \n \n The stock on Thursday afternoon was trading just above the company's initial-public-offering price of $17. Snap also missed consensus forecasts for adjusted earnings and revenue. \n \n But it wasn't all bad news for stock investors \u2014 short sellers are poised to make a killing on the share plunge. The day before the report, they pushed bearish wagers on the stock to the highest level since Snap's March 1 IPO, selling a whopping $100 million short over the past week alone, according to data compiled by the financial analytics firm S3 Partners. \n \n It's sweet redemption for the bearish Snap speculators, who had lost $28.4 million on a mark-to-market basis betting on the company following the IPO, according to S3 data. \n \n On the other side of the ledger is Snap cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel. Worth roughly $5 billion heading into the earnings release, according to wealth rankings compiled by Bloomberg, Spiegel is out about $1 billion following the stock decline. \n \n As Spiegel and his Snap colleagues look to rebound, Wall Street analysts are split on whether they'll be able to pull it off. \n \n With a price target of $14, Nomura sees Snap sliding further, citing \"incrementally fierce competition from deeper-pocketed rivals including Facebook.\" \n \n Pivotal Research is even more pessimistic, calling for Snap to fall all the way to $9 a share. They noted a \"surprising element of seasonality\" in the business, while lamenting the risk that Snap wouldn't grow by as much as the firm previously expected. \n \n Some of the biggest banks on Wall Street line up on the other side of the Snap debate. Goldman Sachs has a price target of $27 and believes the company's \"audience and engagement represent a unique asset that will benefit from growth and diversification of internet usage and advertiser adoption as both mature.\" \n \n Citi shares a similar sentiment. While the firm acknowledges that Snap's first earnings report will be a hurdle in the short term, it sees \"the low rate of monetization and the high rate of engagement enabling revenue growth and margin leverage over the long-term.\" ||||| Too early to call Snap's future: Analyst Thursday, 11 May 2017 | 6:18 AM ET | 03:35 \n \n Evan Spiegel's Snap faces one major hurdle that Facebook didn't have when it went public five years ago, equity strategist Michael Graham told CNBC on Thursday. \n \n The senior equity strategist at Canaccord Genuity spoke a day after Snapchat's parent fell short of Wall Street expectations for revenue and user growth in its first earnings report as a public company. The report was also an indicator on how the company has fared as Facebook pushes aggressively into its turf. \n \n That's \"a big competitor right in front of them,\" Graham said on \"Squawk Box.\" \"The fact that every month Snap will be battling [Facebook's] Instagram for users is a real difference in the two stories.\" \n \n When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the social media company public in May 2012, he faced the rise of Pinterest and Twitter setting records in part from the U.S. presidential election. Facebook acquired Instagram a month earlier.", "summary": "\u2013 It was a tough day for Snap Inc., and particularly CEO Evan Spiegel, on Wednesday. Snap stock plummeted 24% to $17.59 per share after the company's first quarterly earnings report since going public showed disappointing revenue growth and the slowest pace of user growth in years, reports Business Insider. That meant Spiegel lost $1 billion of his $5 billion fortune, though shares climbed to $18.76 on Thursday. More on what that means: It's bad, but not unprecedented, reports the Los Angeles Times, noting Facebook stock fell 10% and Twitter stock fell 22% following the first quarterly earnings report after an IPO. Snap's user growth, it states, will be key to watch going forward. While Facebook rebounded from its 2012 hit, Snap faces a hurdle that Facebook didn't, an equity strategist tells CNBC: It has Facebook as a competitor. Indeed, the Stories feature on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has some 200 million daily users. Snapchat has 166 million. Spiegel seems flippant. \"People are going to copy your product if you build great stuff,\" he said during Wednesday's conference call with investors. \"Just because Yahoo has a search box doesn't make it Google.\" But that line raises a red flag for Peter Cohan, who says it's time to bet against Snap. The company's \"man-child CEO\" is the \"most frightening issue for investors in its shares,\" who \"have no recourse but to pay the tuition for the CEO's on the job training,\" he writes at Forbes, also citing Snap's \"undisciplined growth strategy.\" Nomura and Pivotal Research both appear concerned, expecting Snap stock to fall to $14 and $9 per share, respectively. But Goldman Sachs and Citi are more confident, with the former claiming \"audience and engagement represent a unique asset that will benefit from growth and diversification of internet usage and advertiser adoption as both mature.\""}
{"document": "Gisele is pregnant with another baby that will probably grow up so beautiful that it too will earn more in a day than you do in a year. Oh, it's with her husband, Tom Brady, but would be infinitely more interesting if it wasn't. \"Yes, she is pregnant,\" squealed a source. \"They are really happy!\" Just once, to shake things up, I'd love to hear a celebrity baby announcement that's less enthusiastic. \"Yes, she is pregnant,\" droned a source, \"and she's just like -ugh- about the whole thing.\" [NYDN] \n \n Though maybe, like Gisele, the tot will be rejected by 42 modeling agents first. [Us] \n \n Blind dates may be the worst, but Charlize Theron says it's even more uncomfortable if you're super famous and are doing it for charity. She found this out the hard way when she agreed to auction herself off and found herself stuck with some creepy rich dude for the night. \"They trick you with the \u2018people are suffering' thing. You fall for it and before you know it you're at a restaurant with some stranger. Like you could end up in Dahmer's apartment,\" she said, adding that she had to call in a couple of her friends for back-up because the dude was giving her the willies. \"Rich people can be creeps, too! Look, I'd rather just give the money [to charity]. It was a scary thing. And [the guy] was weird.\" [Just Jared] \n \n Advertisement \n \n Kate Bosworth and her director boyfriend, Michael Polish, enjoyed a 30-minute public fight at the CFDA after-party on Tuesday morning. There was shouting, arm-grabbing, slack-jawed stares, but, despite all that, it turned out to be a fizzler as they were canoodling before night's end. Sidenote: this reporter, though failing to find out the context of their tiff, seems to have an awful lot of other details. The best bit: \"Although the dance music drowned out much of their heated conversation, we did hear him yell \u2018I'm sorry!' and Bosworth repeatedly bark \u2018No!' as a large vein bulged in her forehead.\" [NYDN] \n \n Advertisement \n \n The frankly bizarre relationship between John Myer and Taylor Swift just won't die. First the former has a big cry-baby whine session to Rolling Stone and now the pair are causing delightfully dramatic public scenes when running into each other at West Hollywood bar/restaurants. \"Taylor very visibly - in front of the entire restaurant - demanded to be moved to the other side,\" said a fellow diner. \"The bar's usually an oasis of calm and privacy for celebrities and power players, but this was drama central.\" [Page Six] \n \n Advertisement \n \n When asked if she'll be making music with her good pal Rihanna anytime soon, Katy Perry said they'd be making sweet music together well before they went into the studio together. \"No, but we're going to have sex,\" she said. [The Sun] ||||| Gisele Bundchen in Rio de Janeiro on June 5, 2012. Credit: CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty Images \n \n Lil' Patriot -- and/or supermodel! -- on board! \n \n After a couple weeks of speculation, Gisele Bundchen and husband Tom Brady are expecting their second child together, a source confirms exclusively to Us Weekly. \n \n \"Yes, she is pregnant,\" the source tells Us, adding that the Brazilian catwalker, 31, is \"three months\" along. \"They are really happy!\" the source says. \n \n PHOTOS: Is Gisele the hottest mom ever? \n \n The baby-to-be will join big brother Benjamin, the couple's two-year-old son. Bundchen wed the handsome New England Patriots quarterback, 34, in April 2009; he also has a 4-year-old son, Jack, with ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan. \n \n PHOTOS: Supermodel moms \n \n The Victoria's Secret catwalker begged out of the 13th annual Best Buddies Event in Hyannis Port, Mass. -- which Brady chaired -- over the weekend. But so far, even three months along, Bundchen barely has a bump to conceal. In a Boston park with Benjamin June 1, she offered a tiny glimpse of a growing belly in a loose-fitting beige top, which she accessorized with skin-tight pants, shades and a scarf. \n \n BAUER-GRIFFIN.COM \n \n Bundchen -- who has made a slew of controversial comments over the years about breastfeeding, her husband's 2012 Super Bowl loss (she blamed his teammates), her work ethic, the alleged dangers of sunscreen and more -- admitted in late 2010 that she wanted to grow her family. \n \n PHOTOS: Tom and Gisele's most romantic moments \n \n \"I want more kids for sure, but I don't know when,\" she told British Vogue, adding that \"I have my hands full\" with Benjamin and her stepson Jack. \n \n \"For Benjamin, his big brother is his hero,\" said the 5'11\" stunner. \"Jack comes in and Benjamin has a big smile. He wants to follow him around. Anything he does, he's just in awe of him like, 'Oh my God!'\"", "summary": "\u2013 Brace yourself: Another depressingly good-looking human is on its way. Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady are expecting once again, according to Us Weekly. Bundchen is three months into the pregnancy, an insider tells the magazine, which helpfully notes that there isn't much of a baby bump thus far. The couple already has a 2-year-old, Benjamin; Brady has a 4-year-old son, Jack, from a previous relationship. \"They are really happy!\" the source says. As for the rest of us: Let's hope the \"superbaby\" doesn't \"destroy us all,\" Jezebel warns."}
{"document": "(Reuters) - The U.S. government must return 10 exceptionally rare gold coins worth millions of dollars each to a Pennsylvania family from which the purloined coins were seized a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. \n \n By a 2-1 vote, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said Joan Langbord and her sons Roy and David are the rightful owners of the double eagle $20 gold pieces, after the government ignored their claim to the coins and missed a deadline to seek their forfeiture. \n \n \u201cThe government knew that it was obligated to bring a judicial civil forfeiture proceeding or to return the property, but refused,\u201d Circuit Judge Marjorie Rendell wrote. \u201cHaving failed to do so, it must return the Double Eagles to the Langbords.\u201d \n \n Patricia Hartman, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger in Philadelphia, said: \u201cWe are weighing our options.\u201d \n \n The Philadelphia Mint in 1933 produced 445,500 double eagles. But they were not circulated because President Franklin Roosevelt, trying to halt a bank panic, removed gold coins from circulation and made ownership of large amounts illegal. \n \n Most of the coins were melted down, but a few were smuggled out, including one that fetched $7.6 million at a 2002 auction after having once been possessed by Egypt\u2019s King Farouk. \n \n The government had long suspected without proving that the late Israel Switt, a gold dealer and father of Joan Langbord, had smuggled some of the coins with the help of a Mint employee. \n \n It seized the Langbords\u2019 double eagles after the family located the coins in a safe deposit box once belonging to Switt, and sought to have the Mint authenticate them. \n \n But when the Langbords filed a \u201cseized asset claim\u201d in September 2005, the government neither returned the coins nor sought their forfeiture within 90 days, as required under the federal Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act. \n \n The family sued, but a federal jury in July 2011 said the government could keep the coins, and the trial judge later agreed. Rendell, though, said the CAFRA violation justified the coins\u2019 return. \n \n Barry Berke, a lawyer for the Langbords said: \u201cThe Langbords are thrilled to receive their property back after fighting to vindicate their rights for over a decade.\u201d \n \n The case is Langbord et al v. U.S. Department of the Treasury et al, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-4574. \n \n (This version of the story corrects last name in seventh and eighth paragraphs to \u201cSwitt\u201d from \u201cSwift\u201d) ||||| A federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Mint must return 10 rare gold coins to the heirs of a Philadelphia coin dealer who obtained them decades ago under mysterious circumstances. \n \n By a 2-to-1 vote, a panel of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia on Friday ruled that the coins, famed Depression-era $20 gold pieces known as \u201cDouble Eagles,\u201d were improperly confiscated by the government in 2004, and must be...", "summary": "\u2013 In 1933, the US Mint in Philadelphia minted almost half a million $20 gold coins, known as double eagles. But with the nation in the throes of the Depression and fearing a bank run, FDR blocked their release and most were melted down. A few managed to wander out of the Mint, however, including 10 that have been at the center of a decade-long legal contest between a Philadelphia family that found them in a safe deposit box and the federal government, which claims the family patriarch stole them. The latest chapter in that fight comes via the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals, reports Reuters, which ruled Friday that the feds must return the coins to Joan Langbord and sons Roy and David. At stake is a little more than the $200 face value: A double eagle sold for $7.6 million in a 2002 auction. The feds think Joan Langbord's father, gold dealer Israel Switt, swiped the coins. Treasury seized them when the Langbords found them in Switt's safe deposit box in 2003 and tried to authenticate them, notes the Wall Street Journal. But when the Langbords filed a seized-asset claim in 2005, the government failed to respond in the required 90 days. \"The government knew that it was obligated to bring a judicial civil forfeiture proceeding or to return the property, but refused,\" wrote a judge. \"Having failed to do so, it must return the Double Eagles to the Langbords.\" Says a Langbord lawyer: \"The Langbords are thrilled to receive their property back after fighting to vindicate their rights for over a decade.\""}
{"document": "UPDATE: Abu Dhabi Police confirm American victim was killed in attack and want witnesses to come forward \n \n ABU DHABI // A woman was stabbed at Boutik Mall on Reem Island on Monday afternoon, witnesses said. \n \n Mall employees and shoppers said the altercation took place between two women in the ladies public toilets outside of Waitrose supermarket in the Sun and Sky Tower complex. \n \n By 4pm Abu Dhabi Police and mall security had cordoned off the public bathrooms and one of the elevators outside of Waitrose where blood stains could be seen on the floor and along a rubbish bin by the elevators. \n \n Police on the scene declined to comment on the incident and Aldar Properties, the developer that owns the building, said it would not comment as it was a matter for the police. \n \n One witness, who did not wish to give his name, said he saw a woman bleeding on the floor outside of the supermarket's entrance. \n \n Another witness who works at a restaurant close to where the stabbing took place said the incident occurred in the disabled toilet while she was using the adjacent toilet. \n \n She said she could hear the two women arguing. \n \n \"Women go to the bathroom together and gossip, talk and argue all the time,\" said Vithi Cuc, a Vietnamese who has been working in the mall for over a year. \n \n \"But then I heard one of them threatening the other saying 'Sit down or I'll kill you'.\" \n \n The restaurant employee said she then heard banging sounds from the stall. \n \n \"I heard one of them try to call out for help. By this time there were three of us outside the toilet and one of us ran to get security. When the female security guard arrived they told us to leave the bathroom. I was so scared and frightened for her,\" she said. \n \n The condition of the woman who was stabbed is not known and police did not comment when asked if any arrests were made. \n \n tsubaihi@thenational.ae \n \n UPDATE: Abu Dhabi Police confirm American victim was killed in attack and want witnesses to come forward ||||| A murder investigation has been launched after an American mother was stabbed to death during a clash with a burqa-clad 'woman' in shopping mall toilets in Abu Dhabi. \n \n The 37-year-old kindergarten teacher, who has 11-year-old twin boys, was stabbed with a knife in the altercation in the ladies' toilets a supermarket in Boutik Mall on Reem island in the United Arab Emirates capital. \n \n She was taken to be treated at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City but died later from her injuries in the incident on Monday afternoon. \n \n The victim - who is divorced from the father of the twins - has not been identified. Her initials are only known as ABR. \n \n Police say they do not know if it was a woman or a man in the burqa. \n \n Witnesses told police the pair had been embroiled in an argument in the public toilets, which are beside a branch of Waitrose, an upscale British supermarket chain which has a presence in the Middle East. \n \n Scroll down for video \n \n Assailant: Local police released this picture of the attacker fleeing the scene \n \n Escaping: Police released this image from CCTV of the woman making her way from the crime scene \n \n Officers are still trying to determine the reasons for the attack and the identity of the suspect, who fled the scene wearing an abaya, black gloves and the face-covering veil known as a niqab. \n \n The victim's ex-husband was said to be overseas but was flying back to comfort his sons. \n \n They were being looked after by community police officers. \n \n Colonel Rashid Bourshid, director of the criminal investigation department of Abu Dhabi police, said: 'Police found the woman lying on the floor bleeding. \n \n 'She had serious wounds after being stabbed with a knife during a brawl with the attacker. \n \n 'No reason has been established yet as to why the woman was murdered. The attacker fled the scene after stabbing the woman.' \n \n The victim worked at a private school in Abu Dhabi and lived with her sons in the city. \n \n Mall employees witnessed the altercation with her attacker. \n \n Col Bourshid said a murder investigation had been launched and police were searching for the suspect. \n \n The suspect - apparently a woman - was described as wearing an abaya, black jacket and gloves. \n \n New: The mall where the attack took place opened in 2011 and has 50 shops and restaurants. It caters for a mix of expatriates and wealthy locals \n \n Glitzy: The scene of the murder was the Reem island mall development, which sits between two towers and was opened in 2011 \n \n He added: 'Community policing is now taking care of the two boys and will provide them with shelter and all necessary support until their father, who stays outside the UAE, arrives.' \n \n It was not known whether the boys were with her at the time of the attack. \n \n Reem island is a residential, commercial and business development connected to Abu Dhabi city centre by a bridge. It was built as the city center became over-populated. \n \n It is mostly inhabited by expatriates and boasts the upmarket Boutik Mall, which opened in 2011 and has 50 shops and restaurants, including the capital city's first Waitrose, Leopold's of London and La Brioche. \n \n The mall bridges two residential buildings, Sun and Sky towers. Its website says it 'offers the best of everything that anyone needs to lead a stylish life. \n \n 'Serving the vibrant and cosmopolitan community of Shams Abu Dhabi and beyond, Boutik is an oasis of independent retailers, brand outlets, comfortable cafes and day-to-day services. \n \n 'For busy professionals living and working in the adjoining towers and for students at the Sorbonne, it is a welcome social centre and cornerstone of the community.'", "summary": "\u2013 Police in Abu Dhabi are searching for a suspect who killed an American woman in an upscale mall, but they don't have much to go on: The black-clad person captured on security footage had his or her face covered with a niqab. Police say the 37-year-old woman, a kindergarten teacher with 11-year-old twin sons, was stabbed during an argument in a women's bathroom on Monday and died in a hospital from her injuries, the Daily Mail reports. Witnesses tell the National that they heard two women arguing. \"Women go to the bathroom together and gossip, talk, and argue all the time,\" a mall restaurant worker says. \"But then I heard one of them threatening the other, saying, 'Sit down or I'll kill you.'\" A police spokesman says investigators are still trying to determine a motive and will \"spare no effort in order to unveil this heinous crime and bring the culprit to justice.\" The woman's children are being cared for by authorities until her ex-husband arrives from overseas, police say."}
{"document": "Speaker Paul Ryan said he will no longer \"defend Trump\" or campaign with him. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Ryan abandons Trump The House speaker all but conceded that Clinton will win and said he plans to campaign only for a GOP Congress. \n \n Speaker Paul Ryan told House Republicans on a conference call Monday morning that he\u2019s done defending Donald Trump and will focus on maintaining his party\u2019s increasingly imperiled House majority, according to sources on the call. \n \n The message amounted to a concession by the highest-ranking elected Republican that his nominee for president can\u2019t win \u2014 and lawmakers should save themselves and the Republican-controlled Congress to act as a check on Hillary Clinton. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Ryan stopped short of formally rescinding his endorsement of Trump \u2014 but just short. His move carries immense risk, and Ryan faced blowback from all sides: Trump and his surrogates warned Republican leaders they would pay a price for breaking from the nominee; some rank-and-file Republicans warned the strategy was a mistake; and immediately after the call, Clinton tweeted to her nearly 10 million followers that \u201cRyan is still endorsing Trump.\u201d \n \n Trump tweeted after the call that \"Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee.\" And a Trump supporter in the House, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, sharply criticized Republican leaders on the call for not doing enough to support Trump, sources said. \n \n The continued fallout set off alarms among Republicans about a potential down-ballot wave that imperils not only the Senate, which Democrats are already in a strong position to win, but the until-now seemingly impenetrable House majority. At this point, the imperative for vulnerable Republicans on the ballot is simply political survival. \n \n \n \n \n \n Ryan told his members that \u201cyou all need to do what\u2019s best for you in your district,\" said a source on the call, giving rank-and-file lawmakers political cover to disavow Trump. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California urged the lawmakers to take a deep breath and focus on their own races. \n \n It was the biggest and most dramatic split between the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker on Capitol Hill and the party's presidential nominee. Ryan has pushed back repeatedly on Trump's most outrageous comments or positions, but until now, he has refused to openly break with the nominee. \n \n Ryan and House Republicans are cognizant they could face a backlash from Trump supporters. With less than a month to go in the campaign, an open rupture between the presidential nominee and down-ballot Republicans could turn off independent voters and depress turnout among base voters, compounding their problems from the top of the ticket. \n \n \"The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities,\" said AshLee Strong, Ryan's spokeswoman. \n \n Ryan will be campaigning in 17 states and 42 cities this month, with additional events planned, said GOP sources. \n \n The conference call came as GOP congressional leaders and rank-and-file members have grown increasingly tired of Trump's rhetoric, uneven public appearances and lewd language. On Friday, a 2005 videotape was released showing Trump making vulgar comments about women, including suggesting he could grab them against their will because he was a celebrity. The video spurred dozens of House and Senate GOP lawmakers to revoke their endorsements of Trump or say they will vote for vice presidential nominee Mike Pence. \n \n Trump apologized for his 2005 comments, but then tried to go on the offensive during Sunday's presidential debate by repeatedly invoking accusations from women of improper sexual advances by former President Bill Clinton. Trump accused Hillary Clinton of trying to destroy the credibility of these women. \n \n The move delighted some of the most hard-core conservatives but further alienated other Republicans, who see it as having nothing to do with beating Hillary Clinton. \n \n Other Trump supporters on the conference call said they wouldn't or couldn't concede the presidential race to Clinton. They included Reps. Billy Long of Missouri, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Trent Franks of Arizona and Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, among others. \n \n \"A lot of these guys feel like there is a moral imperative to beating Hillary Clinton,\" said a source on the call. \n \n \"Having [Clinton] as commander in chief is something they just can't accept,\" added a GOP lawmaker. \"It just strikes them as appalling.\" \n \n Yet National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden of Oregon and GOP strategists are warning that Trump's poll numbers are tanking, and he could drag the House and Senate Republcian majorities down with him. To Ryan, McCarthy and other party leaders, acting as a check on Clinton if she wins is a more viable option \u2014 and a far more likely outcome \u2014 than a Trump victory. \n \n \"We're in a terrible place,\" said a separate GOP lawmaker. \"We're damned if we do [stick with Trump] and damned if we don't.\" \n \n ||||| We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter? \n \n Yes ||||| ST. LOUIS \u2014 House Speaker Paul Ryan has discussed withdrawing his endorsement of Donald Trump, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions within his inner circle. \n \n Ryan (R-Wis.) has publicly and privately grown dismayed by the tone and tenor of Trump's campaign, according to the sources. And Ryan has reviewed with close advisers whether to abandon the GOP nominee. The discussions occurred after the bombshell video Friday of Trump talking in predatory terms about his sexual exploits, but before the second presidential debate Sunday night. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n Ryan is gathering House Republicans on a conference call Monday at 11 a.m. \n \n No decision has been made. But that the speaker of the House has even mulled abandoning his own party's presidential nominee is illustrative of the extraordinarily bizarre political climate in the Republican Party. \n \n \"I think they all face the same dilemma, to varying degrees,\" a senior House Republican leadership aide said, echoing the sentiment of multiple high-level aides and lawmakers interviewed by POLITICO. \"How to express displeasure in a meaningful way. ... How best to help members in tough races. ... How to try to rebuild the party post the anticipated apocalypse. I think they are all having individual and group discussions wrestling with this.\" \n \n Trump's performance during Sunday's ugly and oftentimes vicious debate may have been enough to stanch GOP support from bleeding further. Over the weekend, nearly three dozen Senate and House Republicans either said that they couldn't vote for Trump or urged him to leave the ticket, after the release of the video, in which he bragged about trying to lure a woman into an affair and claimed that he kisses and fondles women with impunity because he is famous. The scandal threatened to derail Trump's campaign. \n \n A number of Senate and House Republicans in tough races have already announced they won't back Trump, leaving their leaders to decide whether to follow suit. \n \n Trump, in turn, has lashed out at establishment Republicans who abandoned him. Capitol Hill GOP insiders are fretting about the political situation they're now in. If they criticize Trump, they could lose the support of the Republican base. If they don't, independents might flee. \n \n The Wall Street Journal editorial page, frequently sympathetic to Ryan, suggested Sunday that GOP congressional leaders withdraw their support for Trump if they need to do so to save their majorities. \n \n \"They can\u2019t be blamed for breaking from Mr. Trump if that is what their consciences demand or if that is the best path to political survival this year,\" the Journal's editorial board wrote. \"At some point Republicans running for the House and Senate may have to mobilize voters with an argument that they need them as a check on Hillary Clinton.\" \n \n Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have all disavowed Trump's 2005 comments. Trump on Sunday night dismissed the video as \"locker room talk\" and tried to move beyond the controversy. \n \n \"I apologized to my family, I apologized to the American people. Certainly I'm not proud of it, but this is locker room talk,\" Trump added. \"Yes, I'm very embarrassed by it. I hate it. But it's locker room talk.\" \n \n An incident before the debate also alarmed Capitol Hill Republicans. Trump held an impromptu news event Sunday evening with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. Many Republican elected officials were hoping Trump wouldn't go there, given that Bill Clinton has been out of office for nearly 17 years. Trump suggested Hillary Clinton enabled her husband's improper behavior by attacking the credibility of his accusers. \n \n The four women who attended the event, broadcast on Facebook, were Paula Jones, Kathy Shelton, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick. Jones, Willey and Broaddrick have accused Bill Clinton of making improper sexual advances, while Shelton said Hillary Clinton undermined her credibility while defending a client during a 1970s rape case. \n \n \"These four courageous women have asked to be here, and it was our honor to help them,\" Trump said. \n \n The Clinton campaign dismissed the event as part of Trump's \"destructive race to the bottom.\" But elements in the GOP base pine for that confrontational style. And it indicated to some Republicans that Trump will fight on and keep the race close. That is one thing that helps congressional Republicans. \n \n ||||| Kellyanne Conway throws down the gauntlet to Paul Ryan \n \n Donald Trump\u2019s campaign manager challenged House Speaker Paul Ryan on Monday not to dump her boss. \n \n \u201cI certainly hope Speaker Ryan keeps his word and his endorsement of Donald Trump,\u201d Kellyanne Conway said on \u201cCBS This Morning\u201d -- an aspiration she delivered with a veiled threat. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n \u201cSpeaker Ryan, of course, took to the stage in Wisconsin in his event and faced some boos from the crowd because those who were [there] expected to see Donald Trump,\" Conway added. \"But we\u2019re happy the speaker of the House has endorsed the nominee Donald Trump.\u201d \n \n Ryan, who will convene a call with House Republicans later Monday morning, has already discussed rescinding his lukewarm endorsement of the GOP nominee with his top advisers, though no decision has been made yet. \n \n Ryan disinvited Trump from a campaign event in Wisconsin last weekend after a bombshell tape leaked to The Washington Post on Friday, revealing a braggadocious Trump in 2005 talking about attempting adultery and getting away with sexual assault because he\u2019s famous. \n \n The revelations of Trump\u2019s extremely crude comments, caught on a video by a hot mic inside an \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d bus, has sparked an exodus from dozens of Republicans, many of whom have called for him to step down or pledged not to vote for him. \n \n Conway argued that the defections show \u201cmany of them don't wanna support him and we\u2019re gonna to take the case directly to the voters.\u201d But she was also hopeful that Trump\u2019s performance in Sunday\u2019s second presidential debate would put a bandage on a damaging weekend, noting that she would welcome back the defections with open arms. \n \n \u201cI can tell you as the campaign manager, we certainly welcome them back, and we hope they saw on display last night somebody who\u2019s willing to a take the case to Hillary Clinton,\u201d she said. \u201cIf those members can live with giving the next three or four Supreme Court justices over to Hillary Clinton, they should think about that.\u201d \n \n Trump himself, though, has been less genial and optimistic. Trump said in multiple tweets over the weekend that he \u201cWILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE\u201d and boasted \u201c[t]remendous support (except for some Republican \u2018leadership\u2019).\u201d He later predicted that \u201cmany self-righteous hypocrites\u201d who have abandoned him in the wake of his sexually aggressive comments would see their poll numbers go down and lose their reelection bids. ||||| Paul Ryan told a crowd at a fall festival in Wisconsin that there was a \"troubling\" \"elephant in the room,\" after the Washington Post revealed a 2005 recording of Trump speaking in very lewd terms about women. (The Washington Post) \n \n A decision Monday by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan to not campaign with or defend Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump through the November election sparked a public feud with his party\u2019s standard-bearer within a matter of hours, suggesting that a widening split within the GOP could reverberate long after the presidential race is decided. \n \n Ryan\u2019s move \u2014 and a blunt assessment of the race that he and other congressional leaders delivered during a conference call with House GOP lawmakers Monday morning \u2014 underscored the perilous choice Republican officials now face in the wake of Friday\u2019s release of a 2005 videotape in which Trump made lewd comments about women: \n \n They can remain in line with their nominee, which would please their base but could alienate swing voters critical to maintaining their hold on Congress. Or they could renounce Trump and offend Republicans eager for a direct confrontation with Hillary Clinton and her husband. \n \n For his part, the speaker \u2014 who canceled an appearance with Trump after the videotape surfaced Friday \u2014 did neither. He won\u2019t publicly campaign with Trump, but he also did not rescind his endorsement of his party\u2019s controversial nominee or back away from his pledge to vote for him. \n \n One GOP lawmaker said Ryan (R-Wis.) was confronted on the call by at least a half-dozen members from districts ranging from California to Ohio who bristled at any attempt to distance the party from Trump. \n \n \u201cHe got huge pushback like I\u2019ve never seen before from members from across the country just saying that was the wrong move \u2014 and even if it cost them the House,\u201d said one lawmaker on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the private discussion. \n \n Late in the call, after several members had criticized GOP leaders, Ryan got back on the line to assure them that he was not planning to rescind his endorsement. But that appeared to do little to assure the pro-Trump contingent. \n \n \u201cA number of people said: You can\u2019t have it both ways. You\u2019ve either got to get out and be wholly supportive . . . or it really doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d the GOP lawmaker said. \n \n The lawmaker, who represents a safe Republican district where Trump is popular, told The Washington Post that he had heard much the same from his own constituents: \u201cThey\u2019re just so fed up with Washington, D.C., that all the rest of this stuff is a side point. . . . They\u2019re willing to overlook a whole lot to try to take back the country.\u201d \n \n But Rep. Charlie Dent \u2014 a moderate who does not support Trump \u2014 also spoke up on the call, saying, \u201cOur nominee should step aside, though I realize it is probably logistically impractical at this moment.\u201d \n \n Dent said he warned his fellow Republicans: \u201cDoes anyone on the call not think there are worse revelations to come? I would be shocked if there were not more revelations, and what\u2019s our plan when the next one hits?\u201d \n \n Trump lashed out at Ryan on Monday, tweeting that the speaker \u201cshould spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee.\u201d Within a matter of minutes, more than 6,300 people had favorited the tweet. \n \n Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2016 \n \n The widening chasm between GOP establishment leaders and Trump, who is now emboldened given his assertive debate performance Sunday night, has moved the party into uncharted territory in the final weeks of an already volatile and unpredictable presidential contest. Trump\u2019s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, took to the airwaves Monday to make it clear that Trump intends to remain on the offensive for the duration of the campaign. And Trump\u2019s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, tweeted that \u201cnothing\u2019s changed\u201d after the congressional call, because his candidate has always been a Washington outsider. \n \n Re: today\u2019s Congressional call: Nothing\u2019s changed. Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign has always been powered by a grassroots movement, not Washington. \u2014 Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) October 10, 2016 \n \n And in an interview Monday, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a close ally of Trump\u2019s, said his performance would make it more difficult for Republicans to abandon him. \u201cThey\u2019ve really raised the ante on Republicans who want to cut and run,\u201d he said. \u201cHow can you have watched that debate without knowing he won?\u201d \n \n [After distancing himself from Trump, Pence returns to defending him] \n \n Some Republican lawmakers, such as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.), questioned during the conference call Monday why GOP leaders hesitate to back Trump, citing Clinton\u2019s weakness as a candidate. \n \n In an email Monday, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said that \u201cthere is no update on [the speaker\u2019s] position at this time\u201d in regards to endorsing Trump. But she added, \u201cThe speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities.\u201d \n \n In withdrawing his public support from Trump, Ryan is essentially giving other Republican lawmakers license to do the same if they oppose Trump\u2019s statements and are concerned about their reelection chances. After the 2005 video emerged, Ryan said he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d by Trump\u2019s comments but did not withdraw his support. \n \n \u201cYou all need to do what\u2019s best for you and your district,\u201d Ryan said on the conference call, according to two participants who spoke anonymously because of the private nature of the call. \n \n With this move, Ryan at least partially joined a growing group of high-profile Republican lawmakers who have renounced their support of Trump following the disclosure Friday by The Post of an 11-year-old videotape of the businessman talking casually about kissing and groping women. That group includes Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and John McCain (Ariz.), both in tough reelection races, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah). \n \n Republicans who participated in the post-debate conference call Monday morning are becoming increasingly worried about their chances of holding on to their 30-seat House majority as Trump lags dangerously behind Clinton in the polls. One described the tone of the call as \u201cnervous.\u201d \n \n An NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey released Monday showed Trump taking a big dip after the release of the videotape, with Clinton leading Trump by double digits among likely voters, 46 percent to 35 percent, in a four-way contest. Democrats had a seven-point lead on the question of which party voters would like to see control Congress. \n \n Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the House GOP campaign arm, briefed lawmakers on the House battlegrounds, warning that the \u201cground is shifting,\u201d according to a lawmaker on the call. Walden said that Republicans should continue to poll their races and that winning would be equivalent to \u201clanding an airplane in a hurricane: You have to trust the instruments.\u201d \n \n The speaker plans to spend the next month, he told lawmakers on the conference call, \u201conly campaigning for House seats and not . . . to promote or defend Trump,\u201d according to a GOP lawmaker. Ryan plans to campaign in 17 states and 42 cities in October to help preserve his majority. \n \n One member who spoke out during the call \u2014 Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), a low-key lawmaker who represents struggling industrial areas along the eastern Ohio River \u2014 issued a statement late Monday saying he would \u201ccontinue to support the top of our Republican ticket\u201d while also saying he would \u201ccontinue to admire and support Speaker Ryan\u2019s leadership in a very challenging time.\u201d \n \n \u201cI am a husband, father of two daughters, and I have four granddaughters,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, while I find Donald Trump\u2019s locker room comments from ten years ago offensive, indefensible and regrettable, they don\u2019t change the fact that Hillary Clinton has proven she\u2019ll put personal politics over our national security. \n \n [Ryan embarks on whirlwind tour to help save his majority] \n \n The House GOP call was an opportunity for members to check in after a chaotic weekend in which dozens of GOP lawmakers revoked their support for Trump after the release of the video. Lawmakers spent the weekend fielding a barrage of questions about their support for Trump, without any formal guidance from party leaders. \n \n Ryan typically holds weekly sessions for his members, referring to the confabs as \u201cfamily meetings\u201d where members are invited to speak their minds. The meetings have become a mainstay for a House GOP that has been plagued by infighting and crises for more than a year. \n \n Pence made his first campaign appearance since news of the videotape had broken, telling a group in Charlotte on Monday that it had been \u201can interesting few days.\u201d He lauded Trump for apologizing during the debate for his vulgar remarks about forcing himself on women in 2005. \n \n \u201cIt takes a big man to know when he\u2019s wrong and admit it,\u201d said Pence, adding, \u201cDonald Trump last night showed that he\u2019s a big man.\u201d \n \n The governor also brought up his Christian faith in his explanation of why he continues to stand by Trump, saying he believes in \u201cgrace\u201d and \u201cforgiveness.\u201d \n \n Pence made a similar pitch Monday while speaking on Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cFox and Friends,\u201d even as he made clear that his former colleagues in Congress should remember that voters, rather than elected officials, will determine who succeeds President Obama. \n \n \u201cMy hope is that people across the country, including elected officials, believe in redemption as much as I do,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to talk to any of my friends in leadership. But really, this election is really in the hands of the American people.\u201d \n \n Democrats suggested that any effort by Republicans to distance themselves from their nominee at this point in the race would not shield them from the repercussions of his candidacy this fall. \n \n \u201cI understand why they\u2019re doing that, but Paul Ryan and other leaders in the Republican Party \u2014 there was a time where they could have spoken out. That time was this summer. And obviously it\u2019s too late now,\u201d Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters aboard the campaign\u2019s plane Monday while en route to Detroit. \u201cSomewhat of a civil war is breaking out in the Republican Party, but I think that Donald Trump didn\u2019t become the nominee of his party on his own. These leaders help legitimize him and I think they have a lot to answer for, and the voters, I imagine, will hold them accountable.\u201d \n \n And even as the actions Trump described in the 2005 videotape continued to spark renewed controversy this week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) told a reporter from the Weekly Standard that when it came to Trump\u2019s allusions to forcibly kissing women and grabbing them by their genitals, \u201d I don\u2019t characterize that as sexual assault.\u201d \n \n After someone tweeted in response that Sessions\u2019s comments were akin to when then-Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) torpedoed his 2012 Senate bid to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) by referring to \u201clegitimate rape,\u201d McCaskill said that was \u201cnot fair to Todd Akin.\u201d \n \n That\u2019s not fair to Todd Akin. No comparison. This much worse. https://t.co/3a9EYqkoKT \u2014 Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) October 10, 2016 \n \n Paul Kane in Washington, Philip Rucker in St. Louis, Sean Sullivan in Charlotte and John Wagner in Detroit contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 Sen. John McCain has dropped his endorsement for Donald Trump, as have several dozen other prominent GOPers, in the wake of Trump's \"hot mic\" 2005 tape that leaked Friday. But House Speaker Paul Ryan is still hanging in there, though he now says Trump can't count on him for much help through the rest of the election. Politico reports that in a Monday morning conference call, Ryan told fellow Republican lawmakers he \"won't defend Trump\" or show up at any campaign events with him leading up to Election Day. Instead, he's choosing to set his sights on other matters. \"The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities,\" his spokeswoman said in a statement, per the Washington Post. \"You all need to do what's best for you and your district,\" the Post source says Ryan told lawmakers in his call. And it's a real concern: A national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday shows Dems now have a 7-point lead on congressional preference, CNBC reports. But amid rumors that Ryan is thinking of pulling his endorsement entirely, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared on CBS This Morning on Monday, saying, \"I certainly hope Speaker Ryan keeps his word and his endorsement of Donald Trump,\" per Politico. As for those lawmakers who've already withdrawn their support, Trump doesn't have much hope for them in their own races. \"So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers\u2014and elections\u2014go down!\" he tweeted Sunday before the debate."}
{"document": "The iconic Pat Summitt is stepping aside, a moment fans of the Tennessee Lady Vols and women's basketball have been dreading since August. \n \n FILE - In this March 26, 2012, file photo, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt directs her players in the first half of an NCAA women's college basketball tournament regional final against Baylor in Des Moines,... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 17, 2012, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt, right, associate head coach Holly Warlick, center, watch their team during the second half of an NCAA tournament first-round... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 4, 2012, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt looks up at the confetti as she holds the championship trophy after Tennessee defeated LSU 70-58 in the championship game of... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this April 8, 2008, file photo, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt waves to the fans as her son Tyler holds the trophy after the Lady Vols defeated Stanford 64-48 in the NCAA college basketball national... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 21, 1998, file photo, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt signals to her players in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Rutgers at the NCAA Women's Mideast Regional... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 4, 2012, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt waves to the fans after Tennessee defeated LSU 70-58 in the championship game at the women's Southeastern Conference tournament... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 25, 2011, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt watches practice for an NCAA women's college basketball tournament regional semifinal, n Dayton, Ohio. Summitt, the sport's... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2009, file photo, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt has confetti dumped on her by players Alicia Manning (15) and Alex Fuller (2) after the Lady Vols defeated Georgia 73-43 an NCAA college... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this March 19, 2012, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt gives a thumbs-up as she leaves the court after Tennessee defeated DePaul 63-48 in an NCAA tournament second-round women's college... (Associated Press) \n \n Since the 59-year-old Summitt _ the sports all-time winningest coach _ revealed on Aug. 23 she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, the move has been anticipated. The Lady Vols played through an emotional season with Summitt's every move studied closely for glimpses of the disease that caused her problems with memory loss. \n \n Summitt said Wednesday the time had come. \n \n \"I've loved being the head coach at Tennessee for 38 years, but I recognize that the time has come to move into the future and to step into a new role,\" said Summitt. \n \n Tennessee said that Summitt _ the sports all-time winningest coach _ will become \"head coach emeritus\" with long-time assistant Holly Warlick being promoted to replace her. \n \n Tennessee has scheduled a news conference Thursday afternoon in Knoxville with Summitt and Warlick. \n \n When the Lady Vols lost in a regional final to eventual national champion Baylor, Warlick's tears during the postgame news conference gave a glimpse of how draining the season had been and the possible reality that it was Summitt's last game. \n \n Athletic director Dave Hart said summing up Summitt's career is impossible. \n \n \"She is an icon who does not view herself in that light, and her legacy is well-defined and everlasting,\" Hart said. \"Just like there will never be another John Wooden, there will never be another Pat Summitt. I look forward to continuing to work with her in her new role. She is an inspiration to everyone.\" \n \n Summitt will report to Hart and help the women's program she guided to eight national titles. \n \n \"I want to help ensure the stability of the program going forward,\" Summitt said. \"I would like to emphasize that I fully intend to continue working as head coach emeritus, mentoring and teaching life skills to our players, and I will continue my active role as a spokesperson in the fight against Alzheimer's through the Pat Summitt Foundation Fund.\" \n \n Summitt supports Warlick as her replacement, the two have a long history together. Warlick was Summitt's assistant for 27 years and a three-time All-American playing for the Hall of Fame coach. \n \n Hart said he watched Warlick grow tremendously this season under what he called \"unique circumstances\" and that she is deserving of the head job. Warlick will be the first head coach the Lady Vols have had since Summitt took over in 1974. \n \n \"Her mentor will be available for insight and advice, but this is Holly's team now,\" Hart said. \n \n Warlick said she is very thankful for all Summitt has done in preparing her for this opportunity as her coach, mentor and friend. \n \n \"We will work as hard as we possibly can with the goal of hanging more banners in Thompson-Boling Arena,\" Warlick said. \n \n With the blessing of University of Tennessee, Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy Cheek, the Hall of Fame coach said she planned to continue coaching as long as possible and that she wanted to show the world that it was still possible to function, even in the face of dementia and Alzheimer's. \n \n Summitt had been going about business as usual since the loss to Baylor. \n \n But the season showed just how challenging being a Division I coach could be. Summitt needed to devote more attention to managing her health, so she had handed over more duties to her longtime assistants during the season. Warlick as associate head coach took the lead during games and handles postgame interviews, while the entire staff handled the bulk of the recruiting and management of practices. \n \n Even with Warlick and assistant coaches Mickie DeMoss and Dean Lockwood carrying a larger load, Summitt continued to leave her mark through guidance and motivation with her trademark icy stare, even if she did wear the look more infrequently. \n \n Then DeMoss left the program earlier this month for an assistant's job with the Indiana Fever in the WNBA, another signal that Summitt's tenure as head coach might be ending. \n \n Summitt's diagnosis came during one of the Lady Vols' most disappointing stretches _ by Summitt's lofty standards, anyway. Tennessee hasn't won a national championship since 2008 and hasn't even reached the Final Four, which ties for their longest such drought in program history. \n \n Tennessee's five seniors were a part of the team that lost in the first round of the 2009 NCAA tournament, the only time in school history the Lady Vols had bowed out on the first weekend. \n \n Those seniors promised they would win a ninth national championship this season not just to change their legacy and to honor Summitt, but as center Vicki Baugh put it, \"We're playing for everyone who has Alzheimer's.\" \n \n They just couldn't get back to the Final Four, and the group of seniors wound up the first Lady Vols to miss the Final Four. They lost to Baylor and Brittney Griner, a player Summitt couldn't convince to come to Knoxville. \n \n It's unlikely anyone will ever come close to matching Summitt's accomplishments in women's basketball, which has seen more parity in the past decade. \n \n Summitt's career ends with a 1,098-208 record, 16 regular season Southeastern Conference championships and 16 SEC tournament titles. She also led the 1984 Olympic team to a gold medal. \n \n During her time, Tennessee never failed to reach the NCAA tournament, never received a seed lower than No. 5 and reached 18 Final Fours. \n \n Her impact reaches beyond wins and losses. Every Lady Vol player who has completed her eligibility at Tennessee has graduated, and 74 former players, assistants, graduate assistants, team managers and directors of basketball operations are currently among the coaching ranks at every level of basketball. ||||| Photo by Saul Young, Knoxville News Sentinel \n \n Pat Summitt is diagnosed with early onset dementia \n \n Poll What is your favorite memory from Pat Summitt's career? Cornfed Chicks winning Summitt her first national championship Three national championships in a row from 1996-1998 Breaking Dean Smith's record for the most victories The eighth national championship in 2008 Reaching 1000 victories See the results \u00bb View previous polls \u00bb \n \n After a storied 38-year career, Pat Summitt is stepping down as head coach of the Tennessee women\u2019s basketball team to become a coach emeritus with the program. \n \n Lady Vols associate head coach Holly Warlick will be named the new head coach. \n \n Summitt said that she met with Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart and Warlick on Wednesday morning to finalize the transition. She said that the decision was hers and she\u2019s comfortable with it. \n \n \u201cI feel really good about my decision,\u201d Summitt said. \u201cI think this is going to be a win-win situation for everybody. Holly and I will work really well together.\u201d \n \n Hart lauded Summitt\u2019s legacy as \u201cwell-defined and everlasting.\u201d \n \n \u201cJust like there will never be another John Wooden, there will never be another Pat Summmitt,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI look forward to continuing to work with her in her new role. She is an inspiration to everyone.\u201d \n \n Summitt announced last August that she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer\u2019s type, but continued to coach with the blessing of university officials. In the wake of her announcement, Warlick assumed a bigger role, taking on many of the responsibilities normally reserved for the head coach. \n \n \u201cI feel like Holly\u2019s been doing the bulk of it,\u2019\u2019 Summitt said. \u201cShe deserves to be the head coach. I\u2019m going to support her. No doubt, I\u2019ll be there for her.\u201d \n \n Summitt conceded that she doesn\u2019t yet know the full scope of her new position. \n \n \u201cWe had to give it a name; that\u2019s pretty much what it is,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cThey kind of outlined everything. I don\u2019t know exactly what it\u2019s going to be. We have some things we have to talk about.\u201d \n \n Summitt still can attend practice and mentor the players. She can send letters, emails or handwritten notes to recruits, which will be of paramount importance. The Lady Vols currently have just six returning players on campus and three high school seniors signed for next season. \n \n Warlick will be making her head coaching debut after spending the past 27 seasons as a UT assistant, a tenure that began with the 1985-86 season. While acknowledging the difficulties of her revised role during the season, Warlick, a former Lady Vols point guard, seemed more comfortable in her role late in the season. If so, Summitt was a big reason why. \n \n \u201cShe was very complimentary of me and so that to me means so much and to these kids because I\u2019m doing something in front of the best coach in the world,\u2019\u2019 Warlick said before the NCAA tournament. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not trying to be Pat Summitt. I\u2019m trying to take what she\u2019s given me and carry on with this team.\u201d \n \n Hart said that Warlick has earned her opportunity. \n \n \u201cI watched Holly grow tremendously as a coach throughout this past season,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cUnder unique circumstances, the job she did away from the glare of the lights and crowds was an impressive as the job she did during game action.\u201d \n \n Tennessee\u2019s season ended with a 77-58 loss to eventual national champion Baylor in the final of the Des Moines (Iowa) Regional. \n \n During her career, which began with the 1974-75 season, Summitt coached Tennessee to eight national championships. She finished this season with 1,098 career victories and stands alone at that victory plateau among all NCAA coaches. Gene Bess of Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, Mo., entered the season with 1,131 victories at the junior college level. \n \n Summitt\u2019s annual salary started at $8,900 in 1974. This season, her total compensation package was $1.5 million. \n \n Earlier this month, senior Glory Johnson became the 21st player coached by Summitt to be named a State Farm (formerly Kodak) All-American. These players accounted for 36 total All-America honors under Summitt\u2019s tutelege. \n \n Summitt has two basketball courts named after her \u2014 one at Thompson-Boling Arena and the other at her alma mater, UT Martin. She also has a street named after her on both campuses.", "summary": "\u2013 It's the end of an era: Pat Summitt is stepping down as head coach of the Tennessee Lady Vols after 38 seasons and eight national titles, sliding into a less demanding \"coach emeritus\" job, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Though it was not explicitly given as a reason for her decision, the move comes less than a year after Summitt revealed that she had early onset dementia. Associate head coach Holly Warlick will take over for Summitt. \"I feel really good about my decision,\" says Summit, 59. \"I feel like Holly's been doing the bulk of it. She deserves to be the head coach.\" Summitt, who AP notes is the sport's winningest coach of all time, won't be entirely out of the picture, however. She believes her newly created position will allow her to attend practices, talk with players, and, crucially, help recruit. \"I don't know exactly what it's going to be,\" she admitted."}
{"document": "The American Freedom Party, a white nationalist PAC, has been calling people in Iowa in order to get the vote out for Donald Trump, whom they have deemed \u201cThe Great White Hope.\u201d \n \n The automated call includes three messages\u2013one from the founder of the American Freedom Party, who identifies himself as a \u201cfarmer and white nationalist,\u201d one from the American Renaissance, a white nationalist organization, and, oddly, one from an evangelical Filipino pastor. \n \n Behold, the full text of the message, obtained by Talking Points Memo: \n \n \u201cThe American National Super PAC makes this call to support Donald Trump. \n \n \u2018My name is Reverend Ronald Tan, host of the Christian radio talk show program For God and Country. First Corinthians states: God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise and God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. For the Iowa caucuses, please support Donald Trump. He is courageous and he speaks his mind. God Bless.\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m Jared Taylor with American Renaissance. I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America. We don\u2019t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.\u2019 \u2018I am William Johnson, a farmer and a white nationalist. Support Donald Trump. I paid for this through the super PAC. [Telephone] (213) 718-3908. This call is not authorized by Donald Trump.'\u201d \n \n I have to wonder\u2013did Reverend Tan know what he was signing up for? Like, did they tell him ahead of time that he\u2019d be doing this for a white nationalist PAC? Or did they just ask him for his endorsement of Trump? I can\u2019t find any record of this man or his show outside of reports about this robocall, so I am actually beginning to wonder whether or not he really exists. \n \n Jared Taylor is also the spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens. This group was cited by Dylann Roof as one of his primary inspirations for killing nine black people in a Charleston Church last year. \n \n White supremacists have been some of the Donald\u2019s most vocal supporters thus far\u2013as his comments about Mexicans being rapists and murderers and anti-refugee stance has really resonated with them. He has so far secured the approval of David Duke, former Grand Dragon of the KKK, as well as the white nationalist site Stormfront. In fact, Stormfront claims that they have seen a huge spike in activity and membership since Trump started his campaign, and even had to upgrade their servers to deal with the surge in traffic. \n \n [Talking Points Memo] ||||| Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on his fellow presidential candidates, vigorous from jump street, have grown only more vitriolic as the Iowa caucuses approach. He has said that Hillary\u2019s Clinton\u2019s husband is an \u201cabuser.\u201d He has questioned whether fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother, is eligible to be president. He\u2019s even criticized the boots of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) \n \n So it was a bit strange to see the Donald engage in a bit of self-criticism Monday night on \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d as part of a softball \u201cmock job interview,\u201d as host Jimmy Fallon put it. \n \n \u201cWhat are your weaknesses?\u201d the friendliest man on late-night TV asked the least friendly presidential candidate. \n \n \u201cThat I never forget,\u201d Trump replied. \u201c\u2026 I\u2019m too nice too long, and when I become, like, somebody takes advantage of a situation, I become too bad for too long. So I think I maybe have to have a little bit of a shorter memory. It wouldn\u2019t be so bad.\u201d \n \n The comment rang true for \u2014 and was unexpected from \u2014 a man who has relentlessly slighted everyone from Rosie O\u2019Donnell to New Hampshire Union-Leader publisher Joseph McQuaid. But Trump also took advantage of the many opportunities Fallon offered to sing his own praises. \n \n \u201cHow\u2019d you hear about the position?\u201d Fallon asked. You know: the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. \n \n \u201cA lot of people in this big country were screaming, \u2018What\u2019s going on?\u2019 and I said, \u2018Let\u2019s see if we can do something,'\u201d Trump said. \n \n \u201cTell me a little bit about yourself,\u201d Fallon said. \n \n \u201cI am an extraordinarily handsome person,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI have a beautiful head of hair. I was always a good student, and I always worked hard.\u201d \n \n [50 years later, disagreements over young Trump\u2019s military academy record] \n \n All was not bunnies and butterflies during Trump\u2019s visit with Fallon, however. The candidate also got in a few shots at the woman some think will be his opponent in the general election \u2014 should they both win their parties\u2019 respective nominating contests. \n \n \u201cI\u2019ll set the record straight right now,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe newest poll just came out today where I\u2019m beating [Clinton] easily and substantially.\u201d He added: \u201cI\u2019m winning against Hillary one on one \u2014 And I haven\u2019t even started on her yet.\u201d \n \n Trump also expressed surprise that Clinton was not more handily beating Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont \u2014 targeting Sanders in the crossfire. \n \n \u201cI mean, how can you lose like this?\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe really isn\u2019t even a Democrat. But he said he\u2019s a socialist, and I think he may be a step beyond a socialist.\u201d ||||| Published on Jan 11, 2016 \n \n Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump answers a list of standard job interview questions while Jimmy evaluates his qualifications for POTUS. \n \n \n \n Subscribe NOW to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: http://bit.ly/1nwT1aN \n \n \n \n Watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Weeknights 11:35/10:35c \n \n Get more Jimmy Fallon: \n \n Follow Jimmy: http://Twitter.com/JimmyFallon \n \n Like Jimmy: https://Facebook.com/JimmyFallon \n \n \n \n Get more The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: \n \n Follow The Tonight Show: http://Twitter.com/FallonTonight \n \n Like The Tonight Show: https://Facebook.com/FallonTonight \n \n The Tonight Show Tumblr: http://fallontonight.tumblr.com/ \n \n \n \n Get more NBC: \n \n NBC YouTube: http://bit.ly/1dM1qBH \n \n Like NBC: http://Facebook.com/NBC \n \n Follow NBC: http://Twitter.com/NBC \n \n NBC Tumblr: http://nbctv.tumblr.com/ \n \n NBC Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NBC/posts \n \n \n \n The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon features hilarious highlights from the show including: comedy sketches, music parodies, celebrity interviews, ridiculous games, and, of course, Jimmy's Thank You Notes and hashtags! You'll also find behind the scenes videos and other great web exclusives. \n \n \n \n Mock Job Interview for President with Donald Trump \n \n http://www.youtube.com/fallontonight ||||| \u201cBut I'm pretty confident that the overwhelming majority of Americans are looking for the kind of politics that does feed our hopes and not our fears, that does work together and doesn't try to divide, that isn't looking for simplistic solutions and scapegoating but looks for us buckling down and figuring out, 'How do we make things work for the next generation.'\" \n \n Obama also expressed disappointment that he enters the final year of his term in a deeply divided country, politically. \n \n RELATED: TODAY at the White House \u2014 see all the highlights! \n \n \"It's a regret,\" he said, and one he plans to address in his final State of the Union. Yet, \u201cI could not be prouder of what we've accomplished,\u201d he insisted. \u201cAnd sometimes we look at the past through rose-colored glasses. It's been pretty divided in the past. There've been times where, you know, people beat each other with canes.\" \n \n TODAY was live from the White House Tuesday, providing viewers with a tour inside rooms rarely ever seen by the public. In addition, Vice President Biden joined Savannah Guthrie for an exclusive interview. \n \n \"Yes, I think it's possible,'' Biden told Savannah when asked whether he could imagine Trump taking the Oval Office. \n \n The interviews and visit come just hours before Obama makes his final appearance before a joint session of Congress. \n \n Obama's comments mark his first since addressing the nation last week, when he used his executive authority to skirt congressional lawmakers and tighten gun-purchasing rules. \n \n RELATED: Joe Biden: 'It's possible' Donald Trump could be the next president \n \n The president admitted he was surprised by how emotional he got during that news conference. He said he didn't expect that recalling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which he described as \"one of the worst (days) of my presidency,\" would set off such an emotional response. ||||| There were plenty of yuks between Donald Trump and Jimmy Fallon Monday night when the GOP presidential frontrunner appeared on \u201cThe Tonight Show.\ufffd? \n \n The high-spirited pair were full of jokes and cheesy one-liners after a brief attempt at a thoughtful interview at the start of the segment. \n \n \u201cDo you cry?\ufffd? Fallon asked Trump, after noting he\u2019d been one of the few Republicans who refused to deride President Obama for tearing up during his recent speech on gun control. \n \n Donald Trump's public feuds \n \n \u201cYes, when I was 1, I cried,\ufffd? Trump said. \n \n As for his controversial immigration proposals \u2014 including halting the influx of all Muslims \u2014 Trump said \u201ca lot of people agree\ufffd? with his ideas. \n \n January 11, 2016: Donald Trump outside 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' in New York City. (infusny-146/Roger Wong/INFphoto.com) \n \n \u201cI have so many friends, Muslim friends, who think I\u2019m doing an incredible service,\ufffd? he said. \u201cWe need to stop and think, because there\u2019s incredible hatred out there.\ufffd? \n \n After touting his poll numbers \u2014 in the 40\u2019s, Trump said \u2014 the GOP frontrunner said he was sure he could beat Democrat Hillary Clinton if they each win their respective primaries. \n \n \u201cIf I win and she wins, it\u2019s predicted to be the largest voter turnout in the history of the country and that would be a good thing,\ufffd? he said. \n \n He envisioned \u201cbeating her easily and substantially,\ufffd? noting that \u201cI haven\u2019t even started on her yet.\ufffd? \n \n A grinning Trump played along when Fallon, commenting on the entrepreneur\u2019s search for new employment, asked him to sit for a mock \u201cjob interview.\ufffd? \n \n Waving a clipboard, Fallon asked Trump about his best qualities. \n \n With his characteristic modesty \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 Trump said he was \u201cextraordinarily handsome\ufffd? and \u201chad beautiful head of hair.\ufffd? \n \n He also added that his greatest strength was \u201cbringing people together\ufffd? and noted that he \u201calways worked hard.\ufffd? \n \n Donald Trump and Jimmy Fallon were full of jokes and cheesy one-liners. (NBC/Douglas Gorenstein/NBC) \n \n The candidate said he was willing to relocate \u2014 \u201cI love the White House,\ufffd? Trump trumpeted \u2014 and of course said his primary goal in seeking his new goal is \u201cto make America great again.\ufffd? \n \n He was also upfront about performance flaws. \n \n As chief executive, Trump said, he would be \u201cvery, very uncomfortable\ufffd? with all the media attention. \n \n He also said he was \u201ctoo nice for too long\ufffd? sometimes. \n \n Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing!", "summary": "\u2013 Jimmy Fallon put Donald Trump on the hot seat for a \"mock job interview\" for president on the Tonight Show on Monday, and the result was a slightly softer side of Trump. After admitting that he did cry \"when I was 1,\" per the New York Daily News, the presidential candidate engaged in what the Washington Post calls \"a bit of self-criticism.\" Asked about his weaknesses, Trump said he never forgets. \"I'm too nice too long, and when \u2026 somebody takes advantage of a situation, I become too bad for too long. So I think I maybe have to have a little bit of a shorter memory. It wouldn't be so bad.\" Of course, Trump also took the opportunity to boast about his good looks. \"I am an extraordinarily handsome person,\" he said with a smile. \"I have a beautiful head of hair.\" In perhaps another surprise, Trump told Fallon that one of his greatest strengths is in unity. \"A lot of people would say it's the exact opposite,\" Trump admitted. But \"I'll get along with Democrats, with Republicans, with liberals, with conservatives, and that's what we need in this country. We have to bring it together, because it's very divided.\" That's an idea likely to make President Obama scoff. He tells Today that voters don't want \"scapegoating\" intended to divide the country. \"I'm pretty confident that the overwhelming majority of Americans are looking for the kind of politics that does feed our hopes and not our fears,\" he said. If we're going to see Trump one day make a State of the Union address, it'll probably be in an SNL skit, he quipped. (White supremacists want you to vote Trump.)"}
{"document": "Since the late \u201980s, Actors\u2019 Equity has recognized the Los Angeles 99-Seat Theater Agreement, which allows members to showcase their work for negligible stipends. Now, the union is proposing to eliminate the agreement in favor of two new internal membership rules and one new agreement. \n \n The new agreement, if enacted as it is currently proposed, would require actors be paid minimum wage ($9 an hour in L.A. County) for rehearsal and performances, with no contributions to pension or health insurance. To many in the L.A. theater community, the proposal represents a threat to the city\u2019s vibrant intimate-theater scene. \n \n Equity members in L.A. County can vote today through April 17 on the proposal (i.e., an \u201cadvisory referendum\u201d). The outcome of the vote will be taken into account when Equity\u2019s National Council meets April 21 to deliberate over the proposal and determine the final form of the new arrangement. \n \n NOAH WYLE, IN HIS OWN WORDS: \n \n In 17 years serving as artistic producer of Hollywood\u2019s Blank Theatre Company, I\u2019ve learned two things about running a small theater. \n \n The first is that you will spend most of your time engaged in an exhausting, bare-knuckled fight for survival. The second is that it\u2019s worth it. \n \n The Blank operates a 49-seat black box on that stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard recently designated \u201cHollywood Theatre Row\u201d by the Los Angeles City Council. We\u2019re a membership company, dedicated to providing a home for artists and to the development of new works for the American stage. \n \n So why don\u2019t we pay actors minimum wage for rehearsal hours? New works. 49 seats. The perfect recipe for a non-profit enterprise. All of our economics begin at that chokepoint: 49 seats x 4 shows a week = ticket sales alone won\u2019t get us there. Keeping our doors open requires constant fundraising, grant writing and, above all, volunteerism. \n \n Call it \u201clove of the craft,\u201d esprit de corps or old-fashioned apprenticeship, we\u2019ve survived because of a consensus of understanding: We are here to make theater, not money; that\u2019s what TV and movies are for. Intimate theaters show we value you, the actor, by inviting you to create something new with us. You\u2019re compensated by having a place to nurture your talent, showcase your abilities, satisfy your creativity and play roles the commercial entertainment machine would never let you play. \n \n This proposed amendment is the reignition of an old debate, and it\u2019s not \u201cHow do we monetize art?\u201d or \u201cHow do we compensate artists?\u201d From our perspective, the pertinent question looks to be: How can Actors\u2019 Equity secure more contract weeks in a town where the 99-Seat Plan is so widely used? \n \n The apparent strategy, with this proposal, is to force the closure of small theaters in the hope that they\u2019ll consolidate into mid-sized theaters, thus generating more full Equity contracts. \n \n As a proud member of Equity, I understand the issue and applaud the intention, however misguided. As a small theater producer, however, I am extremely frustrated. \n \n Intimate theater producers have repeatedly proposed sitting down to negotiate a compromise with Equity before and after this proposal was announced, but Equity has not allowed such dialogue to occur. \n \n We are not anti-union, nor are we anti-minimum wage, but Equity\u2019s failure to converse with us and/or articulate the complexity of the issue to its members has forced us to engage in a media campaign to give full context to the debate. \n \n Small theater provides opportunities for actors and directors to stretch and hone their skills. We offer an intimate, affordable theatrical experience to local audiences, play a vital role in the development of new work and are important economic stimulators for the entire County of Los Angeles. \n \n The current 99-Seat Plan may be flawed, but you do not rid your home of termites by setting fire to it. \n \n I will be voting NO on the referendum to eliminate the Los Angeles 99-Seat Plan. \n \n \u2014 NOAH WYLE \n \n (The views expressed by Wyle are his own and do not represent those of Variety.) \n \n See More:Guest Column: Charlayne Woodard Urges \u2018Yes\u2019 Vote on 99-Seat Theater Plan \n \n \n \n Noah Wyle, pictured below in the Blank\u2019s production of \u201cLobster Alice\u201d ||||| LOS ANGELES \u2014 They rehearse for weeks, often in run down theaters that were once garages or retail stores; perform challenging premieres of new works and imaginative reinterpretations of old ones; and sometimes clean the bathrooms, sell the tickets, or sew the costumes, too. \n \n But hundreds of union actors working in this city\u2019s distinctive and thriving small theater scene are barely paid for their work. And, in an unusual twist to America\u2019s economic fairness debates, many of them say they are O.K. with that. \n \n \u201cNone of us is here to make money,\u201d Lynn Odell said recently as she rehearsed a science-fiction comedy at Theater of Note, a 42-seat theater that operates in a former auto-glass repair shop in Hollywood. \u201cWe are here for the experience.\u201d \n \n The willingness of Los Angeles actors to perform for a pittance, hoping to hone their craft and, maybe, to catch the eye of an agent or manager, is now at the heart of an extraordinary rift in the union representing theater actors, and has opened a new front in the nation\u2019s battle over the minimum wage. \n \n Photo \n \n Actors\u2019 Equity, the national union that represents Ms. Odell and about 6,500 other stage performers in Los Angeles, says its members are selling themselves short. The union, seizing a moment when organized labor is having some success pressuring low-wage employers to pay higher salaries, says many of this city\u2019s small theaters \u2014 which currently pay actors nothing for rehearsals, and stipends as low as $7 per performance \u2014 should start paying California\u2019s minimum wage of $9 an hour. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s so weird to be doing the work and not get paid, and it\u2019s totally unsustainable,\u201d said Christian Barillas, an actor who has worked in small theaters and supports the change. \n \n But the union\u2019s effort to help boost actors\u2019 pay has prompted a vociferous backlash from its members, many of whom fear that higher pay will cause many theaters to disappear. In a nonbinding referendum conducted over the last several weeks, 66 percent of Equity members in Los Angeles who cast ballots voted against a mandatory minimum wage for small theaters. (About 45 percent of the 6,990 ballots sent out were returned.) \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n The actors who seem to be campaigning against their own financial self-interest argue that the small theater scene is effectively not a place of employment, but a form of continuing education, and that it feeds their souls in a town where many earn their living with television and film jobs, and where many larger theaters cast roles using actors from New York. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n \u201cYou want to be up onstage, you want to work out the acting muscles, not sitting on your couch waiting for an audition,\u201d said Tim Robbins, the Academy Award winning actor who, despite a high-profile Hollywood career, continues to run a small theater here called The Actors\u2019 Gang, and is a prominent advocate for small theaters less fortunate than his. \u201cThe only reason I was able to move into writing and directing movies and remain sane in this business has been my access to doing challenging work and testing myself in small theater.\u201d \n \n Actors have picketed the union\u2019s North Hollywood offices, swamped a town-hall meeting, held fierce debates online, and some have threatened to resign their membership. At a recent curtain call for \u201cA Dog\u2019s House,\u201d a world premiere IAMA Theater production here, the four-member cast emerged wearing T-shirts signaling their opposition to the minimum wage proposal. \n \n Although compensation is a chronic concern in the theater world, the issue in Los Angeles is unique. For the last three decades, under a settlement of litigation brought by local actors against the union, theaters with fewer than 99 seats in Los Angeles County have been allowed to pay actors just a small stipend so long as ticket prices remain low and production runs remain short. \n \n The result \u2014 to the delight of actors and playwrights, and the dismay of the union \u2014 has been the flourishing of the county\u2019s so-called 99-seat theaters. Many are actually smaller than that, but 99 is the agreed-upon cap on their size; the companies are also often called intimate theaters. There are about 200 such theaters, some doing provocative work that occasionally has transferred to larger theaters in New York and elsewhere \u2014 recently, \u201cSmall Engine Repair\u201d premiered at Rogue Machine Theater here before its Off Broadway run at MCC Theater, and \u201cBakersfield Mist,\u201d developed by the Fountain Theater, transferred to London\u2019s West End, starring Kathleen Turner. \n \n Such plays are often produced in Los Angeles at a cost of between $5,000 and $20,000 \u2014 compare that to the $10 million to $15 million often spent to produce a Broadway musical \u2014 and the actors are generally paid enough to reimburse them for gasoline, but no more. \n \n \u201cEveryone thinks actors should be paid more \u2014 it\u2019s a matter of how,\u201d said Padraic Duffy, the managing director of Sacred Fools, a theater company in East Hollywood with under 99 seats and an annual budget of $200,000. Mr. Duffy said that if his theater were required to pay minimum wage, it would have to stop working with Equity actors, other than those who are already members of the company (current members of small theater companies would be allowed to continue working for a stipend under the Equity proposal). \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n The actors defend the minimal payment for small theater work by saying that Los Angeles is not like the rest of the country: There is a huge population of performers looking for exposure, relatively low levels of philanthropic and governmental support for theater, and a consensus that the place to make money in acting here is in film and television. One indication of how distinctive the Los Angeles theater scene is: the highly regarded Antaeus Theater Company has for years formed two full casts for each of its productions, knowing that at any point an actor might have to skip a performance to tape a television episode or audition for a film. \n \n Equity\u2019s national council is scheduled to decide on Tuesday whether to require the theaters to start paying union actors the minimum wage. As the debate has raged, Equity has suggested it might carve out exceptions for some theaters; some actors have come up with compromise proposals, suggesting that wage requirements should be tiered, depending on a theater\u2019s budget. \n \n Gail Gabler, Equity\u2019s Western regional director, said the union decided to act in response to complaints from members who were tired of working without compensation. She said the small theaters were \u201ccrowding out most other theater in L.A.\u201d and had become a problem for actors who aspire to earn a full-time living from stage work in the region. \n \n The union points out that there are small theaters in other parts of the country that pay union actors more than a stipend. And, the union says, even in Los Angeles some of the small theaters pay musicians, publicists, box office workers \u2014 just not actors. \n \n Armina LaManna, an actor and director who spent years working in 99-seat theaters, said she was shocked when she relocated briefly to Philadelphia, where, she said, actors in small theaters were paid. \u201cIf Communism didn\u2019t destroy theater, how is a minimum wage going to decimate theater?\u201d asked Ms. LaManna, who was born in the Soviet Union. \n \n The actors who oppose the union\u2019s efforts say that Equity misunderstands what is happening nationally and locally. They argue that in many other cities, small theaters are dying out, and that Los Angeles has a large and innovative scene unlike other cities; they also say that, although a handful of small theaters have large budgets, most struggle to stay afloat and find audiences. \n \n \u201cThis is the craft, and if I can\u2019t practice my craft, I\u2019m going to be less creative,\u201d said Jimmi Simpson, an actor who earns his living in film and television, but spent the last several weeks portraying a chimpanzee in a $34,000 Circle X Theater Co. production of \u201cTrevor.\u201d The much-praised production, in which Mr. Simpson co-starred with Laurie Metcalf, an Emmy-winning TV actress, ran for seven weeks. Mr. Simpson and Ms. Metcalf were paid $800 each for the entire run, which they donated back. \n \n \u201cI do television and film so I can take months off and contribute to culture,\u201d Mr. Simpson said. \u201cIf this goes through, I will be doing plays in my friends\u2019 living rooms.\u201d ||||| L.A. 99-Seat Committee Asks Actors Union to Delay Salary Decision \n \n By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) , .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) \n \n 20 Apr 2015 \n \n \n \n Members of Actors' Equity Association in Los Angeles have voted 2,046 to 1,075 against their union's plan to require the city's 99-seat theatres to start paying actors a $9 hourly minimum wage. Most actors at those theatres currently work for far less, or nothing, but many oppose the pay plan because they fear the union demand will stifle the theatres and result in substantially less work. \n \n The vote is non-binding on the union's national council, which is scheduled to decide April 21 whether to accept, modify or reject the proposal. \n \n However, on the morning of April 20, the L.A.-based 99-Seat Theater Review Committee issued the following statement, asking that the decision be put off to an unspecified future date: \n \n \u201cWe are encouraged by the results of Friday's advisory referendum. We look forward to working together with Equity to strategize, study and craft a workable 99-Seat Plan that will take into account not only where we are presently, but also where we would like to be five and ten years from now. If these past months have shown us anything, it is that Los Angeles is a vital and fervent community of artists who are united in their resolve that 99-seat theater continue to thrive. \"We have sent an email to executive director, Mary McColl, assistant executive director/Western regional director Gale E. Gabler and president Nick Wyman requesting that the national council, which is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, postpone any decision regarding 99-seat theater until an in-depth study and thorough conversations with actors, community leaders and theater producers can be successfully completed. \"Change is needed, and we look forward to working closely with AEA\u2019s senior staff, the Western regional board and New York\u2019s national council to create that blueprint.\u201d \n \n Advertisement \n \n AEA members in good standing who reside in Los Angeles County were eligible to vote in the Advisory Referendum, which ended April 16. A total of 44.6 percent of the eligible membership did so. \n \n The figures were confirmed by AEA spokesperson Maria Somma, who released the following statement April 17: \"Equity's National Council will meet on Tuesday, April 21, 2015. The results of the Advisory Referendum vote provide important information to the Council as they consider the 99-Seat Proposal and intimate theater in Los Angeles. Council will take into account the percentage of members who voted, the number of votes cast and the results, as well as the information that members have shared with Council over the last several months.\" \n \n Matters have continued to escalate in the weeks leading up to the referendum. A group of actors picketed their own union headquarters in L.A. March 23. \n \n As previously reported, AEA has created a proposal for a new contract, which would guarantee actors and stage managers are paid a salary no less than minimum wage. (Under the current plan, members receive a performance stipend, which can be as little as $7 a performance, that allows them to perform as an Equity member). However, the West Coast theatre scene responded negatively. With more pay for the actors, experimental theatre in small houses may no longer be possible. \n \n The proposal was also dismissed by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and a group of actors planned to picket their own union today. \n \n Click here to read more about the issue, including AEA's reasoning behind the proposal and how L.A. actors (and the Drama Critics Circle) are responding.", "summary": "\u2013 While many low-paid workers fight for increased wages, actors in Los Angeles have become activists for the opposite cause. Many who perform in small theaters are raising their voices against their own union as it pushes for them to receive California's $9 minimum wage, the New York Times reports. Often, such actors get no payment for rehearsals and perhaps just $7 per performance, the Times notes. But that doesn't seem to bother them: A referendum found that 66% of members of the Actors\u2019 Equity union don't want small theaters to have to pay them minimum wage. The worry is that small theaters\u2014those with 99 seats or fewer, which are currently allowed to pay actors just a stipend\u2014could end up shutting their doors if forced to pay more. The low pay has helped the small-theater scene's big success in the area. \"You want to be up onstage, you want to work out the acting muscles, not sitting on your couch waiting for an audition,\" says actor Tim Robbins, who is in charge of a small theater. Actors' Equity is due to make a decision tomorrow on whether to require actors be paid minimum wage, though an actors' committee has called on the union to postpone, Playbill reports. Actor Noah Wyle, who is a producer in a small theater, makes a case in Variety: \"Keeping our doors open requires constant fundraising, grant writing and, above all, volunteerism,\" he notes. \"Call it 'love of the craft,' esprit de corps or old-fashioned apprenticeship, we\u2019ve survived because of a consensus of understanding: We are here to make theater, not money.\" But not everyone agrees. \"It\u2019s so weird to be doing the work and not get paid, and it\u2019s totally unsustainable,\" says another actor."}
{"document": "AP Photo Boehner: I might sue Obama over Iran deal \n \n Speaker John Boehner said Thursday he might sue President Barack Obama again. \n \n The Ohio Republican said Obama has not turned over the entirety of the Iran agreement for congressional review as mandated by law. Boehner said legal action is \u201can option that\u2019s very possible.\u201d \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n \u201cIf you read the provisions in [the congressional review law], it\u2019s pretty clear that the president has not complied,\u201d Boehner said Thursday during his weekly news conference. \u201cBecause it makes clear that any side agreements and any other type of an agreement \u2014 including those that do not directly involve us \u2014 must be turned over as part of it. I do not believe that he\u2019s complied.\u201d \n \n The speaker said the agreement is \"worse than anything I could\u2019ve ever imagined.\" \n \n House Republicans have a pending lawsuit against Obamacare, which a judge ruled this week can proceed. \n \n Congress lacks the votes to stop the Iran agreement, but a lawsuit is one way for Boehner to prolong the fight over the nuclear accord. The House will vote Thursday and Friday on several pieces of legislation related to the pact, including an up-or-down vote on approving the deal, and another to rebuke Obama for not submitting so-called side deals between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran. The agreement will be in place by Sept. 17. \n \n Boehner also said the House might vote on disapproving the agreement, a move that would bring it in line with the Senate, which is set to vote Thursday on whether to proceed on a measure to disapprove of the pact. ||||| WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that all options are on the table in the fight to stop the Iran nuclear deal from moving forward, including suing the president. \n \n Boehner said a lawsuit against President Barack Obama over the deal is \"an option that is very possible.\u201d \n \n Just hours after returning from summer recess, Boehner found himself in the middle of a revolt mounted by conservative members of his caucus who want to delay a vote on a resolution of disapproval on the Iran deal, insisting the administration broke the law. \n \n After an afternoon meeting on Wednesday, Republicans emerged with a new strategy on how to handle votes on the deal, deciding to hold three instead of one. The first vote, which is expected Thursday, will be on a resolution stating Obama did not submit all the documents related to the Iran deal and therefore the 60-day congressional review period has yet to start. A possible lawsuit would be based on that premise. \n \n House Republicans argue the administration did not send over all of the documents, specifically ones from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, on the deal, which aims to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. \n \n The documents in question are two confidential agreements between Iran and the IAEA relating to the agency's investigation into whether Iran pursued nuclear weapons development activity in the past. These agreements were reached at the same time as the broader agreement between Iran, the U.S. and five world powers, but are separate from the main nuclear accord. Because of confidentiality protocols, the IAEA will not share the text of these two agreements with other states, including the U.S. \n \n \"Clearly, our members do not believe the president has complied with the law,\" Boehner said. \n \n At this point, the legislative debate over the accord is essentially symbolic. Supporters of the deal and the administration have started their victory lap, knowing the fate of the pact is assured with 42 senators backing it the upper chamber. ||||| The House on Friday rejected a resolution to approve the Iran nuclear deal, with the vote underscoring how controversial the accord has been with President Obama\u2019s own party. \n \n While most Democrats voted to approve the nuclear bargain, 25 voted against it, creating a wedge that Republicans hope to use to their advantage in the 2016 elections. \n \n Every Republican voted against the resolution, with the exception of libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who voted \"present.\" The tally was 162-269. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n While the failure of the resolution will not prevent the nuclear pact from taking effect, the vote serves as a rebuke of Obama, who has staked his foreign policy legacy on defusing the Iranian threat through diplomacy. \n \n Friday\u2019s vote fell on the anniversary as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, something Republicans were quick to highlight on the House floor as they accused Democrats of backing a \u201cbad deal\u201d that will jeopardize national security and Israel. \n \n \"Do not sacrifice the safety, the security and the stability of 300 million Americans for the legacy of one man,\" implored Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) as he stood next to a poster of the Twin Towers burning on Sept. 11, 2001. \n \n After the resolution of approval failed, the House passed legislation 247-186 that would prevent Obama from lifting sanctions against Iran. That measure would expire on his successor\u2019s first full day in office in January 2017. \n \n The day before the House votes, Senate Democrats blocked a resolution disapproving the Iran deal, leaving Republicans without a clear path forward for stopping the deal. Senate Republicans have vowed to hold more votes on Iran next week. \n \n The Democrats in the House who opposed the Iran deal were a mix of lawmakers with different backgrounds and political situations. Some of them represent Jewish constituencies, face tough reelection races next year or identify as centrists. \n \n The 25 Democrats who voted against approving the Iran deal were Reps. Brad Ashford (Neb.), Brendan Boyle (Pa.), Tony Cardenas (Calif.), Ted Deutch (Fla.), Eliot Engel (N.Y.), Lois Frankel Lois Jane FrankelOcasio-Cortez storms Washington, winning headlines but rankling some colleagues Pelosi allies rage over tactics of opponents Pelosi allies push back on proposed Speaker nominee rule change MORE (Fla.), Gwen Graham (Fla.), Gene Green Raymond (Gene) Eugene GreenTexas New Members 2019 Two Democrats become first Texas Latinas to serve in Congress Latina Leaders to Watch 2018 MORE (Texas), Alcee Hastings (Fla.), Steve Israel (N.Y.), Ted Lieu (Calif.), Dan Lipinski (Ill.), Nita Lowey (N.Y.), Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.), Grace Meng (N.Y.), Grace Napolitano (Calif.), Donald Norcross (N.J.), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Kathleen Rice (N.Y.), David Scott (Ga.), Brad Sherman (Calif.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Albio Sires (N.J.), Juan Vargas (Calif.) and Filemon Vela (Texas). \n \n But despite the defections, enough Democrats voted to support the deal to deprive the GOP of a veto-proof majority. \n \n House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) worked closely with the White House to whip Democrats who were on the fence. Passage of a resolution against the nuclear deal would prevent Obama from lifting economic sanctions on Iran, which is a crucial part of the agreement. \n \n Pelosi's efforts ultimately won out over intense lobbying from groups opposed to the deal, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). \n \n Republicans have been unanimously opposed to the Iran deal from the beginning. \n \n But House GOP leaders had to change course on their original plan of voting on a resolution of disapproval against the deal after an intraparty revolt. \n \n Conservatives rallied around a proposal from Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) stipulating that the House would not vote on the Iran deal until the Obama administration provides Congress with the text of side deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). \n \n The Obama administration says it does not have any copy of deals between Iran and the IAEA. The agency routinely keeps agreements about nuclear inspections confidential, which the administration says is crucial for completing its mission. \n \n But with Democrats entrenched behind Obama\u2019s accord, Republicans sought to highlight the existence of the side deals to hammer the administration. \n \n \u201cThe president ought to release to the American people the details of these secret side agreements right now or withdraw this entire proposal,\u201d said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). \n \n The House passed a resolution Thursday arguing that Obama didn\u2019t provide Congress with all documents pertaining to the Iran deal in violation of the congressional review law passed earlier this year. \n \n Under the congressional review law, Congress has 60 days to review and vote on the Iran deal before Obama can begin lifting sanctions against Iran. In return for the sanctions relief, Iran has agreed to scale back its nuclear program and let international inspectors in for the first time. \n \n House and Senate GOP leaders have stated since July \u2014 when the deal was first announced \u2014 that the 60-day review period would close on Sept. 17. But House GOP leaders are now siding with conservatives who argue the review period never really started since Congress didn\u2019t receive all of the documents. \n \n Speaker John Boehner John Andrew BoehnerMomentum for earmarks grows with Dem majority Cannabis company says CBS refused to run its Super Bowl ad advocating for medical marijuana Breaking the impasse on shutdown, border security MORE (R-Ohio) indicated at a Thursday news conference that litigation against President Obama over the side deals is \u201cvery possible.\u201d \n \n Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellOn The Money: Trump agrees to end shutdown without wall funding | Senate quickly clears short-term funding measure | House to vote tonight | Federal workers could get back pay within days | Dems take victory lap Shutdown ends without funding for Trump\u2019s border wall Senate expected to pass bill to end shutdown on Friday MORE (R-Ky.) has scheduled another vote on the Iran deal disapproval resolution when the chamber returns next week. The outcome, however, is unlikely to change, with 42 Democrats preventing a resolution from passing. \n \n The White House, meanwhile, mocked the vote held on Friday by House Republicans. \n \n \u201cLike many decisions that are made on Tuesday night at Tortilla Coast, they seem like a great idea after a couple of margaritas,\u201d spokesman Josh Earnest said, referring to a Capitol Hill restaurant popular with conservatives. \u201cBut when faced with the scrutiny of the light of day, they don\u2019t seem quite as realistic.\u201d \n \n Earnest expressed confidence a lawsuit would not block the U.S. from implementing the agreement. \n \n \u201cWe obviously feel quite confident in our ability to move forward with the rest of the international community to implement this agreement.\u201d \n \n - This story was last updated at 1:42 p.m.", "summary": "\u2013 With Republicans running out of ways to stop the looming Iran nuclear deal from becoming a reality, John Boehner is entertaining the idea of suing President Obama. The House speaker, who described the deal as \"worse than anything I could've ever imagined,\" said yesterday a lawsuit is \"an option that\u2019s very possible,\" Politico reports. At issue is Republicans' complaint that Obama didn't hand over every document relating to the deal for them to review, specifically leaving out agreements between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, according to the Huffington Post. But, the Hill reports the administration claims it doesn't even have those documents because the agency keeps them confidential. Regardless, the House passed a resolution yesterday stating Obama didn't give it every necessary document related to the Iran deal, which would see the country scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The House passed another resolution rejecting the deal today and has more votes scheduled for next week. However, these votes are all \"essentially symbolic,\" as the Iran deal has the support of 42 Democrats in the Senate, according to HuffPo. The Hill reports that leaves Republicans with no clear way to stop the Iran deal. But Boehner isn't giving in yet. \"This debate is far from over,\" the House speaker said yesterday. \"It is just beginning.\""}
{"document": "Cargo vessel ferrying supplies to the International Space Station is said to be falling to Earth after contact was lost \n \n A Russian spacecraft that is tumbling around the Earth after it malfunctioned en route to the International Space Station (ISS) could remain in orbit for more than a week before crashing down to Earth. \n \n Thomas Reiter, director of human spaceflight and operations at the European Space Agency, said that if Russian engineers could not regain control of the stricken vessel it could spiral down to Earth within the next 10 days. \n \n The 7-metre-long Progress 59 vessel malfunctioned soon after reaching orbit on Tuesday and went into an uncontrolled spin. Flight controllers have failed to establish two-way communications with the spacecraft as it passes over Russian ground stations. \n \n An official Russian space agency statement is expected later on Wednesday. An official familiar with the situation told Agence France-Presse: \u201cIt has started descending. It has nowhere else to go. It is clear that absolutely uncontrollable reactions have begun.\u201d \n \n Igor Komarov, head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, was quoted by agency LifeNews as saying: \u201cA safe docking with the ISS is not possible. We are working out different options for a water landing.\u201d \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Progress cargo vessel docked at the International Space Station in January 2014. Photograph: NASA/REX Shutterstock \n \n The Progress capsule is used to carry food, water, fuel and other supplies to the space station. Once it has been unloaded, it is designed to be jettisoned in a controlled re-entry over the southern Pacific that ensures any fragments that do not burn up in the atmosphere land in the ocean. \n \n \n \n The concern is now that if the spacecraft falls back to Earth on an uncontrolled path some fragments may fall on land. The danger to people is slim: more than two-thirds of the Earth\u2019s surface is covered by water and only 3% of the land is heavily populated. \n \n Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) #Progress 59 docking called off. Russian flight controllers assessing options. More details as available Latest: http://t.co/th9dmHiv2P \n \n \u201cRe-entry is normally done over the south Pacific to avoid any debris falling on firm terrain,\u201d said Reiter, a former astronaut. \u201cNot everything will burn up and if it\u2019s an uncontrolled entry then there could be fragments that will hit the surface. \n \n \u201cIf my colleagues can\u2019t get it under control, that could be within a week, maybe one and a half weeks at most.\u201d \n \n \n \n The Russian flight controllers have a chance to make contact with the capsule every 90 minutes when it soars overhead. \n \n Reiter said he had instructed the space agency\u2019s European space operations centre in Darmstadt to track the spacecraft so that teams can predict when and where the spacecraft will come down if it cannot be rescued. \n \n Such calculations are not easy, because it is impossible to predict exactly how a tumbling spacecraft will break up as it re-enters. \u201cIt depends on the motion of the vehicle, and the fuel tanks might or might not explode and lead to a further fragmentation,\u201d Reiter said. \n \n The European Space Agency last year retired its own cargo vessel, the ATV, which at 20 tonnes is far heavier than the Russian Progress spacecraft. The space agency has never recorded any debris from the ATV surviving re-entry, but believes that its bulky docking mechanism could theoretically remain intact. \n \n The spacecraft launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 8.09am UK time on Tuesday and was intended to dock with the space station on Thursday. That rendezvous plan has now been postponed indefinitely. On board are 2.5 tonnes of food, water, fuel and other supplies for the ISS crew. \n \n \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest The launch of Russia\u2019s Progress spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday \n \n The six crew on board the International Space Station have enough supplies to cope if the spacecraft cannot be saved. \n \n The problem became apparent when the spacecraft failed to confirm that its antennas had deployed properly and that a propulsion unit needed for docking had pressurised. Engineers hope to get the spacecraft into a stable orbit until the glitch can be fixed. \n \n The spacecraft is 160 miles high and travelling at more than 16,000 miles per hour. That altitude is sufficiently below the space station to pose the crew no problems, but some satellites might need to take evasive manoeuvres. Such moves were becoming ever more necessary in space, said Reiter. \n \n The Russians still hope to re-establish communications with the spacecraft and place it in a safe orbit while they work to solve any glitches. If that work goes to plan, they may be able to regain control and re-attempt docking with the space station. ||||| 10:46 \n \n Our Moscow correspondent Shaun Walker says representatives of Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, are holding a press briefing in the Russian capital. We\u2019re waiting for further details on who is speaking but we have these initial remarks from one of the representatives: \n \n It\u2019s impossible to say who or what is responsible for this at this point. There will be a state commission which will meet to discuss all the issues around further launches. The next launch is due on 26 May. \n \n And Igor Komarov, head of Roskosmos, was quoted by agency LifeNews as saying:", "summary": "\u2013 Russia's Mission Control has failed to stabilize a cargo ship spinning out of control in orbit, but it says it hasn't yet given up on saving the unmanned spacecraft. The Progress M-27M was launched yesterday and was scheduled to dock at the International Space Station six hours later to deliver 2.5 tons of supplies, including food and fuel. But flight controllers were unable to receive data from the spacecraft, which had entered the wrong orbit. Mission Control spokesman Sergei Talalasov told the Interfax news agency today that flight controllers were still trying to restore communication with the Progress. \"It has started descending. It has nowhere else to go,\" another official tells AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. \"It is clear that absolutely uncontrollable reactions have begun.\" Russia's space agency and NASA both said the six crew members on board the orbiting space station have sufficient supplies and are in no danger. As for what will happen if the spacecraft does tumble back to Earth, the Guardian reports the capsules typically disintegrate upon re-entry, with any parts that aren't incinerated disappearing into the ocean or ending up on \"one of Earth's great wastelands.\""}
{"document": "Oksana Spills About Mel Gibson on 'Larry King Live' \n \n Email This \n \n Oksana Grigorieva told \n \n \n \n Oksana recalled on ' \n \n \n \n See the interview: \n \n \n \n Oksana Grigorieva told Larry King on Wednesday night that Mel Gibson hit her, choked her and waved a gun at her during a violent encounter in January.Oksana recalled on ' Larry King Live ' that on \"Jan. 6 [of this year] the beating took place. Mel actually assaulted me while I was holding the baby in my arms ... I ran into my son's bedroom and told him, 'Mel's crazy.' \" \n \n http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=691977&pid=691976&uts=1273167996 http://www.popeater.com/mm_track/popeater/music/?s_channel=us.musicpop&s_account=aolpopeater,aolsvc&omni=1&ke=1 http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf PopScene: Week's Hottest Pics Gabourey Sidibe attends The American Cancer Society's Choose You luncheon on May 5th in New York City. Amy Sussman, Getty Images Amy Sussman, Getty Images PopScene: Weeks Hottest Pics \n \n Oksana said that her 12-year-old son, Alexander, hid behind the bed as Oksana stood with her daughter Lucia, \"like a mother protecting her cubs.\"Gibson came into the room and struck her twice, she said. When Larry asked if Mel was drunk, Oksana said he was not. \"He hit me, and choked me in front of my son and brandished a gun at me.\"King asked her, \"Why did you stay with him?\" Grigorieva replied, \"That was a mistake. I stayed a little bit too long.\"Oksana admitted to forgiving and getting back with Mel at one point: \"I gave him the last chance. He asked me for the last chance. He begged. He cried. He cried on his knees. What am I supposed to do?\"When asked by the talk show host why she taped the phone calls with Gibson, Oksana said, \"I started taping it around 11 o'clock because I thought, 'I'm actually not going to live through the night. I'm actually not going to live through the night and I wanted my mother to be able to prove that if I'm dead that this is who did it.\"Mel Gibson, on the other hand, enjoyed a night out with his ex-wife Robyn on Tuesday, according to The Daily Mail . In a show of Gibson family unity he and his former wife of nearly 30 years were among the guests at their son Milo's 21st birthday at a restaurant in Hollywood. News came out this week that Mel admitted to slapping, not punching , Oksana in a fit of hysteria. ||||| Mel Gibson Says He Slapped, Not Punched, Oksana in a Fit of Hysteria \n \n Email This After months of Oksana Grigorieva claiming abuse by \n \n \n \n Though Oksana alleges punches to the face and lost teeth courtesy of an enraged Mel, Gibson's testimony reads: \"I slapped Oksana one time with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality. I did not slap her hard, I was just trying to shock her so that she would stop screaming, continuing shaking Lucia back and forth.\" \n \n \n \n Lucia is the couple's baby daughter. According to Mel, a \"hysterical\" Oksana grabbed the child from a bassinet in the middle of a dispute with Gibson; the actor became worried for the baby's safety. Mel says Oksana was \"swinging Lucia erratically in her arms, jerking her body from side to side to keep Lucia out of my reach.\" After months of Oksana Grigorieva claiming abuse by Mel Gibson during their relationship, Mel's sworn declaration, obtained by TMZ , tells a different story.Though Oksana alleges punches to the face and lost teeth courtesy of an enraged Mel, Gibson's testimony reads: \"I slapped Oksana one time with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality. I did not slap her hard, I was just trying to shock her so that she would stop screaming, continuing shaking Lucia back and forth.\"Lucia is the couple's baby daughter. According to Mel, a \"hysterical\" Oksana grabbed the child from a bassinet in the middle of a dispute with Gibson; the actor became worried for the baby's safety. Mel says Oksana was \"swinging Lucia erratically in her arms, jerking her body from side to side to keep Lucia out of my reach.\" \n \n http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=762708&pid=762707&uts=1273853626 http://www.popeater.com/mm_track/popeater/movies/?s_channel=us.moviespop&s_account=aolpopeater,aolsvc&omni=1&ke=1 http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf Celebrity Splitsville Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry \n \n Split \n \n Halle Berry called it quits with her boyfriend, Gabriel Aubry, ending their five-year relationship. The couple has a 2-year-old daughter, Nahla Ariel Aubry. Evan Agostini, AP Evan Agostini, AP Celebrity Splits \n \n Despite his concern, Gibson maintains he never hit Oksana with a closed fist. \"I did not ever punch her in the face or in the temple or anywhere else, not then or at any other time.\"The former couple is embroiled in a bitter custody battle . The night in question was Jan. 6, 2010. Mel's declaration is dated June 23, 2010. During their fight, Oksana picked up Lucia and told Mel, \"Stop yelling or you will make her into a retarded, brain-damaged idiot!\"Mel said, \"While I do not believe I handled the situation as well as I should have, I was worried about the rough way Oksana was shaking and tossing Lucia around.\" TMZ reported a pediatrician examined Lucia the next day and found no evidence of injury.", "summary": "\u2013 Oksana Grigorieva recounted to Larry King last night how Mel Gibson \"hit me, and choked me in front of my son, and brandished a gun at me.\" Grigorieva and King listened to one of the infamous taped conversations between Gibson and his babymama, and Grigorieva told King that \"Mel actually assaulted me while I was holding the baby in my arms.\" Earlier this week, Gibson admitted to slapping Grigorieva. Click here for more from the interview, including why Grigorieva stayed with Gibson after the first alleged beating, and why she taped the phone calls."}
{"document": "correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the state of Sen. Dan Sullivan. He represents Alaska. This version has been corrected. \n \n President Trump is expected to announce next week that he will \"decertify\" the international nuclear deal with Iran, saying it is not in the national interest of the United States and kicking the issue to a reluctant Congress, people briefed on the White House strategy said Thursday. \n \n The move would mark the first step in a process that could eventually result in the resumption of U.S. sanctions against Iran, potentially derailing a deal limiting Iran's nuclear activities reached in 2015 with the United States and five other nations. \n \n But Trump would hold off on recommending that Congress reimpose sanctions, which would constitute a clearer break from the pact, according to four people familiar with aspects of the president's thinking. \n \n The decision would amount to a middle ground of sorts between Trump, who has long wanted to withdraw from the agreement completely, and many congressional leaders and senior diplomatic, military and national security advisers, who say the deal is worth preserving with changes if possible. \n \n This week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed qualified support for the deal during congressional testimony. And Mattis suggested he did not believe taking the step to decertify would scuttle the agreement. \n \n Trump is expected to deliver a speech, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 12, laying out a larger strategy for confronting the nation he blames for terrorism and instability throughout the Middle East. \n \n Officials cautioned that plans could still change, and the White House would not confirm plans for a speech or its contents. Trump faces an Oct. 15 deadline to report to Congress on whether Iran is complying with the agreement and whether he judges the deal to be in the U.S. national security interest. \n \n \"The administration looks forward to sharing details of our Iran strategy at the appropriate time,\" said Michael Anton, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. \n \n The fate of the nuclear pact is only one consideration in that larger strategy, U.S. officials said, although given Trump's focus on the deal as an \"embarrassment,\" it is the most high-profile element. \n \n The agreement signed under President Barack Obama was intended to close off the potential for Iran to quickly build a nuclear bomb by curbing nuclear activities the United States and other partners considered most troubling. It allowed some uranium enrichment to continue for what Iran claims is peaceful medical research and energy; the country says it has never sought nuclear weapons. In exchange, world powers lifted crippling U.S. and international economic sanctions. \n \n At issue now is the fate of U.S. sanctions lifted by Obama and, by extension, whether the United States will move to break the deal. That could open an international breach with European partners who have warned they will not follow suit. \n \n Outreach for a \"transatlantic understanding\" about reopening or supplementing the deal is likely to be part of Trump's announcement, according to one Iran analyst who has discussed the strategy with administration officials. Several other people familiar with a nine-month review of U.S. military, diplomatic, economic and intelligence policy toward Iran spoke on the condition of anonymity because aspects of the policy are not yet set, and Trump has not announced his decision. \n \n Trump said last month that he had decided what to do on Iran but that he would not divulge the decision at that time. \n \n Welcoming military leaders to a White House dinner Thursday night, Trump said Iran had not lived up to its end of the nuclear bargain. \n \n \"The Iranian regime supports terrorism and exports violence, bloodshed and chaos across the Middle East,\" he said. \"That is why we must put an end to Iran's continued aggression and nuclear ambitions. They have not lived up to the spirit of their agreement.\" \n \n The president's senior national security advisers agreed within the past several weeks to recommend that Trump \"decertify\" the agreement at the Oct. 15 deadline, two of those people said. \n \n The administration has begun discussing possible legislation to \"strengthen\" the agreement, congressional aides and others said \u2014 a \"fix it or nix it\" approach suggested by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), a leading Republican hawk on Iran. \n \n But the prospects of such an approach are highly uncertain, and many supporters of the deal consider it a dodge. \n \n Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said last month that he will not reopen the agreement for negotiation. Separately, representatives of Iran, China and Russia told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the same thing during a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session last month, two senior diplomats familiar with that meeting said. \n \n [U.S., Iran accuse one another of undermining nuclear deal] \n \n Cotton appeared to preview the main elements of the administration's plan this week, although he said he does not know exactly what Trump plans to do. The two met Thursday at the White House. \n \n In a speech Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations, Cotton said Trump should \"decline to certify the deal and begin the work of strengthening it.\" \n \n He said decertification should be based on a finding that the deal is not in the U.S. \"vital national security interest,\" citing \"the long catalogue of the regime's crimes and perfidy against the United States, as well as the deal's inherent weakness.\" \n \n But Cotton said he would not push for the immediate reimposition of sanctions, as some conservative lawmakers and outside lobbying groups are doing. \n \n He laid out proposals for Congress to pass new stipulations for U.S. participation in the deal, including elimination of the \"sunset clauses\" under which restrictions on some Iranian nuclear activities expire after several years, tougher inspections requirements and new curbs on Iran's ballistic and cruise missile programs. \n \n Cotton claimed that a unified statement from Congress would help Trump forge a new agreement among European and other allies and strengthen his hand for renegotiation. \n \n \"The world needs to know we're serious, we're willing to walk away, and we're willing to reimpose sanctions \u2014 and a lot more than that,\" Cotton said. \"And they'll know that when the president declines to certify the deal, and not before.\" \n \n In the Senate, plans have been underway for months to respond to a presidential decertification. \n \n Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been Capitol Hill's point person on discussions with the White House. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also have been made aware of plans being discussed with the White House and State Department. \n \n McConnell is not eager to take on the issue at a time when the Senate calendar is full and midterm elections are only a year off, according to congressional aides and a Western diplomat who has met with him. \n \n \"He's not excited about getting the 'Old Maid,' \" said the diplomat, referring to the card game where the player left holding a certain card is the loser. \n \n Still, Republican leaders say they are confident that they can craft a legislative response to the president's decision that can address deficiencies in the deal and avoid turning the issue into a political litmus test for the GOP. \n \n Some Republicans have also been urging the president to take a critical public stance against the deal \u2014 without blowing it up. \n \n \"The president should come out and say, 'Hey, we're going to enforce this, and right now I think these different provisions are being violated,' \" Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said last week, adding that Trump should tell Iran it has a limited window to fix problems. \"If they don't, do what [then-Secretary of State] John Kerry and Barack Obama said they were going to do, which is snap back sanctions.\" \n \n Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said a decertification would undermine global confidence in the deal and in U.S. commitments generally. \n \n \"If the president fails to certify the deal while saying Iran is complying with it, it's a destructive political gesture,\" Schiff said. \n \n [Text of Iran nuclear deal] \n \n Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- \n \n Calif.) said that beginning a process that could result in the United States withdrawing from the Iran deal would go against \"advice from his own national security team and our closest allies.\" \n \n \"Unilaterally abandoning this agreement will make the world less safe,\" she said in a statement. \n \n A half-dozen Democrats who went to the White House on Wednesday evening to meet with national security adviser H.R. McMaster came away with the impression that he agreed with Mattis and Dunford. \n \n The group who visited with McMaster to discuss Iran included Cardin and Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Angus King (I-Maine), according to a person familiar with the meeting. \n \n Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) called the nuclear deal \"very, very flawed\" but not completely ineffective \u2014 a common view among Republicans and a potential starting point for negotiations with Democrats. \n \n \"What we have to figure out is how to actually accomplish what we were well on our way to do before Barack Obama gave them a patient pathway to a nuclear bomb,\" Gardner said, referring to what he and other Republicans see as the deal's failure to prevent Iran from developing weapons down the road. \n \n Those concerns are one of the main areas that Republicans are planning to address in their legislative response to the president's decision, according to a person familiar with plans being hammered out between the White House, State Department and Capitol Hill. \n \n Abby Phillip and Ed O'Keefe contributed to this report. ||||| Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump plans to \"decertify\" the Iran nuclear deal next week, declaring the Obama-era pact not in US interests and launching a congressional review period on the accord, according to two senior US officials. \n \n Trump is tentatively scheduled to unveil his plan during remarks a week from Thursday, though one official cautioned the timing could shift. \n \n Trump said Thursday that Iran has not \"lived up\" to the spirit of the deal. \n \n Speaking ahead of a dinner with military officers, Trump said it was imperative Iran not obtain nuclear weapons. \n \n Trump said Tehran was a supporter of terror and violence, and indicated the deal would be a topic of discussion among the military leaders. \n \n \"You'll be hearing about Iran very shortly,\" he said. \n \n The decision, which was first reported by The Washington Free Beacon and The Washington Post , stops short of completely scrapping the Iran deal, which Trump railed against on the campaign trail. \n \n By decertifying the deal, Trump would kick the matter to Congress, which would then have 60 days to determine a path forward. \n \n White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday the President had made a decision on the agreement and would announce it \"soon.\" \n \n \"The President's team has presented a united strategy that the national security team all stands behind and supports,\" she said. \n \n Trump will spell out a broader strategy for confronting Iran, including its ballistic missile program and support for terror networks in the Middle East, as he unveils his decision on the Iran deal, according to one senior US official. The official didn't specify what precise steps he may take. \n \n Under the new Iran strategy the current deal will stay in place, with efforts being made within the framework of the existing agreement to try and strengthen inspections and plan for what happens when it expires, a senior US official told CNN on Thursday. \n \n But a senior Democratic aide told CNN on Thursday that lawmakers on the other side of the aisle \"believe the President should make the certification, full stop.\" \n \n \"We are not participating in preemptive negotiations, with no text, based on the assumption that the President is not going to make the certification,\" the aide said. \"The maximum point of leverage to address Iran's nefarious activities is now, before his expected terrible decision -- not after, when he undermines America's credibility to uphold its commitments with our allies and partners.\" \n \n How will European nations react? \n \n European diplomats, anticipating Trump's move, have already been meeting with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to take lawmakers' temperature and lobby them on the merits of the agreement. \n \n They're seeing little appetite to reopen the deal, but say that some in Congress worry that hawkish Republicans may introduce legislation to force the issue. \n \n The message these diplomats have gotten from administration officials is that they were \"looking for a middle way\" and didn't want to \"kill the deal,\" one envoy said. Amending the US law provided a way out, but the envoy said there is little appetite in Congress for the hot potato Trump had handed them. \n \n Once Trump decertifies the pact, Congress has 60 days to re-impose sanctions, but that is something only the majority and minority party leaders can initiate. \n \n Democrats back the deal and even the few who voted against it, including Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, have now said they will support it, the envoy said. \n \n What's in the Iran nuclear deal? Stockpiles & centrifuges: The deal has curbed Iran's nuclear program, reducing its stockpiles of enriched uranium by 97 percent and cutting the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds. Uranium enrichment: It still allows Iran to continue enrichment -- enough for civil use to power parts of the country, but not enough to build a nuclear bomb. Inspections: Iran is required to provide inspectors from the UN's nuclear watchdog access to monitor its declared nuclear facilities. Compliance: Every 90 days, the US President must certify to Congress that Iran is keeping up its end of the deal. If the President does not certify the agreement, Congress has a statutory 60-day period to decide whether to reimpose sanctions. Sanctions: If Iran doesn't comply, US, European Union, and UN nuclear-related sanctions on the Iranian economy would be reinstated. A number of non-nuclear-related sanctions currently remain in place. Sources: White House, State Department, Congress, CNN \n \n And most Republicans aren't interested in re-opening the Iran debate either, the envoy said. \"The majority of the GOP aren't excited about this,\" the envoy said, comparing GOP attitudes toward the pact to the unwanted card in the game Old Maid, which players try to get rid of as quickly as possible. \n \n Conveying what Republicans are saying, the envoy said, \"they want to avoid a crisis and they don't want to kill the agreement\" and be saddled with the blame for that. \n \n European diplomats are seeing no appetite in the GOP leadership for a fight to reopen the Iran deal, either. Referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the envoy said they \"aren't going to do anything dangerous.\" \n \n The wild card, the envoy said, is whether hawkish Republicans, such as Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, or Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, will introduce legislation on Iran to force the issue, \"and whether McConnell will be in a position to derail\" them. \n \n Last month, foreign ministers representing countries that are party to the deal -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran -- argued that the agreement was designed to address issues solely related to Iran's nuclear program, according to several diplomats who attended the meeting that took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. \n \n By all accounts -- even that of the United States -- Iran had lived up to its commitments under the agreement, and European leaders signaled they were not interested in expanding the scope of its implementation, they said. \n \n \"Not certifying would pass the decision on the JCPOA over to Congress, with the risk that they decide to re-impose nuclear sanctions leading to US abrogation of the JCPOA,\" one European diplomat told CNN on Thursday. \n \n \"If not certifying is part of a larger plan with Congress to stay within the deal, this would not be a direct breach. However, all the evidence to date is that Iran is in compliance with the terms of the JCPOA,\" the diplomat added. \n \n \"The JCPOA is a hard-fought international agreement that is vital to our security and that of our allies; our priority is working with the deal and making it deliver for our shared security interests,\" the diplomat said. \n \n What will Congress do? \n \n On Tuesday, CNN reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker were spearheading efforts to amend US legislation regarding Iran to shift focus away from the nuclear issue -- a move that could allow the US to stay in the multilateral nuclear deal forged in 2015 and also push back against Iran's other destabilizing behavior, officials and diplomats said. \n \n \"Tillerson has said the problem with the JCPOA is not the JCPOA,\" one senior administration official said, using the acronym for the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. \n \n \"It's the legislation,\" the official said. \"Every 90 days the President must certify and its creates a political crisis. If the administration could put the nuclear deal in a corner, everyone could happily get back to work on dealing with everything else that is a problem with Iran.\" \n \n Instead of certifying that Iran is meeting its technical commitments under the nuclear deal, the administration would report to Congress regularly about broader aggressive Iranian behavior -- such as support for terrorism and its ballistic missile program -- and what the administration is doing to counter it. \n \n This approach could allow the US to stay in the deal but help Trump avoid the political headache of having to re-certify it every 90 days. \n \n It might also keep the Europeans, who want to keep the deal, on board with administration efforts to fight Iran's other destabilizing activities. \n \n HR McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, invited a small group of Democratic senators to the White House Wednesday to discuss the President's plans on the Iran deal, and hinted that he did not think decertifying is the right way to go, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. \n \n The sources said the meeting was clearly intended for McMaster to get ideas from key Senate Democrats on how to avoid decertifying the Iran deal, which many in both parties think would destabilize relations with allies and make it harder to confront foes well beyond Iran. \n \n These sources said McMaster never explicitly said he disagrees with the President, nor that he wants the President to certify that the Iran deal is in America's national interest. But the sources say McMaster repeatedly responded to Democratic Senators entreaties not to decertify Iran and instead look for bipartisan alternatives by saying that he is not the one they have to convince, suggesting they were preaching to the choir. \n \n McMaster's apparent unease with decertifying the Iran deal puts him on the same side of other top members of the Trump national security team. \n \n During a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis said that he believes it is in the US national security interest to remain in the agreement. \n \n Sen. Angus King asked Mattis: \"Do you believe it is in our national security interest at the present time to remain in the (agreement)? That is a yes or no question.\" \n \n Mattis replied, \"Yes, senator, I do.\" \n \n \"The point I would make is if we can confirm that Iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interests then clearly we should stay with it,\" Mattis added. \"I believe at this point in time absent indications to the contrary, it is something the President should consider staying with.\" \n \n But Mattis went on to explain that he also supports a rigorous review of national security issues related to Iran that may fall outside the exact terms of the agreement. \n \n \"The President has to consider more broadly things that rightly fall under his portfolio of looking out for the American people in areas that go beyond the specific letters of the JCPOA -- in that regard I support the rigorous review that he has got going on right now,\" he said.", "summary": "\u2013 Word is President Trump will \"decertify\" the Iran nuclear deal next week, giving Congress 60 days to decide whether to stay in the agreement or void it by imposing new sanctions on Iran. Citing \"people briefed\" on the matter, the Washington Post reports Trump is expected to deliver a speech, possibly on Oct. 12, laying out his administration's new Iranian policy. CNN, whose sources include \"two senior US officials,\" reports that policy would be to work within the framework of the nuclear deal, which limits Iran's nuclear activities, while attempting to strengthen it for the US. But Iran has said it's not interested in renegotiating the deal, and European leaders say they don't want to change the terms of the deal. Germany, France, Britain, Russia, China, Iran, and even the US all agree Iran has held up its side of the nuclear deal. And on Tuesday Defense Secretary James Mattis said he believes it's \"in our national security interest\" to remain in the deal. But Trump campaigned on the nuclear deal being unfair to the US. The president is said to be weary of a tenet of the deal wherein he must go to Congress every 90 days to report whether Iran is complying with it and if it remains in the national interest of the US."}
{"document": "BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) \u2014 One of Jerry Sandusky's sons was arrested Monday on multiple sexual offense charges involving children, more than five years after the former Penn State assistant coach was himself first arrested. \n \n Jeffrey S. Sandusky, 41, a stalwart supporter who attended many of his father's court proceedings, was charged with 14 counts, according to court records. He was jailed on $200,000 bail. \n \n His defense lawyer, Lance Marshall, declined to comment on the allegations. \n \n Marshall said the charges were statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, six counts of unlawful contact with a minor and two counts each of photographing or depicting sexual acts, sexual abuse of children and corruption of minors. \n \n The Centre County district attorney's office said it planned to issue a statement later Monday. \n \n The state Corrections Department said that because of the charges, Jeffrey Sandusky was suspended without pay Monday from employment as a corrections officer at Rockview State Prison, near State College. He had been hired in August 2015. \n \n Jerry Sandusky is serving a lengthy prison sentence for sexual abuse of 10 boys. Jeffery is one of Jerry Sandusky's six adopted children. ||||| Jerry Sandusky's Son Arrested for Sexual Assault on Child \n \n Jerry Sandusky's Son Arrested for Sexual Assault on Child (MUG SHOT + DOCUMENT) \n \n Breaking News \n \n Jerry Sandusky's 41-year-old son has been arrested in Pennsylvania for allegedly sexually assaulting a child ... officials say. \n \n Jeffrey Sandusky was arraigned on Monday. Charging documents show he's also been hit with multiple counts of child pornography, child sex abuse and corruption of minors. \n \n Officials say an investigation was launched into Sandusky back in November after the child's father called police to report that Jeffrey had been sending his kid text messages requesting naked pictures. \n \n Sandusky was reportedly dating the child's mother. \n \n Sandusky's bail was set at $200,000 and he was ordered to stay away from minors. \n \n Jerry Sandusky is currently serving 30 to 60 years in prison for raping several young boys while he was the assistant football coach at Penn State.", "summary": "\u2013 The adopted son of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky has been arrested and accused of the same crime as his father: sexually assaulting a child, reports WTAJ. Jeffrey Sandusky, 41, was arraigned Monday and also faces charges of child pornography and the corruption of minors, reports TMZ. Police say they began investigating after a child told his father that he had gotten texts from Jeffrey Sandusky that included a request for naked photos. Sandusky was dating the boy's mother at the time, say police. The criminal complaint alleges that a second child was abused, going back to 2013. Sandusky has been jailed on $200,000 bail, reports AP. The exact charges were statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, six counts of unlawful contact with a minor, and two counts each of photographing or depicting sexual acts, sexual abuse of children, and corruption of minors. The state has suspended Sandusky without pay from his job as a corrections officer at Rockview State Prison. The elder Sandusky is serving 30 to 60 years for raping multiple boys."}
{"document": "Sonoma County survivalist charged with mysterious killings on Jenner beach \n \n Investigators believe 38-year-old Shaun Gallon is responsible for the double murder of a couple in Jenner in 2004. Investigators believe 38-year-old Shaun Gallon is responsible for the double murder of a couple in Jenner in 2004. Photo: Sonoma County Sheriff's Office Photo: Sonoma County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Sonoma County survivalist charged with mysterious killings on Jenner beach 1 / 15 Back to Gallery \n \n A Sonoma County survivalist who has long been known for strange and violent behavior, and who already stands accused of gunning down his brother, has been charged with murdering a young engaged couple in August 2004 as they lay in sleeping bags on a beach in Jenner. \n \n Shaun Michael Gallon, the lead suspect in the Jenner case for the past year, faces two counts of murder in the gunshot killings of Lindsay Cutshall, 22, of Fresno, Ohio, and her 26-year-old fiance, Jason Allen of Zeeland, Mich. \n \n Gallon, 39, is eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted, but Sonoma County prosecutors have not said whether they will seek execution. Prosecutors also charged Gallon with attempted murder in a separate package bomb case in Monte Rio in 2004. \n \n Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Spencer Brady said Gallon was never ruled out as a suspect in the cold-case murders. \n \n \u201cAfter he was in custody for the death of his brother, the Sheriff\u2019s Department developed new evidence that linked him to the 2004 murders of Jason and Lindsay,\u201d Brady said. He added that prosecutors wouldn\u2019t elaborate on the new evidence entailed until Gallon\u2019s preliminary hearing. \n \n Now Playing: \n \n The Sonoma County public defender\u2019s office, which is representing Gallon, could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. \n \n The charges, filed last week, are a major step in a long-running cold case. Sonoma County sheriff\u2019s investigators spent more than a dozen years pursuing the beach gunman, searching for suspects across the country while looking at gun records and eyeing serial killers. \n \n Gallon was long considered a \u201cperson of interest\u201d in the slayings, but the break in the case did not come until March 24, 2017, when Gallon allegedly killed his younger brother in Forestville, shooting him several times. \n \n Investigators said Gallon, after being arrested, told police enough to tie him to the killings of Cutshall and Allen. But prosecutors held off on filing charges as detectives continued to dig into the case. \n \n The allegations say Gallon, who was 25 at the time, shot the pair with a .45-caliber Marlin rifle at close range as they slept on secluded Fish Head Beach near the mouth of the Russian River. \n \n The couple had been working that summer at a Christian youth camp along the American River in El Dorado County and had gone on a three-day sightseeing trip up the coast that would have taken them through Forestville. \n \n Investigators said Cutshall and Allen didn\u2019t know Gallon, though it\u2019s unclear whether they might have had an interaction with him before their deaths. \n \n The biggest cold cases in the Bay Area The biggest cold cases in the Bay Area Photo: Michael Macor Photo: Michael Macor Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close The biggest cold cases in the Bay Area 1 / 13 Back to Gallery \n \n A motive has been elusive in the beach killings, as in the shooting of Gallon\u2019s brother. \n \n On that day, the mother of the two men called for help, saying 36-year-old Shamus Gallon had been shot with a rifle at the home where the family lived on the 9800 block of River Road. The family had moved to the home from Guerneville after the brothers\u2019 father killed himself in 2013. \n \n The mother reported that Shaun Gallon had left the house with the rifle and driven away in his minivan, officials said. He was swiftly apprehended and charged with murder. \n \n It wasn\u2019t Gallon\u2019s first brush with the law. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for shooting an arrow at a man in Guerneville, just west of Forestville, on Jan. 27, 2009. \n \n Gallon, described by investigators in that case as a survivalist, served a three-year sentence \u2014 spending some of his time at San Quentin State Prison \u2014 after wounding James McNeil of Monte Rio, who was sitting in a parked convertible on Mill Street when an arrow came through the soft top of the car and grazed his head. \n \n Gallon had convictions in his 20s for resisting arrest, weapons possession, theft, drunken driving and hunting abalone without proper paperwork, records show. \n \n The new attempted-murder charges stem from a package bomb that exploded on June 10, 2004, when 27-year-old Parvoneh Leval picked up a box left on her boyfriend John Robles\u2019 car. Leval was treated for severe cuts and bruises on her hand and arm. \n \n Cutshall and Allen were killed sometime after nightfall on Aug. 14, 2004, and before sunrise Aug. 16, officials said. Their bodies were found in their sleeping bags Aug. 18. Both were shot in the head. Cutshall and Allen were killed just weeks before they were to return to the Midwest to get married. \n \n Detectives on the case pursued a number of possible motives in the killings \u2014 from sexual assault to murder-suicide, all of which were ruled out. \n \n Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy ||||| Read a 2014 Sonoma Magazine story on the 10-year anniversary of the killings and the life-changing effect they had on former Sheriff Steve Freitas here . ____ For past coverage of the slayings go here \n \n Shaun Michael Gallon, the Forestville felon named more than a year ago as the lone suspect in the shooting deaths of a young Midwestern couple on a Jenner beach in 2004, has been charged by Sonoma County prosecutors with the two murders, marking a pivotal moment in a shocking case of violence that vexed sheriff\u2019s detectives for years. \n \n Gallon, 39, has been held in Sonoma County Jail since he was arrested in March 2017 in the slaying of his younger brother in their family home. His detention led to jailhouse interviews with investigators in the Jenner case, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, and just weeks later, in May 2017, then-Sheriff Steve Frietas identified Gallon as the gunman who killed Lindsay Cutshall, 22, and her fiance, Jason Allen, 26, as they lay in sleeping bags at secluded Fish Head Beach. \n \n Gallon, who was known in the Russian River area where he grew up for strange behavior and run-ins with law enforcement, was interviewed by sheriff\u2019s officials at the time but never detained in connection with the case. \n \n Sheriff Rob Giordano said the Jenner killings were \u201chorrific\u201d for the Cutshall and Allen families and for Sonoma County \u2014 a cold case that defined careers for many of the hundreds of Sheriff\u2019s Office personnel involved in the search for the gunman. \n \n \u201cUnfortunately, there are evil people in our community, not many, but he is one of those people,\u201d Giordano said. \u201cI\u2019m just really glad he\u2019s off the street now.\u201d \n \n On Friday, prosecutors filed documents in Sonoma County Superior Court charging Gallon with killing Cutshall and Allen. He was arraigned on those charges Monday morning in a brief court hearing. Prosecutors also charged him with one count of attempted murder in a separate case dating to 2004, when he is alleged to have left on top of a car a package bomb that exploded, injuring a Monte Rio woman. He did not enter a plea. \n \n Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell said prosecutors received an essential set of reports from the Sheriff\u2019s Office on May 1, including documents from 13 years of investigative work, and after reviewing the files they were able to charge Gallon with the killings. \n \n \u201cIt was a very thorough investigation,\u201d Staebell said. \n \n Prosecutors, led by Chief Deputy District Attorney Spencer Brady, are still reviewing whether to seek the death penalty in connection with the double murder. \n \n Details in a spate of criminal cases against Gallon dating to 2004 cast him as a darkly troubled man, a self-taught survivalist and weapons fanatic who in 2009 shot a man with a hand-fashioned bow and arrow. In addition to the bombing, Gallon now stands accused of shooting to death three people, including his brother, Shamus Gallon, in their family home in Forestville last year, and Cutshall and Allen on the Jenner beach 14 years ago. \n \n His suspected motives remain unknown. \n \n \u201cThere is no question that he suffers from mental illness,\u201d Sonoma County Public Defender Kathleen Pozzi said. \n \n Pozzi said she\u2019s still not convinced Gallon was involved in the Jenner killings, and she may file a motion requesting the two murder cases and attempted homicide case be handled separately because they are unrelated.", "summary": "\u2013 A man already accused of killing his brother is now charged with the 2004 murders of an engaged couple found in sleeping bags on a California beach. Baffled authorities have continually sought the culprit in the August 2004 shooting deaths of 22-year-old Lindsay Cutshall of Ohio and 26-year-old Jason Allen of Michigan in Jenner, but with little success. After 39-year-old Shaun Gallon was arrested for allegedly shooting his younger brother to death in Forestville in March 2017, however, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department \"developed new evidence that linked him to the 2004 murders,\" Chief Deputy District Attorney Spencer Brady tells the San Francisco Chronicle. While Brady wouldn't elaborate on the evidence, NBC Bay Area reports Gallon told police information that only the couple's killer would know. He was named as a suspect in the killings last May. At the time of their deaths, Cutshall and Allen had left the Christian summer camp they were working at for a three-day sightseeing trip that would've taken them through Forestville, 20 miles from Jenner. They were both shot in the head at close range weeks before they were to return to the Midwest to get married. It isn't clear what contact, if any, they had with Gallon. In addition to murder charges, Gallon also faces attempted-murder charges related to a package bomb that injured a woman in Monte Rio in June 2004 as she tried to remove it from her boyfriend's car. \"Unfortunately, there are evil people in our community, not many, but he is one of those people,\" a sheriff tells the Press Democrat of Gallon. \"I'm just really glad he's off the street.\""}
{"document": "(RNS) The news that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the nation's most prominent Catholic prelate, will deliver the closing blessing to the Republican National Convention in Florida next week was seen as a huge coup for Mitt Romney, the party's presumptive nominee. But the move has also prompted a sharp debate within the church over the increasingly close ties between leading bishops and the GOP. \n \n \"The cozy relationship between a sizable portion of U.S. bishops and the Republican Party should be cause for concern, and not just among progressive Catholics,\" Michael O'Loughlin wrote in a post on the website of America magazine, a leading Catholic weekly published by the Jesuits. \n \n \"Cardinal Dolan's appearance in Tampa will damage the church's ability to be a moral and legitimate voice for voiceless, as those who view the Catholic Church as being a shill for the GOP have just a bit more evidence to prove their case,\" O'Loughlin concluded. \n \n Similarly, David Cruz-Uribe, a member of the Secular Franciscan Order and a professor of mathematics at Trinity College, wrote on the Vox Nova blog that Dolan's decision \"will only drag the Church further into a partisan divide and fuel the perception (true or not) that the Catholic Church wants to replace the Episcopalians as the Republican party on its knees.\" \n \n Conservative Catholics have, not surprisingly, welcomed Dolan's appearance and hope it augurs well for Romney. \n \n \"I now predict that if Mitt Romney wins the White House in 2012 there will be a very healthy relationship between a Romney administration and the U.S. Bishops, led by a close working relationship between Cardinal Dolan and President Romney,\" said Thomas Peters, who writes for CatholicVote.org, which has endorsed Romney and his Catholic running mate, Paul Ryan. \n \n Romney disclosed the news of Dolan's planned blessing on Wednesday (Aug. 22) during an interview on the conservative Catholic cable channel EWTN. He did so in the context of a discussion about his shared opposition with the bishops to the Obama administration's controversial birth control mandate. \n \n By tradition, the local bishop often delivers a prayer at the party convention meeting in his city, but it is highly unusual for another bishop -- and the leader of the hierarchy -- to fly in to deliver a benediction, as Dolan will do on Aug. 30, right after Romney is formally nominated. \n \n Philadelphia's Cardinal John Krol did so in 1972 when he was president of the bishops' conference and went to Miami for the Republican convention that nominated Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. But that seems to be the only modern precedent. \n \n Whether Dolan's appearance will have any actual effect in swinging Catholic voters to Romney is unclear. Obama is holding a slim lead among Catholics at this point, and Catholics often ignore the hierarchy's advice on political matters. \n \n Dolan's spokesman has sought to portray the cardinal's appearance as purely nonpartisan: \"It's as a priest going to pray,\" said Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the Archdiocese of New York. \n \n Zwilling reiterated that point in a statement released on Thursday, and added that Dolan \"would be willing to accept a similar offer from the Democratic Party as well.\" \n \n But the Democrats seem unlikely to extend an invitation to Dolan, who is among dozens of Catholic leaders suing the administration over the contraception mandate. It's also very possible that Dolan would not receive a warm welcome when the Democrats hold their convention in Charlotte, N.C., a week after the GOP nominates Romney in Tampa, Fla. \n \n Dolan and the bishops have become increasingly critical of Obama as policy differences over gay marriage and abortion rights have provided ammunition for fierce rhetorical blasts from many bishops and their allies, who have compared Obama to a totalitarian dictator, or worse. \n \n Earlier this month, Baltimore Archbishop William P. Lori, an up-and-coming voice in the hierarchy who has led the campaign against the administration's contraception policy, gave an interview that was widely viewed as indicating that a good Catholic could not vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights, as Obama does. \n \n At the same time, Romney's selection of Ryan as his running mate has brought an outpouring of praise from several bishops. Some of them like Ryan's proposals on cutting entitlements and taxes, despite the conflict that other bishops see between those policies and Catholic teaching. \n \n Others, like Dolan, who was archbishop of Milwaukee before coming to New York in 2009, have close personal ties to Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman. Dolan has often taken a softer line on Ryan's policies than other Catholic leaders, and his praise has grown as Ryan's visibility has increased. \n \n Dolan recently told a radio program that he is \"happy\" Ryan is on the GOP ticket and called him a \"great public servant.\" \n \n \"We go way back, Congressman Paul Ryan and I,\" Dolan said. \"I came to know and admire him immensely. And I would consider him a friend. He and his wife Janna and their three kids have been guests in my house; I've been a guest at their house. They're remarkably upright, refreshing people.\" \n \n Ryan's own bishop, Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, has also emerged as a strong defender of Ryan's Catholic bona fides. \n \n Morlino wrote a column this month expressing pride in Ryan's \"accomplishments as a native son, and a brother in the faith.\" And on Tuesday he told a radio program that Ryan is an \"excellent Catholic layman of the very highest integrity\" who \"understands the principles of Catholic social teaching\" and applies them \"very responsibly.\" \n \n There was at least one bit of good news for Catholic Democrats this week, however. Organizers of next month's Values Voter Summit in Washington, a major political rally for the religious right, announced that Cardinal Dolan had been invited to speak. But Zwilling said that wouldn't happen. \n \n \"He has not received an invitation as far as we can tell,\" Zwilling said. \"In any event, he is not going.\" \n \n Click through the slideshow to see most and least Catholic states in the United States: \n \n Most and Least Catholic States In America \n \n Most and Least Catholic States In America \n \n 1 of 51 Massachusetts 44,905 Catholic adherents per 100,000 people. Share this slide: \n \n MediaWiki: Beyond My Ken ||||| 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": "\u2013 New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan is headed to the Republican National Convention to deliver a benediction, a rarity in modern times: Not since 1972 has an out-of-town bishop flown in to bless a party convention. While observers at first called it a win for Mitt Romney, now some Catholics are raising questions about the move, the Huffington Post reports. The bishop's appearance \"will damage the church's ability to be a moral and legitimate voice for voiceless,\" notes a post on the website of America, a top Catholic weekly. \"Those who view the Catholic Church as being a shill for the GOP have just a bit more evidence to prove their case.\" But conservative Catholics applaud the move. If Romney wins the election, \"there will be a very healthy relationship between a Romney administration and the US Bishops, led by a close working relationship between Cardinal Dolan and President Romney,\" predicts a writer at CatholicVote.org. A rep for Dolan says his appearance is apolitical: \"It's as a priest going to pray.\" Head to HuffPo for more."}
{"document": "By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus \n \n Just over a week after U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed by the Taliban, a CBS News Poll shows 45 percent of Americans disapprove of the deal that saw him released in exchange for five Taliban militants, while 37 percent approve of it. About one in five do not have an opinion. \n \n Views differ by political party: most Republicans disapprove of the deal, while just over half of Democrats approve. Among those who have served in the military, 55 percent disapprove of the prisoner swap. \n \n Most Americans -- 56 percent -- say the U.S. paid too high a price to secure Bergdahl's release. Among veterans, that figure rises to 65 percent. \n \n Republicans and independents say the deal cost the U.S. too much, while Democrats are more divided: 42 percent think the terms of the agreement were reasonable, but almost as many -- 39 percent -- say the U.S. paid too high a price. \n \n The president has been criticized by some members of Congress for not informing them of the prisoner exchange at least 30 days before it was carried out, as required by U.S. law. \n \n The administration has defended the decision to move hastily with the swap, arguing there was an urgent risk to Bergdahl's health, and that any leak of the plans could have presented an additional threat to his safety. \n \n Americans give the president low marks for his handling of the release of Sgt. Bergdahl - just 35 percent approve, while 49 percent disapprove. He gets support from Democrats -- 61 percent approve of his handling of the matter, but most Republicans disapprove. \n \n The poll finds a clear majority -- 72 percent -- think President Obama should have notified Congress in advance, and that includes 55 percent of people identifying themselves as Democrats. \n \n Historically, CBS News Polls have often shown that Americans prefer a president seek the approval of Congress on military matters. \n \n There are reports that Bergdahl left his military base in Afghanistan before his capture, but many Americans (40 percent) have yet to form an opinion on whether he deliberately abandoned his post. Among those with an opinion, 35 percent think Bergdahl deliberately left (including 43% of military veterans), while 25 percent say he did not. \n \n Most Americans - 56 percent - think the U.S. paid too high a price in the agreement to get Bergdahl released. Among veterans, that figure rises to 65 percent. \n \n Republicans and independents think the deal cost the U.S. too much, while Democrats are more divided: 42 percent think the terms of the agreement were reasonable, but almost as many - 39 percent -say the U.S. paid too high a price. \n \n Some Americans express concern about terrorism amid the release of the Taliban prisoners. The poll shows 49 percent think the prisoner exchange will increase the threat of terrorism against the U.S., while 40 percent say it will have no effect. Only 3 percent say the exchange will result in a reduced threat of terrorism against the U.S. \n \n This poll was conducted by telephone June 8-9, 2014 among 1,013 adults nationwide. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, PA. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher Results based on the sample of veterans is plus or minus eight points. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls \n \n \n \n ||||| Senate Democrats are mounting their strongest defense yet of President Barack Obama\u2019s decision to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees from Guant\u00e1namo Bay. \n \n They are ridiculing the notion that Obama should have given Congress a 30-day heads up \u2014 as required by law \u2014 on the impending transfer. And Democrats are expressing growing confidence that public support for the deal will grow as more details emerge. \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset \n \n The debate over Bergdahl\u2019s release is unfolding as administration officials took to Capitol Hill for the fourth time in a week on Tuesday to defend the deal \u2014 this time in a classified meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said providing lawmakers advance notice was an \u201cimpossible\u201d task that would have endangered Bergdahl\u2019s life, given the chance of leaks. \n \n (Also on POLITICO: John Boehner: \"Americans less safe\" after Bergdahl prisoner swap) \n \n \u201cI can\u2019t believe anyone\u2019s arguing that as soon as we knew there was a transfer we had to wait for Congress to think it over for 30 days,\u201d Durbin told reporters. \u201cI will just tell you this: They knew a day ahead of time that the transfer was going to take place, they knew an hour ahead of time where it was going to take place.\u201d \n \n Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said Congress should not have been surprised that Obama evaded the 30-day law \u2014 citing warnings Obama had in mind when signing the law that he might not be able to comply with the requirement if \u201cthere were circumstances which didn\u2019t give him enough time.\u201d \n \n \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what happened here,\u201d Levin said. \n \n Meanwhile, Democrats are pressing the administration to be more forthcoming under the belief that disclosure will put to bed Republicans\u2019 attacks on the transfer that often take the form of unanswered questions. \n \n \u201cWe believe that as people understand the circumstances of his imprisonment, it will help explain why the president considered this such a priority,\u201d Durbin said. \n \n (Also on POLITICO: Steny Hoyer: \"Wise\" to inform Hill about prisoner swap) \n \n Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said as she left the briefing that open discussions in Congress would help clear up Republicans\u2019 and Democrats\u2019 different interpretations of the prisoner exchange. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s always helpful to be as transparent as possible. And I think this is a case where there\u2019s information that has been mischaracterized or not fully released that would be helpful to the public,\u201d she said. \n \n Democrats have reason to be worried over the political implications of the deal. A poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center and USA Today found 43 percent believed it was wrong for the administration to exchange the five Taliban detainees for Bergdahl. Nearly two-thirds of respondents in the poll said Obama should have notified Congress about these types of decisions. \n \n And Republicans continue to hammer the White House on the deal. Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that people could die because of it. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve made Americans less safe here and all around the world,\u201d Boehner told reporters. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to pay for this. There is not any doubt in my mind there are going to be costs.\u201d \n \n As is becoming typical of these closed briefings, Senate Republicans left the Tuesday briefing insisting they have more questions than answers and that little was revealed that is not already public. \n \n Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will appear before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and will most likely face a litany of criticism from the Republican-led House. Senate Republicans are pushing Democrats to do the same after a series of closed briefings. \n \n \u201cIf they could release the five [classified] files of the Taliban dream team, then we can have a full open hearing, just on the national security implications of the transfer,\u201d said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who attended Tuesday\u2019s briefing. \u201cThat\u2019s important for the people of this country to understand.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Americans generally aren't too pleased with the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange, especially if they're veterans or Republicans, according to a new CBS poll. Specifically, most in the poll (56%) think the US paid too high of a price by exchanging five Gitmo detainees. Some highlights: Disapprove: 45% disapprove of the deal in general, while 37% approve, and 18% don't have an opinion. By party: 22% of Republicans approve of the deal and 65% disapprove; for Democrats, it's 53% vs. 27%; and for independents, 33% vs. 47%. Veterans: 31% approve of the deal and 55% disapprove. High price: 56% overall think the swap was too high of a price; the figure is higher among Republicans (75%) and veterans (65%) than Democrats (39%) and independents (58%). A majority of respondents (72%) think President Obama should have notified Congress before making the deal, and Politico reports that the White House was sending seven representatives to Capitol Hill today for a closed-door briefing with senators to try to smooth things over. The session comes ahead of tomorrow's open hearing in the House."}
{"document": "See more of Bright Beginnings, Inc. on Facebook ||||| Every once in a while, you meet someone who greatly affects your life. For those of us who were lucky enough to know her, that person was Miyah. \n \n \n \n Miyah, born Damiyah Telemaque-Nelson, was a young D.C. resident battling Burkitt's Lymphoma. Unfortunately, Miyah succumbed to her battle with cancer on Monday, December 8, 2014. She was just five years old. \u201cIt\u2019s just another angel that God put behind me.\u201d Those are the words of Wizards star John Wall, who opened up about his friendship with Miyah following her passing. \n \n \n \n John was introduced to Miyah through a mutual friend. Soon after, John got word that Miyah wanted to meet megastar, Nicki Minaj and receive one of her infamous pink wigs. John wanted to help so he created a social media campaign, where he encouraged his fan and followers to use the hashtag #PinkWig4Miyah to get Nicki Minaj's attention. A few days later Nicki reached out to John and arrangements were made to grant Miyah's wish. \n \n Miyah wasn't on this earth for long, but her story was no less amazing. Cancer is a struggle at any age, but for a young child to deal with it, and keep a smile on her face during the process, speaks measures to her strength and spirit. \n \n \n \n \n \n To honor Miyah, The John Wall Family Foundation is sponsoring \u201cMiyah\u2019s Troupe\u201d at the 2015 Washington, DC Light The Night Walk. \n \n The Light The Night Walk brings together families and communities to honor blood cancer survivors, as well as those lost to the diseases, and our team is helping to shine a light on the importance of finding cures and providing access to treatments for blood cancer patients. Funds raised from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Light The Night Walk help support the research of blood cancer treatments that save lives. \n \n Please join our team's effort today by registering to walk or by making a donation. Your participation in the Light The Night Walk will save lives not someday, but today. ||||| John Wall is one of the best point guards in the NBA, but his impact on society stretches beyond the basketball court. The 25-year-old is extremely generous with both his time and money. \n \n One might remember when Wall broke down after a Wizards win last season, upon hearing a 6-year old cancer patient whom he\u2019d met and befriended had died. Wall cares. \n \n The Washington Wizards guard\u2019s philanthropy continued Friday, when Bright Beginnings, a child development center in Washington D.C., revealed a $400,000 donation from Wall, to help ongoing efforts to fight homelessness. \n \n More information can be found on Bright Beginnings\u2019 Facebook page. And here\u2019s an official statement from the organization\u2019s Executive Director Dr. Betty Jo Gaines: \n \n \u201cSupport from individuals like Mr. Wall, gives Bright Beginnings the encouragement to continue to provide comprehensive services for homeless children in the District of Columbia. It is evident that John Wall is sensitive and concerned about the plight of homeless children in DC and he wants these children to succeed.\u201d \n \n (h/t: Bleacher Report) ||||| We already knew that John Wall was motivated to help the less fortunate. After all, this is a man who pledged $1 million to local charities in 2013, just after signing a lucrative contract extension. \n \n [Best and worst of Wizards Media Day 2015] \n \n But it\u2019s always nice to get fresh news of generous acts, and Wall committed another one on Friday, when he made a surprise appearance at a D.C. organization that helps homeless children. Oh, and the Wizards guard brought with him a donation of $400,000. \n \n Thank you @JohnWall for your generous donation to BBI's second child development center in SE DC! #JWFF pic.twitter.com/LfNnARk37J \u2014 Bright Beginnings (@sunnystarts) September 25, 2015 \n \n A Facebook post by Bright Beginnings, Inc., thanked Wall for his contribution. Here is what the group, which describes itself as \u201cnationally accredited child and family development center that offers a bright start for homeless infants, toddlers and preschoolers and their families,\u201d had to say: \n \n \u201cThis morning, Washington Wizards point guard John Wall surprised our organization and BBI Executive Director Dr. Betty Jo Gaines with a generous donation of $400,000. This phenomenal contribution will significantly impact the development of Bright Beginnings\u2019 second child development center at 3418 4th Street SE in Ward 8. \u201c\u2018Support from individuals like Mr. Wall gives Bright Beginnings the encouragement to continue to provide comprehensive services for homeless children in the District of Columbia. It is evident that John Wall is sensitive and concerned about the plight of homeless children in DC and he wants these children to succeed.\u2019 \u2013 Bright Beginnings Executive Director, Dr. Betty Jo Gaines. \u201cProudly displayed at the new BBI center will be the John Wall, Wall of Achievement, highlighting the everyday moments of greatness Bright Beginnings students accomplish, in addition to the legacies left behind by high school and college graduates who were once BBI toddlers and preschoolers. Bright Beginnings will also name a classroom in Mr. Wall\u2019s honor. The new Bright Beginnings child development center is scheduled to open its doors in 2017.\u201d \n \n It\u2019s clear that Wall is particularly concerned about the plight of children in need. Last year, he was visibly upset after a Wizards game by news that a 6-year-old girl he had befriended, Miyah Telemaque-Nelson, had lost her battle with cancer. \n \n The Wizards are about to kick off training camp, and Wall is hoping to lead his team deeper into the playoffs than last season, when Washington was eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinals by Atlanta. Wall was hobbled by an injury he suffered at the start of that series, and if he\u2019s hoping for better luck going forward, well, one would have to think that all the good karma he\u2019s creating can\u2019t hurt.", "summary": "\u2013 John Wall is only 25 years old and he's already achieved great success with the Washington Wizards, including being called by Fox Sports \"one of the best point guards in the NBA.\" He can also check \"philanthropist\" off his list after his surprise visit Friday to a DC child-development center for homeless kids, where he visited with the children and donated $400,000 to the organization. The staff at Bright Beginnings Inc. was stunned by his move. \"It is evident that John Wall is sensitive and concerned about the plight of homeless children in DC and he wants these children to succeed,\" the executive director says on the group's Facebook page, where heartwarming pictures of Wall interacting with the BBI kids are also displayed. It's not the first time Wall has shown his soft spot for kids: He still raises funds in honor of a 6-year-old cancer patient he befriended who passed away last year, the Washington Post notes. (Here are some everyday items you can donate to make a difference.)"}
{"document": "CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood risks political elimination, with the new army-backed government threatening to ban the Islamist organization after launching a fierce crackdown on its supporters that has killed hundreds. \n \n Struggling to stamp its authority on Egypt following the ousting last month of President Mohamed Mursi, the country's new rulers have upped the rhetoric, saying the Arab world's most populous nation is at war with terrorism. \n \n More than 700 people have died, most of them backers of Mursi, in four days of violence. That has earned Egypt stiff condemnation from Western nations, uncomfortable with Islamist rule but also with the overthrow of an elected government. \n \n The crackdown has, however, drawn messages of support from key Arab allies like Saudi Arabia, which have long feared the spread of Brotherhood ideology to the Gulf monarchies. \n \n Blaming a defiant Brotherhood for the bloodshed, Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi proposed dissolving the group in a move that would force it underground and could usher in mass arrests of its members countrywide. \n \n The government said it was studying the possibility. \n \n \"There will be no reconciliation with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who turned weapons against the state and its institutions,\" Beblawi told reporters. \n \n A statement from the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned attacks on churches, hospitals and other public facilities and called for both sides to resolve the violence. \n \n \"The secretary-general believes that preventing further loss of life should be the Egyptians' highest priority at this dangerous moment,\" the statement said. \"With such sharp polarization in Egyptian society, both the authorities and the political leaders share the responsibility for ending the current violence.\" \n \n Violence flared briefly on Saturday as backers of Mursi exchanged fire with security forces in a central Cairo mosque, where scores of Muslim Brotherhood protesters had sought refuge from clashes the day before that killed 95 in the capital. \n \n Police finally cleared the building and made a string of arrests, with crowds on the street cheering them on and harassing foreign reporters trying to cover the scene. \n \n \"We as Egyptians feel deep bitterness towards coverage of the events in Egypt,\" presidential political adviser Mostafa Hegazy said, accusing Western media of ignoring attacks on police and the destruction of churches blamed on Islamists. \n \n FADING POPULARITY \n \n Founded in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood has deep roots in the provinces and won all five elections that followed the overthrow in 2011 of the autocratic Hosni Mubarak, appearing to cement themselves in the heart of Egyptian power for years to come. \n \n But accusations that they were incompetent rulers intent only on monopolizing government tarnished their reputation. \n \n Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in June to denounce Mursi and the army says it removed him from office on July 3 to avoid a civil war. \n \n Since then, the state media has turned ferociously against the group and there appeared to be little sympathy for the Brotherhood faithful amongst many ordinary Egyptians. \n \n \"Democracy did not work for Egypt, I am afraid,\" said Hussein Ahmed, a 30-year-old banker in Cairo, who had protested against Mubarak in the 2011 uprising. \n \n \"Yes, the Brotherhood were elected, but they never cared about rights or freedoms of anyone but their own group. Why should we feel sorry for them now?\" \n \n Brotherhood leaders accuse the military of deliberately sabotaging their time in office and plotting their demise. \n \n After two pro-Mursi protest camps were crushed by police on Wednesday, the Brotherhood launched a \"Day of Rage\" on Friday, and clashes left at least 173 dead. They have urged their supporters to take to the streets daily in the week ahead. \n \n There were no reports of major rallies on Saturday. \n \n The Interior Ministry said police had arrested more than 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood \"elements\" following Friday's riots. The group said daughters and sons of the leadership had been targeted in an effort to gain leverage over the organization. \n \n The state news agency said 250 Brotherhood followers faced possible charges of murder, attempted murder and terrorism. \n \n The government has ordered a dawn-to-dusk curfew that looks set to last until the middle of September, leaving the normally crowded streets of major cities eerily deserted at sundown. \n \n Looking to regain some semblance of normality, banks were due to re-open on Sunday for the first time since Wednesday's carnage, and the stock exchange will also resume business, with trading cut to three hours from four because of the instability. \n \n (Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Michael Georgy, Tom Finn, Mohamed Abdellah, Ahmed Tolba and Omar Fahmy; Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Andrew Roche and Bill Trott) ||||| CAIRO Egyptian prosecutors have placed 250 Muslim Brotherhood supporters under investigation for murder, attempted murder and terrorism, the state MENA news agency said on Saturday. \n \n Police arrested more than 1,000 Brotherhood sympathizers in the wake of clashes on Friday that pitted followers of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi against the security forces. More than 170 people died nationwide in the violence that day. \n \n (Reporting by Yasmine Saleh, writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Jon Boyle) ||||| Egyptian security forces stormed a Cairo mosque Saturday after a heavy exchange of gunfire with armed men shooting down from a minaret, rounding up hundreds of supporters of the country's ousted president who had sought refuge there overnight after violent clashes killed 173 people. \n \n An Egyptian army armored vehicle and a riot police truck are seen on a bridge over the Nile river at Zamalek District in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013. Authorities say police in Cairo are negotiating... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptians security forces standby at the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight, following a day of fierce street battles that... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptians security forces escort an Islamist supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood out of the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Islamist protesters barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight, following... (Associated Press) \n \n Mostafa Hegazy, political adviser to Egyptian Interim President Adly Mansour, talks during a press conference at the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013. Security forces raided... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptians security forces provide a cordon around the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight, following a day of fierce street... (Associated Press) \n \n A man leaves the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters had barricaded themselves inside overnight, following a day of fierce street battles that left scores of people dead,... (Associated Press) \n \n Pro-government crowds gather outside the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight, following a day of fierce street battles that... (Associated Press) \n \n A group of Egyptians gather at the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight, following a day of fierce street battles that left... (Associated Press) \n \n An Egyptian army armored vehicle is seen on a bridge over the Nile river at Zamalek District in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013. Authorities say police in Cairo are negotiating with people barricaded... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptians security forces provide a cordon around the al-Fatah mosque, after hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded themselves inside the mosque overnight, following a day of fierce street... (Associated Press) \n \n The raid on the al-Fath mosque on Ramses Square was prompted by fears that deposed President Mohammed Morsi's group, the Muslim Brotherhood, again planned to set up a sit-in, security officials said, similar to those that were broken up Wednesday in assaults that killed hundreds of people. \n \n The arrest of the brother of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri came in connection to the raid on the mosque. Officials said that he planned to bring in armed groups to provide support to those holed up inside the mosque. \n \n Mohammed al-Zawahri, a Morsi ally, is the leader of the ultraconservative Jihadi Salafist group which espouses al-Qaida's hardline ideology. He was detained at a checkpoint in Giza, the city across the Nile from Cairo, the official said. \n \n The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists about the arrest. \n \n The Egyptian government meanwhile announced it had begun deliberations on whether to ban the Brotherhood, a long-outlawed organization that swept to power in the country's first democratic elections a year ago. \n \n Such a ban _ which authorities say is rooted in the group's use of violence _ would be a repeat to the historic and decades-long power struggle between the state and the Brotherhood. \n \n For more than a month since the July 3 military overthrow of Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters have attacked and torched scores of police stations and churches, in retaliation. Shops and houses of Christians have been targeted. \n \n Such attacks spurred widespread public anger against the Brotherhood, giving the military-backed government popular backing to step up its campaign against the Islamist group. It reminded people of a decade-long Islamist insurgency against Mubarak's rule in the 1990s which only strengthened security agencies and ended up with thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in prisons. \n \n The assault on the al-Fath Mosque began Friday, as pro-Morsi protesters and armed men fled into the worship center to avoid angry vigilantes and arrest. They piled furniture in the mosque's entrance to block authorities and enraged anti-Morsi protesters from reaching them. \n \n The mosque served as a field hospital and an open-air morgue as a Brotherhood-called day of protests descended into violence. By daybreak Saturday, security forces and armored personnel carriers had surrounded the mosque and it appeared that military-led negotiations might defuse the standoff. \n \n A post on the Facebook page of the army spokesman, Col. Mohammed Ali, accused gunmen of firing from the mosque at nearby buildings, located on Ramses Square in central Cairo. The upper floors of a commercial building and blood bank towering over the square caught fire during the mayhem, with flames engulfing it for hours. \n \n A Muslim cleric, Sheik Abdel-Hafiz el-Maslami, told The Associated Press that people were afraid to leave the mosque out of fear of detention or being assaulted by the crowd outside. He said there were armed men inside the mosque at one point but protesters had forced them out. \n \n \"We lost control over things,\" the cleric said. \"There were men with arms in the mosque who were forced out of the mosque but we can't control things here.\" \n \n He said there were ongoing negotiations with the military to enable the protesters to safely leave. State television showed small groups emerging from the mosque by late Saturday morning. \n \n However, local journalist Shaimaa Awad who was trapped in the mosque with the Islamists said the talks failed after three women were detained by the military after agreeing to get out early Saturday morning. \n \n An AP reporter said that thousands of anti-Islamist protesters rallied outside the mosque, chanting: \"God take revenge on Morsi and those standing behind him!\" \n \n Army tanks and soldiers closed off the main entrances to Ramses Square as soldiers sealed off the area with barbed wire. \n \n By midday Saturday, gunmen took over a mosque minaret and opened fire on the security forces below, the state-run MENA news agency said. The crowd around the mosque panicked as soldiers opened fire with assault rifles, the chaos broadcast live on local television channels. \n \n Several security officials told The Associated Press that ending the standoff at the mosque was essential after receiving information that the group planned to turn it into a new sit-in protest camp. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. \n \n On Wednesday, riot police, military helicopters, snipers and bulldozers broke up two sit-in protests in Cairo by Morsi supporters, leaving more than 600 people dead and thousands injured. That sparked days of violence that killed 173 people and injured 1,330 people on Friday alone, when the Brotherhood called for protests during a \"Day of Rage,\" Cabinet spokesman Sherif Shawki said. \n \n Among those who died Friday was Ammar Badie, a son of the Brotherhood's spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, the group's political arm said in a statement. \n \n Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who leads the military-backed government, later told journalists that authorities had no choice but to use force in the wake of recent violence. \n \n \"I feel sorry for valuable blood shed,\" el-Beblawi said. However, he cautioned that there will be no \"reconciliation with those whose hands are stained with blood or those who hold weapons against the country's institutions.\" \n \n Signaling the Brotherhood's precarious political position, Shawki said the government was considering ordering that the group be disbanded. The spokesman said the prime minister had assigned the Ministry of Social Solidarity to study the legal possibilities of dissolving the group. He didn't elaborate. \n \n Mustafa Hegazy, a political adviser to interim President Adly Mansour, told a press conference Saturday that the current Egyptian leadership is not in a \"political dispute or difference\" with the Brotherhood, instead, \"we are in a war against treason and some sort of terrorism.\" \n \n He added that Egyptians took to the streets on June 30 _ the day that led to Morsi's ouster _ to revolt against \"religious fascism.\" \n \n The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, came to power a year ago when Morsi was elected in the country's first free presidential elections. The election came after the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in 2011. \n \n The fundamentalist group has been banned for most of its 85-year history and repeatedly subjected to crackdowns under Mubarak's rule. While sometimes tolerated with its leaders allowed to be part of the political process, members regularly faced long bouts of imprisonment and arbitrary detentions. \n \n Disbanding the group, experts say, would mean allowing security forces to have a zero-tolerance policy in dealing with the group's street protests, as well as going after its funding sources. That could cripple the Brotherhood, though it likely wouldn't mean an end to a group that existed underground for decades \n \n The possible banning comes amid calls by pro-military political forces to brand the Brotherhood a \"terrorist organization.\" \n \n \"We are calling for declaring the Brotherhood as a terrorist group,\" said Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, one of the leaders of the Tamarod youth movement that had organized mass rallies calling for Morsi's ouster. \n \n The military-backed government has declared a state of emergency and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew since Wednesday, empowering army troops to act as a law enforcement force. Top Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi, remain held on a variety of charges, including inciting violence. \n \n Since Morsi was deposed in the popularly backed military coup, the Brotherhood has stepped up its confrontation with the new leadership, rallying thousands of supporters in sit-ins and vowing not to leave until Morsi is reinstated. \n \n After security forces broke up the protest camps, Islamist supporters stormed and torched churches and police stations. In response, authorities authorized Egypt's security forces to use deadly force against those attacking vital government institutions. \n \n On Saturday, Egypt's Interior Ministry said in a statement that a total of 1,004 Brotherhood members had been detained in raids across the country and that weapons, bombs and ammunition were confiscated from the detainees. \n \n Several foreigners were also rounded up including Sudanese, Pakistanis and Syrians, the Internior Ministry said. \n \n Morsi himself has been held incommunicado since his ouster. Top Brotherhood leaders including General Guide Deputy Khairat el-Shater were detained last month.", "summary": "\u2013 With more than 700 now dead in four days of violence, Egypt's PM has proposed a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood, and the government says it's now looking into the possibility, Reuters reports. \"There will be no reconciliation with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who turned weapons against the state and its institutions,\" says Hazem el-Beblawi. The ban could result in mass arrests and force other supporters underground, says Reuters. Egyptian authorities say they have arrested more than 1,000 Brotherhood supporters after yesterday's violence, and 250 are now being investigated for murder, attempted murder, and terrorism, Reuters reports. Earlier today, security forces raided the the al-Fatah Mosque in Cairo, where hundreds had barricaded themselves in overnight. State media reports that armed men were shooting down from the mosque's minaret, while soldiers fired back from outside. Security forces say they acted because they feared the Brotherhood was setting up another sit-in, the AP reports. Today's arrest of the brother of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri was reportedly related to the raid\u2014officials say Mohammed al-Zawahri planned to bring armed back-up for the mosque."}
{"document": "HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Chinese scientist at the center of an ethical storm over what he claims are the world\u2019s first genetically edited babies said on Wednesday he is proud of his work and revealed there was a second \u201cpotential\u201d pregnancy as part of the research. \n \n He Jiankui, an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, addressed a packed hall of around 700 people attending the Human Genome Editing Summit at the University of Hong Kong. \n \n \u201cFor this case, I feel proud. I feel proudest,\u201d He said, when challenged by several peers at the conference. \n \n Asked whether there were any other edited gene pregnancies as part of his trials, He said there was another \u201cpotential\u201d pregnancy and replied \u201cyes\u201d to a follow-up question as to whether it was a \u201cchemical pregnancy\u201d, which refers to an early-stage miscarriage. \n \n It was unclear whether the pregnancy had ended or not. \n \n He, who said his work was self-funded, shrugged off concerns that the research was conducted in secrecy, explaining that he had engaged the scientific community over the past three years. \n \n \u201cThis study has been submitted to a scientific journal for review,\u201d He said. He did not name the journal and said his university was unaware of his study. \n \n In videos posted online this week, He said he used a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born this month. \n \n Scientist He Jiankui attends the International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, China November 28, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer \n \n He said gene editing would help protect the girls from infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. \n \n But scientists and the Chinese government have denounced the work that He said he carried out, and a hospital linked to his research suggested its ethical approval had been forged. \n \n The conference moderator, Robin Lovell-Badge, said the summit organizers were unaware of the story until it broke this week. \n \n CRISPR-Cas9 is a technology that allows scientists to essentially cut and paste DNA, raising hope of genetic fixes for disease. However, there are concerns about safety and ethics. \n \n (Graphic explaining CRISPR gene editing technique, tmsnrt.rs/2ReKG1R) \n \n The Chinese Society for Cell Biology in a statement on Tuesday strongly condemned any application of gene editing on human embryos for reproductive purposes and said that it was against the law and medical ethics of China. \n \n More than 100 scientists, most in China, said in an open letter on Tuesday the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to edit the genes of human embryos was dangerous and unjustified. \u201cPandora\u2019s box has been opened,\u201d they said. \n \n Slideshow (2 Images) \n \n INFORMED CONSENT \n \n He, who said he was against gene enhancement, said eight couples were initially enrolled for his study while one dropped out. The criteria required the father to be HIV positive and the mother to be HIV negative. \n \n Scientists at the conference pressed He to prove that those taking part in the trial were aware of all the risks involved in the process. \n \n He said that all the participants had a \u201cgood education background\u201d and went through two rounds of discussions with him and his team. \n \n A 23-page English translation of an informed consent form for the potential mother said that the costs of the procedure covered by the team would be up to 280,000 yuan ($40,200) per couple. \n \n The consent form mentions multiple risks, but there is little detail on potential complications of the gene-editing process itself, including for the child. It does not mention that such an experiment has never been done before. \n \n David Baltimore, President Emeritus and the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, spoke after He\u2019s speech, saying it was irresponsible to have proceeded until safety issues were in order. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t think it has been a transparent process. Only found out about it after it happened and the children were born,\u201d Baltimore said. \n \n He Jiankui said his results could be used for millions of people with inherited diseases. He said he would monitor the two newborns for the next 18 years and hoped they would support continued monitoring thereafter. \n \n Shenzhen Harmonicare Medical Holdings Limited (1509.HK), named as being involved in He\u2019s project in China\u2019s clinical trial registry, sought to distance itself by stating the hospital never participated in any operations relating to the gene-edited babies and no related delivery had taken place. \n \n In a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday, the group said preliminary investigations indicated the signatures on the application form circulated on the internet are \u201csuspected to have been forged, and no relevant meeting of the Medical Ethics Committee of the hospital in fact took place\u201d. \n \n The Guangdong province Health Commission announced on its website on Wednesday that it and Shenzhen city had set up a joint team to investigate the case. ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption Prof He's university has denied any knowledge of the research, which has not been peer-reviewed \n \n A Chinese scientist who claims to have created the world's first genetically edited babies has defended his work. \n \n Speaking at a genome summit in Hong Kong, He Jiankui said he was \"proud\" of altering the genes of twin girls so they could not contract HIV. \n \n His work, which he announced earlier this week, has not been verified. \n \n Many scientists have condemned his announcement. Such gene-editing work is banned in most countries, including China. \n \n Professor He's university - the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen - said it was unaware of the research project and would launch an investigation. It said Mr He had been on unpaid leave since February. \n \n Prof He confirmed the university was not aware, adding he had funded the experiment by himself. \n \n What has the scientist claimed? \n \n Prof He announced earlier this week that he had altered the DNA of embryos - twin girls - to prevent them from contracting HIV. \n \n On Wednesday, he spoke at the Human Genome Editing Summit at the University of Hong Kong for the first time about his work since the uproar. \n \n He revealed that the twin girls - known as \"Lulu\" and \"Nana\" - were \"born normal and healthy\", adding that there were plans to monitor the twins over the next 18 years. \n \n He explained that eight couples - comprised of HIV-positive fathers and HIV-negative mothers - had signed up voluntarily for the experiment; one couple later dropped out. \n \n Image copyright EPA Image caption Prof He has defended his work after widespread condemnation by the scientific community \n \n Prof He also said that the study had been submitted to a scientific journal for review, though he did not name the journal. \n \n He also said that \"another potential pregnancy\" of a gene-edited embryo was in its early stages. \n \n But he apologised that his research \"was leaked unexpectedly\", and added: \"The clinical trial was paused due to the current situation.\" \n \n What do experts make of the claim? \n \n By Robin Brant, BBC News, Hong Kong \n \n No-one really knew if he was going to show. The auditorium was packed by the time He Jiankui walked on stage. This is the man who says he has given China a world first. \n \n The handful of experts I spoke to, after they'd sat and listened to him, said they believed him. They believe this happened. But the big, big problem was that his speech and answers afterwards were scant on detail. \n \n At times he was evasive, failing to give anything like the detail about his work - what he did, how he did it, who knew - that is required of any scientific project wishing to be regarded as credible. \n \n He talked about the stigma attached to HIV/Aids in China and how important the family is to society, but he didn't give the names of \"some experts\" he claimed had reviewed his work and offered feedback. \n \n Why is it this controversial? \n \n The Crispr gene editing tool he claims to have used is not new to the scientific world, and was first discovered in 2012. \n \n It works by using \"molecular scissors\" to alter a very specific strand of DNA - either cutting it out, replacing it or tweaking it. \n \n Gene editing could potentially help avoid heritable diseases by deleting or changing troublesome coding in embryos. \n \n But experts worry meddling with the genome of an embryo could cause harm not only to the individual but also future generations that inherit these same changes. \n \n Prof He's recent claims were widely criticised by other scientists. \n \n Hundreds of Chinese scientists also signed a letter on social media condemning the research, saying they were \"resolutely\" opposed to it. \n \n \"If true, this experiment is monstrous. Gene editing itself is experimental and is still associated with off-target mutations, capable of causing genetic problems early and later in life, including the development of cancer,\" Prof Julian Savulescu, an ethics expert at the University of Oxford, told the BBC. \n \n \"This experiment exposes healthy normal children to risks of gene editing for no real necessary benefit.\" \n \n Many countries, including the UK, have laws that prevent the use of genome editing in embryos for assisted reproduction in humans. \n \n Scientists can do gene editing research on discarded IVF embryos, as long as they are destroyed immediately afterwards and not used to make a baby. \n \n Prof He's experiment is prohibited under Chinese laws, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Xu Nanping told state media. \n \n China allows in-vitro human embryonic stem cell research for a maximum period of 14 days, Mr Xu clarified. ||||| Facing Backlash, Chinese Scientist Defends Gene-Editing Research On Babies \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Kin Cheung/AP Kin Cheung/AP \n \n Updated at 6:15 a.m. ET \n \n The scientist who stunned the world by claiming he created the first genetically modified babies defended his actions publicly for the first time on Wednesday, saying that editing the genes of the twin girls while they were embryos would protect them from contracting HIV. \n \n He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, addressed hundreds of scientists gathered at an international gene- editing summit in Hong Kong that has been rocked by ethical questions swirling around his research. \n \n Earlier, He surprised the scientists just as they were gathering for the meeting with his claim, which he outlined in a series of YouTube videos. With the announcement, He bypassed scientific norms of first subjecting his experiment to scrutiny by other scientists. \n \n \"First, I must apologize that this result was leaked unexpectedly,\" He told some 700 attendees. \"This study has been submitted to a scientific journal for review.\" \n \n He faced a skeptical, incensed audience at the 2nd International Summit On Human Genome Editing, which was organized to try to reach a global consensus on whether, how and when it might be permissible to create children from genetically altered human embryos. \n \n In yet another unsettling revelation, He said that \"there is another potential pregnancy\" involving a gene-edited embryo, but that it is still at an early stage. \n \n As soon as He finished his initial 15-minute presentation, American Nobel Prize-winning biologist David Baltimore, who chairs the conference, got up to speak. \n \n Baltimore noted that scientists had agreed that it would be irresponsible to try to create genetically modified babies until there was much more research to make sure it was necessary and safe and until a consensus had been reached that it was prudent. \n \n \"I don't think it has been a transparent process,\" Baltimore said. \"We've only found out about it after it's happened and the children are born. I personally don't think it was medically necessary.\" \n \n \"I think there has been a failure of self-regulation by the scientific community because of a lack of transparency,\" he added. \n \n University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo, who helped organize the summit, issued an even harsher critique of He's work, calling it \"misguided, premature, unnecessary and largely useless.\" \n \n \"The children were already at virtually no risk of contracting HIV, because it was the father and not the mother who was infected,\" she said. \n \n \"The patients were given a consent form that falsely stated this was an AIDS vaccine trial and which conflated research with therapy by claiming they were 'likely' to benefit,\" Charo said. \"In fact, there is not only very little chance these babies would be in need of a benefit, given their low risk, but there is no way to evaluate if this indeed conferred any benefit.\" \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Kin Cheung/AP Kin Cheung/AP \n \n She spoke after Harvard Medical School Dean George Daley alluded to He's claims as \"missteps\" that he worried might set back a highly promising field of research. \"Scientists who go rogue carry a deep, deep cost to the scientific community,\" Daley said. \n \n Still, Daley argued that He's experiment shouldn't tar the potential work of other scientists. \"Just because the first steps into a new technology are missteps doesn't mean we shouldn't step back, restart and think about a plausible and responsible path forward,\" Daley said. \n \n \"The fact that the first instance came forward as a misstep should in no way leave us to stick our heads in the sand and not consider the very, very positive efforts that could come forward,\" Daley said. \"I hope we just don't stick our heads in the sand.\" \n \n Daley stressed that the world hasn't reached a scientific consensus on how to ethically and safely use new gene-editing techniques to modify embryos that become babies. \n \n But Daley argued that a consensus was emerging that \"if we can solve the scientific challenges, it may be a moral imperative that it should be permitted.\" The most likely first legitimate use of gene-edited embryos would be to prevent serious genetic disorders for which there are no alternatives, Daley said. \n \n \"Solving and assessing these deep issues [is] essential,\" Daley says. \n \n Daley also defended the fact that scientists have long relied on self-regulation to prevent the abuse of new technologies. He's claims represented \"a major failure\" that called for much stronger regulation and possibly a moratorium on such research, Daley said. \"I do think the principle of self-regulation is defensible.\" \n \n He and his colleagues say they used the gene-editing technique CRISPR to make changes in day-old embryos in a gene called CCR5. The CCR5 gene enables HIV to enter and infect immune system cells. Scientists have long searched for ways to block this pathway to protect people from HIV. \n \n However, critics say there are many other ways to protect people against HIV and expressed bafflement at why He would chose this as the first scenario to try creating genetically modified human babies. \n \n A group of 122 Chinese scientists issued a statement calling He's actions \"crazy\" and his claims \"a huge blow to the global reputation and development of Chinese science.\" \n \n He is now facing investigation by a local medical ethics board to see whether his experiment broke Chinese laws or regulations. \n \n The university where He worked issued a statement that officials were \"deeply shocked\" by the experiment, which it stressed was conducted elsewhere. He, the statement says, has been on unpaid leave from the university. \n \n In a statement posted Tuesday morning, China's National Health Commission said it had \"immediately requested the Guangdong Provincial Health Commission to seriously investigate and verify\" He's claims. \n \n CRISPR enables scientists to make precise changes in DNA much more easily than before. The technique is revolutionizing scientific research and raising high hopes for major breakthroughs, including preventing and treating many diseases. \n \n But making changes in human DNA that could be passed down from generation to generation has long been considered off-limits. One reason is that a mistake could introduce a new disease that could be passed down for generations. Another is that it could open the door to \"designer babies\" \u2014 children that are modified for nonmedical reasons, such as to be taller, stronger or smarter. \n \n Other scientists have previously used CRISPR to edit genes in human embryos and are continuing to explore ways to correct genetic defects in embryos. At the summit, Paula Amato of the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland Ore., said her group planned to try to correct defects that increase the risk for breast cancer and Huntington's disease. \n \n \"If this ... process is ultimately determined to be safe, why wouldn't we want to do this?\" she said. \n \n But no one had ever attempt to implant edited embryos into a woman's womb to allow them to develop into babies, and other scientists still maintain that it is far too early to be trying that. ||||| He Jiankui, a Chinese researcher, center, speaks during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018. He made his first public comments about his claim to have helped make... (Associated Press) \n \n He Jiankui, a Chinese researcher, center, speaks during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018. He made his first public comments about his claim to have helped make the world's first gene-edited babies. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) (Associated Press) \n \n HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 A Chinese researcher who claims to have helped make the world's first genetically edited babies says a second pregnancy may be underway. \n \n The researcher, He Jiankui of Shenzhen, revealed the possible pregnancy Wednesday while making his first public comments about his controversial work at an international conference in Hong Kong. \n \n He claims to have altered the DNA of twin girls born earlier this month to try to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus. Mainstream scientists have condemned the experiment, and universities and government groups are investigating. \n \n The second potential pregnancy is in a very early stage and needs more time to be monitored to see if it will last, He said. \n \n Leading scientists said there are now even more reasons to worry, and more questions than answers, after He's talk. The leader of the conference called the experiment \"irresponsible\" and evidence that the scientific community had failed to regulate itself to prevent premature efforts to alter DNA. \n \n Altering DNA before or at the time of conception is highly controversial because the changes can be inherited and might harm other genes. It's banned in some countries including the United States except for lab research. \n \n He defended his choice of HIV, rather than a fatal inherited disease, as a test case for gene editing, and insisted the girls could benefit from it. \n \n \"They need this protection since a vaccine is not available,\" He said. \n \n Scientists weren't buying it. \n \n \"This is a truly unacceptable development,\" said Jennifer Doudna, a University of California-Berkeley scientist and one of the inventors of the CRISPR gene-editing tool that He said he used. \"I'm grateful that he appeared today, but I don't think that we heard answers. We still need to understand the motivation for this.\" \n \n Doudna is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which also supports AP's Health & Science Department. \n \n \"I feel more disturbed now,\" said David Liu of Harvard and MIT's Broad Institute, and inventor of a variation of the gene-editing tool. \"It's an appalling example of what not to do about a promising technology that has great potential to benefit society. I hope it never happens again.\" \n \n There is no independent confirmation of He's claim and he has not yet published in any scientific journal where it would be vetted by experts. At the conference, He failed or refused to answer many questions including who paid for his work, how he ensured that participants understood potential risks and benefits, and why he kept his work secret until after it was done. \n \n After He spoke, David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate from the California Institute of Technology and a leader of the conference, said He's work \"would still be considered irresponsible\" because it did not meet criteria many scientists agreed on several years ago before gene editing could be considered. \n \n \"I personally don't think that it was medically necessary. The choice of the diseases that we heard discussions about earlier today are much more pressing\" than trying to prevent HIV infection this way, Baltimore said. \n \n The case shows \"there has been a failure of self-regulation by the scientific community\" and said the conference committee would meet and issue a statement on Thursday about the future of the field, Baltimore said. \n \n Before He's talk, Dr. George Daley, Harvard Medical School's dean and one of the conference organizers, warned against a backlash to gene editing because of He's experiment. Just because the first case may have been a misstep \"should in no way, I think, lead us to stick our heads in the sand and not consider the very, very positive aspects that could come forth by a more responsible pathway,\" Daley said. \n \n \"Scientists who go rogue ... it carries a deep, deep cost to the scientific community,\" Daley said. \n \n Regulators have been swift to condemn the experiment as unethical and unscientific. \n \n The National Health Commission has ordered local officials in Guangdong province to investigate He's actions, and his employer, Southern University of Science and Technology of China, is investigating as well. \n \n On Tuesday, Qui Renzong of the Chinese Academy of Social Science criticized the decision to let He speak at the conference, saying the claim \"should not be on our agenda\" until it has been reviewed by independent experts. Whether He violated reproductive medicine laws in China has been unclear; Qui contends that it did, but said, \"the problem is, there's no penalty.\" \n \n He called on the United Nations to convene a meeting to discuss heritable gene editing to promote international agreement on when it might be OK. \n \n Meanwhile, more American scientists said they had contact with He and were aware of or suspected what he was doing. \n \n Dr. Matthew Porteus, a genetics researcher at Stanford University, where He did postdoctoral research, said He told him in February that he intended to try human gene editing. Porteus said he discouraged He and told him \"that it was irresponsible, that he could risk the entire field of gene editing by doing this in a cavalier fashion.\" \n \n Dr. William Hurlbut, a Stanford ethicist, said he has \"spent many hours\" talking with He over the last two years about situations where gene editing might be appropriate. \n \n \"I knew his early work. I knew where he was heading,\" Hurlbut said. When he saw He four or five weeks ago, He did not say he had tried or achieved pregnancy with edited embryos but \"I strongly suspected\" it, Hurlbut said. \n \n \"I disagree with the notion of stepping out of the general consensus of the scientific community,\" Hurlbut said. If the science is not considered ready or safe enough, \"it's going to create misunderstanding, discordance and distrust.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP \n \n The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.", "summary": "\u2013 The Chinese researcher who has rattled the scientific world with his claim that he created the world's first genetically edited babies spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday, and he made a revelation, though an unclear one at that. While speaking at the Human Genome Editing Summit in Hong Kong, He Jiankui was asked if his trials included other pregnancies like that which resulted in the birth of twins Lulu and Nana, whose DNA he claims to have altered to make them resistant to HIV. The answer was yes, but it's murky: The AP reports he said the pregnancy was in its early weeks and therefore unclear if it will last. Reuters describes He as calling it a \"potential\" pregnancy but then answering in the affirmative when asked if it was a \"chemical pregnancy,\" which means an early miscarriage. Reuters reports the status of the pregnancy is unclear. \"I feel proudest,\" He said of his work. The BBC reports that He said seven couples\u2014in each case the father was HIV-positive\u2014voluntarily agreed to participate in his trial, and that he zeroed in on HIV, rather than a fatal inherited disease, because no vaccine exists for it. But a bioethicist points out to NPR that the twins' risk of inheriting HIV was next to nil because the mother was not infected. An ethics expert was one of many condemning the choice: \"This experiment exposes healthy normal children to risks of gene editing for no real necessary benefit.\" The DNA changes are inheritable: As NPR puts it, \"a mistake could introduce a new disease that could be passed down for generations.\" Officials in China's Guangdong province, as well as He's employer, Southern University of Science and Technology of China, are investigating."}
{"document": "South Nassau Hospital alerting 4,247 patients of possible blood contamination \n \n South Nassau Communities Hospital is sending out 4,247 letters to patients recommending they be tested for hepatitis B and C and HIV because of the risk of infection from an insulin pen. \n \n In the letter dated Feb. 22, the Oceanside hospital said the patients may have received insulin from an insulin pen reservoir -- not the pen's single-use disposable needle -- that could have been used with more than one patient. \n \n An insulin pen for those with diabetes is a pre-filled syringe meant to be used to dispense insulin in a single patient. Because of potential backflow of a patient's blood into the pen cartridge after injection, using a pen on multiple patients may expose them to blood-borne infections. \n \n BLOG: The Daily Apple | PHOTOS: Dropping LBs \n \n DATA: Explore hospital rankings | Compare hospital charges | Uninsured people in NY | Compare hospital infection data \n \n WEIGH IN: Ask your fitness questions \n \n Hospital spokesman Damian Becker said no one was observed reusing the insulin pen reservoir on more than one patient, but a nurse was heard saying it was all right to do so. \n \n \"Once that was said, we then followed through with a report to the state Department of Health,\" Becker said. \n \n The hospital said risk of infection is \"extremely low.\" \n \n \"Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, the hospital is recommending that patients receiving the notification be tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. While the testing is voluntary, it is recommended,\" the hospital said. \n \n Becker said Tuesday the hospital, which is sending the letters out in phases, has received about 200 phone calls so far. The last letters should be received by March 17, Becker said. \n \n It will take patients about two weeks to receive test results, he said. \n \n The hospital said it has since banned the use of insulin pens and permits only the use of single-patient-use vials. \n \n The state Department of Health said that last year three health facilities reported potential insulin pen re-use: two state-regulated facilities and the Veterans Administration's medical center in Buffalo. \n \n South Nassau is offering free and confidential blood testing and has set up a dedicated telephone line for those patients notified. To arrange a test, call 516-208-0029. \n \n Insulin pen misuse is not uncommon. \n \n In May 2008, Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow notified 840 patients that nurses may have been using insulin pens on multiple patients. \n \n In 2009, following reports of improper use of insulin pens in hospitals, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert reminding health care workers that insulin pens are meant for use on a single patient only. \n \n In 2012, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that \"in spite of this alert, there have been continuing reports of patients placed at risk through inappropriate reuse and sharing of insulin pens,\" and it put out a clinical reminder on their proper use. \n \n Last year, the VA issued an alert systemwide following the report of insulin pen misuse at its Buffalo hospital. Of 395 patients tested, 12 were found with hepatitis B and six with hepatitis C. ||||| Patients at South Nassau Communities hospital are being urged to get tested for hepatitis and HIV after a possible contamination of insulin shots. Greg Cergol reports. (Published Wednesday, March 12, 2014) \n \n A Long Island hospital says some patients may be at risk of exposure to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV after authorities found that an insulin pen may have been used on more than one patient. \n \n South Nassau Communities Hospital says the risk of infection is extremely low but is recommending that patients get tested. \n \n The hospital sent a letter to that effect to more than 4,000 patients, according to Newsday. It is offering free blood testing and has set up a toll-free hotline that patients can call to schedule a blood test. \n \n The number is 516-208-0029. \n \n Newsday reports that no one was observed reusing the insulin pen reservoir but a nurse was heard saying it was OK to do so. \n \n \"Once that was said, we then followed through with a report to the state Department of Health,\" hospital spokesman Damian Becker told the newspaper. \n \n In the meantime, the hospital has instituted a policy banning the use of insulin pens, permitting only single-use vials to administer prescribed insulin treatments to patients.", "summary": "\u2013 More than 4,000 people on Long Island are getting the most unwelcome kind of letter from a local hospital\u2014a warning that they might have been inadvertently exposed to HIV. As ABC News explains, the risk is low, but it stems from improper use of an insulin pen. It seems a nurse at South Nassau Communities Hospital was overheard saying, incorrectly, that it was OK to reuse the pen on multiple patients, reports Newsday via NBC News. \"Once that was said, we then followed through with a report to the state Department of Health,\" says a spokesperson. The hospital is urging all those who might have been exposed to get tested for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C. In the meantime, the hospital is ditching the pens\u2014which can indeed be used multiple times provided it's the same patient\u2014in favor of single-use insulin vials."}
{"document": "Taiwan has been governed separately from the mainland since 1949, when the American-supported Nationalist forces retreated to the island after being defeated in the Chinese civil war by the Communists. \n \n Evan S. Medeiros, who until this year was the top official overseeing Asia at the National Security Council, said that the explicit threat of sanctions against companies differed from earlier sales, when the threat was more implicit. At the same time, Mr. Medeiros noted, earlier arms sales resulted in the suspension of meetings between the two militaries, which was not part of China\u2019s initial response to the sale this time. \n \n Mr. Medeiros, who now leads the Asia practice for the Eurasia Group in Washington, said that the timing of the sale, coming before next month\u2019s presidential elections in Taiwan, helped to reduce the diplomatic fallout. \n \n Video \n \n Taiwan\u2019s president, Ma Ying-jeou, has sought to improve ties with mainland China and met last month in Singapore with President Xi Jinping of China, the first time the leaders of Taiwan and China had ever held a summit meeting. But Mr. Ma\u2019s party, the Kuomintang, is expected to lose the presidency to the Democratic Progressive Party, which favors a more distant relationship with the mainland and the assertion of Taiwan\u2019s own identity. \n \n \u201cThe timing clearly was calibrated to avoid having to do it after the election,\u201d Mr. Medeiros said, speaking in a telephone interview from Taiwan, where he was meeting officials. \u201cThat would have been particularly provocative.\u201d \n \n The sale is significantly smaller than the $5.8 billion package approved by the United States in 2011, and it is not expected to alter the military balance across the Taiwan Strait, which has tilted in Beijing\u2019s favor after years of large increases in military spending by the mainland, whose annual military budget is now more than 13 times greater than Taiwan\u2019s. Absent from the arms package is any assistance from the United States to help build diesel-electric submarines, a top priority for Taiwan, which wants to replace its aging fleet. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n The proposed sale includes two Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, ships first commissioned by the United States Navy in the 1970s; data link systems; surface-to-air missiles; antitank missiles; amphibious assault vehicles; and shipborne rapid-fire guns intended to counter missiles. \n \n Any sanctions against military contractors would most likely be limited because American weapons makers have been banned for more than a quarter-century from selling arms to mainland China. The United States and the European Union imposed arms embargoes on China after the deadly crackdown on student protests and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Still, some military contractors, such as Boeing and United Technologies, have extensive nonmilitary businesses in China. \n \n The companies that manufacture the weapons systems the United States government announced on Wednesday include Raytheon, which makes antitank missiles, a shipborne close-in weapons system and the shoulder-launched Stinger antiaircraft missile. Lockheed Martin makes the Javelin antitank missile with Raytheon, which was also part of the proposed sale. \n \n \u201cThe Chinese can react to this as they see fit,\u201d John Kirby, a spokesman for the State Department, told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. \u201cThis is nothing new. Again, it\u2019s a cleareyed, sober view of an assessment of Taiwan\u2019s defense needs. And that\u2019s what drove this. There\u2019s no need for it to have any derogatory effect on our relationship with China, just like there was no need in the past for it to ever have that effect on China.\u201d \n \n The weapons sale to Taiwan is subject to congressional approval. Members of both the Republican and Democratic parties have expressed support for the sale. ||||| The U.S. on Wednesday approved its first major sale of weapons to Taiwan in four years and shrugged off criticism that it had held up the proposed $1.83 billion deal to limit expected criticism from China. \n \n The State Department notified Congress of the long-discussed sale, which comes a month ahead of Taiwan\u2019s presidential and legislative elections and includes two decommissioned Navy frigates, air and ground missiles, amphibious vehicles and communications systems. \n \n ... ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Obama administration announced a $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan on Wednesday, drawing an immediate rebuke and threats of retaliation from Taipei's rival Beijing. \n \n FILE - IN this Sept. 10, 2015 file photo, Taiwan's military fire artillery from self-propelled Howitzers during the annual Han Kuang exercises in Hsinchu, north eastern Taiwan. China on Wednesday, Dec.... (Associated Press) \n \n The arms package is the first offered by the U.S. to the self-governing island in four years. Even before its announcement, Beijing, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory, demanded it be scrapped to avoid harming relations across the Taiwan Strait and between China and the U.S. \n \n That was followed by a formal diplomatic protest late Wednesday, although at a lower level than in previous such instances. \n \n \"China resolutely opposes the sale of weapons to Taiwan by the U.S.,\" Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said in a meeting with Washington's second-highest ranking diplomat in Beijing. \n \n \"In order to safeguard the nation's interests, the Chinese side has decided to take necessary measures, including the imposition of sanctions against companies participating in the arms sale to Taiwan,\" Zheng said, according to a statement posted on the ministry's website. \n \n Such sanctions have been threatened in the past, although there's no evidence they've had any meaningful effect. American and European Union companies are banned from selling military technology to China, and Chinese companies have extensive links with major overseas firms that often have weapon-making divisions. \n \n A U.S. Embassy spokesman, speaking on routine condition of anonymity, declined to comment on the meeting, saying, \"we don't get into the content of our diplomatic discussions.\" \n \n The U.S. maintained there's no need for it to hurt the relationship, which has also been strained by China's island-building in the South China Sea and alleged cybertheft. \n \n The administration notified Congress that the proposed arms package includes two decommissioned U.S. Navy frigates, anti-tank missiles, amphibious assault vehicles and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. There's also support for Taiwan's capabilities in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and a weapons system to defend against anti-ship missiles. \n \n Congress has 30 days to review the sale, but it's unlikely to raise objections. There's been mounting bipartisan concern that Taiwan is inadequately armed to defend itself against an increasingly powerful mainland China. \n \n U.S. lawmakers welcomed the announcement. There were calls from both parties for more frequent arms sales to Taiwan. \n \n New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the sale would contribute to peace and stability across the strait. \"I wish we would see them on a regular basis,\" he said. \n \n The committee's Republican chairman, California Rep. Ed Royce, said the administration had \"needlessly dragged out\" the approval process, and that other Taiwanese requests \"have still not seen the light of day.\" \n \n Sen. John McCain, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. should avoid extended periods during which \"fear of upsetting the U.S.-China relationship may harm Taiwan's defense capabilities.\" \n \n Taiwan's Foreign Ministry cheered the announcement as a sign of healthy ties between Taipei and Washington and rejected claims it would harm relations with Beijing. \n \n The sale will \"help maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and increase our confidence as we engage in dialogue and improves relations across the Taiwan Strait,\" the ministry said in a statement. \n \n \"It also highlights the fact that U.S.-Taiwan relations are indeed at their best ever,\" the statement said. \n \n However, a pro-Taiwan business group in the U.S. lamented the amount of time taken to process the sale and questioned whether it was adequate in the face of China's rapid military advancements. \n \n \"While China has deployed new fighters, submarines, and missiles during the last four years, the U.S. has consistently refused to consider providing Taiwan access to similar platforms, or even aiding their indigenous development,\" Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, said in a statement. \n \n The administration has announced more than $12 billion in arms sales to Taiwan since 2010, but none since $5.9 billion in sales in September 2011 that included upgrades for Taiwan's F-16 fighter jets. That drew a high-level diplomatic protest from Beijing, which suspended some military exchanges with the United States. It did not seriously impair ties. \n \n In the meantime, President Barack Obama has sought greater cooperation with China on issues such as climate change, and the two sides have increased military exchanges to reduce the risk of conflict. \n \n State Department spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was in contact with both Taiwan and China about the sale, which he said was consistent with U.S. support for Taiwan's ability to defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act. \n \n \"There's no need for it to have any derogatory effect on our relationship with China,\" Kirby told reporters. \"We still want to work to establish a better, more transparent, more effective relationship with China in the region and we're going to continue to work at that.\" \n \n Relations across the Taiwan Strait have undergone a steady improvement over the past two decades, especially under the China-friendly administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. \n \n ___ \n \n Bodeen reported from Beijing. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration formally notified Congress on Wednesday of a $1.83-billion arms sale package for Taiwan, including two frigates, anti-tank missiles, amphibious assault vehicles and other equipment, drawing an angry response from China. \n \n AAV-P7A1 amphibious assault vehicles of the Taiwan Marine Corps are seen as part of a parade during Taiwan's National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei October 10, 2011. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang \n \n The authorization, which Reuters on Monday reported was imminent, came a year after Congress passed legislation approving the sale. It is the first such major arms sale to Taiwan in more than four years. \n \n The White House said there was no change in the longstanding U.S. \u201cone China\u201d policy. Past U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan have attracted strong condemnation in China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province. \n \n The White House said the authorization followed previous sales notifications by the administration totaling more than $12 billion under the Taiwan Relations Act. \n \n \u201cOur longstanding policy on arms sales to Taiwan has been consistent across six different U.S. administrations,\u201d a National Security Council spokesman, Myles Caggins, said. \u201cWe remain committed to our one-China policy,\u201d he added. \n \n Although Washington does not recognize Taiwan as a separate state from China, it is committed under the Taiwan Relations Act to ensuring Taipei can maintain a credible defense. \n \n The sales come at a period of heightened tension between the United States and China over the South China Sea, where Washington has been critical of China\u2019s building of man-made islands to assert expansive territorial claims. \n \n China summoned the U.S. charge d\u2019affaires in Beijing, Kaye Lee, to protest and said it would impose sanctions on the companies involved, state news agency Xinhua reported. \n \n \u201cTaiwan is an inalienable part of China\u2019s territory. China strongly opposes the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan,\u201d Xinhua quoted Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang, who summoned Lee, as saying. \n \n Zheng said the sales went against international law and basic norms of international relations and \u201cseverely\u201d harmed China\u2019s sovereignty and security. \n \n \u201cTo safeguard our national interests, China has decided to take necessary measures, including imposing sanctions against the companies involved in the arms sale,\u201d Zheng said. \n \n The U.S. State Department said Raytheon (RTN.N) and Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) were the main contractors in the sales. \n \n Related Coverage China says no cooperation with U.S. firms selling Taiwan arms \n \n It was not clear what impact sanctions might have on the companies, although in 2013, Lockheed Martin signed a pact with the Thailand-based Reignwood Group to build an offshore plant to supply energy for a luxury resort on Hainan island in southern China. \n \n \u201cU.S. companies participating in arms sales to Taiwan gravely harm China\u2019s sovereignty and security interests,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. \n \n \u201cChina\u2019s government and companies will not carry out cooperation and commercial dealings with these types of companies.\u201d \n \n However, previous Chinese sanction threats have not been followed up by Beijing. \n \n China\u2019s Defense Ministry said the sale would also inevitably affect military-to-military ties, but did not elaborate. \n \n Taiwan\u2019s defense ministry said the new weapons would be phased in over a number of years and would enable Taiwan to maintain and develop a credible defense. \n \n U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the decision was based solely on Taiwan\u2019s defense needs. \n \n \u201cThe Chinese can react to this as they see fit,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is nothing new. ... There\u2019s no need for it to have any derogatory effect on our relationship with China.\u201d \n \n Kirby said Washington wanted to work to establish a \u201cbetter, more transparent more effective relationship\u201d with China in the region and had been in contact with both Taiwan and China on this on Wednesday. He declined to elaborate. \n \n David McKeeby, another State Department spokesman, said the arms package included two Perry-class guided-missile frigates; $57 million of Javelin anti-tank missiles made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; $268 million of TOW 2B anti-tank missiles and $217 million of Stinger surface-to-air missiles made by Raytheon, and $375 million of AAV-7 Amphibious Assault Vehicles. \n \n The State Department said the frigates were being offered as surplus items at a cost of $190 million. The package also includes $416 million of guns, upgrade kits, ammunition and support for Raytheon\u2019s Close-in Weapons System. \n \n Analysts and congressional sources believe the delay in the formal approval of the sales was due to the Obama administration\u2019s desire to maintain stable working relations with China, an increasingly powerful strategic rival but also a vital economic partner as the world\u2019s second-largest economy. \n \n U.S. Republican lawmakers said on Wednesday they were pleased the administration had authorized the sale but called for a more regular process for such transactions. \n \n John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said this would \u201cavoid extended periods in which fear of upsetting the U.S.-China relationship may harm Taiwan\u2019s defense capabilities.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 The US stands by the \"one-China\" policy, but that doesn't mean it can't sell weapons directly to Taiwan, citing ithe Taiwan Relations Act to ensure Taiwan can adequately defend itself\u2014and China isn't happy about it. The Obama administration announced a $1.8 billion arms package sale to Congress on Wednesday, Reuters reports, including guided-missile frigates, anti-tank missiles, Amphibious Assault Vehicles, and $416 million worth of guns, ammo, and other supplies. The announcement came amid reports that the US had stalled the sale to avoid hearing about it from China, which still claims Taiwan as a territory, per the Wall Street Journal. Reuters notes the sale comes as US-China relations simmer over the latter's man-made islands in the South China Sea and US patrols in those waters. China notes it's going to sanction the companies involved in the sale (including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon), with a foreign ministry official telling Xinhua that the sale flouts international rules and \"severely\" damages China's sovereignty. \"China's government and companies will not carry out cooperation and commercial dealings with these types of companies,\" a ministry spokesman says. A Pentagon spokesman gave the equivalent of an eyeroll Wednesday, per the New York Times, noting, \"The Chinese can react to this as they see fit. \u2026 It's a [clear-eyed], sober view of an assessment of Taiwan's defense needs. \u2026 There's no need for it to have any derogatory effect on our relationship with China.\" Meanwhile, the AP notes that China has issued similar threats before, with \"no evidence they've had any meaningful effect.\" (All this despite a lengthy handshake last month.)"}
{"document": "On to the next one! Kate Hudson and her fiancee Matt Bellamy have called off their engagement, and the actress has moved on with Derek Hough, multiple sources confirm to Us Weekly. \n \n The How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days actress, 35, and Muse rocker, 36, started dating in 2010, and got engaged in April 2011. Three months after their engagement news, the couple welcomed a son Bingham Hawn Bellamy (now age 3). Hudson also shares a 10-year-old son named Ryder with her ex-husband Chris Robinson, whom she split from in November 2006. \n \n PHOTOS: Celebrity splits in 2014 \n \n Hudson and Bellamy last hit the red carpet together at Goldie Hawn's Love In For Kids event in L.A., on Nov. 21. Hough also attended the same event that evening. \n \n PHOTOS: Longest celebrity engagements \n \n Sources tell Us that Hudson and Hough were together this past weekend at the Nice Guy Restaurant in L.A. One eyewitness says the stars ate dinner, drank, and stayed past closing. \n \n Even before the two were linked together, Hudson gushed about spending time with Hough in a 2013 interview with Shape magazine. \"My heart is really in contemporary jazz, but lately I\u2019ve been ballroom dancing with Derek Hough,\" she told the mag of the seasoned DWTS pro. \"It\u2019s been a real blast.\" See more photos of Kate and Derek. \n \n PHOTOS: Kate's bikini body \n \n Hudson previously voiced how she didn't mind her prolonged engagement to Bellamy. \"No, I'm planning nothing right now. I'm so busy, we've been so busy and it's been great,\" Hudson told Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan this past January. \n \n PHOTOS: Celebs and their lookalike kids \n \n \"I come from an unconventional family \u2014 they're not married, my parents aren't married,\" she continued of her mom Goldie Hawn and her longtime partner Kurt Russell, whom she affectionately refers to as dad. (Hawn split from Hudson's biological father, Bill Hudson, in 1980.) \n \n \"So there's a part of me that goes, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right,\" she continued. \"And I'm going to take the time to really plan it right . . . And it's a lot. Planning a wedding is a lot! I mean, I did a movie about planning a wedding and that was a lot, let alone actually planning a wedding! So, no. Not anytime soon, no.\" \n \n X17 was first to report Hudson's split. \n \n Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! \n \n Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! ||||| The seed for Wide00014 was: \n \n - Slash pages from every domain on the web: \n \n \n \n \n \n -- a ranking of all URLs that have more than one incoming inter-domain link (rank was determined by number of incoming links using Wide00012 inter domain links) \n \n \n \n -- up to a maximum of 100 most highly ranked URLs per domain \n \n - Top ranked pages (up to a max of 100) from every linked-to domain using the Wide00012 inter-domain navigational link graph ||||| Kate Hudson will be ringing in the holiday season without her engagement ring. RadarOnline.com has learned that Goldie Hawn\u2019s daughter has reportedly ended her engagement to Muse frontman Matthew Bellamy, after more than three years together. \n \n Hudson and Bellamy got engaged in April 2011, and welcomed son Bingham three months later. Hudson already had a son, Ryder, 10, with ex-husband Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. \n \n But despite their history together, Hudson, 35, seemed to cool on the idea of marriage in recent months, as the couple spent more and more time apart. \n \n PHOTOS: Waiting At The Altar \u2014 38 Hollywood Weddings That Were Called Off \n \n In February, she said, \u201cMy parents aren\u2019t married,\u201d during an appearance on Live! With Kelly and Michael. \u201cAnd [planning a wedding is] a lot. \u2026 So no. Not [getting married] anytime soon, no.\u201d \n \n And in July, she insisted, \u201cWe\u2019ve got kids and a family and we\u2019ve got to find our time together alone. We are in it. I think if we do get married it will be for the kids, really. For us, we\u2019re just happy.\u201d \n \n \u201cI know that\u2019s not really necessarily a golden ticket but there is something beautiful about the security of marriage,\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll get there when we get there.\u201d \n \n PHOTOS: Extravagance: 10 Most Outrageous Celebrity Proposal Engagement Photos \n \n But now, it seems they won\u2019t get there after all. \n \n According to X17online.com, who broke the news of the split, Bellamy, 36, was a no-show at Hudson\u2019s family Thanksgiving festivities. And last night, he was partying at the Koko club in London while Hudson was hanging at The Nice Guy nightclub in L.A. \n \n The last time they were seen together in public was at a charity event for Hawn in L.A. On November 21. \n \n Story developing.", "summary": "\u2013 Kate Hudson and Matt Bellamy won't be getting married after all. The formerly engaged couple \"have been separated for some time now,\" Hudson's rep tells People. \"Despite this, they remain very close friends and committed co-parents.\" The actress and the Muse frontman got engaged in April 2011 and welcomed son Bingham in July that same year. Sources tell Us Hudson has already moved on to Dancing With the Stars pro Derek Hough, with whom she's been spotted around town. Last year, Hudson said in an interview that she'd \"been ballroom dancing with Derek Hough\" lately and that it was \"a real blast.\" (Click to read Hudson's thoughts on her long engagement.)"}
{"document": "The officer involved in a shooting at the Punta Gorda Citizens Academy resigned from the department where he previously worked after allegations of excessive force surfaced in 2013. \n \n The officer involved in a shooting at the Punta Gorda Citizens Academy resigned from the department where he previously worked after allegations of excessive force surfaced in 2013. \n \n Remembering Mary Knowlton. On Tuesday, the hundreds of people from the Punta Gorda community gathered to say goodbye to the 73-year-old librarian, mother and wife. \n \n Remembering Mary Knowlton. On Tuesday, the hundreds of people from the Punta Gorda community gathered to say goodbye to the 73-year-old librarian, mother and wife. \n \n There are stunning new details about a 73-year-old librarian who was accidentally shot and killed by a Punta Gorda police officer during a gun demonstration. \n \n There are stunning new details about a 73-year-old librarian who was accidentally shot and killed by a Punta Gorda police officer during a gun demonstration. \n \n A month has passed since a Punta Gorda police officer shot and killed a woman during a Citizen's Police Academy session, and we're still waiting for an official account of what happened. \n \n A month has passed since a Punta Gorda police officer shot and killed a woman during a Citizen's Police Academy session, and we're still waiting for an official account of what happened. \n \n The City of Punta Gorda and Mary Knowlton\u2019s family reached an agreement on a proposed $2 million settlement in the accidental fatal shooting at the city\u2019s Citizen Police Academy. \n \n The City of Punta Gorda and Mary Knowlton\u2019s family reached an agreement on a proposed $2 million settlement in the accidental fatal shooting at the city\u2019s Citizen Police Academy. \n \n Punta Gorda Police Chief Tom Lewis had been placed on paid administrative leave while Officer Lee Coel will face a pre-disciplinary hearings with human resources. \n \n Punta Gorda Police Chief Tom Lewis had been placed on paid administrative leave while Officer Lee Coel will face a pre-disciplinary hearings with human resources. \n \n A police officer who's been charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing a woman during a citizen's academy exercise faced a disciplinary board Wednesday. \n \n A police officer who's been charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing a woman during a citizen's academy exercise faced a disciplinary board Wednesday. \n \n Future with Punta Gorda PD hazy for officer in fatal shooting \n \n Future with Punta Gorda PD hazy for officer in fatal shooting \n \n Punta Gorda Police Officer Lee Coel, the man who shot and killed 73-year-old Mary Knowlton during a police academy, has been fired by the city. \n \n Coel's last day will be March 10th, 2017. \n \n The shooting happened in August of 2016, during a role-playing exercise in which live ammunition was used. \n \n The city says in a letter addressed to Officer Coel on February 22, that he should have taken the \"appropriate and reasonable steps to ensure the safety of Mary Knowlton and in failing to ensure that no live ammunition was used during the exercise.\" \n \n It also says that his action led the State Attorney's Office to file felony criminal charges against him for culpable criminal negligence. \n \n Coel does have the opportunity to appeal the human resource manager's decision. \n \n Coel's arraignment hearing is scheduled for April 10th at 8:30 a.m. \n \n Count on NBC2 for more updates ||||| A Florida cop has been fired after shooting and killing a beloved 73-year-old retiree during a citizen police academy where he was not supposed to be using real bullets. \n \n Punta Gorda Officer Lee Coel faces manslaughter charges in the death of Mary Knowlton, a former librarian who retired in the town north of Fort Myers. \n \n Knowlton was asked to play a \u201cbad guy\u201d during a \u201cshoot, don\u2019t shoot\u201d event at the community academy when Coel\u2019s gun fired, hitting her with live ammunition and killing her in front of her husband of 55 years. \n \n The academies normally use \"simunition\" guns that fire non-lethal rounds, a police spokeswoman told the Daily News at the time. \n \n Cop, police chief charged for accidental shooting death in class \n \n Officer Lee Coel has been canned for fatally shooting a woman during a simulation at a citizen police academy in Punta Gorda, Fla. (Punto Gorda Police Department/Facebook) \n \n Coel has been on administrative leave since the shooting, but has now been told his last day will be Friday in a letter from Punta Gorda reported by WBBH. \n \n The officer should have taken \u201cappropriate and reasonable steps to ensure the safety of Mary Knowlton and in failing to ensure that no live ammunition was used during the exercise,\u201d reads the letter sent last month. \n \n The defense for Coel, a two-year veteran who previously faced excessive force complaints at a previous department, has said that he did not know that there was ammunition in the gun he used \n \n Mary Knowlton died in the police simulation. (Facebook) \n \n He faces up to 30 years behind bars for the manslaughter charge, and pleaded not guilty earlier this week. \n \n Husband of woman killed at citizen cop academy forgives shooter \n \n Punta Gorda Police Chief Thomas Lewis, who was present at the shooting and called it a \u201chorrible accident\u201d is also charged with misdemeanor culpable negligence. \n \n Knowlton\u2019s family also agreed to a settlement of more than $2 million with the city of Punta Gorda in October.", "summary": "\u2013 The Florida cop who killed a 73-year-old librarian when he fired real bullets during a role-playing exercise is now an ex-cop. Punta Gorda Officer Lee Coel has been on administrative leave since last summer, when he shot Mary Knowlton dead in front of her husband of 55 years, but he has now been informed that his last day will be Friday, the New York Daily News reports. Coel has said he thought he was firing blanks during the exercise at a citizen police academy event, where Knowlton was among dozens of volunteers. In a letter to the officer, the city says he should have taken \"appropriate and reasonable steps\" to ensure the safety of Knowlton, who had been selected at random to play a bad guy, including making sure that no live ammunition was used during the exercise, WBBH reports. Coel\u2014who was accused of using excessive force in his previous job\u2014was charged with felony manslaughter after the death and pleaded not guilty earlier this week. Punta Gorda Police Chief Thomas Lewis is charged with misdemeanor negligence in the shooting. Knowlton's family reached a $2 million settlement with the city last fall."}
{"document": "The multinational coalition executing airstrikes against forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi appears to have paved the way for a new rebel front by bombing positions near a rural stretch along the country's western border.Libyan authorities took journalists to the city of Mizdah, about 100 miles south of Tripoli, the capital, on Tuesday to view evidence of damage to civilian buildings caused by coalition warplane and missile strikes Sunday and Monday on military targets. Military sites in both Mizdah and Gharyan, another city struck by coalition warplanes this week, lie on the front line against the rebel-controlled towns of Zintan and Nalut to the west.Mizdah showed the perils of using airstrikes in an attempt to change the balance of military power on the ground. Coalition airstrikes on an ammunition depot apparently resulted in Libyan rockets hitting the town's general hospital, a nearby apartment complex housing foreign medical staff members and a single-family home. Several civilians were injured but there were no deaths, hospital officials said.At the same time, Adel Zintani, a rebel spokesman reached in Zintan, about 90 miles southwest of Tripoli, said that town was being pummeled daily by Kadafi forces firing Grad missiles. Both Mizdah and Gharyan house huge weapons storage facilities that are used to support the offensive against Zintan, Nalut and several other towns along Libya's sparsely populated Western Mountains region, he said.Kadafi's men were hunkering down and \"preparing to reinforce existing positions\" near Zintan, U.S. Vice Adm. William E. Gortney told reporters Monday at the Pentagon.Like the rebel advance on the Kadafi stronghold of Surt to the east, a move by rebel fighters into Mizdah risks igniting long-simmering tribal animosities.\"If they come here the people from Zintan are going to kill us,\" said Ahmad Ali, 25, a member of the Assayeh tribe, which views those from Zintan with suspicion. \"It's because between our grandfathers and their grandfathers, there was a dispute over land.\"Rebel forces to the west and along the Tunisian border can count on at least some support within the population of towns like Mizdah, which was also briefly under rebel control early in an uprising against Kadafi that erupted last month and was violently crushed.Last month, opposition supporters burned down a police station and the offices of Kadafi's \"revolutionary committee\" and spray-painted \"Down with Kadafi!\" on the walls. They also attempted to take control of police and military vehicles and plunder arms caches. Witnesses said the rebels were violent and determined.\"If they want to change the system they could have done it peacefully,\" said Mona Ali, a 31-year-old nurse at the Mizdah hospital. \"What are they doing burning down the police station? All the children are afraid of them.\"Security forces suppressed the rebellion in this desert town with massive volleys of gunfire that sent dozens of people to the emergency room with bullet wounds to their legs and torsos, hospital staff said.But even staunch Kadafi supporters concede that Nalut, a Tunisian border town and major smuggling junction, and nearby Zintan remain firmly under the control of rebels, whom they describe as radical Islamists.\"All people are suffering in Nalut because they have started establishing Al Qaeda laws in the city,\" said Taer Abdul-Rahman, a lawyer in Mizdah who said he attended university in Nalut and maintains strong ties to the city.Residents of Mizdah said they dread an advance by the rebels in Zintan or another uprising in the city. Officials have distributed fresh weapons to government loyalists, including Bedouin tribes roaming the desert. They have formed informal neighborhood watch committees to protect against infiltrators at night.\"All the problems started with these people,\" said Abdul-Rahman, who vowed to wield his AK-47 and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher against any rebels that approached the city. \"They cannot take control of Mizdah because all the people are with Moammar Kadafi. They will only get our dead bodies.\"Zintani, a pharmacist by training, said the opposition in the Western Mountains included doctors, engineers, students, teachers and retirees. They were in contact with the opposition government in the eastern city of Benghazi, he said.\"If anyone asking for freedom and their rights is a terrorist, then we are the biggest terrorists in the world,\" he said in a phone interview. \"We won't let anyone from Al Qaeda be here.\" ||||| Forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi continued to push rebels out of positions along coastal oil towns Wednesday, testing the limits of the coalition airstrikes. Jerry Seib discusses whether Libya's rebels can prevail without ground support. \n \n Libyan rebel fighters fled farther east from Col. Moammar Gadhafi's military Wednesday, a retreat that is forcing the U.S. and its allies to confront the possibility that their air power alone won't be sufficient to boost the ragtag opposition forces. \n \n The prospect of a stalemate is leading the U.S. and its allies to consider other ways to help the rebel cause. Over the past several days, debate has simmered in Washington about whether to arm rebel groups, a discussion made all the more critical by the rebels' latest setbacks. \n \n President Barack Obama has signed a secret order that could facilitate such weapons transfers. Under the authorization, the Central Intelligence Agency has placed covert operatives on the ground in parts of Libya, officials say. \n \n WSJ's Paul Sonne reports from London on allied leaders moving toward the goal of removing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and democratizing the Northern Africa country. Also, a report on Syrian president al-Assad addressing the public to quell protests. \n \n \"We have done very well in attacking the targets that air power can attack,\" said retired Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. \"But we will not be able to protect civilians to the point expected through air power alone.\" \n \n Obama administration officials have openly hoped that Libyan military commanders will see their troops shattered by allied airstrikes and decide to depose or kill Col. Gadhafi themselves. \n \n On Wednesday, Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa resigned his position, creating expectations that he would announce his defection as early as Thursday. U.S. officials called the development \"very significant\" and an example of growing splits inside Col. Gadhafi's inner circle. \n \n In fighting Wednesday, the lightly armed opposition forces fell back from the oil-refinery town of Ras Lanuf and faced intense pressure from Col. Gadhafi's forces around Brega, another oil port they had conquered in recent days under the umbrella of allied airstrikes. \n \n Rebels Retreat View Slideshow Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Libyan rebels waited at a checkpoint in Brega Wednesday as outgunned rebels fled Ras Lanuf. \n \n Rebels in Darnah, in eastern Libya, recounted unconfirmed reports that their fighters had been pushed back toward Ajdabiya, a crossroads leading to the rebel capital, Benghazi. \n \n The first days of the allied air war, which began March 19, gave a huge boost to the rebels, who had appeared on the verge of being crushed in Benghazi. Columns of pickup trucks and other vehicles swept quickly west into areas held by Col. Gadhafi's loyalists, and threatened his hometown of Sirte, with allied planes and missiles hitting regime armor in open desert. \n \n In the 24 hours ended midday Wednesday, U.S. and coalition aircraft conducted a total of 188 sorties, including 102 strikes against Libyan ground targets. U.S. warships also launched two Tomahawk cruise missiles. \n \n On Edge in Libya Track the latest events in the fight for Libya. View Interactive More photos and interactive graphics \n \n But it has proved hard for rebels to hold the ground they seize. \"What we call the rebel force is not a force at all,\" Gen. Dubik said. \"It's just guys with guns.\" \n \n Col. Gadhafi's forces, by contrast, are better equipped and better organized. The advances of government troops show air attacks haven't degraded the government's military to the point where it can't advance. \n \n Allied planes and missiles will likely be of limited value should the rebels make their way into major settlements or the capital, because airstrikes could potentially threaten civilian lives. \n \n The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is taking over command of the operation from the U.S., won't discuss its rules of engagement\u2014the conditions under which allied forces are allowed to fire their weapons. \n \n NATO officials said its operations will be strictly guided by this month's United Nations resolution authorizing \"all necessary measures\" to protect Libyan civilians. \n \n In recent days, allied forces have hit ammunition storage dumps, rocket launchers and surface-to-air missile launchers. The U.S. has brought in two types of aircraft\u2014tank-busting A-10s and AC-130 gunships\u2014that can deliver accurate, devastating attacks on ground targets. \n \n White House spokesman Jay Carney said that \"no decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya\u2014 we're not ruling it out or ruling it in.\" \n \n Those who oppose such a move argue the rebels are too disorganized and ill-trained to use any U.S.-provided weapons aid effectively and that there is a risk that the arms provided to them today will fall into the hands of anti-American Islamists. \n \n \"We need to understand more about the opposition before I would support passing out guns and advanced weapons to them,\" said Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. \"It's safe to say what the rebels stand against, but we are a long way from an understanding of what they stand for. We need to be very careful before rushing into a decision that could come back to haunt us.\" \n \n Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com and Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com", "summary": "\u2013 Rebels suffered a significant setback on their main front yesterday, as Gadhafi\u2019s heavily-armed forces drove them out of the oil port of Ras Lanuf, according to the Wall Street Journal. Defeats like that raise the possibility that the coalition will need to arm the rebels, a move Barack Obama yesterday said was a definite option: \"I\u2019m not ruling it out, but I\u2019m also not ruling it in,\" he told NBC News. \"We\u2019re still making an assessment partly about what Qaddafi\u2019s forces are going to be doing. Keep in mind, we\u2019ve been at this now for nine days.\" Opponents say supplying arms would pull the US in deeper, because the rebels would need to be trained to use even relatively simple weapons. Meanwhile, coalition airstrikes have begun targeting cities and towns near Libya\u2019s western border, in an apparent attempt to open a second front in the rebels\u2019 war against Moammar Gadhafi. Libyan authorities took reporters to Mizdah yesterday to show off the damage those strikes had allegedly done to civilian buildings; in one case, a strike on an arms depot had apparently caused Libyan rockets to fire into a nearby hospital, injuring some civilians, the LA Times reports."}
{"document": "Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By Sarah Fitzpatrick and Tracy Connor \n \n Olympic gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney says former team doctor Larry Nassar molested her on her very first visit to the famed Karolyi ranch \u2014 and then abused her hundreds of times over the next five years. \n \n \"He said that nobody would understand this and the sacrifice that it takes to get to the Olympics. So you can't tell people this,\" Maroney said in an exclusive interview with NBC News' Savannah Guthrie for a special investigative edition of \"Dateline\" airing Sunday night, 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT. \n \n \"I actually was like, 'That makes sense. I don't want to tell anybody about this,'\" she recalled. \"I didn't believe that they would understand.\" \n \n The one-hour broadcast will also include an exclusive interview with legendary gymnastics coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi, who have not spoken since the sexual abuse scandal engulfed the sport a year and a half ago. \n \n The show also includes interviews with Olympian Aly Raisman and Gina Nichols, the mother of former world champion gymnast Maggie Nichols, and new details about an alleged cover-up attempt by USA Gymnastics and the failure of the FBI and others to stop Nassar sooner. \n \n Speaking in detail about her ordeal for the first time since she disclosed she was a victim last year, Maroney described what happened the first day she met Nassar at the ranch, when she was just 13 years old. \n \n Related Eight times Larry Nassar could have been stopped \n \n \"He told me he was going to do a checkup on me and that was the first day I was abused,\" she said. \n \n Nassar, who admitted in court that he penetrated his patients with ungloved hands under the guise of medical treatment, saw Maroney every time she was at the ranch and at competitions around the world. \n \n She said he molested her \"every time.\" \n \n How many times before she finally quit competitive gymnastics? \"Hundreds,\" Maroney said. \n \n Martha and Bela Karolyi sit inside Karolyi Ranch on Jan. 26, 2011 in Huntsville, Texas. Bob Levey / Getty Images for Hilton \n \n Nassar is now serving up to 175 years in prison, but questions continue to swirl about whether powerful institutions could have done more to stop him. \n \n A U.S. Senate subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday on how to protect Olympic athletes, taking testimony from victims in several sports, including Maroney's \"Fierce Five\" teammate, Jordyn Wieber. \n \n Wieber said Nassar began abusing her when she was 14 years old, six years after she first met him. \"I would cringe at how uncomfortable it felt,\" she said. \n \n \"The worst part was that I had no idea that he was sexually abusing me for his own benefit. I knew it felt strange, but after all, he was the national team doctor.\" \n \n \"Me and my teammates were not protected,\" Wieber added. \"My parents trusted USA Gymnastics and Larry Nassar to take care of me and we were betrayed by both.\" \n \n USA Gymnastics says the first time it learned of abuse allegations was in June 2015, from a coach who overheard a conversation between two gymnasts. The organization said it moved quickly to hire an expert to interview Maroney and two other athletes and then alerted the FBI weeks later. \n \n In a statement, USA Gymnastics, which sparked outrage by including a confidentiality clause in a settlement agreement with Maroney, said it admires her for speaking out against abuse. \n \n \"USA Gymnastics is saddened that her memories of gymnastics are tainted by the despicable crimes of Larry Nassar. Our athletes, like McKayla, are the heart and soul of USA Gymnastics, and every effort has been made to support our athletes' development and provide the opportunities for them to achieve their dreams,\" it said. \n \n \"The powerful voices of the athletes, like McKayla, who shared their experiences of abuse by Nassar impacted us all and will influence our decisions going forward. USA Gymnastics is committed to building a culture that empowers and supports our athletes and focuses on our highest priority, the safety and well-being of our athletes. We are doing everything possible to prevent abuse, and we hope everything we do going forward makes this very clear.\" ||||| Olympic gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney, right, Olympic gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney, center, a sexual abuse victim of U.S. women's gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, speaks at the 2018 Spring luncheon of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC), Tuesday April... (Associated Press) \n \n NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 McKayla Maroney's gymnastics career brought her a pair of Olympic medals and widespread fame. \n \n It also brought her into close contact with former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who Maroney says abused her for years and left her wondering if the heights she reached during her career came at too high a price. \n \n \"I at times question if my gymnastics career was really even worth it,\" Maroney said Tuesday while speaking to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. \"Because of the stuff I'm dealing with now. . You have to pick up the pieces of your life and that has been the hardest part for me. It's always three steps forward, two steps back.\" \n \n Maroney's remarks were her first public statements since revealing she was among Nassar's abuse victims last fall. The 22-year-old said she's been empowered by the outpouring of support from others since coming forward and is intent on making sure the culture at USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee and Michigan State University changes for the better. \n \n Nassar spent nearly three decades at USA Gymnastics before being fired in 2015 after complaints about his behavior. He continued to work at MSU through the fall of 2016 before being hit with federal charges. Nassar is now serving decades in prison for molesting women and girls and for possessing child pornography. \n \n Maroney pointed to personnel overhauls at USA Gymnastics, Michigan State and the USOC as signs of progress, though much work remains to be done. \n \n \"Within the gymnastics world, there's no question we need to rebuild from the ground up so this never happens again,\" Maroney said. \"I definitely see a future where athletes are safe and succeeding. This next generation is going to be even stronger with everything that we're doing because they don't need to continue to struggle with the repercussions of sexual abuse. They shouldn't have to. I should have never had to. My team won gold medals in spite of USA Gymnastics and MSU and USOC. They don't build champions. They break them. But we're changing that.\" \n \n USA Gymnastics has replaced nearly its entire leadership over the last 15 months, including bringing on a new president and board of directors. Michigan State and the USOC have also shaken up their leadership in response to Nassar's widespread abuse. \n \n Maroney captured a gold and silver at the 2012 London Olympics and won gold on vault in the 2011 and 2013 world championships. She announced her retirement in 2016, the last time she spoke publically before Tuesday. In December, 2016 she reached a settlement with USA Gymnastics after suffering \"years of psychological trauma.\" Maroney filed a lawsuit last December seeking to invalidate parts of the settlement, arguing it violated California law. \n \n Whatever the legal fallout, Maroney is intent on picking up the pieces and moving on. Becoming a leading advocate for the prevention of abuse is part of the plan. \n \n \"The one thing gymnastics did teach me is when you fall, you have to get back up,\" Maroney said. \"We can't give up on ending sexual abuse.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Freelance writer Denis Gorman in New York contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 McKayla Maroney is detailing her abuse at the hands of former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar for the first time in an interview with Savannah Guthrie set to air Sunday on Dateline. On the first day she met Nassar, when she was 13 years old, \"He told me he was going to do a checkup on me and that was the first day I was abused,\" Maroney says in a preview of the sit-down. He went on to molest her \"every time\" she saw him, she says, noting that it amounted to \"hundreds\" of instances over five years. Nassar admitted in court he penetrated his patients under the guise of medical treatment. \"He said that nobody would understand this and the sacrifice that it takes to get to the Olympics. So you can't tell people this,\" she says. \"I actually was like, 'That makes sense. I don't want to tell anybody about this.' I didn't believe that they would understand.\" On Tuesday, Maroney spoke publicly for the first time since revealing she was among Nassar's victims, the AP reports. \"I at times question if my gymnastics career was really even worth it,\" she said while speaking to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. \"Because of the stuff I'm dealing with now. You have to pick up the pieces of your life and that has been the hardest part for me. It's always three steps forward, two steps back.\" She also slammed the institutions that didn't protect Nassar's victims, among them USA Gymnastics, the US Olympic Committee, and Michigan State University, where Nassar had a sports medicine practice, NBC notes. Sunday's Dateline will also include interviews with other gymnasts and their parents as well as gymnastics coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi, who have not yet spoken publicly about the sexual abuse scandal."}
{"document": "5 years ago \n \n Updated 7:26 p.m., 5/17/2014 \n \n Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama intends to nominate San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro to be his next secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a government source said Saturday. \n \n The 39-year old, three-term mayor first gained national recognition when he delivered the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention - the first Hispanic to do so. \n \n Follow @politicaltickerFollow @JimAcostaCNNFollow @ConorCNN \n \n First elected in 2009 and re-elected in 2011 and 2013, Castro is the youngest mayor of a major American city. He has been widely considered a rising leader in the Democratic Party and some even say a potential vice presidential candidate in 2016. \n \n The current HUD secretary, Shaun Donovan, has been a member of the Obama administration from the start. \n \n A Democratic official with knowledge of the cabinet selection process tells CNN that a plan is now in place for the President to nominate Castro for HUD secretary and tap Shaun Donovan to head the Office of Management and Budget. That position became open after Syliva Mathews Burwell was tapped to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. \n \n This Democratic official said the vetting process for Castro is still under way and that a formal announcement could be weeks away. \n \n In response to questions Saturday, the White House said, \"We have no personnel announcements at this time.\" \n \n The intended Cabinet shuffle was first reported in The New York Times. \n \n A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, Castro began his political career at a young age. At 26, he was the youngest councilman ever elected in San Antonio. \n \n Four years later, he ran for mayor, but lost to retired judge and fellow Democrat Phil Hardberger. Another four years, and Castro was in City Hall at the ripe old age of 34. \n \n Castro was re-elected in 2011 with 82% of the vote and in 2013 with 67%. \n \n He has spoken out in favor of same-sex marriage and of affirmative action, even telling The New York Times that it helped him get into Stanford. \n \n Castro has built a reputation as \"a youthful and dynamic leader here in town,\" Walter Wilson, assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas-San Antonio, told CNN in 2012. \n \n Former San Antonio mayor and HUD secretary Henry Cisneros told CNN in an interview that Castro is a good fit for the job, noting the current mayor's record of expanding pre-K education, revitalizing San Antonio's downtown and shoring up the city's finances. \n \n With an eye on 2016, Cisneros said the mayor could \"learn the country\" as HUD secretary, arguing, \"It's a lot more likely he can get on that ticket from a national office than from a mayor's job.\" \n \n \"He can't stay a mayor forever without getting dinged,\" Cisneros said, noting the Republican Party\u2019s current dominance in Texas politics. \n \n \"He will grow into a national-caliber talent,\" Cisneros continued, saying Castro has the potential to one day become the nation's first Latino president. \n \n Not everyone is a fan, though. \n \n \"He's a tax-and-spend liberal. He does not represent all Hispanics, we're not all the same,\" George Rodriguez, president of the tea party in San Antonio, said in 2012. \n \n Castro is the grandson of Mexican immigrants. His grandmother came to Texas from Mexico as an orphan at the age of 6. She taught herself to read and write in Spanish, eventually finding work in San Antonio as a maid and a cook. \n \n His twin brother, Joaquin Castro, who introduced him at the DNC in 2012, is representing San Antonio in the House of Representatives. \n \n \u2013CNN's Conor Finnegan, Sarah Aarthun, Ed Lavandera and Mariano Castillo contributed to this report. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n WASHINGTON \u2014 President Obama is preparing to nominate Mayor Juli\u00e1n Castro of San Antonio as his new secretary of housing and urban development, elevating one of his party\u2019s Hispanic rising stars as part of a cabinet shuffle that has possible implications for the 2016 presidential race, Democrats informed about the plans said on Saturday. \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Mr. Castro, who has often been mentioned as a potential vice-presidential candidate for the Democrats, would take the place of Shaun Donovan, who is to become director of the Office of Management and Budget. That job is being vacated by Sylvia Mathews Burwell, whom Mr. Obama tapped to be secretary of health and human services and who seems headed to Senate confirmation. \n \n Mr. Castro, 39, won national attention in 2012 as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention, and he and his twin brother, Representative Joaquin Castro, have become popular speakers on the party\u2019s fund-raising circuit. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have predicated their electoral hopes on appealing to the country\u2019s growing Hispanic population as House Republicans have blocked their efforts to overhaul the immigration system. \n \n Photo \n \n Mr. Obama\u2019s failure to push through immigration legislation has increased the political pressure on him and his Democratic allies from some Latino groups, which have demanded in recent weeks that the president act to reduce deportations that break up immigrant families. \n \n Mr. Obama had tried to lure Mr. Castro to the cabinet before. After the 2012 election, the president approached the mayor about serving as transportation secretary, but Mr. Castro, whose third term ends next year, indicated that he preferred to stay in San Antonio. He also passed on the chance to run for governor of Texas this year. \n \n \u201cJust like I decided not to run in 2014, I told the voters of San Antonio I would remain mayor until my tenure was over,\u201d Mr. Castro said in an interview last month. \n \n He could not be reached on Saturday, and it was not clear what had prompted his change of heart. But Mr. Castro, a Mexican-American whose mother once worked at the San Antonio Housing Authority, found the HUD post appealing because it would allow him to work on issues he has focused on as mayor, according to associates familiar with his thinking. \n \n Asked last month if he thought he might be wasting a political opportunity if he did not move to the national stage, Mr. Castro said: \u201cI\u2019m going to be 40 this year. I feel like I have a decent amount of time either way. Whatever happens in the next two years to eight years, I\u2019ll have time.\u201d \n \n But he has been advised to raise his profile in the hope of securing a slot on the national ticket. Democrats said that by taking an executive position in Washington, he would bolster his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 after serving as mayor of the nation\u2019s seventh-largest city since 2009. \n \n \u201cYou take somebody who is a very successful and appealing politician, who has regional strength, and put them on the national stage, and by definition you raise their stature and increase the possibility that they are going to get a look by the nominee,\u201d said Jonathan Prince, a Democratic consultant. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Some of Mr. Castro\u2019s allies also believe that with income inequality becoming a focal point for Democrats, the HUD job offers the mayor an opportunity to burnish his credentials on issues of poverty and to raise his appeal among those on the party\u2019s left. The post will also let him develop relationships with and win favors from city leaders and activists in a way he cannot on the Democratic lecture circuit. \n \n In a move that raised eyebrows about his political future, Mr. Castro shared lunch in February with former President Bill Clinton and Henry Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor who went on to serve as housing secretary in Mr. Clinton\u2019s cabinet. \n \n \u201cI advised that he accept a position for President Obama,\u201d Mr. Cisneros said in an interview this year about the previous offer. \u201cI thought that if he was going to be vice-presidential material in 2016, then he needed to be more than mayor at that time.\u201d \n \n Few prominent Hispanic Democrats are positioned to be considered for vice president in 2016, but several Republicans are thought to be prospects for their party\u2019s next ticket, including Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico. \n \n \u201cThat puts them in a bit of a pinch, and this may be an effort to move the pieces around on the chessboard,\u201d Danny Diaz, a strategist who advises Ms. Martinez, said of the Democrats. \n \n Given how crucial Hispanics\u2019 votes were in Mr. Obama\u2019s two victories, some Democrats believe that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, should she run and win the nomination, would be wise to pick a Hispanic running mate. \n \n Mr. Castro is one of the leading voices predicting that changing demographics will eventually favor Democrats. \u201cA couple years ago, I said Republicans should enjoy it because it\u2019s not going to get any better for them,\u201d he said, \u201cand it\u2019s only getting better for Democrats moving forward.\u201d \n \n The San Antonio Express-News first reported that Mr. Castro had been offered a cabinet post and was undergoing the standard background vetting, but the newspaper had not identified which position he would take. The Democrats who described the fuller cabinet shuffle on Saturday asked not to be identified because the plans had not been announced. The White House declined to comment. \n \n The HUD job would become available to Mr. Castro with Mr. Donovan\u2019s move to the budget office, replacing Ms. Burwell. She would succeed Kathleen Sebelius, who announced last month that she was resigning as secretary of health and human services after presiding over the disastrous rollout of the online exchanges for the Affordable Care Act in the fall. \n \n While not formally part of the statutory cabinet, the budget office position has cabinet rank under Mr. Obama, and its director can play an outsize role in shaping administration policy. \n \n Mr. Donovan, a former commissioner of housing preservation in New York City and an original member of Mr. Obama\u2019s cabinet, has been a favorite of the president\u2019s. At a Democratic fund-raiser on Wednesday in New York, Mr. Obama offered effusive praise for Mr. Donovan, singling out his work on recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy. \n \n \u201cWhen we thought about who was somebody who we had confidence\u201d could take on the task, \u201cShaun came to mind,\u201d Mr. Obama said. He added that Mr. Donovan had \u201cdone a terrific job.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 President Obama has chosen San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro as the next housing secretary, Democratic insiders tell the New York Times. Castro, who has been mayor since 2009, was the 2012 Democratic National Convention's keynote speaker, and he has been named as a possible future VP candidate, the Times notes. He would take part in a chain of Cabinet replacements following Kathleen Sebelius' departure as health secretary. Obama nominated Office of Management and Budget head Sylvia Mathews Burwell to replace Sebelius; current secretary of housing and urban development Shaun Donovan would replace Burwell, with Castro taking Donovan's position. The White House hasn't confirmed the Castro report. At 39, Castro is the youngest mayor of a major US city, CNN notes, per his website."}
{"document": "Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| Representative Paul D. Ryan said on Thursday it was a mistake to have requested funds in 2009 from the federal stimulus bill after voting against it. \n \n Mr. Ryan earlier denied asking for money from the $787 billion stimulus on behalf of companies in his Wisconsin district, contradicting a report by The Boston Globe on Tuesday that he wrote to the federal Energy Department requesting funds for two companies to develop so-called green jobs. \n \n \n \n \u201cNo, I never asked for stimulus,\u2019\u2019 Mr. Ryan said in an interview with WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, which was broadcast Thursday. Mr. Ryan, along with Mitt Romney, who picked him as his running mate last week, have vociferously denounced the stimulus as an example of President Obama\u2019s failure to restore the economy. The Congressional Budget Office said the stimulus increased employment by 1.3 million to 3.3 million people. \n \n Mr. Ryan said in the television interview that he did not recall writing the letters. Later, his office issued a statement that he had since checked into the letters. \u201cThey were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled,\u2019\u2019 he said in the statement. \u201cThis is why I didn\u2019t recall the letters earlier. But they should have been handled differently, and I take responsibility for that. Regardless, it\u2019s clear that the Obama stimulus did nothing to stimulate the economy, and now the President is asking to do it all over again.\u2019\u2019 \n \n This post has been revised to reflect the following correction: \n \n Correction: August 17, 2012 \n \n An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the television station that interviewed Paul D. Ryan. It is WCPO, not WCOP. ||||| WASHINGTON\u2014Democrats, stung by criticism of their $787 billion economic-stimulus plan, are targeting Republicans who have attacked the program and then lobbied to get money for their districts. \n \n More than a dozen Republican lawmakers supported stimulus-funding requests submitted to the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Forest Service, in letters obtained by The Wall Street Journal through the Freedom of Information Act. \n \n The stimulus package passed last February with no Republican votes in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, just three Republicans supported it: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who later switched to the Democratic Party. \n \n Read the letters sent to the EPA by Kay Bailey Hutchison, John Cornyn, and Robert Bennett; to the Labor Department by Sue Myrick, Paul Ryan, Jean Schmidt; and to the Forest Service by the Alabama congressional delegation. \n \n Lawmakers routinely send letters in support of federal funding for projects in their constituencies; some Republican lawmakers have deliberately avoided sending requests for stimulus dollars because of their opposition to the bill. \n \n Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who called the stimulus a \"wasteful spending spree\" that \"misses the mark on all counts,\" wrote to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in October in support of a grant application from a group in his district which, he said, \"intends to place 1,000 workers in green jobs.\" A spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan said the congressman felt it was his job to provide \"the basic constituent service of lending his assistance for federal grant requests.\" \n \n Republican Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina and Jean Schmidt of Ohio sent letters in October asking for consideration of funding requests from local organizations training workers for energy-efficiency projects. \n \n In November, Ms. Schmidt said in a statement, \"It is time to recall the stimulus funds that have not been spent before the Chinese start charging us interest.\" Aides to the congresswomen said they had always supported local organizations in their requests for federal funding. \n \n None of the projects requested by the three House members received awards in funding decisions announced in January. \n \n The Environmental Protection Agency received two letters from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asking for consideration of grants for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston. Mr. Cornyn is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. \n \n One of the letters was signed jointly with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also of Texas. The letter said that the Port of Houston Authority \"has informed me of the positive impact this grant will have in the region by serving as a foundation for PHA's Clean Air Strategy Plan, creating jobs, and significantly reducing diesel emissions.\" Houston received millions of dollars in diesel funding. \n \n The agency also appeared to have received eight identical letters from Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah recommending infrastructure projects in his state, seven of which were sent before stimulus legislation was passed by Congress. \n \n Spokespeople for Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Bennett said they were just making sure their states received part of the spending once it had been agreed upon. Ms. Hutchison's office didn't respond to a request for comment. \n \n The entire congressional delegation of Alabama, including its two Republican senators, wrote to then-Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell asking for $15 million for cogongrass eradication and control programs in the state. The state ended up getting a $6.3 million grant. \n \n Republican Richard Shelby, the state's senior senator, called the stimulus package \"the socialist way\" while it was being debated. A spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment. \n \n President Barack Obama and his party have been playing defense for much of the past year on the stimulus bill. But now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its allies are planning to use this week's anniversary of the passage of the stimulus package to tout its success, and to attack prominent Republicans whose states have benefited from stimulus grants. \n \n Mr. Obama warned Republicans last month at their annual retreat that Democrats were ready to spotlight representatives who touted stimulus funds in their districts. \"Let's face it, some of you have been at the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities,\" Mr. Obama said. \n \n A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said Democrats risked being perceived as \"totally out of touch\" by marking the achievements of the stimulus plan on its anniversary. \"If the Democrats' answer is to highlight the few worthy projects within what has become regarded as a wasteful and bloated trillion-dollar failure then they are truly grasping at straws,\" said Ken Spain. \n \n Republicans have seized on double-digit unemployment\u2014the rate hit 10.2% in October before easing in January to 9.7%\u2014to challenge the Obama administration's estimates for the number of jobs supported by stimulus spending. \n \n About $180 billion of the funds allocated to various projects has been paid out. Tax cuts worth about $93 billion have also taken effect, according to agency records published on the government Web site recovery.gov. An additional $320 billion in spending hasn't yet been handed out. A further $195 billion in tax cuts are due to flow through tax returns. \n \n Most of the stimulus spending so far has gone to state and local governments to plug holes in their schools, Medicaid and unemployment-benefits budgets. Spending on infrastructure projects is expected to pick up in 2010. \n \n Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@dowjones.com", "summary": "\u2013 Paul Ryan has repeatedly denied that he requested funds for Wisconsin businesses from Barack Obama's signature stimulus bill, despite documented evidence to the contrary. Yesterday he finally admitted he had\u2014but said he hadn't realized he was doing it. Ryan's stimulating ways first came to light in a 2010 Wall Street Journal report. In an interview at the time, Ryan said he wouldn't vote against something \"then write to the government to ask them to send us money.\" But the Boston Globe reported this week that Ryan did just that, sending at least four letters to the Department of Energy on behalf of two Wisconsin companies looking to develop \"green jobs.\" Ryan again denied those reports yesterday, before finally backtracking with a statement saying the requests were \"treated as constituent service requests,\" according to the New York Times. \"This is why I didn't recall the letters earlier. But they should have been handled differently.\" Ryan still insists, however, that the stimulus didn't boost the economy."}
{"document": "Washington lurched toward another potential government shutdown crisis Friday, as the House approved by a 219-203 vote a GOP-authored short-term funding measure designed to keep the government running through Nov. 18 and Democrats in the Senate immediately vowed to reject the bill. \n \n \u201cWe expect a vote fairly quickly,\u201d said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Friday morning. \n \n In an after-midnight roll call, House Republican leaders persuaded conservatives early Friday morning to support a stop-gap measure nearly identical to one they had rejected just 30 hours earlier. By a narrow margin, 213 Republicans supported the plan, along with six Democrats; 179 Democrats opposed it, joined by 24 Republicans. \n \n The bill, which will keep federal agencies funded through Nov. 18, passed over staunch objections from House Democrats, who opposed a provision that would pair increased funding for disaster relief with a spending cut to a program that makes loans to car companies to encourage energy efficient car production. \n \n But House Speaker John Boehner\u2019s (R-Ohio) victory is likely to be short-lived. Reid said late Thursday that the measure could not pass his chamber, with a vote expected sometime Friday. A Senate defeat would leave Congress at a new standoff. \n \n \u201cIt fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate,\u201d Reid said of the House bill. \n \n Without a resolution, the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s disaster relief fund will run out of money early next week and the rest of the government would be forced to shutdown Oct. 1. \n \n House leaders contend that the Senate would be responsible for blocking desperately needed disaster dollars from flowing to FEMA if they reject their bill. \n \n \u201cYou saw the House act,\u201d said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) as he left the Capitol early Friday morning. \u201cWe are intending that the money gets to FEMA and to disaster victims as they need it.\u201d \n \n \u201cI think Harry Reid\u2019s political ploy is not going to work,\u201d Cantor continued, adding that blame for FEMA funding drying up if the Senate rejects the bill would fall on Senate Democrats. \u201cI guess Harry Reid will have to bear the burden of denying disaster victims the money they need.\u201d \n \n Friday\u2019s House vote marked a reversal of fortunes for Boehner, who after losing the initial Wednesday vote on the House spending resolution found himself roaming the contours of a familiar dilemma \u2014 capitulate to fiscal hawks in his own party who want to spend less, or compromise with Democrats who want to spend more. \n \n Instead, Boehner found another route: He huddled all day and night Thursday with his rank-and-file, warning them he would give them one more chance to approve the bill or he would be forced to agree to drop the offsetting cut, as Democrats had demanded. \n \n In addition, after a 90-minute meeting with the House GOP Conference on Thursday afternoon, the leadership agreed to an additional, largely symbolic cut by striking $100 million from a loan program that funded the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. That company, which received the loan guarantees through the Obama administration\u2019s 2009 stimulus legislation, has become a favorite target for Republicans in their critique of the White House\u2019s handling of the economy. \n \n As for the swipe at the program that had funded Solyndra, Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) told colleagues on the House floor late Thursday that the goal was to \u201censure that hard-earned dollars of the American people are not wasted in the way that we have seen\u201d with the company. \n \n Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) countered that the measure had hardly changed after a day of wrangling and still made \u201cunacceptable cuts to an essential manufacturing jobs program to pay for equally essential disaster relief.\u201d \n \n The blow-up over what Boehner had once hoped would be a routine matter \u2014 a bill to merely keep government operating until Nov. 18 \u2014 illustrated what has become a central reality for the Republican speaker: He controls the House majority only on paper. \n \n On any given vote, he must contend with a sizable bloc of his own members willing to buck his leadership in the name of shrinking government. \n \n This leaves him in the uncomfortable position of having to consider alliances with Democrats \u2014 and facing negotiating those alliances from a position of weakness. \n \n Despite the embarrassing loss on Wednesday\u2019s vote, Republicans defended the decision to hold the vote even though they realized it was likely to fail. The GOP leadership wanted to demonstrate to the recalcitrant conservatives that their actions had real consequences. One senior Republican adviser called the process \u201can educational experience.\u201d \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve always believed in allowing the House to work its will. I understood what the risk was yesterday. But why not put the bill on the floor and let the members speak? And they did,\u201d Boehner said Thursday morning at his weekly press briefing. \n \n According to GOP lawmakers and aides, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had reported to Boehner and Cantor that a few dozen Republicans would oppose the legislation, mostly because they thought its spending levels were too far above those they voted for in the spring when they approved the 2012 budget originally proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). \n \n Boehner\u2019s leadership team knew that it would need Democratic votes to approve the plan, but only by Wednesday afternoon did they fully understand that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) were whipping their caucus to oppose the measure and make Boehner deliver nearly all Republican votes for passage. Rather than pulling the bill from the floor, Boehner told his deputies to hold the vote. \n \n The extraordinary effort required to pass such a basic bill suggests even bigger battles later in the fall on potential blockbuster deficit-reduction plans. \n \n The stopgap spending bill is necessary because the House and Senate have stalemated over how to fund government through the whole year. Without a stopgap in place to buy time for further negotiations, the government will shut down at month\u2019s end. \n \n House leaders had hoped to pass the short-term funding bill without the strife that had characterized recent debates, which they knew would erode financial markets\u2019 confidence and spark further disgust among voters. They would do it by agreeing to set spending in the bill at a rate of $1.043 trillion for the year, the amount set in the rancorous August deal to raise the nation\u2019s debt ceiling. \n \n But that plan ran headlong into the political realities of their divided chamber \u2014 as well as a congressional calendar that provides for a week-long recess starting Friday so that Jewish lawmakers can observe their holidays next week. \n \n Democrats, stung by accusations that they had made too many concessions in the debt fight during the summer, stood unified against the measure over a Republican decision to pair $3.65 billion in funding for disaster relief with a $1.5 billion spending cut to the the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, which offers loans to car companies to encourage the production of energy-efficient cars. That particular cut was anathema to many Democrats, who argued that the loan program has generated tens of thousands of jobs. \n \n Democrats relished the prospect that their unified opposition forced Boehner to publicly struggle. \n \n \u201cIn the House, the majority controls all the mechanisms,\u201d said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.). \u201cYou\u2019d better be able to produce the votes. You just cant go willy-nilly to the floor and then say, \u2018Well, oopsy.\u2019 \u201d \n \n Staff writers David A. Fahrenthold and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report. ||||| WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Friday morning to reject the House's stopgap spending bill, less than 12 hours after the House's Republican leaders had forced it through on their second try. \n \n The Senate vote was 59 to 36 to table the House bill, effectively killing it. Some conservative Republicans joined in rejecting the measure. \n \n The House, in the wee hours of Friday morning, had passed its latest version of a stopgap spending bill after rejecting on Wednesday a nearly identical version of the legislation, which is needed to keep the government open after Sept. 30 and to provide assistance to victims of natural disasters. The House vote was 219 to 203. \n \n House Republican leaders, trying to recover from a humiliating political defeat, had made one change in the bill -- but it was one that most Democrats in the House and Senate opposed, trimming green energy loans. The new version would offset more of the cost of disaster assistance by rescinding $100 million from an Energy Department program that guaranteed a loan for Solyndra, the solar equipment manufacturer that filed recently for bankruptcy protection. \n \n The bill, to finance government operations for seven weeks after the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, had faced problems in the Senate, where Democrats want to spend more without cutting other programs to offset the cost. \n \n Senate Democratic leaders had said all along that the House version would be swiftly rejected in the Senate, which had already passed a version of its own. Indeed, the senators acted even before the House version had formally arrived for their consideration. \n \n \"The House bill is not an honest effort at compromise,\" said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. \"It fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate.\" \n \n Mr. Reid said he had hoped that House Republicans would move toward the middle. \"Instead,\" he said, \"they moved even further toward the Tea Party.\" \n \n It is not clear how the two houses will overcome the impasse and avert a government shutdown. Most federal agencies need money to continue operations beyond Oct. 1. The disaster relief fund of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is running short of money. And lawmakers are planning to leave town for a recess scheduled for next week. \n \n House Republican leaders, who lost control of their caucus on Wednesday, worked furiously on Thursday to round up votes for the revised version of the stopgap bill. \n \n They prevailed by halving the number of defections from their ranks. On Wednesday, 48 Republicans voted against the bill. On Friday, just 24 voted no. Representative David Dreier, Republican of California and chairman of the Rules Committee, said it had been \"an ugly, messy, difficult process.\" The purpose of the change, he said, was to prevent \"another boondoggle like Solyndra.\" \n \n The new version of the House bill, like the original, would have partially offset the cost of disaster assistance by cutting a separate Energy Department loan program that promotes development of energy-efficient cars. This cut infuriates Democrats in the House and the Senate, who say the program is creating thousands of jobs at automakers and auto parts suppliers. \n \n \"The bill was wrong yesterday, the bill is wrong today,\" Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, said Thursday night on the House floor. \"Virtually nothing has changed.\" \n \n The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California, said Republicans were offering \"the same old warmed-over stew that was rejected\" on Wednesday. \n \n Speaker John A. Boehner had solicited the views of his colleagues at a meeting of the House Republican Conference, where lawmakers expressed frustration at the setback they suffered Wednesday on the bill to provide $3.65 billion in disaster relief.", "summary": "\u2013 House Republicans got their ducks in a row late last night, passing a spending measure nearly identical to the one that went down in flames Wednesday. But that might not be enough to prevent a government shutdown, because the Senate is drawing a hard line against the bill, the Washington Post reports. Boehner won conservatives by slicing $100 million from the loan program that benefited Solyndra, and warning that if the bill didn\u2019t pass, he\u2019d be forced to compromise with Democrats. Like the failed bill, the new version also cuts some funding from an energy efficient car program. Democrats who back the program\u2014which they say creates thousands of auto-related jobs\u2014were outraged, and the Senate immediately vowed to reject the bill because it didn\u2019t provide enough funding for disaster relief efforts. \u201cThe House bill is not an honest effort at compromise,\u201d Harry Reid told the New York Times. \u201cThey moved even further toward the Tea Party.\u201d But if something doesn\u2019t pass, FEMA will run out of money next week, and the government will shut down Oct. 1."}
{"document": "... \n \n l. I'm confident he's going to get it done. https://www.breitbart.com/\u2026/gaetz-tru\u2026/\u2026 \n \n Our President is committed to securing our border and building a wal ||||| Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., had a non-Kodak moment Tuesday after a sixth-grade girl was snapped giving the lawmaker the middle finger during a school visit. \n \n Gaetz met with students at Shoal River Middle School in Crestview, Fla., to lecture them on civics when he decided to take a selfie with the sixth graders. Many students struck a pose or smiled for the photo except for one girl in the front row who flipped the bird directly at Gaetz. The congressman posted the photo on his Facebook page. \n \n The congressman laughed off the gesture to reporters Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s certain to occur again,\u201d Gaetz told NWF Daily News. \n \n PELOSI ENDORSES CUOMO AS DEMS GO INCREASINGLY BICOASTAL \n \n Angela Marie, who identified herself as girl\u2019s mother, commented on Gaetz\u2019s photo apologizing for her daughter\u2019s \u201cunacceptable\u201d gesture. \n \n \u201cAs the mother of the little girl very disrespectfully flipping the \u2018bird,\u2019 I will be dealing with her at home tonight! I absolutely have raised her better than this, and I promise this will never happen again! I have been dealing with her wanting to \u2018fit in\u2019 and I promise you, I am livid. Political views aside, this is completely unacceptable. Mr. Gaetz, I apologized on behalf of my daughter. I am very sorry this occurred,\u201d she wrote. \n \n Gaetz replied that he understood and had an \u201coccasional lapse of judgement as a middle schooler.\u201d \n \n FRANKEN, DEMS RAISE ALARM ABOUT CYBER-MEDDLING IN MIDTERMS \n \n \u201cTeaching moments like this are a good thing. I had a lovely time with the students,\u201d he said. \n \n The congressman said he would not take down the photo, calling the snap a \u201cgood teaching moment.\u201d \n \n \u201cYou never know what\u2019s going to happen on Open Gaetz Day,\u201d he said, referring to his district tours. ||||| CRESTVIEW \u2014 During his Monday tour through Crestview, Congressman Matt Gaetz, R-1st, met with sixth-graders at Shoal River Middle School to give them a brief civics lesson. \n \n And at least one young girl learned about her First Amendment right. \n \n After meeting with students, Gaetz took a selfie with the audience and quickly shared it to his Facebook page. Kids were smiling and waving their hands \u2014 and one young lady in the front was clearly extending her middle finger. \n \n To the congressman, it's just another day in politics. \n \n \"It's certain to occur again,\" Gaetz said with a laugh. \n \n The mother of the girl commented on the photo \u2014 which had 500 shares at this writing \u2014 saying she was very sorry about the photo and would \"deal with her daughter.\" \n \n \"Political views aside, this is completely unacceptable. Mr. Gates (sic), I apologize on behalf of my daughter,\" she wrote. \"I am very sorry this occurred.\" \n \n Dozens of commenters said the girl was simply exercising her First Amendment rights. Gaetz replied back saying he had a lovely time with the students. \n \n \"As a middle school student I'm sure I had plenty of lapses in judgment that were far more severe than this one,\" Gaetz said Tuesday afternoon. \"We've all been middle schoolers, we all know what the wonder years are like. I don't know if she would choose that particular method in the future, but I'm not really someone who criticizes how they express themselves.\" \n \n Gaetz said he has no intention of taking the photo down. In fact, the photo is a good teaching moment, he said. \n \n \"You never know what's going to happen on Open Gaetz Day,\" he said, referring to the name of his district tours.", "summary": "\u2013 It's probably not a photo that mom is going to frame. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida made a stop at Shoal River Middle School in Crestview on Tuesday to talk civics, but things concluded with some not-exactly-civil behavior. Gaetz posed for a selfie with sixth graders and posted it to Facebook, where it shows a smiling Gaetz in the lower left\u2014and a girl with her middle finger raised in the lower right. (See the photo here.) Fox News reports the GOP congressman took it in stride, saying he had an \"occasional lapse of judgement\" at that age. Northwest Florida Daily News reports that one of the commenters on the photo identified herself as the girl's mother, offered an apology for the \"unacceptable move,\" and wrote that she would \"be dealing with her at home tonight! I absolutely have raised her better than this, and I promise this will NEVER happen again! I have been dealing with her wanting to 'fit in' and I promise you, I am livid.\" Gaetz says he'll keep the photo up. \"I'm not really someone who criticizes how they express themselves.\" (This driver flipped off police, and then found himself in trouble.)"}
{"document": "A research organization is growing human skin in the hope of using it to trial cosmetics and medicines, reducing the need for animal testing. The synthetic skin is made using cells from infant foreskins. \n \n \n \n The idea of a \"skin factory\" may sound sinister, but that is exactly what scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart have created. Their so-calledgrows tiny swatches of skin - not for skin grafts, but for testing consumer products.The renowned institute is presenting their ground-breaking invention as an affordable and sustainable alternative to animal testing, which many consider unnecessarily cruel.The skin factory is a machine measuring seven metres long, three metres high and three metres deep, sealed and heated to 37 degrees Celsius \u2013 the same temperature as inside people.The machine is fitted with 500 boards, each with 24 tissue cultures growing on it in little tube formations. In each tube, extremely thin skin samples grow from cells, which robotic hands have painstakingly extracted from foreskins donated to the project. Scientists use enzymes to detach the very top layer of cells from the skin, along with connective tissue and pigment cells.The foreskin used for the process is only taken from boys up to the age of four. \u201cThe older skin is, the worse the cells function,\u201d explained Andreas Traube, an engineer at the institute's department of production technology and automation.\u201cIt is also important that the cells we use are coming from a uniform source,\" said Traube. \"This avoids discrepancies in the production of the new skin.\"The equipment developed by the Fraunhofer team can extract between three to 10 million cells from a single foreskin. In the incubator these cells then multiply hundreds of times.The brand new skin cells are mixed with collagen and connective tissue, which then becomes \u2018proper\u2019 skin, measuring up to five millimetres in thickness. The whole process can take up to six weeks, but according to Traube, \u201cWe can\u2019t use the machine to speed up the process; biology needs time to take its course.\u201dIn a single month, the machine can produce around 5,000 skin samples. For now, these delicate creations remain untouched as the process is still being authorized by European authorities, who are examining the growths to see whether they are suitable to be used in testing.But the process has been given the nod of approval by some key members of the Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA).\u201cI think the idea is a good one,\u201d said Rolf H\u00f6mke, VFA spokesman. \u201cI believe cells from artificially cultivated skin are indeed comparable with real skin.\u201d\u201cI do think it might take a few years to get up and running though,\u201d warned H\u00f6mke. \u201cThere are complicated international safety standards, these procedures can\u2019t just be changed overnight.\u201dAt the moment only very small skin samples are being created. \u201cIt\u2019s logical that we\u2019d want to take the operation to a bigger scale,\u201d said Traube.He added that possible future applications for products from thecould be research into cancer, pigmentation diseases, allergic reactions and fungal infections.The next step for the company is a little smaller though, as their sights are set on synthesizing a human cornea. ||||| Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart recently created the \"Skin Factory,\" an advanced piece of lab equipment designed to use foreskin taken from babies to grow patches of human skin that can be used in the place of animals to test products, the German Herald reported. \n \n According to a spokesman for the Institute, the groundbreaking equipment may be able to eliminate animal testing altogether and, if developed on a larger scale, could be useful in developing treatments for cancer, pigmentation diseases, and certain skin allergies. \n \n So how does the miracle machine work? First, it's heated to roughly 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of the human body, according to the German news outlet The Local. Next, robotic hands meticulously extract cells from foreskins donated to the project, all samples of which must come from boys age four-and-under. \n \n \"The older skin is, the worse the cells function,\" Andreas Traube, an engineer at the institute. \n \n Scientists then take the cells extracted from the foreskin (one sample can provide up to 10 million cells) and incubate them inside tubes, where they multiply hundreds of times. The cells are then mixed with collagen and connective tissue to create skin about 5 millimeters thick. All in all, Traube explained, the process takes about six weeks -- about the same amount of time it takes skin to grow naturally. \n \n \"We can't use the machine to speed up the process; biology needs time to take its course,\" Traube told the The Local. \n \n At least one organization within Germany has already expressed measured approval for the machine. \n \n \"I think the idea is a good one. I believe cells from artificially cultivated skin are indeed comparable with real skin,\" Rolf Homke, spokesman for the German Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies, told The Local. \"I do think it might take a few years to get up and running though. There are complicated international safety standards, these procedures can't just be changed overnight.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Babies' foreskins: The new wonder material? Maybe. They're already being used to make wrinkle creams, and now German scientists have developed a machine that uses the foreskin of young boys to grow artificial skin, reports the Local. For now, the researchers hope their innovation can be used for testing consumer products, replacing animal testing\u2014but the technology's longer-term potential is much more ambitious, and could be used for creating artificial corneas and for research into cancer and a whole host of illnesses. The process works by extracting skin cells from donated foreskins using a 23-foot-long skin machine capable of extracting up to 10 million skin cells per foreskin; those cells then multiply hundreds of times. The new cells are mixed with collagen and connective tissue to become \"real\" skin. One month's output clocks in at about 5,000 skin samples, though they're not yet being used in testing. \"There are complicated international safety standards, these procedures can\u2019t just be changed,\" said a pharmaceutical spokesman. But he believes that \"cells from artificially cultivated skin are indeed comparable with real skin.\" Click for more on the \"skin factory.\""}
{"document": "Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com \n \n Apple Inc. is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content, according to people familiar with the matter. \n \n The talks represent Apple's most ambitious crack at infiltrating the living room after years of trying. \n \n Apple doesn't appear to have reached a deal with any cable operators. One obstacle may be the reluctance of operators to let Apple establish a foothold in the television business. \n \n Apple would also need to persuade significant numbers of consumers to buy a set-top box for what ... ||||| Stock Chart for Apple Inc (AAPL) \n \n Apple Inc. (AAPL) is in talks with at least one of the largest U.S. cable companies about teaming up on a product to carry live television and other content, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. \n \n Customers would be able to use an Apple-designed device to access their set of channels instead of leasing a set-top box from cable companies for a monthly fee, said the person, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. No deal has been reached, the person said. \n \n An agreement would mark the iPhone maker\u2019s biggest foray into TV after years of calling it a \u201chobby.\u201d The company\u2019s $99 Apple TV product doesn\u2019t carry live network broadcasting and is mainly used for downloading movies and shows from the iTunes media store or streaming content from such services as Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Google Inc.\u2019s YouTube. \n \n By aligning with cable companies, Apple would get access to the variety of channels now available to cable subscribers, instead of having to strike independent licensing deals with media companies and program owners. \n \n Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment. The discussions were previously reported by the Wall Street Journal. \n \n Earlier Comcast Talks \n \n Apple, the world\u2019s most valuable company, has talked with cable companies about a TV partnership in the past. When the company was preparing to introduce Apple TV in 2007, executives reached out to Comcast (CMCSA) Corp. about striking a deal, according to a person familiar with the talks. D\u2019Arcy Rudnay, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia-based Comcast, declined to comment. \n \n Apple executives, led by Senior Vice President Eddy Cue, have long been talking with media companies about ways to get more content for its TV product. Walt Disney Co. (DIS)\u2019s ESPN sports network has talked with Apple about giving subscribers online access to programming through Apple TV, executives said in May. \n \n In 2010, Apple also tried unsuccessfully to get some networks to offer subscriptions to their channels for Apple TV users, people familiar with the plans said at the time. \n \n Time Warner Inc. (TWX) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes said in July that he planned to talk with Apple CEO Tim Cook about Apple TV. Apple may forge a partnership with a cable provider, similar to the way it originally struck a deal with AT&T Inc. (T) on the iPhone, said Bewkes, whose company owns HBO and other channels. \n \n Affiliate Fees \n \n That\u2019s because Bewkes said Apple most likely wouldn\u2019t be interested in cutting deals directly with television programmers, which would charge costly affiliate fees. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s Apple\u2019s style to pay programmers,\u201d Bewkes said at Allen & Co.\u2019s annual media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. \n \n One challenge Apple has faced is that cable companies such as Comcast have invested heavily in developing a new user interface for their own set-top boxes that they lease to customers for a monthly fee. Cable companies also may be reluctant to cede control to Apple in the way record labels and telephone carriers have. \n \n Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had expressed skepticism to other executives about the company\u2019s chances in television if they weren\u2019t able to get more content, especially live broadcast rights, said two people familiar with the company\u2019s TV efforts. Jobs also had been wary of working with cable companies because each provider only controls certain geographies, limiting what would be available to some customers if any of them didn\u2019t team up with Apple, these people said. \n \n \u2018Simplest Interface\u2019 \n \n Before his death last year, Jobs became more upbeat about the company\u2019s chances. He told biographer Walter Isaacson that he had \u201cfinally cracked\u201d how to build a TV device. \n \n \u201cIt will have the simplest user interface you could imagine,\u201d Jobs told Isaacson in the biography \u201cSteve Jobs.\u201d \n \n The comments fueled speculation about Apple\u2019s aspirations to reach customers in the living room. Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray Cos., has said that the company has built a prototype TV for release by next year. \n \n It isn\u2019t clear whether a deal with cable companies would involve use of Apple\u2019s existing TV product, which plugs in to a television set, or the release of a new device. \n \n Cable companies have begun embracing the popularity of Apple devices in other ways. Comcast, Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) and Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) offer apps so subscribers can watch TV on an iPhone or iPad. \n \n Besides Cue, who leads Apple\u2019s negotiations with media companies, another executive leading the product design of Apple\u2019s TV effort is Jeff Robbin, who helped create the iPod and build the iTunes store, people familiar with the project said last year. \n \n To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Sherman in New York at asherman6@bloomberg.net; Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net \n \n To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net", "summary": "\u2013 Today's Apple TV box is mainly used to play Internet downloads and stream content\u2014but the next Apple set-top box could play live television. Apple is currently in talks with top US cable providers to that end, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal. Customers would get to own the box (at a cost that could hit a few hundred dollars), as opposed to leasing one from their cable companies (which typically clocks in at $10 to $15 a month). The Journal notes that TiVo and Samsung currently sell these type of boxes. And for Apple, dealing directly with a cable company would mean a content windfall: The tech firm wouldn't have to deal with individual media companies to license already-broadcast shows, reports Bloomberg. The Journal calls the approach \"a less radical path to expand in television than [Apple] has contemplated in the past.\" But it doesn't look like Apple has made a deal with any of the cable companies, who may be wary of giving the tech giant the OK to invade their turf."}
{"document": "A \n \n Have more to add? News tip? Tell us \n \n Life support was removed from a pregnant brain-dead Haltom City woman shortly before noon Sunday after John Peter Smith Hospital said it would not appeal a state district judge\u0092s ruling to remove life-sustaining measures. \n \n \u0093Our client, Erick Mu\u00f1oz, has authorized us to give notice that today, at approximately 11:30 a.m ... Marlise Mu\u00f1oz\u0092s body was disconnected from \u0093life support\u0094 and released to Mr. Mu\u00f1oz,\u0094 said a statement from the family\u0092s attorneys. \u0093The Mu\u00f1oz and Machado families will now proceed with the somber task of laying Marlise Mu\u00f1oz\u0092s body to rest, and grieving over the great loss that has been suffered.\u0094 \n \n \u0093May Marlise Mu\u00f1oz finally rest in peace, and her family find the strength to complete what has been an unbearably long and arduous journey,\u0094 said the statement released by attorneys Heather L. King and Jessica H. Janicek. \n \n Marlise Mu\u00f1oz, a 33-year-old woman who was 14 weeks pregnant when she arrived at the hospital after suffering an embolism. State District Judge R.H. Wallace ruled on Friday that she should be taken off life support after county-owned hospital refused to do so. \n \n Marlise Mu\u00f1oz was being taken off life support at the same time that the hospital released a statement saying that it would not appeal Wallace\u0092s ruling. \n \n \u0093The past eight weeks have been difficult for the Mu\u00f1oz family, the caregivers and the entire Tarrant County community, which found itself involved in a sad situation,\u0094 according to a statement from J.R. Labbe, a spokeswoman for JPS Health Network. The hosptial \u0093...has followed what we believed were the demands of a state statute. From the onset, JPS has said its role was not to make nor contest law but to follow it.\u0094 \n \n \u0093On Friday, a state district judge ordered the removal of life-sustaining treatment from Marlise Mu\u00f1oz. The hospital will follow the court order,\u0094 Labbe said. \n \n On Friday, Wallace said he agreed with attorneys for the Mu\u00f1oz family that a 1999 state law requiring pregnant women to be kept on life support does not apply to Mu\u00f1oz because she is brain-dead. \n \n Wallace gave the county-owned hospital until 5 p.m. Monday to decide whether to appeal. \n \n The Tarrant County district attorney\u0092s office argued at the hearing Friday that it must balance the interests of the state to protect an unborn child against the wishes of the Mu\u00f1oz family to end life support. \n \n Attorneys for the Mu\u00f1oz family released a statement saying that medical records indicate the fetus is \u0093distinctly abnormal,\u0094 with lower extremities deformed, and suffers from a number of other serious health conditions, including water on the brain and heart problems. \n \n Mu\u00f1oz has been hospitalized since just before Thanksgiving. Husband Erick Mu\u00f1oz found her lying on the kitchen floor. \n \n When he was told at the hospital that his wife was brain-dead, he requested that life support be removed. He said he and his wife had discussed what to do in such a situation. \n \n The hospital declined, citing a Texas law that requires a pregnant woman to be kept on life support until the fetus is viable, usually at 24 to 26 weeks. \n \n Marlise Mu\u00f1oz\u0092s pregnancy is about to enter its 23rd week. \n \n Erick Mu\u00f1oz sued JPS. His attorneys argued that the hospital failed to recognize that Marlise Mu\u00f1oz was not a pregnant patient but a clinically dead person. \n \n The hospital acknowledged as much in court documents. \n \n Assistant District Attorney Larry Thompson said Texas legislators have demonstrated a commitment to protecting the unborn by including in laws that a human being is alive at every stage of gestation. \n \n The Legislature also passed the Woman\u0092s Right to Know Act, which says substantial medical evidence shows that an unborn child is capable of feeling pain by no later than 20 weeks after fertilization. \n \n Max Baker, 817-390-7714 Twitter: @MaxBBaker \n \n Looking for comments? ||||| DALLAS (AP) \u2014 A Texas hospital says it will follow a judge's order to remove life support from a pregnant, brain-dead woman. \n \n J.R. Labbe, a spokeswoman for John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, issued a statement Sunday that said the hospital \"will follow the court order\" issued Friday in the case of Marlise Munoz. \n \n Judge R.H. Wallace gave the Fort Worth hospital until Monday at 5 p.m. to comply with his ruling to remove Munoz from life support, which her husband Erick Munoz says she would have wanted. \n \n She was 14 weeks pregnant when her husband found her unconscious Nov. 26, possibly due to a blood clot. \n \n The hospital says in the statement that it saw its role as \"not to make nor contest law but to follow it.\"", "summary": "\u2013 The Texas hospital that has kept a brain-dead pregnant woman alive against her family's wishes has complied with Friday's court ruling to end life support for Marlise Munoz, lawyers for her family confirm. John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth said earlier today in a statement that its role is \"not to make nor contest law but to follow it,\" reports the AP. The hospital had until 5pm tomorrow to comply or file an appeal, notes the Star-Telegram. Munoz, who is 23 weeks pregnant with a \"distinctly abnormal\" fetus, has been hospitalized and on life support since before Thanksgiving."}
{"document": "(CNN) Panic over needles found in strawberries in Australia has provoked fury from politicians and fears for the country's multi-million dollar fruit industry. \n \n At least 100 reported cases of needles in fruit have been reported across the country, though many are thought to be \"hoaxes or copycat events,\" according to the government. \n \n Concern that local farmers will suffer as a result of the needle scare as consumers turn away from the popular fruit has prompted a viral, grassroots social media campaign urging Australians to #SmashAStrawb to support local growers. \n \n \"Smash\" is an Australianism which means to eat or drink something enthusiastically or quickly. \n \n \"Western Australians, get behind our local industry. Slice them in half and #SmashAStrawb to help out our local growers today,\" Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan said on his official Twitter. \n \n Western Australians, get behind our local industry. Slice them in half and #SmashAStrawb to help out our local growers today. \ud83c\udf53 pic.twitter.com/KMoHeTKPpJ \u2014 Mark McGowan (@MarkMcGowanMP) September 18, 2018 \n \n Following the needle controversy, the Australian government has announced tougher penalties for food tampering, increasing the maximum prison term from 10 to 15 years. \n \n By comparison , knowingly possessing child pornography and indecent assault both carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years in the state of Victoria, Australia's most densely populated state. \n \n \"It's not a joke, it's not funny, you're putting the livelihoods of hard-working Australians at risk and you're scaring children. You're a coward and you're a grub and if you do that sort of thing in this country we will come after you,\" Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday. \n \n Empty shelves, normally stocked with strawberry punnets, are seen at a Coles Supermarket in Brisbane on September 14. \n \n Metal detectors used on exports \n \n Sewing needles and pins have been found in strawberries in all six Australian states, in at least six different brands. There are also isolated cases of metal found in a banana, and a needle found in an apple. \n \n From Wednesday, all international exports of fresh strawberries will be scanned by metal detectors or x-ray machines , the Australian Department of Agriculture announced, as part of a range of measures to restore confidence. \n \n \"Visual inspection alone is not an acceptable measure,\" the statement said. \n \n Supermarkets across Australia removed large numbers of strawberries from their shelves in response to the scare but the effect has also been felt internationally. \n \n Australia exports strawberries to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE, among others. One big retailer in New Zealand has already withdrawn Australian strawberries from sale \n \n Some buyers in Russia and the UK have also blocked Australian imports, said Jennifer Rowlings from Queensland Strawberry, according to local media. \n \n #BREAKING \n \n EXCLUSIVE @7NewsSydney @7NewsBrisbane@NSWPolice is investigating the discovery of a needle inserted into an apple in Sydney's north-west. \n \n More to come. pic.twitter.com/fHDtrzX3Lu \u2014 Robert Ovadia \ud83d\udc40 (@RobertOvadia) September 18, 2018 \n \n Dozens of Australian politicians and social media users joined in the #SmashAStrawb, posting images of themselves eating strawberries, cutting them up or even providing their favorite strawberry-based recipes. \n \n Among the recipes flooding social media was a politician's secret family recipe for strawberry jam, a range of milkshakes and smoothies as well as many cakes and slices. \n \n \"Cut 'em up. Don't cut 'em out,\" a campaign by the Nationals political party said on their social media. \n \n Strict prison terms \n \n Despite the public support, representatives for the Australian strawberry industry told CNN they were concerned about the impact on the country's farmers. \n \n In Queensland alone, there are 150 different strawberry growers who produce up to 15,000 tonnes of the fruit a season. In total, the state's strawberry industry is estimated to be worth up to $160 million. \n \n Speaking to CNN, a representative from Strawberries Australia in New South Wales said the crisis was a \"catastrophe for Queensland farmers,\" who are producing the majority of the country's fruit. \n \n To warn off any further food tampering, Prime Minister Morrison announced on Wednesday the penalty for food tampering would be increased, while also promising additional funding for food inspectors. \n \n .@ScottMorrisonMP on strawberry tampering crisis: We will create a new offence that deals with the issue of recklessness. \n \n \n \n MORE: https://t.co/xJEP5oJ5yE #newsday pic.twitter.com/EXyeSrTvlr \u2014 Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) September 19, 2018 \n \n \"We'll put these deterrents in place but we need to encourage calm ... Just go back to buying strawberries like you used to and take precautions as you should,\" he said. \n \n Law enforcement has been quick to react to the health scare. According to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a team of 100 police in her state have been tasked with finding the culprits. \n \n In addition, both the West Australian and Queensland governments said it was offering a $100,000 reward for information which leads to the arrest of those contaminating strawberries. \n \n But it was Prime Minister Morrison who had practical advice for Australians across the country. \"Make a pavlova this weekend and put strawberries on it,\" Morrison said Wednesday. ||||| Australia plans to increase the maximum jail term to 15 years for anyone convicted of food tampering, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, as a scare over needles found in strawberries and other fruits gripped the country. \n \n Police are investigating more than 100 reports of needles found in fruit. Needles, first found in strawberries produced by one supplier in the northern state of Queensland, are now turning up around the country. \n \n On Tuesday, police in New South Wales said they were investigating incidents involving an apple and a banana. \n \n Nobody has sustained serious injury yet, and a senior Australian minister said many of the cases would turn out to be hoaxes. \n \n But with demand plunging, strawberry farmers have been forced to dump produce, casting a shadow over an industry worth A$160 million (\u00a3121 m). \n \n Responding to the scare, Morrison said his government would seek to increase the maximum jail term to 15 years from 10 years for anyone convicted of tampering with food. \n \n The government will also move to criminalise hoax claims before parliament rises for a two-week holiday on Thursday, Morrison said. \n \n \"It's not funny, putting the livelihoods of hard-working Australians at risk, and you are scaring children. And you are a coward and a grub,\" the prime minister told reporters in Canberra. \"If you do that sort of thing in this country we will come after you and we will throw the book at you.\" ||||| Western Australians, get behind our local industry. Slice them in half and # SmashAStrawb to help out our local growers today. pic.twitter.com/KMoHeTKPpJ ||||| \n \n Jackie Dunham, CTVNews.ca \n \n \n \n \n \n A young boy has been arrested in New South Wales, Australia after he admitted to inserting sewing needles in strawberries as police continue to investigate at least 20 other instances of food tampering across the state in a crisis that has rocked the country\u2019s agriculture sector. \n \n Last week, the first reports of needles hidden inside of strawberries emerged in New South Wales. According to the NSW Police Force, the contaminated fruit came from Queensland and affected three brands \u2013 \u201cBerry Obsession,\u201d \u201cBerry Licious,\u201d and \u201cDonnybrook\u201d \u2013 which were then distributed across the country. The brands have since been recalled by Queensland Health. \n \n There have been dozens of other reports of tampered fruit across Australia over the last week, but many of those are believed to be hoaxes. \n \n During a press briefing on Wednesday, NSW police Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith told reporters that the young boy said he put the needles in the berries as a \u201cprank.\u201d He said the boy would be \u201cdealt with under the youth cautioning system.\u201d \n \n The acting assistant commissioner said police still believe the other cases of needles found in strawberries are the work of copycats and pranksters. He said there is a AUD$100,000 (CAD$93,943) reward in New South Wales for information leading to the prosecution of any individual responsible for tampering a food source. \n \n On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced, during a press conference in Canberra, that his government would be introducing tougher penalties for those found guilty of deliberately contaminating food or producing hoaxes or fake posts online about tampered food. \n \n The prime minister is seeking to increase the maximum prison time from 10 to 15 years for food contamination offenders. Those who engage in hoaxes on the topic could face up to 10 years in prison. \n \n \u201cSome idiot for his reasons, or her reasons, has engaged in an act of sabotage it would seem,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t put up with it. The authorities are pursuing this matter with full vigour.\u201d \n \n Morrison encouraged shoppers to continue to support Australian farmers and purchase strawberries. He advised residents to cut into their fruit before biting into it as an extra precaution. \n \n NSW police said they have received reports of contamination of other types of fruit, including a banana and an apple, but they said they are being treated as isolated incidents. \n \n There have been no reports of any injuries connected to the reports of needles in fruit.", "summary": "\u2013 Australia's \"Smash a Strawberry\" campaign can be easily misinterpreted if one isn't up to date on Australian slang. Here, \"smash\" refers to devouring a strawberry, rather than turning it into mush. Some might prefer to do the latter, however, after at least 100 reported cases of needles found in fruit. While many cases are believed to be hoaxes or copycat events stemming from original cases in Queensland, sewing needles and pins have been found in strawberries from various brands in all six Australian states, while two other cases involve an apple and banana, reports CNN. Fearing the effects on the country's multimillion-dollar fruit industry as supermarkets pull strawberries from shelves\u2014one grower describes dumping $35,000 worth of fruit per day, per the Telegraph\u2014politicians are encouraging Australians to #SmashAStrawb in support. \"Get behind our local industry. Slice them in half and #SmashAStrawb to help out our local growers today,\" Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan tweeted Tuesday. Another politician published his family's secret strawberry jam recipe, per CNN. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday announced the maximum prison sentence for food tampering would be raised from 10 to 15 years. Though there are no reports of serious injuries, \"it's not a joke, it's not funny, you're putting the livelihoods of hard-working Australians at risk and you're scaring children,\" he said. As international strawberry exports undergo X-ray scans, three states are offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to culprits' convictions, per ABC Australia. CTV News reports there's been one arrest: a young boy in New South Wales, who cops say he admitted to placing needles in some of the cases as a \"prank.\""}
{"document": "In this undated photograph supplied by the Aurora, Colo., Police Department, David Puckett is shown. Aurora Police have been searching for the missing 6-year-old boy since New Year's Eve after the child... (Associated Press) \n \n In this undated photograph supplied by the Aurora, Colo., Police Department, David Puckett is shown. Aurora Police have been searching for the missing 6-year-old boy since New Year's Eve after the child wandered off from his home in the east Denver suburb. Searchers looked for the boy with the aid of... (Associated Press) \n \n In this undated photograph supplied by the Aurora, Colo., Police Department, David Puckett is shown. Aurora Police have been searching for the missing 6-year-old boy since New Year's Eve after the child wandered off from his home in the east Denver suburb. Searchers looked for the boy with the aid of... (Associated Press) In this undated photograph supplied by the Aurora, Colo., Police Department, David Puckett is shown. Aurora Police have been searching for the missing 6-year-old boy since New Year's Eve after the child... (Associated Press) \n \n AURORA, Colo. (AP) \u2014 Police are searching for a 6-year-old boy who is believed to have wandered away from his home in suburban Denver on New Year's Eve, authorities said. \n \n The FBI and other law enforcement agencies helped in the hunt for David Puckett on Monday, going door-to-door within 2.5 miles of his home in Aurora. Bloodhounds and a helicopter have also been used. \n \n An Amber Alert was issued and police said a $10,000 reward was offered. \n \n Aurora police appealed for help to find David as quickly as possible partly because of coming cold weather, with lows expected in the upper teens. \n \n \"The public can help by physically searching their homes, automobiles, and any structures on their property where a child may be able to hide,\" a police statement said. \n \n Authorities have said that foul play isn't suspected, but they said they have contacted registered sex offenders who live in the area and have searched nearby bodies of water. \n \n Monday evening, police disclosed that someone outside the family had seen the boy the day he went missing, but they didn't elaborate. \n \n The FBI told the Denver Post that the agency assigned 50 agents to the case, including one who is highly specialized in missing children searches. \n \n His mother on Sunday issued a tearful appeal for people to help find him and said he was only wearing a light jacket. \n \n Police said David has wandered off before. ||||| Police and FBI officers intensified their search Monday for a missing 6-year-old Aurora boy who police say wandered away from home on New Year\u2019s Eve as the temperature was expected to drop into the upper teens. \n \n The Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued an Amber alert Monday for David Puckett because of the cold weather and the amount of time the boy has been missing, Aurora police spokesman Crystal McCoy said. \n \n As night fell Monday, police held a news briefing as FBI agents again canvassed the neighborhood where the boy lived with his family, which includes three juvenile siblings. Authorities planned to continue their search well into the night, McCoy said. \n \n David disappeared from his home in the 15700 block of Amherst Avenue around 5:30 p.m. New Year\u2019s Eve. Some family members were home, McCoy said. She did not disclose who was there. \n \n Police also said someone outside the family had seen the boy the day he went missing, but McCoy did not elaborate on who that was or where or when the sighting was made. \n \n The family searched for David for an hour before calling Aurora police. And the Jefferson County Sheriff\u2019s Office had its bloodhound on the trail within an hour of Aurora police receiving the call, McCoy said. \n \n There has been no indication that police have found any sign of David since the search began. \n \n Although police said they have no indication of foul play, officials emphasized the investigation was ongoing, McCoy said. The FBI joined the investigation because of the increased resources the bureau can provide. \n \n The FBI has assigned 50 agents to the case, including one who is highly specialized in missing children searches, said Deborah Sherman, an FBI spokeswoman. The FBI has set up a command post although Aurora police remains the lead agency in the search. \n \n More than 100 officers joined the searched on Monday, including the Arapahoe County water rescue team and officers from area police and sheriffs departments. \n \n Police have contacted registered sex offenders who live in the area and have searched nearby bodies of water looking for any signs of cracked ice, McCoy said. Police and FBI agents canvassed neighborhoods and set up checkpoints to notify motorists of the search. \n \n David\u2019s family has cooperated with police, who have searched the family home multiple times, McCoy said. \n \n On Monday evening, the CBI issued a statement about the decision to issue an Amber Alert three days after the boy was first reported missing. \n \n While the circumstances surrounding David\u2019s disappearance have not changed, the bureau decided to activate the alert out of an abundance of caution. \n \n The alert is one tool that can be used to disseminate information that already has been released about the boy and his disappearance, the CBI statement said. The statement praised Aurora police, saying that department \u201chas been exceptional\u201d in using the media and social media to relay information about the search. \n \n Aurora police have said they consulted with the CBI about a possible Amber Alert since the child first was reported missing. However, David\u2019s disappearance had not met the criteria for Amber Alert notifications. \n \n The CBI will continue to communicate with Aurora police and provide resources as needed, the statement said. \n \n Earlier Monday, volunteers were called to join the search, which has been confined to a 2.5-mile area. By mid-afternoon, police had asked volunteers to stop looking for Puckett because their efforts could disrupt the work of the bloodhounds who were on the trail again. \n \n \u201cWe are continuing to do thorough searches of the neighborhood,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cWe will notify people once again when we\u2019re ready for the community to start searching.\u201d \n \n Authorities were also looking for residential and commercial video to aid in their investigation, McCoy said. She asked anyone who finds any evidence that they think could be related to David\u2019s disappearance to call police rather than pick items up or post images of them on social media. \n \n Police were growing more concerned Monday night as the search extended beyond 48 hours and with temperatures headed toward the teens. The boy was not appropriately dressed to be out all night in freezing temperatures. \n \n David attends Dartmouth Elementary, where he wandered away once before. Previous reports that the boy had wandered away from home more than once do not appear to be true. McCoy said Aurora Public Schools were making mental health professionals available to staff and students. \n \n \u201cAt this time we believed he wandered off,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cWe have one documented instance where he wandered off from school.\u201d \n \n Aurora police Chief Nick Metz said on Sunday there was no evidence of a kidnapping. \n \n \u201cThat could change as the investigation moves forward,\u201d Metz said. \n \n David is about 4 feet tall and weighs 48 pounds. He has light brown hair and blue-green eyes. He was last seen wearing green camouflage pants, a black T-shirt, orange boots and a tan girl\u2019s coat, according to police. \n \n The boy\u2019s mother made a tearful plea Sunday for the public\u2019s help, emphasizing that the coat was not very thick. \n \n \u201cIf you guys can, please help me find him. If you see him, please call the police immediately. If, by chance, you picked him up last night because you thought it would be best please bring my baby home,\u201d she said. \n \n Aurora police are asking those with information to call any of their tip lines: 303-739-1865, 303-739-1868 or 303-739-1870.", "summary": "\u2013 Authorities are combing a Denver suburb for a 6-year-old boy who wandered away from his home on New Year's Eve and has now been missing for more than 60 hours. David Puckett\u20144 feet tall with light brown hair and blue-green eyes\u2014left his Aurora home around 5:30pm Saturday wearing only a light jacket, per the AP. Police say David wandered away from school once before and foul play isn't suspected, but an Amber Alert was issued Monday to allow officers to share details of the case as impending cold weather is a concern. Search dogs, a helicopter, 100 officers, and 50 FBI agents have been searching within a 2.5-mile radius of the family home, reports the Denver Post. A $10,000 reward has been offered for David's safe return, reports KKTV."}
{"document": "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. ||||| \n \n Leechburg Police Chief Michael Diebold, left, tries out his new prosthetic on Sept. 6, 2017, as certified prosthetists Peter Leimkuehler and Bob Dobson III look on. Diebold has since been accused of soliciting sex from a teenage girl online. (Andrew Russell/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via AP) \n \n Just six months ago, after Michael Diebold lost his left hand and part of his arm in a fireworks accident, he became a local celebrity. \n \n The police chief of the small Pennsylvania town of Leechburg drew sympathy from community members, some of whom raised funds to help with Diebold\u2019s medical expenses. A church hosted a fundraising dinner, while others sold T-shirts that said: \u201cWe Stand By Ours. #teamdiebold1565.\u201d \n \n Just 18 days after the accident, Diebold got married and about 200 people attended the ceremony. He smiled at his bride, who was dressed in an off-the-shoulder white dress, as she placed a wedding band on his right ring finger, and attendees raised their phones to catch the moment. \n \n Diebold made the news again recently. This time, he wasn\u2019t smiling \u2014 and it\u2019s unlikely that anyone in the town of 2,000 was. \n \n The 40-year-old has been accused of soliciting sex from a teenage girl online. He was arrested Friday on felony charges, including unlawful contact with a minor and criminal attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. Both are first-degree felonies. \n \n [Ex-mayor charged in 4-year-old\u2019s rape said girl was a willing participant, records say] \n \n \n \n Michael Diebold. (Westmoreland County Prison) \n \n \u201cThis case is particularly heinous because the perpetrator is a public official, sworn to serve and protect the community,\u201d state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement. \u201cWe have a zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of children and my office will prosecute any offender to the fullest extent of the law, no matter who they are.\u201d \n \n The arrest followed an investigation that involved an undercover officer who posed as a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. The investigation began after Diebold, using the username KuteCop4You, posted an ad on a social-media app, CBS affiliate KDKA reported, citing the criminal complaint. Authorities said he and the undercover agent talked multiple times, with Diebold sending inappropriate photos and asking to meet for sex. \n \n Diebold was arrested after he showed up at the meeting location. He then admitted that he\u2019d been posting personal ads online for several years and acknowledged talking about sex with the purported 14-year-old, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, citing the complaint. \n \n \u201cDiebold admitted that he knew that sexual contact with a 14-year-[old] child was wrong and illegal and that his life was totally over,\u201d the complaint said. \n \n Leechburg Mayor Wayne Dobos said the allegations shocked many in the town, including him, who did not know that Diebold may have had a secret life. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve had enough notoriety in town, and something like this, we didn\u2019t need at all,\u201d Dobos told The Washington Post. \n \n [Former Oklahoma state senator admits to child sex trafficking while in office] \n \n Media coverage around Diebold began in June, when he was handling fireworks during an event, and one piece misfired and exploded on him, his mother, Karen Diebold, told the Post-Gazette. Diebold, who is also a fireworks business owner, lost nearly his entire left arm. \n \n Controversy followed as Diebold tried to get back on duty months later. He told KDKA in December that he was ready to return to work. Doctors had cleared him and the state had recertified his firearms license, but town officials told him that he couldn\u2019t go back just yet and placed him on paid leave. Diebold threatened to sue. \n \n Dobos said the Leechburg Borough Council wanted Diebold back at the police department, which employs only three full-time officers, including the chief, and several part-time employees. But he said Diebold needed to first take a physical test to ensure he\u2019s able to perform his duties. Lawyers representing Diebold and the town were finalizing what those tests would be when he was arrested, Dobos said. \n \n Diebold, who\u2019s in the Westmoreland County Jail on a $500,000 bond, is scheduled for a hearing on Jan. 16. Online court records show that he did not ask for a public defender but do not list an attorney for him. \n \n Town officials have not figured out who will fill Diebold\u2019s job. Dobos said the other two full-time officers have been sharing Diebold\u2019s duties over the past months. \n \n \u201cThis is a very, very rare instance,\u201d Dobos said. \u201cWe got to play everything by ear.\u201d \n \n Read more: \n \n A 4-year-old found beaten and abused said she thought her name was \u2018Idiot,\u2019 according to police \n \n This mayor denied accusations he solicited sex from a 14-year-old girl. Then, he resigned. \n \n Teacher accused of having sexual relations with student who allegedly tried to kill himself ||||| Before long, that officer got a response from a purported 14-year-old girl. And the age didn't dissuade him, authorities said. \n \n \"... everyone has to have a first time,\" the officer responded, according to a criminal complaint. \"... you will just have to get me naked tomorrow.\" \n \n But the officer sending those crude messages wasn't just any cop -- he was Michael William Diebold, the police chief of Leechburg, Pennsylvania, investigators say. \n \n And that 14-year-old girl wasn't really an eighth-grader. It was a special agent for the state attorney general's Bureau of Criminal Investigations. \n \n When Diebold tried to meet the (fictional) girl on Friday, he was instead met by fellow law enforcement officers. The 40-year-old police chief was arrested and faces several charges , including unlawful contact with a minor related to sexual offenses. \n \n Bail was set at $500,000. Diebold remained in custody Sunday at Westmoreland County Prison in Pennsylvania. \n \n It was not immediately clear whether Diebold has an attorney. \n \n The Leechburg Police Department did not respond to a message Sunday asking about Diebold's employment status. But the police department's website Sunday still showed Diebold leading a police force of three full-time officers, including himself. \n \n 'This case is particularly heinous' \n \n Before his arrest, the police chief was somewhat of a local celebrity. After losing his arm in a fireworks accident last year, Diebold married his fiancee in a ceremony featured on TV, CNN affiliate WTAE reported. \n \n But the following year, Diebold was online soliciting sexual acts, according to the criminal complaint against him. \n \n \"I am a dom male that is also employed as a full time police officer. I hope that does not scare you off,\" Diebold posted, according to the complaint. \n \n \"I am looking for a female sub for ongoing play sessions. I do not have a set type of woman so any age, race or status may email me. I respect any and all limits and you do not need to be experienced.\" \n \n Daniel Block, the special agent posing online as the 14-year-old girl, repeatedly stated the age, Block wrote in an affidavit. But he said Diebold's advances continued. \n \n \"... what are you wearing right now, proof that you are serious would be a bra and panty pic right now,\" the police chief wrote, according to Block's affidavit. \n \n On December 29, Diebold allegedly sent several images to the undercover officer, including photos of an erect penis in various stages of undress. \n \n After Diebold asked to meet the girl in person -- and was subsequently arrested -- \"Diebold admitted to being the individual who was communicating with the purported child during all the communications,\" the affidavit states. \n \n \"Diebold admitted that he knew that sexual contact with a 14-year-old child was wrong and illegal and that his life was totally over.\" \n \n Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the police chief's case shows his office \"will prosecute any offender to the fullest extent of the law, no matter who they are.\" \n \n \"This case is particularly heinous because the perpetrator is a public official, sworn to serve and protect the community,\" Shapiro said in a statement. \"Thanks to the hard work of the agents and prosecutors in our Child Predator Section, one more predator is off our streets.\" \n \n Wife left 'broken, blindsided' \n \n Danielle Reinke Diebold, Diebold's wife, told CNN affiliate KDKA Sunday that she has never hurt so much and felt that God had given her more than she could handle. \n \n Her life and children's lives had been completely shattered, she said in a statement. \n \n \"I am broken, devastated, humiliated, and I was completely blindsided. He was the first man ever in my life who never made me question, never gave me a gut feeling, never a bad instinct or sign and we were even in the process of planning to extend our family. \n \n \"This is not who we knew. We knew a loving, caring father and husband and we are grieving the loss of that man,\" she said. \"I will never find the right words to say but I want to say I am truly so sorry to everyone out there including any minor that may have been involved, our community, family and friends.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Leechburg Police Chief Michael Diebold had part of his arm blown off in a fireworks accident in 2017\u2014but his 2018 is likely to be a lot worse. The Pennsylvania chief was arrested Friday in an undercover sex sting when he went to meet what he apparently thought was a 14-year-old girl he'd been communicating with online, using the handle KuteCop4You, CNN reports. The 40-year-old, who allegedly sent pictures of his erect penis to the undercover officer posing as the girl while trying to arrange a sexual encounter, faces felony charges including \"criminal attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse,\" reports the Washington Post. In an affidavit, the undercover officer says the chief admitted \"he knew that sexual contact with a 14-year-old child was wrong and illegal and that his life was totally over.\" Diebold\u2014who lost his left hand and part of his left forearm in an accident while lighting fireworks for the Leechburg Volunteer Fire Company's annual carnival last June\u2014had a prosthetic arm fitted a few months ago and had planned to return to his duties in early December, but he was placed on leave amid disagreements over his fitness, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The chief, who got married just 18 days after the accident and has a baby son, is being held on $500,000 bond. \"This case is particularly heinous because the perpetrator is a public official, sworn to serve and protect the community,\" Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement, citing his office's \"zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of children.\""}
{"document": "With Netflix streaming its way out of original content obscurity via popular shows like \"Orange is the New Black\" and \"House of Cards,\" the Internet is making a serious play at competing with traditional TV to create shows of its own that attract eyeballs on a level with cable and network channels. \n \n That's why it was so astonishing to watch the mess that was the inaugural YouTube Music Awards, as homegrown YouTube sensations like the compelling and bizarre Tay Zonday shared screen time with international superstars like Lady Gaga and Arcade Fire. \n \n It was also more than a bit puzzling when Eminem took the award for Artist of the Year. The decision was a purely democratic one \u2014 with 60 million YouTube viewers casting their votes to decide the winners, but still. \n \n PHOTOS: YouTube Music Awards 2013 | Arrivals \n \n YouTube is famous largely thanks to its rich landscape of unknown creators who post videos of themselves singing Eminem songs or put their own oddball visions up onscreen and cross their fingers that they'll be discovered. \n \n Thus Eminem's victory felt somewhat hollow. He had performed on \"SNL\" the night before, after all. He is hardly a YouTube sensation in the traditional sense. He's more of an MTV kind of guy. Shouldn't YouTube try harder to honor its own? \n \n As one Times reader wrote in the comment section of a previous post on the show, \"This awards show was a slap on the face to all the talented musicians on Youtube...\" The same reader, JB Clem, posted a YouTube video crying foul. \n \n On the set: movies and TV \n \n \"It's going to be like the lamestream music awards,\" said Clem in the clip. \"Thousands and thousands of original YouTube talent is not getting recognized.\" \n \n As an example Clem pointed out that Yvlis' song \"the Fox\" was not nominated for YouTube phenomenon. With more than 190 million views on YouTube that song alone has eclipsed Eminem's audio-only video for \"Rap God\" by more than 80 million views. \n \n In the end, the YTMA was a meta spectacle if there ever was one. And for all of its unscripted pitfalls there was still the sense that new doors were opening \u2014 that this was just the beginning, and that if YouTube can't get it right, someone somewhere on the Internet will. \n \n ALSO: \n \n Watch the inaugural YouTube Music Awards here \n \n George Romero dismisses 'The Walking Dead' as 'soap opera' \n \n YouTube Music Awards: Unscripted babies cry, and so does Lady Gaga ||||| But YouTube is owned by Google, and Google has a market capitalization of about $340 billion, which means that this was a counter-professional production put on by complete pros. In charge was Spike Jonze, who served as the event\u2019s creative director and directed some of the segments. The preshow emphasized the spit-and-glue-ness of it all. \u201cThe whole spirit of this thing is to be in over your head,\u201d said Mr. Schwartzman, who a few minutes into the live broadcast reassured viewers, \u201cI\u2019ve never hosted anything in my life.\u201d \n \n What a relief that turned out to be. Flat, scripted banter was replaced by flat, unscripted banter. He and Mr. Watts were frisky and mumbling, not plastic. Their bafflement and meandering were genuine, and often appealing. \n \n Photo \n \n Somewhere in this miasma, there were awards (voted on by fans). Getting little red bricks with a \u201cplay\u201d arrow on them were: Eminem for artist of the year; the K-pop phalanx Girls\u2019 Generation for video of the year for \u201cI Got a Boy\u201d; Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for YouTube breakthrough; Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d for YouTube phenomenon, whose award was accepted by Cimorelli, a group of sisters whose YouTube covers have been extremely popular. Their speech was interrupted by Win Butler of Arcade Fire, Kanye West-style, to insist that the real winner should have been Baauer\u2019s \u201cHarlem Shake,\u201d which was true, so much as anything hewed to logic. \n \n The easiest-to-consume performances were from the most established and least experimental artists, Lady Gaga and Eminem, both of whom were taut and focused. There was an implied tension between the need for bankable names like these \u2014 all of whom conveniently have new albums to promote, and who likely hitched their wagon to whichever awards show was available \u2014 and YouTube\u2019s implicit mission of supporting bootstrapping self-made-creator curios like the New Age-meets-dubstep violinist Lindsey Stirling (who won the award for response of the year for a collaboration with Pentatonix). Both types excel in the form, but they have next to nothing in common. \n \n Directors \u2014 Fafi, Chris Milk, Mr. Jonze and more \u2014 were given almost equal billing to the stars they were working with. The medley part of the show \u2014 say, akin to what Billy Crystal does at the Oscars, or Neil Patrick Harris does on awards shows and possibly on street corners \u2014 was left to a YouTube-friendly comedy band, CDZA, with cameos from Tay Zonday, of \u201cChocolate Rain\u201d fame, punching up and looking great, and T-Pain, of regular fame, punching down and looking lost. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n In keeping with the show\u2019s ragged spontaneity, it was at times troubled by technical glitches. About midway through, the live stream froze repeatedly, making parts of the presentation unviewable (including, frustratingly, the performance in a cramped pink room by Tyler, the Creator with Earl Sweatshirt, which looked like a riot, at least in the two-second snippets that eked through). What\u2019s more, every time the stream had to be restarted, it was preceded by a 30-second Kia ad starring those damned driving hamsters. I watched it about eight times. \n \n Unlike regular videos on YouTube, neither the stream of the awards show nor the preshow would play on my smart TV, even though it comes equipped with a YouTube app. (According to a Google spokeswoman, YouTube live streaming is only compatible with Google TV or Chromecast.) \n \n But Mr. Jonze didn\u2019t control the wires and pipes, only what was shot through them. He used the event as an excuse to line the coffers of the indie mafia \u2014 Lena Dunham wrote a goofy choose-your-own-adventure script synced to an Avicii song, Greta Gerwig herked and jerked her way through her \u201cFrances Ha\u201d dances as Arcade Fire performed, and Rashida Jones dropped babies off with the hosts, then disappeared. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n Whether it was worth everyone\u2019s time \u2014 well, that\u2019s still to be determined. There is at least one measurement that\u2019s native to this show: the ruthless people counter at the bottom of the screen throughout the night. \u201c204,512 watching now,\u201d it read during the moment when Ms. Stirling and Pentatonix won their award. By the time Eminem closed the show with a blistering performance of \u201cRap God,\u201d the number, which shot up and down all night, was 177,903. He could have announced a Ustream session on his Twitter 15 minutes earlier and attracted more people. \n \n From one angle, at least, the lack of structure was an asset. This was perhaps the only awards show in history to run short, ending before the advertised time even with several minutes of filler stuffed in like so much Styrofoam before Eminem\u2019s closing performance. \n \n And so someone at the Google mother ship will likely be poring over charts and spreadsheets that assess dollars spent per viewer minutes of engagement. It clearly cost a lot of money to look this disheveled. But like any number of artists with a webcam, a dream and a bit of hubris, YouTube was entitled to screw up in full view of everyone. And after this bizarre but comforting experiment, it\u2019s earned the right to try again next year. ||||| The inaugural YouTube Music Awards kicked off Sunday night with a live music video of the song \u201cAfterlife\u201d by Arcade Fire directed by Spike Jonze and starring Greta Gerwig. \n \n Gerwig danced with the same awkward Turrets style that was so endearing in \"Francis Hah.\" She grooved through a fake kitchen and into some fake snowy woods. She danced right up to Arcade Fire, which was performing on a stage at Pier 36 in New York City where the show was being shot. A bunch of kids joined her. A little more than 155,000 viewers watched the stream. The future looked promising for the brand new awards show. \n \n And then everything went downhill. \n \n PHOTOS: YouTube Music Awards 2013 | Arrivals \n \n In the days leading to the show, much had been made of webcast director Jonze\u2019s promise that the show would be unscripted and very much off the cuff. This could be good or bad, speculated the many interested parties. \n \n Scripts, it turns out, were invented for a reason. \n \n YouTube thrives on unscripted moments. Toddlers bursting into hysterical giggles, cats flushing the toilet, moms being caught unaware singing badly on the beach. But on the creative / musical side of things, quite a bit of care and planning goes into most YouTube videos that go viral. \n \n That\u2019s to say, they\u2019re scripted for the most part. From Autotune the News, to Tay Zonday\u2019s song \"Chocolate Rain\" to Andy Samberg and T-Pain\u2019s \"SNL\" \u201cI\u2019m on a boat\u201d video, and more, the stuff we love to watch on YouTube was made with a ton of premeditation. \n \n That\u2019s not to say that lots of thought wasn\u2019t put into the YTMA, just that the chaos of the Internet, if unchanneled, is just that: chaos. That much was painfully clear as the show careened off the rails in the form of two small babies handed by Rashida Jones to hosts Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts. \n \n On the set: movies and TV \n \n As the men handed out the first award for the night \u2014 for YouTube Breakout to Maklemore & Ryan Lewis \u2014 the babies began to bawl in psychic communion with viewers chiming in on Twitter with concern that the lunatics had finally taken over the asylum. \n \n Then came a deeply strange and out-of-tune performance by a barefoot Lady Gaga dressed in a black ball cap and a checked shirt buttoned to the top. \n \n She was crying too. Tears streamed silently down her face as she wailed, and viewers streamed silently out of the show. During the three minutes or so that Gaga was on screen more than 4,000 viewers exited and continued to do so as microphones cut in and out, cakes were mashed to uncover awards, and Tyler the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt were bleeped out for most of their unintelligible performance. \n \n By the time the webcast was almost an hour in viewership had dropped from its peak of about 215,000 to a median of about 180,000. This for an event that 60 million people apparently voted for. \n \n YouTube may break viral videos, but unless it tries harder next time it may not be able to break itself. \n \n ALSO: \n \n George Romero dismisses 'The Walking Dead' as 'soap opera' \n \n Scandal's Kerry Washington: Is she a sellout for hosting 'SNL'? \n \n Sacha Baron Cohen: 'Borat,' 'Ali G' star make sexy time in FX deal ||||| The first-ever YouTube Music Awards have wrapped. All of the night\u2019s trophies have been handed out, and all of Spike Jonze\u2019s \u201clive music videos\u201d have been, um, video\u2019d. Eminem was made Artist of the Year, just days before the release of his eighth album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were crowned 2013\u2019s YouTube Breakthrough on behalf of their world-conquering \u201cThrift Shop.\u201d And K-Pop collective Girls\u2019 Generation took home Video of the Year for their \u201cI Got a Boy\u201d visual. \n \n Okay, but how was the show? Were we to boil it down to a handy quotable \u2014 and yes, let\u2019s \u2014 we\u2019d probably say something like, \u201cA charming mess.\u201d Co-hosts Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts operated without a script, in a gigantic warehouse without hidden corridors, full of fans and industry people and the artists themselves. In the way that YouTube lets everyone in on the fun, from creation to comments, this ceremony was \u2026 blurry. Schwartzman aptly called it, \u201cA festival of excitement.\u201d \n \n Exciting things are rarely tidy, and after it was clear that we weren\u2019t watching the Grammys, the imperfections and the unpredictable became reasons to keep watching. Schwartzman\u2019s voice cracking, Watts\u2019 hammy improvisations, and that part where they could\u2019t figure out how to pronounce the word cake \u2014 Reggie: \u201cIs that pronounced \u2018cake\u2019 or \u2018cock\u2019?\u201d Jason: \u201cKike?\u201d Us: [facepalm] \u2014 but really, some sort of award should\u2019ve gone to Win Butler for playing court jester, and pulling a \u201cWinye\u201d on \u201cnot Taylor Swift.\u201d \n \n Speaking of, Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d earned the YouTube Phenomenon distinction, but alas, the Red singer didn\u2019t show up to collect her award. Innovation of the Year went to DeStorm\u2019s \u201cSee Me Standing\u201d video, which beat out clips by Atoms for Peace, Bat for Lashes, and Toro y Moi. The Response of the Year honor \u2014 recognizing the best responses, remixes, and parodies uploaded to YouTube \u2014 was given to Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix for their take on Imagine Dragons\u2019 \u201cRadioactive.\u201d \n \n Which brings us to those much ballyhooed \u201clive music videos.\u201d Stirling was the focus of one of the most endearing works of the night, as she performed her violin-meets-dubstep hit \u201cCrystallize\u201d while wearing a makeshift jetpack. With a little of creative director Jonze\u2019s camera magic (although Michel Gondry\u2019s might have dazzled a little better), she was seen flying through a cityscape, soloing on her fiddle while mighty wubs fell like rain. And then there was Michael Shannon playing a douchebaggy version of EDM star Avicii. \n \n Those highlights were among a handful taken from the individual performances (Tyler, the Creator, Lady Gaga, M.I.A.) that we\u2019ll share individually as they inevitably emerge as stand-alone clips. The 90-minute ceremony took place at New York City\u2019s Pier 36 and was live-streamed via YouTube. It\u2019s currently playing on loop. Watch the entire webcast right here at SPIN, and scroll down for a full list of the categories. And their winners. Follow @SPINMagazine on Twitter for on-the-scene reporting as the event winds down. \n \n Also, did Rashida Jones get her babies back? \n \n Video of the Year: \n \n Epic Rap Battles of History \u2013 \u201cBarack Obama vs Mitt Romney\u201d \n \n Demi Lovato \u2013 \u201cHeart Attack\u201d \n \n Girls\u2019 Generation \u00ad- \u201cI Got a Boy\u201d (winner) \n \n Justin Bieber (feat. Nicki Minaj) \u2013 \u201cBeauty and a Beat\u201d \n \n Lady Gaga \u00ad- \u201cApplause\u201d \n \n Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (feat. Mary Lambert) \u2013 \u201cSame Love\u201d \n \n Miley Cyrus \u00ad \u2013 \u201cWe Can\u2019t Stop\u201d \n \n One Direction \u00ad- \u201cBest Song Ever\u201d \n \n PSY \u00ad- \u201cGentleman\u201d \n \n Selena Gomez \u00ad- \u201cCome & Get It\u201d \n \n Artist of the Year: \n \n Eminem (winner) \n \n Epic Rap Battles \n \n Justin Bieber \n \n Katy Perry \n \n Macklemore & Ryan Lewis \n \n Nicki Minaj \n \n One Direction \n \n PSY \n \n Rihanna \n \n Taylor Swift \n \n Response of the Year: \n \n Boyce Avenue (feat. Fifth Harmony) \u00ad- \u201cMirrors \n \n Jayesslee \u00ad- \u201cGangnam Style\u201d \n \n Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix \u00ad- \u201cRadioactive\u201d (winner) \n \n ThePianoGuys \u00ad- \u201cTitanium / Pavane\u201d \n \n Walk Off the Earth (feat. KRNFX) \u2013 \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d \n \n YouTube Phenomenon: \n \n \u201cDiamonds\u201d \n \n \u201cGangnam Style\u201d \n \n \u201cHarlem Shake\u201d \n \n \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d (winner) \n \n \u201cThrift Shop\u201d \n \n YouTube Breakthrough: \n \n Kendrick Lamar \n \n Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (winner) \n \n Naughty Boy \n \n Passenger \n \n Rudimental \n \n Innovation of the Year: \n \n Anamanaguchi \u00ad- \u201cENDLESS FANTASY\u201d \n \n Atoms for Peace \u00ad- \u201cIngenue\u201d \n \n Bat for Lashes \u00ad- \u201cLilies\u201d \n \n DeStorm \u00ad- \u201cSee Me Standing\u201d (winner) \n \n Toro y Moi \u2013 \u201cSay That\u201d ||||| CLOSE BackStage host Carly Mallenbaum talks with reporter Hilary Hughes about the unpredictable and chaotic show that was streamed online and hosted by Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts. \n \n Internet stars mingle with industry heavyweights at the inaugural New York show. \n \n Lady Gaga performs onstage at the YouTube Music Awards. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz FilmMagic for YouTube) Story Highlights Eminem took artist of the year, while Girls' Generation's 'I Got a Boy' won video \n \n Winners were determined entirely by fan vote \n \n The show streamed globally Sunday evening on the video-sharing site \n \n NEW YORK \u2014 Internet superstars stepped out from behind the computer screen and onto the stage at Pier 36 Sunday night to make history at the first YouTube Music Awards. \n \n Hosted by Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts and featuring live performances by Lady Gaga, Eminem and other pop and rock greats, YouTube set quite a challenge for itself in the show's first year: The event was live-streamed the world over, and the awards were entirely dependent on the participation of viewers. Unfortunately, it got distracted by its own gimmick, and the chaos overwhelmed the otherwise inspired performances and subsequent dance parties. \n \n Unlike the Grammys or the MTV Video Music Awards, winners were voted on entirely by fans, with One Direction, Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj among the nominees. With director Spike Jonze at the creative helm of the ceremony, the YouTube Music Awards promised \u2014 and delivered \u2014 a volley of strange surprises, including the creation and broadcast of music videos with notable talents as the show unfolded. This wasn't your typical red-carpet affair with a few songs and dances thrown in between acceptance speeches, but a frenzied, disorganized (albeit spontaneous and fun) event that broke down boundaries between YouTube stars and their fans. The YouTube Music Awards sought to redefine expectations for a celebration of popular music, and instead fell short of revolutionizing them. \n \n Confusion reigns: The general vibe is a confused one. Upon entering the main room at the awards, a handful of stages greet you, and many showgoers choose to sit down on the ground in front of these setups. A staffer walking around backstage mentions that Schwartzman has a different \"set of directions\" than everyone else, and that no one has any idea how the show will go \u2014 the idea is to be unscripted and spontaneous from start to finish. \n \n Schwartzman and Jonze come out into the audience to greet the crowd, and the message is simple: The audience is going to fully participate in the show. \n \n WINNERS LIST: Who took home YouTube honors? \n \n \"I want you to know that not only are you watching the show, you're going to be a part of the videos,\" says Schwartzman. \"If you feel like you're in the video, don't watch the show around you, watch the performance!\" \n \n Call-and-response: Arcade Fire hits the ground running with this emphasis on audience participation, walking the crowd through a call-and-response. Frontman Win Butler seems to be all about it: \"If you tried this at the VMAs, you'd be (screwed)!\" \n \n So much for the fourth wall: Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha) makes the first non-performer cameo of the night as the star of the \"video\" being filmed for Arcade Fire's live performance of Afterlife. Dancing her way through an apartment hallway into a grove of snowy trees, Gerwig is joined by Butler before taking off into the audience flanked by a group of tiny dancers, effectively shattering the fourth wall. This theme of breaking down expectations for music videos and awards shows is effective, so far, and one the audience embraces. \n \n Unscripted: After A Brief History of Music, featuring Walk Off the Earth, brings us through Beyonc\u00e9's Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) and Psy's Gangnam Style, Rashida Jones hands off two babies to our bewildered hosts. Yes, babies. They announce the first award of the night, the YouTube breakthrough award, which goes to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. (The trophy is a red-and-white click icon.) \"We spent about $5,000 on this music video and just had fun making this with our friends ...\" says Macklemore, before laughing at the screaming tots in Schwartzman's and Watts' arms. \"I can't believe we won these kids!\" \n \n Rickrolling: CDZA, the band behind YouTube's History of Music, thoroughly enjoyed the task of covering some of the more popular songs that exploded via the social network. \"T-Pain was supposed to lead into a big reveal, and Rick Astley was supposed to Rickroll the world, but that didn't happen ... He said he was never gonna give us up, but he did!\" \n \n Lindsey Stirling performs at the YouTube Music Awards. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz FilmMagic for YouTube) \n \n Let them eat cake: The winner of the response of the year award is in the ... cake? Our hosts are faced with the task of demolishing five cakes in order to find the category's pick. \"This feels like Nickelodeon!\" Watts cries before Schwartzman pulls the envelope from the crumbs. Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix's cover of Imagine Dragons' Radioactive are the big, sugary winners here, and the hosts have to keep from getting frosting on the victor during her acceptance speech. \n \n No boundaries: Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler the Creator take to a frenzied crowd in a tight space for Sasquatch, and though the thrashing, crowd-surfing crew seems into it, it's difficult not to cringe \u2014 if there really are no scripts or boundaries, who's to say an audience member won't get kicked in the teeth in the name of innovation? \n \n A weighty win: DeStorm's See Me Standing is the voters' pick for the innovation of the year award, which DeStorm calls \"the dopest paperweight ever\" before passionately thanking the platform and his fans. \n \n Backstage, DeStorm is elated. \"I've been doing videos for like ever. This one means a lot to me. To be one of the winners at the first awards, it just felt good to be a nominee. ... It was actually a surprise for me!\" \n \n Who's a fellow YouTuber that DeStorm finds innovative? Fellow winners Lindsey Sterling and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. \"I want to work with people who can take my craft to another level,\" he says. \n \n Michael Shannon, left, and Vanessa Hudgens perform in a live music video at the YouTube Music Awards. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz FilmMagic for YouTube) \n \n You know this will end badly: The next live-music video experiment brings high Hollywood wattage to the stage \u2014 or DJ booth \u2014 for Avicii. Michael Shannon and Vanessa Hudgens star as a DJ and a girl who's ditching her ex-boyfriend for the booth, and a high-strung concert-goer puts her in a headlock before Wake Me Up revs up in the background. \n \n Puzzling it out: \"It was very nerve-wracking just because there were so many things that had to be right from so many people, like a giant jigsaw puzzle,\" Stirling says backstage after her video experiment. \"In between my takes, I had to run from one side of the stage to the other while playing.\" \n \n For Sterling, the YouTube win is huge, as she credits the network for being the first place to accept her as an artist. \"I'm an artist that was fully born through YouTube,\" she says. \"That was the only platform that gave me the chance to make art that I loved. ... It was the only place that accepted what I did.\" \n \n It happens: Hudgens reveals that the Avicii video/short film didn't go according to plan. Apparently, they missed a sound cue and were left hanging for a second, but Hudgens rolled with it. \"I love that about doing something live! It's live, (expletive) happens!\" she says with a laugh. \n \n \"Trying to get everyone on the same page at the same moment, it's tough,\" she says of the quirks of a live show. \"I survived! As I got up, I realized my earring fell off, and I was like, 'Classic chick-fight move!' \" \n \n And what did Hudgens think of Lady Gaga's performance? \"It was very un-Lady Gaga! She's really raw and emotional and breathtaking.\" \n \n Girls' Generation's Tiffany on the group's video-of-the-year win: \"Being part of the nominees was an award in itself, but to win, speechless.\" \n \n Girls' Generation beat out Lady Gaga, among others, for the title of the night, which was clearly a shock to the young singer. \"It's surreal \u2014 she was sitting right in front of me. It's all thanks to the fans. I personally loved her video!\" \n \n So what'd you think?: How does Watts feel about the broadcast? Great, though a couple of moments were hair-raising. \"It was hard to be reluctant to a degree, because things just happened, but ... I didn't want to break a baby!\" he says of his least predictable moment. \"When Rashida Jones hands you babies, you take them. You ask her where she got them from, but you take them.\" \n \n He's particularly excited about looking back on the videos created here tonight, specifically Arcade Fire's \"awesome and inspired\" Afterlife. \n \n The show's haphazard approach worked for him. \"I'm used to that,\" he says. \"That's the way I like to work. Jason was a bit more nervous, but he's a natural at being a natural.\" \n \n Next year's plans: Is Schwartzman up for hosting the YouTube Music Awards again? Totally. \"In my mind, it wouldn't be doing the second YouTube Awards, it'd be like we were doing it again for the first time!\" he says. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1hbOPzc ||||| The first YouTube Music Awards webcast wasn\u2019t broadcast-quality in any sense \u2014 it was marred by video and sound snafus, and the show\u2019s hosts looked adrift as they tried to wing it without scripts \u2014 with Eminem and a South Korean girl group winning top prizes based on fan votes. \n \n The kudocast, which may be prelude to YouTube launching a music-subscription service, was held Sunday at New York City\u2019s Pier 36 and streamed live over the Internet. \n \n A peak of more than 220,000 people were concurrently live-streaming the event, which started at 6 p.m. Eastern and clocked in at just under 90 minutes. That\u2019s compared with 10.1 million who tuned in for MTV\u2019s Video Music Awards in August to witness a writhing Miley Cyrus. The Grammys in February drew 28.4 million viewers for CBS. \n \n The YouTube video stream froze at several points, and microphones malfunctioned. Performers missed their cues several times. And even when the video played normally it often wasn\u2019t clear what was going on. Instead of producing zany water-cooler moments, the unscripted nature of the show felt muddled. \n \n Nine-member K-pop supergroup Girls\u2019 Generation \u201cI Got A Boy\u201d won video of the year, beating out bigger-name nominees in the music biz including Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, One Direction and Psy. The announcement of the win by Girls\u2019 Generation \u2014 a group popular across Asia \u2014 elicited a muted reaction (evidently a collective \u201cwho?\u201d) from the Gotham crowd. \n \n Related Two Elton John Tribute Albums \u2014 With Mary J. Blige, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, More \u2014 Coming in April Lyor Cohen Talks YouTube, Run-DMC, Russell Simmons Allegations at SXSW Keynote \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing scripted tonight \u2014 it\u2019s about anything happening,\u201d co-host Jason Schwartzman said at the start of the show. \n \n Problem was, nothing very interesting happened. Schwartzman was dusted with blue powder near the end; that was after members of the band OK Go painted him to look like Gotye in the video for \u201cSomebody That I Used to Know.\u201d The actor-musician hosted the show with comedian-musician Reggie Watts. Both were handed babies by actress Rashida Jones for some reason. \n \n The YouTube Music Awards \u2014 a.k.a. \u201cYTMA,\u201d following the nomenclature of MTV\u2019s VMAs \u2014 featured live performances by Lady Gaga (wearing a baseball cap and flannel shirt), Eminem, Arcade Fire, Avicii, M.I.A., Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler the Creator, Walk Off the Earth, and YouTube musical acts Lindsey Stirling and CDZA. Confusingly, most of these were staged as \u201clive music videos\u201d with actors instead of the usual live-performance presentation. \n \n The show was directed by filmmaker Spike Jonze and exec-produced by Vice Media and Sunset Lane Entertainment. Kia Motors was the title sponsor. At the close of the show Jonze thanked YouTube \u201cfor letting us make this mess.\u201d \n \n Other YTMA winners: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis won in the breakthrough artist category; Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix won best response video for their version of Imagine Dragons\u2019 \u201cRadioactive\u201d; Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d won in the \u201cphenomenon\u201d category (songs that generated the most fan videos) though Swift was not in attendance to accept the award; and YouTube personality DeStorm won innovation of the year for \u201cSee Me Standing.\u201d \n \n The full list of YouTube Music Awards nominees is available here. YouTube determined the nominations based on data over the last 12 months, to represent the artists and videos with the highest levels of engagement, including views, likes, shares, comments and subscriptions. \n \n Fans voted by sharing the official YTMA nomination videos for each nominee via Facebook, Twitter or Google+, with about 60 million \u201cvotes\u201d cast. The voting kicked off Oct. 21, with the final tallies taken right before the show, according to YouTube.", "summary": "\u2013 YouTube threw its first awards show last night, and the results were ... interesting. The unscripted show, directed by Spike Jonze and hosted by Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts, took place in New York City and was livestreamed on YouTube. Awards were handed out and artists offered up performances (er, \"live music videos,\" as they were called). The consensus? It was all a bit weird: \"Scripts, it turns out, were invented for a reason,\" writes Jessica Gelt in the Los Angeles Times. Sure, we love unscripted YouTube moments involving cats and babies, but when it comes to actual music on the site, \"quite a bit of care and planning goes into most YouTube videos that go viral.\" But the YouTube Music Awards were pure chaos, from random crying babies to a \"deeply strange and out-of-tune performance\" from Lady Gaga, who was also randomly crying. And what was up with Eminem winning Artist of the Year? Sure, 60 million YouTube viewers voted, so the result was democratic\u2014but \"YouTube is famous largely thanks to its rich landscape of unknown creators who post videos of themselves singing Eminem songs or put their own oddball visions up onscreen and cross their fingers that they'll be discovered,\" writes Gelt in a separate Times article. \"Shouldn't YouTube try harder to honor its own?\" \"Unfortunately, [the show] got distracted by its own gimmick, and the chaos overwhelmed the otherwise inspired performances and subsequent dance parties,\" writes Hilary Hughes for USA Today. It was \"frenzied, disorganized,\" and \"confused.\" Sure, parts of it were also fun, but while the awards \"sought to redefine expectations for a celebration of popular music,\" the show \"instead fell short of revolutionizing them.\" On Variety, Todd Spangler calls the webcast \"glitchy and awkward.\" It \"wasn\u2019t broadcast-quality in any sense\u2014it was marred by video and sound snafus, and the show\u2019s hosts looked adrift as they tried to wing it without scripts.\" The video stream \"froze at several points, and microphones malfunctioned. Even when the video played normally it often wasn\u2019t clear what was going on.\" And, though one would think an unscripted show would allow for some good moments, \"nothing very interesting happened.\" But not everyone hated it: On Spin, Chris Martins deemed it \"a charming mess\" and declared that all the imperfections were reasons to keep watching. And in the New York Times, Jon Caramanica says that while the show was \"essentially [of] no consequence\" and \"often inexplicable,\" it was also a \"surprisingly easy-to-watch jumble.\""}
{"document": "Following the official asylum petition by Edward Snowden to the Russian authorities, RT interviewed Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena who consults Snowden. He has explained to RT the intricacies of the Russian asylum process. \n \n Kucherena elaborated on the personal motivation of Edward Snowden\u2019s petition and highlighted the legality of such a request. He stressed that the Russian decision to review the asylum request was based on the \u201chuman rights\u201d aspect of the issue. \n \n \n \n RT:Can you walk us through the steps of obtaining asylum in Russia for Mr Snowden. \n \n \n \n Anatoly Kucherena: Yesterday Mr Edward Snowden invited me for a meeting, so I can explain to him the Russian laws. We spent a lot of time in discussion yesterday where he asked questions and I explained everything to him regarding Russia\u2019s refugee laws, in regards to receiving political asylum, and in regards to receiving a temporary asylum. In terms of his legal status, receiving political asylum or temporary asylum would not change status. In terms of receiving political asylum status, the procedure is quite long - 6 months. Receiving a temporary asylum will only take up to 3 months. He chose this option. \n \n \n \n It is understandable that he is morally tired, being kept in the transit zone of Sheremetevo airport. I understand that being kept there is difficult. That is why he made this decision. If the Federal Migration Service (FMS) rules in favor of his asylum request, that was handed over in my presence and officially accepted and registered by FMS, then he will receive asylum status for one year. This status he could renew further for a year and then another year, as he sees fit. But in this case, we\u2019re talking about his will, because in this situation, he had to fill out the application. I was there just to consult on the legal matters in this field. \n \n \n \n RT:Do I understand it correctly, that until a decision on the petition is made he cannot leave the confinement of Sheremetevo airport? \n \n \n \n AK: He could leave the neutral zone of Sheremetevo airport only when he receives proper paperwork, meaning that he does not have to wait for a final decision on his petition. He will be given appropriate paperwork. Afterwards, if FMS rules in favor of his petition, he will be issued a refugee ID allowing him to remain in the Russian Federation for a year with full rights and privileges of a Russian citizen. \n \n RT:Once Mr. Snowden is allowed to leave the airport, will he get accommodation or will he need to resolve this on his own? \n \n \n \n AK: He will most likely be handling this on his own, but we agreed that he would consult with me. He asked me to be his lawyer, so I would not leave him. I would of course help him. In terms of his future fate, it is difficult to say in regards to his settling in and accommodation. Those are the questions he will need to resolve, once a decision on his legal status in Russia is made. \n \n \n \n RT:You have stated today that Mr Snowden has promised to stop damaging the US\u2019s reputation. Does that mean that he will halt his whistleblowing activities? \n \n \n \n AK: We had also discussed this issue and he has assured me that President Putin\u2019s request to stop his activity against the US is \u201cattainable.\u201d And it is an important question, because I believe that Mr Putin first of all understands that there\u2019re state interests and there\u2019re human rights. If all of this is weighed and measured, then of course human rights take the upper hand. They have to be more important. \n \n \n \n And Russia\u2019s humane approach in resolving this issue, without a doubt bears witness to the fact that no matter who or which country the individual comes from, in times of such difficult personal troubles, we have to act humanely toward that individual. Therefore, Mr Putin\u2019s request in respect to the US and the overall Russian attitude signifies that we all have a good attitude towards the United States. \n \n \n \n Of course there\u2019re politicians that want to use certain issues for their personal advantage, but overall it is this request by Mr Putin that testifies that our good relations cannot be ruined by some nuances in domestic or foreign policy approaches. \n \n \n \n I consider this question of vital importance and we need to understand it correctly, that today this issue had to be resolved. The issue was not being resolved only because Edward did not know how to act. Nobody could advise him, because being in the presence of airport employees, of course he understood that there had to be an expert, a lawyer who would advise him on how to correctly fill out the forms, which had plenty of questions, such as the place of birth, parent\u2019s name, personal motivation statement. \n \n \n \n And there, when asked a question by the FMS agent why he chose to file a petition in Russia and why he came here, he replied that he fears for his life and wellbeing, that he is also afraid of torture, and that he could get executed. And what he says sounds quite convincing, because the US still administers capital punishment and torture. \n \n \n \n Therefore, I believe that under such circumstances and his written petition, it is necessary for him to be granted temporary asylum. I think it will be a humane step, and since Russia is acting humanly the US government cannot view it as a hostile step or hostile behavior toward the US. Because they have to understand that an individual faced with harsh life circumstances also needs refuge and protection from the state where it happens to be. \n \n \n \n \n \n RT:Are the guarantees issued by Snowden temporary? Could he resume his activities after asylum is granted? \n \n \n \n AK: You know, after talking to him for a while during our three meetings, I believe that he will be true to his word. Obviously, based on his moral stance he is a human rights activist, because yesterday and today we covered a number of questions that arise from everyday life both in Russia and US and in Europe. From his replies, I can understand that he is an adamant human rights activist and when he says that his past employment duties blatantly violated universal human rights, he says it sincerely. Because he, unlike someone else, understands that he used certain methods to spy on people, to read their communication. \n \n \n \n To tell you the truth, the first time we met, when he met the human rights activists, he started his speech with \u201cdear ladies and gentlemen, in front of you, you see an individual who until recently listened to your phone conversation and read your communications.\u201d Therefore, I personally think that he is an ideologically driven person that thinks that it is unacceptable to violate universal human rights on such a large scale. \n \n \n \n RT:Why do you think Mr Snowden has not yet decided whether or not he will travel to Latin America? \n \n \n \n AK: I think now, his moral and psychological state requires him to understand how his fate will play out in the time to come. Because he, answering FMS\u2019s questions, replied that he has never witnessed such persecution conducted by the US government in regards to other people. \n \n \n \n This is disproportionate pressure. These are disproportionate requirements on behalf of the US government for us, Russia in regards to his deportation. There is no law in place that would require Russia to extradite him. I\u2019ve addressed this question to our American colleagues asking them to name a legislative norm that would allow you to extradite Edward. There is no such law. There is no such clause in international law or our national law. \n \n \n \n RT:Did you volunteer to help Edward Snowden? \n \n \n \n AK: I volunteered for this but he took the initiative, he invited me and of course as a professional lawyer I could not leave a person in need and because I understood that to solve this stalemate, one needs to understand jurisprudence. I had to explain, first of all to him, the way our laws work, what it means to be granted this legal status, his rights, etc. The only reason he has been stuck there for so long is because he could not understand the process behind it. Authorities have no communication with him. He only talks to airport staff. \n \n \n \n RT:Do you think Mr Snowden could stay in Russia? \n \n \n \n I\u2019m not eliminating this possibility because he told me that he would like to stay in Russia. He will become a citizen with all rights and privileges. \n \n ||||| Former two-term GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire emailed Edward Snowden yesterday [emphasis added]: \n \n Mr. Snowden, Provided you have not leaked information that would put in harms way any intelligence agent, I believe you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution. Having served in the United States Senate for twelve years as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, I think I have a good grounding to reach my conclusion. I wish you well in your efforts to secure asylum and encourage you to persevere. Kindly acknowledge this message, so that I will know it reached you. Regards, \n \n Gordon J. Humphrey \n \n Former United States Senator \n \n New Hampshire \n \n After I contacted Sen. Humphrey to confirm its authenticity, he wrote to me [emphasis added]: \n \n Mr. Greenwald, Yes. It was I who sent the email message to Edward Snowden, thanking him for exposing astonishing violations of the US Constitution and encouraging him to persevere in the search for asylum. To my knowledge, Mr. Snowden has disclosed only the existence of a program and not details that would place any person in harm's way. I regard him as a courageous whistle-blower. I object to the monumentally disproportionate campaign being waged by the U.S. Government against Edward Snowden, while no effort is being made to identify, remove from office and bring to justice those officials who have abused power, seriously and repeatedly violating the Constitution of the United States and the rights of millions of unsuspecting citizens. Americans concerned about the growing arrogance of our government and its increasingly menacing nature should be working to help Mr. Snowden find asylum. Former Members of Congress, especially, should step forward and speak out. Regards, \n \n Gordon Humphrey \n \n Snowden's reply to Sen. Humphrey:", "summary": "\u2013 What has a former Navy SEAL calling Edward Snowden \"very naive\"? This fairly wild statement, plucked by Business Insider from a letter Snowden wrote to a US senator that was published by the Guardian: No intelligence service\u2014not even our own\u2014has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (ie, China). You may rest easy knowing I cannot be coerced into revealing that information, even under torture. Geoffrey Ingersoll, writing for Business Insider, is gobsmacked. \"Pretty strange coming from a guy who allegedly fled Hong Kong for fear of losing Internet, who's now growing 'tired' of living in a Moscow airport's hotel.\" Of course, there might be a little bluster involved. RT interviewed a lawyer who is consulting Snowden, and he had this to say: \"When asked ... why [Snowden] chose to file a petition in Russia and why he came here, he replied that he fears for his life and well-being, that he is also afraid of torture, and that he could get executed. And what he says sounds quite convincing, because the US still administers capital punishment and torture.\""}
{"document": "Ivanka Trump, in an oversized winter sweater that defied the laws of physics and draped perfectly across her body, spoke to NBC\u2019s Peter Alexander about, of all things, President Donald Trump\u2019s sexual misconduct accusers. \n \n Alexander sat down with Ivanka on Today for a wide-ranging interview as she took in some of the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang. \n \n \u201cDo you believe your father\u2019s accusers?\u201d Alexander asked, to which Ivanka balked. \n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he\u2019s affirmatively stated that there\u2019s no truth to it,\u201d Ivanka replied. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s a question you would ask many other daughters,\u201d she added. \u201cI believe my father, I know my father.\u201d \n \n \u201cI think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father.\u201d \n \n (By that logic, someone should ask Chelsea Clinton if she believed her dad, too.) \n \n In the first daughter\u2019s wide-ranging interview with NBC, she also spoke about her experience at the Winter Games, and weighed in on Trump\u2019s proposal to arm teachers, saying \u201d it is an idea that needs to be discussed.\ufffd? \n \n Watch above, via NBC. \n \n [image via screengrab] \n \n Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Jake Tapper \u0cae\u0cb0\u0cc1\u0c9f\u0ccd\u0cb5\u0cc0\u0c9f\u0cbf\u0cb8\u0cbf\u0ca6\u0ccd\u0ca6\u0cbe\u0cb0\u0cc6 TODAY \n \n Trying to figure out what part of this is inappropriate. She works for the taxpayers, says she focuses on women\u2019s issues, was at the interview because she went to the Olympics to represent the USA, is an adult, and has spoken publicly about accusations against others.https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/968103581944606720 \u2026", "summary": "\u2013 A reporter asked Ivanka Trump about the allegations of sexual harassment against her father, and her response is making headlines for two reasons: First, she says she believes her father's denials. And second, she thinks the question itself was out of bounds. It came from NBC's Peter Alexander, who asked the first daughter if she believed the women who've accused the elder Trump of inappropriate behavior. \"I think it's a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he's affirmatively stated that there's no truth to it,\" Ivanka replied, per Mediaite. \"I don\u2019t think that's a question you would ask many other daughters.\" But she then went on to provide an answer: \"I believe my father, I know my father. So I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father.\" Other reporters pushed back against the assertion that the question was inappropriate. \"The White House went out of its way to make clear that Ivanka Trump traveled to South Korea as a senior adviser to the president, not a First Daughter,\" tweeted Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post. \"But as soon as she's hit with a difficult question, suddenly she's a daughter.\" Jake Tapper of CNN had a similar take: \"She works for the taxpayers, says she focuses on women's issues, was at the interview because she went to the Olympics to represent the USA, is an adult, and has spoken publicly about accusations against others.\" (One of the president's accusers is running for office herself.)"}
{"document": "Kylie Jenner Threw a Prima Donna Tantrum at L.A. Hotel, Says Source \n \n but I'm not going to sit around and let grown adults create untrue stories about me underage drinking & partying every night with a fake I.D \u2014 Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) October 23, 2013 \n \n ..And F.Y.I. regarding the \"club nights\", I was with my father & family supporting my brother and sister-in-law \u2014 Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) October 23, 2013 \n \n And to all the young girls out there just like me, carry yourself with class and dignity and don't let ANYONE determine your future \u2014 Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) October 23, 2013 \n \n Is Kylie Jenner whipping up a new bad-girl image for herself?On Oct. 18, the 16-year-old Keeping Up With the Kardashians star reportedly cruised into a luxe Beverly Hills hotel around 8:30 p.m. with her longtime friend Jaden Smith, 15, and a group of other young pals.According to a hotel source, Kylie was in \"a good mood\" \u2013 that is, until she requested employees provide her and her pals alcohol and bottle service.An insider claims that when Kylie was turned down, she berated the hotel host, asking, \"Do you know who I am?\" The source adds that the reality star also declared the swanky hotel \"not worth her time.\"We're told the host held firm as Jenner stormed out of the bar with her entourage while reportedly cursing that the establishment was \"f\u2013\u2013 lame.\"\"She was a complete nightmare,\" says the hotel source. \"She started out really nice. But when she didn't get what she wanted, it was like someone flipped a switch.\"Reps had no comment, but Kylie took to Twitter on Wednesday to address recent reports that she and sister Kendall, 17, are headed down the wrong path.\"I'm not going to sit around and let grown adults create untrue stories about me underage drinking & partying every night with a fake I.D. And F.Y.I. regarding the 'club nights', I was with my father & family supporting my brother and sister-in-law,\" she wrote on her Twitter page Though the teen defends her dad-supervised evening on Oct. 19 at The Troubadour, she sidesteps reports of a much wilder night out four days prior with Scott Disick and older sister Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian Odom at Vignette Lounge, a 21-and-over sex-themed club in Los Angeles.Photos show the youngest of the Jenner clan leaving the raunchy nightclub in the wee hours of the morning looking out of sorts At the time, the girls' mother, Kris Jenner, said her daughters did not know they were at an adults-only venue and did not use fake IDs to enter the club.Finishing off her rant, Kylie doled out advice to her young fans: \"To all the young girls out there just like me, carry yourself with class and dignity and don't let ANYONE determine your future,\" she Tweeted. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 Kylie Jenner, Jaden Smith, and a group of other similarly-aged friends (Jenner and Smith are 16 and 15, respectively) went out to a fancy hotel in Beverly Hills last Friday night ... and things went reportedly sour when the hotel refused to provide them the bottle service Jenner requested. She started throwing around the \"Do you know who I am?\" line, a source tells People, and soon declared the hotel \"f---ing lame\" and \"not worth her time\" as she stormed out with the rest of her group. Jenner hasn't addressed the story directly, but this week she tweeted about reports that she and 17-year-old sister Kendall are too wild. \"I'm sorry to disappoint, but Kendall & I will not grow up to be let downs. I know that's what some people would unfortunately like to see... but I'm not going to sit around and let grown adults create untrue stories about me underage drinking & partying every night with a fake ID,\" she wrote. \"..And F.Y.I. regarding the 'club nights', I was with my father & family supporting my brother and sister-in-law.\""}
{"document": "KATIE Holmes is reportedly moving on from being a \"single girl\". \n \n The 33-year-old actress announced her split from husband Tom Cruise a few months ago. \n \n Now sources say the former Dawson\u2019s Creek star has been in touch with her ex-fianc\u00e9, Chris Klein, but is keeping things low-profile. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s tough on Tom, of course, but you can\u2019t expect Katie to live the life of a single girl forever,\u201d a source told the latest edition of British magazine Grazia. \n \n \u201cShe is very sensitive about not embarrassing him, so she and Chris have been incredibly careful not to be seen together. When he visits, he goes into the building through the underground car park to make sure that nobody spots him.\u201d \n \n Chris found fame via the hit franchise American Pie and has been known to have a rebellious streak. \n \n However, he has apparently calmed down, which Holmes finds attractive. \n \n \u201cChris was a real ladies\u2019 man when they were first together...he also had a major problem with alcohol,\u201d the source continued. \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s really cleaned himself up since then...Katie likes the new Chris a whole lot more.\u201d ||||| By Radar Staff \n \n While Katie Holmes isn\u2019t ready to date just yet \u2013 she\u2019s told pals that when she does it won\u2019t be with any actors, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting. \n \n The former Dawson\u2019s Creek star has sworn off thesps and is instead being introduced to artists by her fashion business partner, Jeanne Yang. \n \n However, Katie, 33, is in no hurry to be tied down and is enjoying the single life right now. \n \n PHOTOS: Katie Holmes Working At Fashion Week \n \n \u201cKatie doesn\u2019t want to tie herself down just yet, but she says she\u2019s done going out with actors,\u201d a source revealed. \n \n \u201cHer previous relationships with Joshua (Jackson), Chris (Klein) and Tom (Cruise) didn\u2019t work out, so she thinks she should look away from her own profession. \n \n \u201cJeanne Yang, her business partner for the Holmes & Yang fashion label, has taken Katie to some art gallery openings recently and she\u2019s met tons of interesting artists. \n \n PHOTOS: Tom Cruise And Katie Holmes\u2019 Relationship Through The Years \n \n \u201cShe\u2019s been saying now that if she does date anyone, it could be someone who works in the arts world. \n \n \u201cKatie\u2019s more interested in the quiet life now and an unassuming artist would fit the bill perfectly for when she\u2019s ready,\u201d the source revealed. \n \n As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Katie is happily single since divorcing Tom Cruise and has no plans of dating anytime soon. \n \n PHOTOS: Tom Cruise And Katie Holmes\u2019 Relationship Through The Years \n \n \u201cKatie is just flourishing in her new life,\u201d a source close to the situation previously told Radar. \n \n \u201cYes, there have been some dark moments but she was more than ready to embark on the next phase of her life post-Tom Cruise. Katie felt that her professional career suffered because she was married to Tom and that she didn\u2019t have the final say in her acting roles. Katie is currently busy preparing for her role in Dead Accounts. \n \n \u201cKatie believes in love and hopes to get remarried one day, but she has absolutely no plans on dating anytime soon. Katie is devoted to being the best parent possible to Suri and continuing a smooth transition into their new lives together. Katie knows bringing a new man into the situation would only cause more stress for Suri right now, and the actress is still recovering from the end of her marriage to Tom.\u201d \n \n PHOTOS: Tom Cruise Pictured In Iceland After Katie Holmes\u2019 Divorce Filing \n \n Meanwhile, leaked legal documents dated August 17 and signed by New York State Supreme Court Judge Matthew F. Cooper, offer details of the divorce decree, including the specifics of the A-list couple\u2019s custody agreement. \n \n The \u201cmarital relationship\u201d had \u201cbroken down irretrievably for a period of at least six months immediately preceding,\u201d the papers state. \n \n Tom, 50, and Katie, 33, tied the knot in a lavish wedding in Italy in 2006. However, the legal documents say they officially married \u201cin a civil ceremony\u201d in Los Angeles on November 11, 2006. A prenuptial agreement was acknowledged and signed by Holmes months earlier. \n \n PHOTOS: Sad Suri Cruise Steps Out With Mom Katie Holmes \n \n In terms of child support, Tom was ordered to pay $400,000 a year to cover Suri\u2019s \u201cmedical, dental, insurance, unreimbursed medical and dental, education, college, extracurricular and camp expenses.\u201d \n \n RELATED STORIES: \n \n Where\u2019s Tom? Suri Cruise Goes To First Day Of School With Just Katie Holmes! \n \n \n \n Tom Cruise\u2019s Recruited Girlfriend, Told It Was A \u2018Hush-Hush Mission\u2019 That Would Change The World \n \n Katie Holmes On Divorce: \u2018There Are A Lot Of People With Much Bigger Problems\u2019 \n \n Off-Broadway Date A Deux? Katie Holmes Steps Out With Jeremy Strong ||||| I don't wanna to wait ... for our lives to be ohh-ver ... I want to know right now what will it beeeee ... I don't wanna to wait for our lives to be ohh-ver ... Will it be yes or will it beeeee saw-reeeeeeee? Are the tingles coursing along your spine? You know that opening theme ... you long for it. Every bone in your body aches for it. And GAH! there's not only talk of a Dawson's Creek movie, but of a Dawson's Creek REUNION. Of the Joey and Pacey kind. 'Cause did you hear that Katie Holmes wasted no time after her divorce in calling her old boyfriend Joshua Jackson? They were Robsten before there was Robsten! They were Katson! \n \n And this ain't no two bit piece o' gossip. This is REAL. Cause Joshua said it himself. Katie CALLED him. And they're getting MARRIED!!! Okay, maybe not that last bit. But they talked. That's a start, right? \n \n US Weekly reports that Joshua, who now stars on The Fringe, said that Katie recently called him (called! not texted!) to catch up. The pair had dated before Tom Cruise brainwashed began courting her. Joshua spilled the details of their reunion chat: \n \n Like any old friend, it was like, \"Oh, hi how are ya? What's going on?\" \"I had a kid.\" It was very nice actually. \n \n Nice, actually? Hmmm ... he must have wanted to keep the tingle-inducing details to himself. Or maybe his beautiful girlfriend, Diane Kruger, was there in the room when Katie called. And she was all, \"Joooosssh! Who is that?! Who are you are talking to?!\" and he was all, \"Um, no one, babe. One of the guys.\" \n \n And how funny is it that Katie has the most famous child in the world and was like, \"I had a kid.\" Maybe Josh was like, \"I bet her name is .... Suri!\" and Katie was all, \"How'd you know???\" \n \n Katie must be taking a serious trip down nostalgia lane with her little black book, as she also reportedly hooked up with ex-fiance Chris Klein post-divorce. \n \n Word has it that Katie wanted to do a Dawson's Creek reunion movie but Tom, that freaky Scientology buzzkiller, put the kibosh on it. Now that he's out of the picture, maybe one will happen. And Joey and Pacey will reunite ... foh-evah! So much better than Tom Cruise, amiright? \n \n I don't wanna waaaait ... \n \n Would you want to see Josh and Katie reunite? \n \n Image via YouTube", "summary": "\u2013 Depending which news source you read today, Katie Holmes is either hooking up with an old actor flame \u2026 or not looking to date any time soon, and certainly not looking to date any actors: Radar reports that, after failed relationships with Joshua Jackson, Chris Klein, and Tom Cruise, Holmes has sworn off actors entirely. Instead, her fashion business partner is introducing her to artists. But for now, she's enjoying the single life with \"absolutely no plans on dating anytime soon,\" a source says. But, another source adds, \"She\u2019s been saying now that if she does date anyone, it could be someone who works in the arts world. Katie\u2019s more interested in the quiet life now and an unassuming artist would fit the bill perfectly for when she\u2019s ready.\" Then again, British magazine Grazia claims ex-fiance Chris Klein himself has actually been sneaking in to Katie's buildings for visits, Australia's News Network reports. \"Chris was a real ladies' man when they were first together \u2026 he also had a major problem with alcohol,\" a source says. \"He\u2019s really cleaned himself up since then ... Katie likes the new Chris a whole lot more.\" Of course, all of this comes soon after fellow ex Jackson revealed Holmes called him up after her divorce\u2026"}
{"document": "A woman arrested for sitting on a bench outside a Dunkin' Donuts with no clothes on told police she did it on a dare as part of joining a dance troupe, according to a Greenacres Department of Public Safety arrest report. \n \n Police were called to the doughnut shop, at 2995 S. Jog Road, in Greenacres, at about 9 p.m. Sunday in response to reports of a woman \"completely naked\" outside the business. There, an officer found Shakara Martin, 32, \"fully exposed.\" \n \n The officer asked if she was all right and if she needed medical attention, according to the report. Martin apologized and said she purposely came to the Dunkin' Donuts naked for a dare that was part of pledging the dance group. \n \n Onlookers said Martin was offered clothes multiple times and refused them. \n \n She was arrested on a charge of indecent exposure and released from the Palm Beach County Jail about an hour later. ||||| The seed for Wide00014 was: \n \n - Slash pages from every domain on the web: \n \n \n \n \n \n -- a ranking of all URLs that have more than one incoming inter-domain link (rank was determined by number of incoming links using Wide00012 inter domain links) \n \n \n \n -- up to a maximum of 100 most highly ranked URLs per domain \n \n - Top ranked pages (up to a max of 100) from every linked-to domain using the Wide00012 inter-domain navigational link graph", "summary": "\u2013 A Palm Beach woman better hope she makes the dance team after an apparent dare from the unnamed group landed her in jail. Shakara Monik Martin was spotted sitting naked outside a Dunkin' Donuts on Sunday, yet rebuffed numerous offers of clothes, the Palm Beach Post reports. By the time police arrived, a \"fully exposed\" Martin, 32, was apologetic and revealed the stunt was part of a pledge for a dance group, according to police documents, per the South Florida Sun Sentinel. She was charged with indecent exposure and released from the Palm Beach County Jail on Monday."}
{"document": "Pete Davidson deletes social media accounts following Ariana Grande \u2018split\u2019 (Picture: FilmMagic) \n \n Pete Davidson has deleted his social media presence following rumours that he has broken up with Ariana Grande. \n \n The pair have yet to confirm or deny their split, however TMZ reported that they have amicably decided to both go their separate ways \u2013 after only getting engaged earlier this year. \n \n Pete returned to Instagram at the start of the month, and posted a blurry snap of what appeared to be himself. \n \n In the caption he told his 2.5million followers: \u2018Hooray romano\u2019. \n \n And it appeared his then gal Ari was overjoyed to see his return to the gram as she teased the 24-year-old in the comments. \n \n Pete returned to Instagram at the start of the month, and posted a blurry snap of what appeared to be himself (Picture: Getty Images) \n \n Writing to the Saturday Night Live star, the Dangerous Woman songstress joked: \u2018Where is the mixtape? This is sick and ur page looks cool never post again (sic).\u2019 \n \n Advertisement \n \n Advertisement \n \n And Pete didn\u2019t seem to mind her jibe as he replied: \u2018U have the coolest ig (sic),\u2019 with a water droplet emoji. \n \n Back in July, the comedian decided to delete all of the pictures off his Instagram, after claiming that he didn\u2019t want to be on social media any more. \n \n In a post shared on his story, he said: \u2018No nothing happened. No there\u2019s nothing cryptic about anything. I just don\u2019t wanna be on Instagram anymore. \n \n Back in July, the comedian decided to delete all of the pictures off his Instagram (Picture: WireImage) \n \n \u2018Or on any social media platform. \u2018The internet is an evil place and it doesn\u2019t make me feel good. Why should I spend any time on negative energy when my real life is fucking lit. \n \n \u2018The fact that I even have to say this proves my point. I love you all and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be back at some point.\u2019 \n \n Pete and Ari had a whirlwind romance that saw them engaged after dating for just two months. \n \n It\u2019s thought that Ariana met Pete when she recently hosted SNL and the pair got close after she ended her relationship with rapper Mac. \n \n They confirmed their relationship shortly before this, with a cute picture of them dressed up like Harry Potter characters. \n \n Got a story? If you've got a story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk Entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page - we'd love to hear from you. \n \n MORE: Ariana Grande \u2018splits from Pete Davidson\u2019 months after engagement \n \n MORE: Pete Davidson raises questions as he covers up Ariana Grande tattoo ||||| Ariana Grande Engaged to Pete Davidson \n \n Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson Are Engaged \n \n Breaking News \n \n Ariana Grande's whirlwind romance with Pete Davidson just got that much more serious ... we've learned the two are engaged. \n \n Sources tell us Pete popped the question to Ariana in the last week ... and she, of course, said yes. The pair started officially dating just over a month ago -- following Ariana's split from rapper Mac Miller. \n \n Things have heated up quickly between the two, with Pete getting two Ariana-inspired tattoos earlier this month. \n \n Both Pete and Ariana are 24 ... it's the first engagement for both of them. Pete's also coming off a recent breakup ... he split with \"Curb Your Enthusiasm\" creator Larry David's daughter, Cazzie David, recently. \n \n It's unclear exactly when Pete and Ariana met ... she was the musical guest and host for 'SNL' in March 2016. \n \n Congrats! ||||| They may have only been together for a few months, by Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande have wasted no time in making their love permanent with lots and lots of tattoos. \n \n 1. THEIR MATCHING CLOUDS \n \n Get push notifications with news, features and more. \n \n Before the couple had even publicly confirmed their relationship, Davidson and Grande decided to wear their hearts on their sleeves \u2026 by inking matching tiny clouds on their fingers. \n \n The comedian showed off his new ink in a portrait on Instagram, while fans spotted Grande\u2019s during a concert in May. \n \n Kevin Mazur/Getty \n \n 2. PETE\u2019S DANGEROUS WOMAN-THEMED INK \n \n Shortly after their new relationship made headlines, the Saturday Night Live star\u2019s tattoo artist showed off a pair of new Grande-themed tattoos on social media. \n \n London Reese/Instagram \n \n First \u2014 and most famously \u2014 Davidson had a bunny-eared mask tattooed behind his ear, reminiscent of the mask that Grande wears on the cover of her Dangerous Woman album. He followed that up with a rendering of the initials \u201cAG\u201d on his finger, to really drive home who his heart now belongs to. \n \n In October, fans noticed that the bunny-eared mask had been altered and changed into a large heart tattoo with a small lowercase \u201ca\u201d next to the design. According to Page Six, he transformed his tattoo to match Grande, who has a large heart tattoo on her body (we\u2019re unclear where). \n \n 3. \u2018REBORN\u2019 \n \n In June, the couple celebrated their engagement by getting the word \u201creborn\u201d inked onto their thumbs. Davidson showed off his \u201creborn\u201d tat \u2014 and Grande\u2019s massive engagement ring \u2014 on Instagram, along with the caption \u201cu know what you\u2019d dream it be like? it\u2019s better than that.\u201d \n \n 4. \u2018H2GKMO\u2019 \n \n A few days later, the engaged couple followed that up with another set of matching tattoos: They both got \u201cH2GKMO\u201d inked on their right thumbs, which is an abbreviation of Grande\u2019s favorite saying, \u201cHonest to God, knock me out.\u201d \n \n Ariana Grande/Instagram \n \n 5. \u2018ALWAYS\u2019 \n \n A few days after that, Grande debuted the word \u201calways\u201d on her rib cage, which some fans think is an homage to the couple\u2019s shared love of Harry Potter. (The ink is just barely visible in a few photos she\u2019s posted on her Instagram page; it\u2019s located on the front of her rib cage, right under her bikini top.) \n \n Though she hasn\u2019t properly showed off the ink on social media, it is believed that the tattoo was done in Davidson\u2019s handwriting, because these two are truly more in love than anyone else in the world. \n \n 6. \u2018PETE\u2019 \n \n The singer did away with subtlety completely at the end of June, when she got her fianc\u00e9\u2019s name inked on her ring finger, just below the massive, $93,000 pear-shaped diamond that Davidson gave her. (Grande also named a song on Sweetener after Davidson as well.) \n \n 7. \u20188418\u2019 \n \n Grande\u2019s most recent Davidson-themed ink is the number \u201c8418,\u201d which she placed on her ankle. The tattoo matches one that the comedian has on his arm, commemorating his late father\u2019s FDNY badge number. \n \n Robert Kamau/GC Images; Robert Kamau/GC Images \n \n Davidson\u2019s father was a firefighter who died in 9/11, and the comedian recently stated on Instagram that he \u201cwould be so happy\u201d about his engagement to Grande and \u201cwould love\u201d her if he was still around. \n \n Splash News; Jason Merritt/Getty \n \n 8. \u2018Mille Tendresse\u2019 \n \n In September Davidson got the same French phrase as Grande (popularized by Breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s), \u201cmille tendresse\u201d on the back of his neck to coordinate with his girl. ||||| (CNN) The romance between \"Sweetener\" singer Ariana Grande and \"SNL\" performer Pete Davidson has turned sour. \n \n The couple, whose whirlwind romance-turned-engagement powered the celebrity gossip machine through the summer, has split, a source close to the singer tells CNN. \n \n Davidson confirmed their engagement in June . They had been dating a few weeks at the time. \n \n Pete Davidson: I'm the 'luckiest guy in the world' \n \n The pair met when Grande guest hosted \"SNL\" in 2014. \n \n Davidson and Grande began dating shortly after she broke up with late rapper Mac Miller. \n \n The pair was never shy about sharing affection for one another publicly, especially on social media. \n \n The early weeks of their courtship were filled with fawning Instagram posts. \n \n Once their engagement went public, they spoke openly about their fast affection for one another. \n \n \"The day I met her, I was like, 'Hey, I'll marry you tomorrow,' \" Davidson recalled. \"She was calling my bluff. I sent her a picture [of engagement rings]. I was like, 'Do you like any of these?' She was like, 'Those are my favorite ones,' and I was like, 'Sick.' \" \n \n The couple moved in together after their engagement. \n \n Grande was also happy to speak about her blissful life with Davidson. \n \n In a song titled \"Pete Davidson\" from her most recent album, Grande sang: \"Universe must have my back, fell from the sky into my lap/And I know you know that you're my soulmate and all that.\" \n \n Davidson commented about the song on the season premiere of \"SNL,\" joking -- somewhat eerily -- about the royalties he receives from the tune. \n \n \"You know, I don't even get royalties for that 'Pete Davidson' song?\" he said. \"Like, if we break up, and we won't -- we will -- but we won't. I'm kidding. But in 10 years if, God forbid, that ever happened, there will be a song called 'Pete Davidson' playing in speakers at K-Mart and I'll be working there.\" \n \n Not everyone was supportive of the couple's relationship. \n \n The \"Saturday Night Live\" star told Howard Stern last month that he received death threats over dating Grande. \n \n \"Someone wanted to shoot me in the face because she's so hot,\" Davidson told Stern. \"Do you know how insane that is? I was like, 'Am I that ugly that people want to shoot me in the face?'\" \n \n Davidson also faced backlash for making a joke about tampering with Grande's birth control on \"SNL.\" \n \n Personal struggles \n \n Before entering into a seemingly bliss-filled love story, both Grande and Davidson were open about their personal struggles. \n \n Davidson spoke about his mental health issues just last week during Weekend Update. And Grande told British Vogue in May that she was still suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome stemming from the suicide bombing that killed 22 people at her 2017 concert in Manchester, United Kingdom. \n \n Grande has also recently been contending with undisclosed personal issues that reportedly prompted the singer to take a break from work to focus on her well-being. \n \n On Saturday, Grande had been scheduled to perform at a fundraiser for cancer research, but pulled out of the event. \n \n Her manager Scooter Braun alluded to her in a speech at the gathering, saying Grande was going through a difficult time. \n \n Mac Miller, whom Grande dated for two years, died unexpectedly in September. \n \n In a tribute, Grande called Miller her \"dearest friend.\" \n \n CNN's Chloe Melas and Megan Thomas contributed to this report. ||||| Ariana Grande & Pete Davidson Splitsville Engagement Off \n \n Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson Split, Engagement Called Off \n \n EXCLUSIVE \n \n Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson are dunzo as a couple, and their engagement has officially been called off ... TMZ has learned. \n \n Sources close to the former couple tell us AG and PD split this weekend, with both parties acknowledging that it simply was not the right time for their relationship to take off. We're told the two still have love for each other, but things are over romantically. \n \n Ariana and Pete announced their surprise engagement earlier this year in June -- just a few weeks after they were reported to be just casually dating. TMZ broke the story ... Grande's engagement ring cost right around $100k. \n \n Grande's recently expressed she was going through a rough patch, tweeting a lot of personal messages and saying she needs a break from the public spotlight and asking \"can i pls have one okay day. just one. pls.\" \n \n As for Davidson, he's continued to appear on SNL, even mentioning his former fiancee in a couple sketches. The last time we saw them together was just last week. \n \n Our source says while things may be done for the couple for now, the two aren't ruling out the possibility of anything in the future. ||||| Ariana Grande & Pete Davidson Mac Miller's Death Was Breaking Point \n \n Mac Miller's Death Was Breaking Point for Ariana Grande & Pete Davidson \n \n EXCLUSIVE \n \n Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson hit a life-changing fork in the road last month when Mac Miller died -- and his death was the tipping point that led to their split ... TMZ has learned. \n \n Sources close to AG and PD tell us ... Ariana was in an incredibly dark place following her ex-boyfriend's apparent fatal overdose. She didn't blame herself -- she feels she did everything she could to get him sober -- but it left her an emotional wreck. \n \n In the aftermath of Mac's death, our sources say Ariana realized a couple of things -- she couldn't be fully invested in her relationship with Pete, and she had rushed into a looming marriage way too fast by getting engaged. \n \n TMZ broke the story ... Ariana and Pete broke things off this weekend and called off their engagement. \n \n She never signaled things were bad. In fact ... Ariana was at 'SNL' Saturday supporting Pete and nothing seemed amiss. Folks who were there say they looked all boo'd up, kissing and holding each other backstage. Something clearly snapped Sunday. \n \n Neither have commented on the breakup. ||||| That sound you hear is thousands of hearts breaking. Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson fans took to Twitter on Sunday, October 14, to express their thoughts after news broke of the couple\u2019s split. \n \n As Us Weekly previously reported, the singer, 25, and the Saturday Night Live star, 24, called it quits over the weekend, ending their engagement after just four months. \n \n \u201cIt happened this weekend,\u201d a source told Us. \u201cThey realized it happened too quick and too early. The wedding is off, but they\u2019re working things out. They\u2019re not officially done yet.\u201d \n \n \u201cam i surprised that pete and ariana broke up? no. but am i supposed to be happy about that? no. imagine how she is doing right now,\u201d one fan tweeted. \n \n \u201d if you\u2019re celebrating ariana and pete splitting, you don\u2019t care about ariana\u2019s happiness. Bye,\u201d another wrote. \n \n But some thought it was a good thing that the pair, who got engaged in June, just weeks after they started dating, had ended their romance. \n \n \u201cPete davidson now he can say whatever he want without Ariana stans calling him out,\u201d one commenter tweeted. \n \n \u201cWho gets custody of Piggy Smalls?\u201d asked another of the pet pig the pair recently adopted. \n \n \u201cShe\u2019s going to date Post Malone next,\u201d one fan suggested. \n \n Another Grande fan asked about \u201cPete Davidson\u201d the song on the \u201cNo Tears Left to Cry\u201d singer\u2019s new album. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best songs on sweetener but the name\u2019s gotta go.\u201d \n \n One fan created a Go Fund Me for the comedian, calling it \u201cPete Davidson Homeless\u201d and seeking to raise $2,500. \u201cAs you may all know, Pete Davidson and his fiance have recently broken up. He will need somewhere to sleep tonight.\u201d \n \n Davidson moved into Grande\u2019s multimillion-dollar apartment in NYC shortly after they got engaged. \n \n See more reactions below. \n \n All my moods at everyone who really thought Ari and Pete.. would last after he disrespected her in so many ways \ud83d\uddff pic.twitter.com/vaJTfGwbzN \u2014 Mara| love yourself \u2661 (@bangitmara) October 14, 2018 \n \n Ariana : me and pete broke it off , i\u2019m gonna just die \ud83d\ude41 Arianators: pic.twitter.com/e4HldyxWHG \u2014 \ud83e\udd82 (@BECARDIVENOM) October 14, 2018 \n \n wait some of y\u2019all really thought pete & ariana would last? pic.twitter.com/PFtj07ORLz \u2014 GirlReligion (@girlreligionco) October 14, 2018 \n \n Ariana and Pete got matching tattoos a WEEK into their relationship. pic.twitter.com/o0U5NpAz9x \u2014 Chadwickanda (@ObamaKnowles) October 14, 2018 \n \n ariana running into pete when she hosts SNL from now on pic.twitter.com/ZJOx0mt7a8 \u2014 \u064b (@undemis) October 14, 2018 \n \n For all the inside details on the biggest celebrity stories and scoop this week, subscribe to our new podcast \"Us Weekly's Hot Hollywood\" below! \n \n Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! \n \n Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! ||||| After a quick and passionate romance, Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson, have officially called it quits. Confused how their PDA-filled love ended seemingly before it even began? Here's everything you need to know about their relationship from start to finish: \n \n December 5, 2018: \n \n It looks like Pete isn't happy to see Ari promoting her new song, \"Thank U, Next\" as he blocked her from Instagram. Pete blocked Ariana after their big breakup, which is why she wasn't able to see his recent post about mental health and bullies until about a day later. \n \n A fan sent her a screenshot of the post and Ari revealed that he blocked her. \n \n Twitter \n \n Ari then defended Pete after seeing his post. Many of her fans have been going after him after the release of her recent song, \"Thank U, Next,\" which Ari said, \"I will always have irrevocable love for him and if you've gotten any other impression from my recent work, you might have missed the point.\" \n \n Instagram \n \n November 16, 2018: \n \n Neither Ariana nor Pete have kept too quiet about their breakup, but Ari's recent tweet storm may take the cake for the most savage comments regarding the end to their engagement (yes, I'm counting \"Thank U, Next\"). \n \n When Ari tweeted a black heart to one of her fans, they responded asking \"is the black heart some sort of tea or am I reaching,\" to which Ari responded \"u reachin reachin baby.\" \n \n u reaching reachin baby. \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) November 16, 2018 \n \n But that wasn't the end of the exchange. Ari double tweeted the fan writing, \"jk I'm empty and my heart is black no so.\" \n \n jk i\u2019m empty and my heart is black now so \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) November 16, 2018 \n \n Ummmm, did Ari just accuse Pete of turning her heart black? Yeah, I think so. Later, when fans were obviously surprised by this sad news, Ariana backtracked...kind of. \n \n kiiiiiiddding (i\u2019m not kidding) kiiiiiiiiddding relax \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) November 16, 2018 \n \n \"Kiiiiiiddding (i\u2019m not kidding) kiiiiiiiiddding relax.\" Convincing! Before long, Ari was back to using her fave emoji (the black heart). Whether it's a representation of her actual heart or not, who knows? She may just like it cause it's sleek af. \n \n \n \n November 6, 2018: \n \n Ever since they broke up last month, both Ari and Pete have been scrambling to cover up the tattoos they got together. After originally placing a black heart over his Dangerous Woman bunny mask tat, Pete has now inked over another Ari symbol on his body. \n \n In an Instagram story shared by his friend Ricky Velez, Pete is seen holding a baby. While the baby is cute and all, our eyes went directly to the giant arrow on his left hand. \n \n Instagram \n \n The arrow used to be a tattoo that read \"H2GKMO\" which stands for \"honest to god knock me out,\" a phrase popularized by Ariana. Now, it's just a big, black arrow. We wonder what tat Pete will take down next? Maybe the grande \"Grande\" ink on his side. \n \n November 3, 2018: \n \n According to TMZ, when Ariana and Pete broke up, they agreed to not discuss their relationship in public. Obviously, Pete didn't follow through with that agreement, making jokes on stage at a comedy club a few weeks ago, and asking singer Maggie Rogers to marry him in an Saturday Night Live promo. Apparently, the latter really upset Ariana, and when Pete heard that, he decided he didn't want to go through with a sketch planned for the show that addressed the breakup. \n \n He did, however, make a statement during the show's news segment, Weekend Update. \"I know some of you are curious about the breakup, but the truth is, it's nobody's business, but sometimes things just don't work and that's OK,\" he said. \"[Ariana's] a wonderful, strong person and I genuinely wish her all the happiness in the world.\" He then encouraged viewers to go out and vote. \n \n The statement is surprisingly mature for Pete, who often hides behind his comedy when dealing with hardship. \n \n November 2, 2018: \n \n Ariana is not here for jokes about her relationship, even if they come from her ex-fianc\u00e9. In a recent promo video for SNL, Pete Davidson jokingly proposes to musical guest Maggie Rogers. Maggie immediately turns him down and Pete replies back with, \"0 for 3,\" likely referring to his previous relationship with Cazzie David and Ari. Check out the promo below: \n \n Soon after the video was posted, Ariana posted several tweets shading Pete. She has since deleted them but the screenshots of them are below: \n \n Twitter \n \n \"For someone who claims to hate relevancy u sure love clinging to it huh,\" she wrote. \n \n She also retweeted a tweet that said, \"tag yourself, I'm Maggie,\" likely referencing to Maggie rejecting him in the video. \n \n Twitter \n \n She also posted a final tweet saying, \"thank you, next,\" clearly showing signs that she's moving on from Pete. \n \n Twitter \n \n Sorry, not sorry, Pete. \n \n October 31, 2018: \n \n It looks like Ariana is making her breakup a little more permanent. While many fans were hoping that this split would just be for a short while, Ariana just took a big step in distancing herself from her ex-fianc\u00e9 and covered up one of her tattoos of him. \n \n In a new post on her Instagram story, Ariana showed off new ink in the same spot she got her \"reborn\" tattoo. Pete also has the same tattoo and revealed that it was a reference to a Kid Cudi song. \n \n Instagram \n \n Ariana previously covered up her tattoos with bandaids for the Wicked 15th anniversary special. While we can't see if Ari has also covered up her other Pete tattoos, it wouldn't be surprising to see some new ink on her soon. \n \n October 30, 2018: \n \n Two weeks after getting dumped by Ariana, Pete is back to smiling! We're so happy to see those pearly whites again after days upon days of mopey Pete. Of course, we don't blame him for being sad about the breakup \u2014 we were too, but we're glad to see he's feeling at least a little better. \n \n The comedian was spotted enjoying himself at a Halloween event in Staten Island. According to pics obtained by TMZ, he was especially excited to see one festive pup. He even snapped a selfie with the dog! According to TMZ, Pete was \"super friendly to everyone and seemed to be in a very good mood.\" Happy to hear it, Pete! \n \n October 24, 2018: \n \n \n \n While we're still reeling from Ari and Pete's breakup, according to People, the stars' inner circles are happy to see the relationship come to an end. \n \n \"[Ariana's loved ones] always thought the engagement to Pete happened way too quickly,\" a source told People. \"They didn\u2019t want her to get married to Pete. And Ariana never got to the wedding planning stage. It was all way too soon.\" \n \n The couple's breakup is obviously really sad, but Ari is apparently handling everything pretty well. \"Actually, much better than expected,\" according to People. \n \n And it's not only Ariana's family that was happy to see the relationship end, but also Pete's. \u201cEveryone on both sides are relieved it\u2019s over.\u201d OK, then maybe it's time I get over it too. \n \n October 20, 2018: \n \n Pete Davidson has finally addressed his split with Ariana Grande, and, in classic Pete fashion, he did it through comedy. \n \n As he cohosted a comedy show \"Judd and Pete for America\" with Producer Judd Apatow, he took advantage of his spotlight onstage to reach out for help. \"Does anybody have any open rooms?\" He asked the audience. \"Looking for a roommate?\" He also admitted that he wasn't exactly happy to be at the event. \"There's a lot going on,\" he said, according to E!. \n \n During his set, Pete also discussed the fate of his Ariana tattoos. \"Um, I've been covering a bunch of tattoos, that's fun,\" he said. As we know, Pete isn't the only one shielding tattoos from the relationship. Ariana placed a bandaid over her \"Pete\" tat when she performed at the Wicked 15th Anniversary Special recently. \n \n \"So, obviously you know I, we broke up or whatever but when me and her first got engaged we got tattoos,\" he continued. \"And it was like in a magazine like, 'Was Pete Davidson stupid?' And 93% of it said yes,\" Pete said about the public's perception of his tattoos. \"So my boy, he was like, 'Don't listen to that sh*t man. They're literally f*king haters.' And I'm like, 'yeah, f*k that. I'm not stupid.' And the other day we were in my kitchen and he was like, 'Yo bro. Turns out you were stupid.'\" \n \n The comedy event benefited Swing Left, a political group created in the wake of President Trump's election. Judd Apatow joked that he made Pete attend the event, despite the circumstance, because it was for an important cause. \"I care more about America than your feelings, I do,\" Judd joked. \"I care more about America than Pete's feelings.\" \n \n \"I feel like I am America,\" Pete responded. \"I'm a good guy that just keeps getting kicked in the d*ck.\" \n \n October 19, 2018: \n \n Get ready, Ari and Pete fans, cause it looks like things might not be over after all. \n \n A source told People that there's still a chance they'll get back together soon. \n \n \"They\u2019re very unpredictable,\" the source said. \"It\u2019s over for now but in a few days it wouldn\u2019t be shocking to see them all over each other again.\" \n \n Hopefully this means we'll be hearing good news from them soon! \n \n October 17, 2018: \n \n Couples deal with a breakup in different ways, but it seems like Ariana is doing just fine. \n \n Ariana seemed to be living her best life as she recorded her part for the Wicked 15th Anniversary special. She even got to meet one of her idols, Idina Menzel, during the shoot. \n \n \n \n She also posted about her anxiety and how it almost kept her from performing at the event. \n \n In photos from the event, Ari's engagement ring was missing, confirming reports that she returned it to Pete Davidson. She even covered up her Pete Davidson tattoos with bandaids, according to TMZ. Does this mean she's already in the process of getting them removed?! \n \n Meanwhile, Pete Davidson cancelled an appearance at Temple University's \"Comedy Night Live,\" where he was expected to perform a stand-up set on Wednesday. According to Entertainment Tonight, he dropped out due to \"personal reasons.\" \n \n Looks like Pete might be taking their breakup a little harder than Ariana... \n \n October 16, 2018: \n \n While we're still holding out hope that couple gets back together, it looks like things are officially over (for now). \n \n \n \n According to TMZ, Ariana has returned the ring back to Pete Davidson, but there is one thing in particular that she gets to keep. \n \n Ariana is keeping Piggy Smallz as she was the one who originally bought it in the first place. As for Pete's tattoo of their beloved pet pig...well, he might get rid of that now that they're officially split. \n \n \n \n October 15, 2018: \n \n Things might have not been going so well for the couple for a while as Ariana cancelled an appearance just before her split was announced. \n \n Ariana was supposed to perform at the F*ck Cancer Barbara Berlanti Heroes Gala, which is run by her manager Scooter Braun. \n \n \"Someone that I am very close to could not be here today because of things that she is going through,\" Scooter told the crowd, according to People. \"She couldn\u2019t be here today, and while I was frustrated, being a manager, my wife, being who she always is, said to me, 'She needs this time.'\" \n \n While she cancelled her appearance at the gala, she did confirm that she will be performing at the Wicked 15th Anniversary special in her first post since her split. \n \n \n \n October 14, 2018: \n \n After 5 months together, Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson have reportedly called it quits. \n \n TMZ was the first to report that the couple have broken up. According to People, a source close to the couple said, \"it was way too much too soon. It\u2019s not shocking to anyone.\" \n \n The couple hasn't officially confirmed their break up. Pete Davidson recently deleted his Instagram account, while Ariana has remained quiet on her social media accounts. \n \n October 10, 2018: \n \n Pete Davidson was spotted with some new ink and the placement is causing some Ari fans to freak out. \n \n According to Page Six, Pete recently covered up his Dangerous Woman tattoo he had on his neck and turned it into a heart. While the reason behind the coverup isn't known yet, a source told Page Six that the new heart tattoo matches one of Ari's many tattoos. He also got a new tattoo featuring a small \"A\" next to the heart, likely for Ariana's name. \n \n Pete previously got the tattoo back in June, so it's kind of surprising to see him cover it up so quickly. At least Ari and Pete are still going strong. \n \n October 9, 2018: \n \n While it's still unclear whether or not Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber are protecting their respective fortunes and signing a prenup, we at least have a definitive answer for Pete and Ari. According to People, the pair is almost done finalizing their prenuptial agreement, if it's not already finished! \n \n For those who don't know, a prenup establishes rights to property in the event of a divorce. So, if Pete and Ari get call it quits, they will walk away with all the money, homes, etc. that they entered the marriage with. \n \n The topic actually came up recently on Saturday Night Live when Weekend Update host, Colin Jost, asked Pete about the prenup situation. Pete responded that he wanted to sign the agreement. \n \n \u201cObviously I wanted one, you know, so God forbid we split up and then she takes half my sneakers,\u201d he said. \n \n According to In Style, Ariana is worth $45 million. She can thank album sales, tours, and various sponsorship deals for her fortune. On the other hand, Pete is worth about $3 million, racking up the money for his role on SNL as well as various movies throughout the years. And then, of course, there are the sneakers. \n \n September 29, 2018: \n \n Saturday Night Live is officially back on the air and nothing was off-limits during the first episode of the show's 44th season premiere. Pete Davidson's summer was one of the biggest topics during the episode and he even appeared during the Weekend Update segment to let everyone know how it went. \n \n \"I got engaged and no one could believe it. I can\u2019t believe it,\" he said. \"I get it, she\u2019s the number 1 pop star in the world and I\u2019m that guy from SNL that everyone thinks is in desperate need for new blood.\" \n \n \"Do you remember when that whole city pretended that kid was Batman because he was sick? That\u2019s what this feels like,\" he joked. \n \n Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost asked Pete if they were planning to have a prenup. \n \n \"Obviously I wanted one, you know, so God forbid we split up and then she takes half my sneakers,\" he joked. \"No look, I\u2019m totally comfortable being with a successful woman, I think it\u2019s dope. I live at her place. She pays 60 grand for rent and all I have to do is stock the fridge.\" \n \n Pete also said that he has a plan to make sure that Ariana stays with him. \"Last night I switched her birth control with Tic Tacs,\" he said, which caused a lot of frightened gasps from the audience. \"I believe in us and all, but I just want to make sure that she can\u2019t go anywhere.\" \n \n Of course, fans were not so happy with the joke. \n \n pete davidson just joked about switching ariana\u2019s birth control with tic tacs. really. \u2014 marisa kabas (@MarisaKabas) September 30, 2018 \n \n did pete davidson just make a joke about switching ariana\u2019s birth control with tic tacs so she\u2019d get pregnant and would be obligated to stay with him \n \n \n \n .....wut \u2014 kara \u2728 (@kyloporg) September 30, 2018 \n \n Generally I thought Pete Davidson was funny, but until birth control sabotage stops being a common form of abuse and a way abusers trap women in dangergous relationships, I'm not going to laugh at that joke #SNLPremiere \u2014 Ariel Rose (@ArielRoseV) September 30, 2018 \n \n September 27, 2018: \n \n Last week, fans collectively went, \"Aw!\" when they saw that Pete and Ariana had adopted an adorable baby pig. \n \n Instagram \n \n Now, Pete is opening up about the story of why the got the cute pet and it's hilarious! Pete went on Late Night With Seth Meyers and obviously Seth wanted to know about the \"big step\" the couple took together. \n \n \"This girl, like, she was like, 'I want a pig,'\" Pete told Seth. \"And then an hour later it was just there. You know what I mean? Like, I'm still trying, to get, like, a Propecia refill\u2026.This chick got a pig in a f--king hour.\" \n \n Pete explained that Piggy Smallz (yeah, that's his name) has doubled in size in the past week (OK, we need new pics then, please). \n \n Not only has the pet grown, but he has also started to act up a little. \"The first two days it was like really new and, like, didn't move much,\" Pete said. \"But then, now, it's starting to bite and, you know, start to do stuff like [headbutt]. Because it's a pig.\" \n \n \n \n Despite Piggy's newfound aggression, Pete still loves his new pet. \"I love it! I want it to get big and fat.\" Well, you're in luck Pete! Because I'm pretty sure that's what pigs do. \n \n September 24, 2018: \n \n In a recent interview with radio personality Howard Stern, Pete revealed that he received a death threat when his relationship with Ariana went public. \n \n \"I got a death threat,\" he explained. \"Someone wanted to shoot me in the face because [Ariana's] so hot. Do you know how insane that is? I was like, 'Am I that ugly that people want to shoot me in the face?' They\u2019re like, 'No, f*ck this guy,' I\u2019m like, 'What did I do?'\" \n \n Pete is no longer \"on the internet,\" as he explained in the interview. Meaning, much like Selena Gomez, he doesn't have the password to his own Instagram account. \"I don't have my password,\" he said. \"I have an account in case I have to do something, but I don't know how to go on there. I can't. I don't f*cking care. It makes me feel weird about myself... If I post something I like and then people just sh*t all over it, it was like, 'You\u2019re asking for it.'\" \n \n September 20, 2018: \n \n The couple has been taking things slow recently, especially after the death of Mac Miller, which led them to skip the Emmys. Laying low will be a little harder for Pete now that SNL will be returning for its 44th season this weekend. \n \n In honor of its return, Pete posted a video on his Instagram, the first one he has posted since his social media break. In it, paparazzi can be seen taking photos and trying to talk with him. After making some light conversation with them, Pete yells \"welcome home\" until the video ends. \n \n \"@nbcsnl back next week. f**k the internet tho...\" he captioned the photo. \n \n Looks like he might not be so happy to be back after all... \n \n \n \n August 29, 2018: \n \n While we've all loved Ariana and Pete's relationship since the beginning, it took Pete's mother, Amy Waters Davison, a little more time to warm up to it. \n \n According to a source from Us Weekly, \u201cPete\u2019s mother was very nervous about his relationship with Ariana when they started dating.\" This was mostly due to his previous mental health issues and his diagnosis of borderline personality disorder back in 2016. \"She knows her son goes through manic episodes and thought he was rushing into a relationship and would wind up getting hurt.\" \n \n However, time as showed that the two really love each other and they are in it for the long haul. \u201cPete\u2019s mom has grown to love Ariana and can see how much she loves Pete,\u201d said the source. \u201cIt has gotten better now that she knows Ariana better.\u201d \n \n Now, the Grande-Davidson crew is a big, happy family. We can't wait to see them all unite at the wedding! \n \n August 27, 2018: \n \n Pete and Ariana are currently on tour together as Ariana performs her Sweetener sessions. Before she took the stage to perform songs from her new album, Pete had the chance to introduce her and, of course, he told a joke while he was up there. \n \n \"Are you guys ready to start the show? Alright, coming to the stage \u2014 I can\u2019t believe she talks to me \u2014 but give it up for Ariana Grande,\" he said, according to US Weekly. \n \n US Weekly also reports that the couple couldn't take their eyes off each other all night, even when Ariana was performing. \n \n \"Pete just seemed very in awe of her and very proud of her,\" a source told US Weekly. \"He stood on the side of the stage [during the show] and she would occasionally blow him kisses.\" \n \n \n \n Ariana's LA show is the final Sweetener session in the US. The next one will be on September 4 in London, which means we'll likely see them together before Pete starts working on the next season of Saturday Night Live. \n \n August 23, 2018: \n \n Freshman at Auburn University got a special treat when Pete Davidson stopped by as their speaker for their welcome week. Pete was even joined by Ariana Grande, although, she didn't go up on stage. \n \n \n \n During the Q&A section of his set, a brave student asked him the question we all wanted to ask: \n \n \"What\u2019s it liked being engaged to Ariana?,\" Pete repeated, according to People. \"It\u2019s like what you would think it would be like but like a 100 times sicker. I\u2019m a very, very happy boy who is very, very loved and I\u2019m very lucky. And my d*ck\u2018s forever hard.\" \n \n Well, okay then... \n \n After his show, Ari posted a cute photo of the two of them backstage wearing matching Auburn sweaters. \n \n Instagram \n \n August 20, 2018: \n \n Ariana and Pete seriously couldn't keep their hands off each other at the MTV Video Music Awards red carpet. \n \n Getty Images Kevin Mazur \n \n So, when Ariana accepted the award for Best Pop Video, fans waited patiently to listen to her thank fianc\u00e9 Pete. He has been supporting her endlessly since they got together, even wearing a bracelet with her new initials to the awards. She went through everyone, literally EVERYONE on her list before looking Pete in his eyes across the crowded hall and saying, \"Pete Davidson, thank you for existing.\" Ah, young love. \n \n The PDA did not stop on the red carpet, however. The two kept kissing throughout the show, planting a BIG one on each other when Ariana won Best Pop Video for \"No Tears Left to Cry.\" Fans went crazy over the resulting gif, which showed an extremely intimate moment between the two lovebirds. \n \n this gif saved my life https://t.co/Tze4cMwJ5J \u2014 tamara (@tbyarianagb) August 21, 2018 \n \n Now that's true love if I've ever seen it. \n \n After the show, Ariana hosted a Sweetner session, performing songs off her new album for some lucky fans. Of course, kissing was had between the couple at this event as well. Fans went wild as the two embraced in front of the crowd. \n \n And finally, Ariana performed \"Pete Davidson\" in front of Pete Davidson which was kind of beautiful. \n \n August 17, 2018: Ariana chatted with Ebro Darden on Apple's Beats 1 about everything from her fianc\u00e9, Pete Davidson, to dealing with anxiety after the shooting at her Manchester concert. \n \n After playing her dedication song to the attacks, \"Get Well Soon,\" Ariana broke down crying in the studio. \"I just wanted to give people a hug musically and I feel like the lyrics can be kind of corny when I talk about wanting to hug you and stuff, but I really do,\" she explained. Ariana also discussed getting over her fears after the shooting and going back on tour for her fans. \n \n \n \n \"You try not to give into fear because obviously that\u2019s the whole point of being here,\" she explained. \"That was the point of finishing my tour, to set an example for my fans who were fearless enough to show up to the f*cking shows.\" Despite getting over some fears, the singer admitted to still facing constant anxiety when it comes to her very public life. \"I don\u2019t like to have security come with me everywhere. I don\u2019t like those things. It makes me feel inhuman. It makes me feel weird and I don\u2019t like it. I know people are just trying to take care of me, but I want to escape with my friends and run around and be free...but you think about it differently when sh*t like that happens.\" \n \n Things took a lighter turn when Ebro asked Ariana about Pete. \n \n Ariana said that while the wedding won't be for at least five months, it will be sooner than five years, and while she isn't thinking about kids right now, eventually she'll probably want about three. \n \n Ebro then asked the singer if she's going to hyphenate her last name to become Ariana Grande-Davidson, something that isn't too foreign to Ariana, whose last name is currently hyphenated as Grande-Butera. While she said she is going to hyphenate Pete's last name, professionally, she would like to eventually just go by Ariana. \"Isn't that sick?\" She asked. \"I feel like it\u2019s got a ring to it.\u201d \n \n For now though, she's going to remain Ariana Grande, a tribute to her late grandfather who loved the name. \"I think of him with everything I do and he was so proud of our name.\" \n \n We also found out we may have been pronouncing Ariana's name wrong this whole time! \u201cMy grandpa said Grande,\" she said, pronouncing it Grand-e. \"My brother kind of changed it to Grande because Grand-e was kind of like, I guess the Americanized version of it.\" \n \n August 16, 2018: Sweetener is almost here and Ariana recently hung out with James Corden to do some carpool karaoke before the big release. While she sang some of her biggest hits like \"God is a Woman\" and \"Dangerous Woman,\" Corden asked her what was the weirdest thing she every heard about herself. \n \n \"Tons of pregnancy stuff. People really want me to be pregnant. They always want me \u2013 they want it. They want it so bad. Every other week, there\u2019s like another pregnancy thing.\" \n \n \n \n Looks like all those pregnancy rumors are not true (not like we really believed them anyway). Sadly, Ari didn't open up about her relationship with Pete Davidson, but hopefully we'll be seeing more cute moments between the couple very soon. \n \n \n \n July 31, 2018: Pete was spotted with his Ariana Grande \"Dangerous Woman\" tattoo covered up and fans were scrambling for some answers. Luckily, everything seems to be going well in paradise as he actually covered it up for his new movie, Big Time Adolescence, according to TMZ. Even Pete's makeup artist reassured fans that everything is alright between the couple, writing on her Facebook, \"Trust me, they are in LOVE.\" \n \n \n \n July 30, 2018: Previously a fan called out Ariana for naming a song on her upcoming album \"Pete,\" after her new fianc\u00e9. A fan argued that Ariana shouldn't name the song after Pete since they have only been together for a few months, to which Ariana responded,\"He's my fianc\u00e9. This is my album. I'm an honest and emotional artist and human being and if my openness in my work isn't for you, that's OK; I won't be offended. Still wishing y'all all the love in the world.\" \n \n Now, it has been revealed that Ariana has changed the name of the song, but not to please that one angry fan. The official title of the track formally known as \"Pete\" is now, \"Pete Davidson.\" In case you got it confused with another guy named Pete. \n \n When a fan asked about the name change on Twitter, Ariana responded saying: \n \n \n \n i like the way it looks \n \n i love his name and i love him \n \n music lasts forever. it\u2019ll outlive any tattoo, any memory, any anything, even myself so i want my love for him and how i feel to be a part of that \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) July 30, 2018 \n \n Ok, that is beautiful. \n \n July 23, 2018: After they both left social media due to intense backlash from fans and the public, Ariana released a behind the scenes video for her song \"God is a Woman\" and it features tons of cute moments between her and Pete Davidson. \n \n The two shared a kiss and Ariana adorably said, \"that's my fianc\u00e9,\" as she walked in front of the camera. Watch the video below: \n \n July 12, 2018: Ariana got to show off her new manicure on Instagram but it was actually her new tattoo that has everyone talking. In a sweet tribute to her new fianc\u00e9, Ariana got Pete's name tattooed on her left ring finger, right next to her engagement ring. While we all know who she's engaged to, it's still a sweet little reminder of her future husband. \n \n July 5, 2018: Ariana responded to fan questions and was asked about Pete's joke about the Manchester Arena bombing that recently resurfaced. \n \n this has been v tough & conflicting on my heart. he uses comedy to help ppl feel better ab how f-ed up things in this world are. we all deal w trauma differently. I of course didn\u2019t find it funny. it was months ago & his intention wasn\u2019t/ is never malicious but it was unfortunate \n \n \n \n i hear and respect you always \n \n i hear and respect you all always. \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) July 5, 2018 \n \n Pete has yet to apologize or make a statement about the joke, although, it's probably safe to say that the couple had a long talk about it recently. \n \n July 2, 2018: One of Pete's old jokes has recently resurfaced and it has a not-so-funny connection with Ariana. \n \n Last fall, Pete performed at a benefit to support victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. During his set, Pete joked about the Manchester Arena bombing at an Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people. \n \n \"Britney Spears didn\u2019t have a terrorist attack at her concert,\" Pete joked. \n \n \n \n A source close to Pete has since come to defend the comedian saying that the joke is being taken out of context. \n \n \"He lost his dad in 9/11 and is close with other victims of violent tragedies. As a way of coping he turns to humor,\" the source told People. \"He\u2019s obviously sensitive to tragedy as he lost his own father and his intention is to just make people laugh.\" \n \n While it's unknown if Ariana has heard the joke, things seem to going fine between the couple as they posted photos of each other the day before. \n \n July 1, 2018: Ariana got a brand new tattoo in honor of Pete's dad. While walking around New York City with her fianc\u00e9 earlier this week, fans noticed a new tattoo of the numbers \"8148\" on her foot for the first time. 8148 was the badge number that Pete's dad, Scott Davidson, had worn when he was a firefighter. Scott Davidson died during the September 11 attacks and Pete also has a similar tattoo of his dad's badge numbers as well. \n \n \n \n Getty Images \n \n Pete Davidson also showed off his newly dyed hair in an Instagram post. Posing right next to Ariana, the two are sporting face masks but it's really Pate's new blonde hair that stole the show. Check out his new hair below: \n \n June 28, 2018: Ariana is throwing it back this Thursday by singing along with a song from her first album Yours Truly called \"You'll Never Know.\" While it was a nice treat to see her singing one of her classics, it was her sweater that stole the show as it featured a picture of Pete. Check out the sweater below: \n \n pete is on ariana\u2019s sweater (via Ariana Grande\u2019s IG story) pic.twitter.com/1zRb0kyZfi \u2014 daily pete davidson (@davidsonsource) June 29, 2018 \n \n June 27, 2018: The birthday festivities continue for Ariana. The couple and some of their friends decided to hit a karaoke bar (as any normal Grammy-nominated vocalist does) and sing some of their favorite tunes together. Ariana got to channel her inner Beyonc\u00e9 and perform the only cover of \"Love on Top\" that might be acceptable on this planet. \n \n imagine being at a karaoke bar and it\u2019s your turn to sing but you\u2019re going up after ariana grande... pic.twitter.com/3r3JneFHOa \u2014 zach \ud83c\udf2b (@nyczach) June 27, 2018 \n \n Pete decided to join in on the next song and performed Evanescence's \"Bring Me to Life.\" Pete looked like he was having a lot of fun singing next to his future wife. \n \n \n \n ariana grande and pete davidson doing evanescence karaoke is how we all know that this is true love pic.twitter.com/RZedDblUuO \u2014 xx (@xxheathheathxx) June 27, 2018 \n \n Let's hope that Pete joins Ariana on her next tour so we could see them perform this song all the time. \n \n June 26, 2018: Happy birthday, Ariana! Thanks to her family and friends, the singer had a big bash to celebrate her 25th birthday. Pete also joined in the festivities and even posted a cute Instagram in honor of the birthday girl. \n \n \n \n Just when fans thought that was the only birthday post Pete had up his sleeve, he posted another one on his Instagram. \n \n Ariana posted several photos from her big bash on her Instagram page, but there was one photo that got all her fans talking and it wasn't even from the party. \n \n Instagram \n \n If you didn't believe in their relationship before, this is all you need to believe in them now. \n \n \n \n June 22, 2018: Ariana and Pete aren't hiding their love, especially on social media. Ariana posted a new video on her Instagram stories featuring her straddling her fianc\u00e9e while singing \"Can You Feel the Love Tonight\" from The Lion King. \n \n Anyone can definitely feel the love between them, especially Pete. \n \n June 21, 2018: Ariana Grande answered some interesting questions during her Twitter Q&A and probably gave a little too much information about her fianc\u00e9. A fan asked Ariana how long Pete is, referring to the song on the album. Ariana jokingly replied back saying 10 inches, before mentioning that the actual song is a little more than a minute. \n \n Ariana also replied back to rumors that she is pregnant with Pete's child and that's why they're in a rush to get married. One fan photoshopped her Sweetener album cover to make it seem like she's rolling her eyes. \n \n mood for the next few years til i\u2019m actually ready #fertilequeen \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) June 22, 2018 \n \n Another fan even told her that they would make cute kids together and she replied back saying they're not in a rush to have children. \n \n oh absolutely but ......... innnnnnnaaaaawhile \ud83d\ude48 \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) June 22, 2018 \n \n June 20, 2018: Pete Davidson has finally confirmed his engagement with Ariana, even though we've all known the truth all along. Pete stopped by The Tonight Show to talk about his new movie Set it Up. Jimmy Fallon mentioned to Pete that he didn't have to get engaged in order to be a guest on the show. \"But I did though,\" Pete replied. \n \n When asked how his engagement to Ariana is going, Pete said, \"Yeah, I feel like I won a contest. So sick. It\u2019s f*cking lit, Jimmy.\" \n \n Watch more of Pete's interview below: \n \n June 18, 2018: H2GKMO, everyone! Pete and Ariana just went and got tattoos together (along with some of Ariana's friends). Ariana decided to get one of her favorite Twitter phrase, H2GKMO, which means \"honest to god, knock me out.\" Ariana showed off her new ink on her Instagram story. \n \n \n \n It's unknown if Pete also got the same phrase, but he did show off some new ink in honor of Kid Cudi's new album. \n \n Clearly, the couple that gets inked together, stays together. \n \n June 17, 2018: Just when this relationship couldn't get any sketchier, TMZ is now reporting that Pete and Cazzie were actually on a break when he got together with Ariana. \n \n It seems like it's all good though, as Ariana posted on her Instagram later that day and hinted that her and Pete may have taken another big step in their relationship and moved into a new apartment together. \n \n Instagram \n \n Ariana answered some fan questions on Twitter about her new album. She recently posted a clip of a song on her Instagram page earlier in the day. \n \n During her Twitter Q&A, Ariana revealed that the new track is actually called \"Pete.\" \n \n Twitter \n \n She also shared that she had several options for the song's title, but decided to name it after her new fianc\u00e9 instead. A fan also tried to come after her for naming the song after Pete, but she clapped back with one final tweet. \n \n \"'pete' girl we know you love him but are you dumb,\" the fan tweeted out. \n \n Another fan came to her defense and pointed out that Ariana really doesn't care anymore. \n \n \"forreal. the truth is :coffee: i been the f*ck thru it and life\u2019s too short to be cryptic n sh*t about something as beautiful as this love I\u2019m in. so \u01dd\u0287\u01dd\u0500 it is.\" \n \n June 15, 2018: Pete posts another photo of him and Ariana, this time focusing on their hands including that special ring on her finger with the caption, \"u know what you\u2019d dream it be like ? it\u2019s better than that.\" \n \n Ariana posts a video of her singing along to her new single \"Bed\" on her Instagram story. She also shows off engagement ring and later posts a second video of her with Pete. \n \n Instagram \n \n June 14, 2018: Some friends of the couple are now talking about their big engagement. \n \n Nick Cannon revealed to Entertainment Tonight that Pete had called him before the engagement. Pete and Nick used to work together when Pete was part of the Wild N' Out team for several seasons. \n \n \"He called before he was going to do it, and I said, 'Salud!'\" Nick told Entertainment Tonight. \"He was really excited, so I was like, 'I love it, man. Keep it going.' Love is in the air!\" \n \n Nick has also said that he has already congratulated the Wild N' Out album on his engagement and is even open to taking part in the wedding. \n \n \"I think they're outstanding. They're young people in love and you can't knock that. It's like The Notebook,\" Nick said. \"I'm up for all weddings. I'll officiate. I don't know how long they'll last if you let me do it, but I'm up for it.\" \n \n \n \n Ariana's Sam & Cat co-star Jennette McCurdy also talked to Entertainment Tonight about the newly engaged couple and said that Pete is absolutely perfect for Ariana. \n \n \"They seem like they're a great fit,\" she said. \"From what I know of her, he seems like exactly a good person for her.\" \n \n \n \n She also said that Pete fits Ariana's type when it comes to guys. \n \n \"Tattoos! She always likes the tattoos. And humor, of course.\" \n \n June 11, 2018: Rumors start spreading that the couple has taken things to the next level and are now engaged. While Ariana and Pete have yet to officially confirm their engagement, Ariana did reply back to a fan's tweet which seems to prove that the rumors are true. \n \n HAHAHAHAHAHH HES BEEN BRIEFED \u2014 Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) June 12, 2018 \n \n Later that day, they were spotted together at Disneyland, possibly celebrating the big news, and riding Space Mountain together. \n \n Another one of Pete's exes, Carly Aquilino, shared various text conversations on her Instagram story with her reaction to Pete's engagement. \n \n Instagram \n \n She also posted a second conversation featuring her sending a heart emoji to someone without a reply back and the caption, \"my love life going great.\" \n \n Instagram \n \n Pete and Carly dated back in 2015, before he started dating Cazzie. \n \n June 2, 2018: Pete gets two new tattoos in honor of his new bae. One of them features Ariana's initials \"AG\" and the second is Ariana's signature bunny ears from her Dangerous Woman era. \n \n June 1, 2018: Cazzie David posts a new photo on Instagram of her on vacation in Africa with the caption, \"Been in Africa, what\u2019d I miss ??\" \n \n May 30, 2018: The couple makes their relationship Instagram official after Pete posts a picture on his account featuring him and Ariana in Gryffindor and Slytherin robes. \n \n May 23, 2018: Ariana opens up about leaving a toxic relationship after it was reported that Mac Miller was arrested for drunk driving after crashing his car and fleeing the scene. \n \n \"I will continue to pray from the bottom of my heart that he figures it all out and that any other woman in this position does as well,\" she wrote. \n \n May 20, 2018: Pete attends the Billboard Music Awards, where Ariana performed her new single, \"No Tears Left to Cry.\" \n \n \"After Ariana\u2019s performance, they were backstage and he had his arm around her,\" a source told People. \"They seemed very lovey-dovey. He was hanging out with her and her friends. She seemed quite smitten.\" \n \n May 18, 2018: Bossip is the first to report that Grande and Davidson are officially a couple. \n \n May 17, 2018: Pete goes to tattoo artist Jon Mesa to get his tattoo of Cazzie covered. \n \n \n \n May 16, 2018: Pete revealed that he and longtime girlfriend, Cazzie David, have broken up on Open Late with Peter Rosenberg. The couple started dating in 2016. \n \n May 12, 2018: Ariana and Pete are seen together at a Saturday Night Live afterparty, according to Us Weekly. She's also seen with the same cloud phone case that Pete was spotted holding earlier. \n \n \n \n May 9, 2018: TMZ reports that Ariana and Mac Miller have broken up after 2 years of dating. According to sources, the couple broke up due to conflicting schedules and still plan to stay close friends. \n \n Tamara Fuentes is the Entertainment Editor at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram! \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 They were engaged within weeks of dating, and even got matching tattoos. Now, Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson may have some ink to cover up. TMZ, which broke the news of their marriage plans in June, is now reporting on the demise of those plans, with sources telling the site the couple broke up over the weekend, and that Grande ended things. A source confirms to CNN that the two are done, though TMZ notes the couple believed \"it simply was not the right time for their relationship to take off.\" \"They realized it happened too quick and too early,\" a source tells Us Weekly. \"The wedding is off, but they're working things out. They're not officially done yet.\" The 25-year-old singer detailed recent struggles on social media after the death of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, who died last month of an apparent drug overdose; TMZ reports that that was the breaking point. Fans of the 24-year-old Davidson\u2014who has apparently deleted his Instagram account, per Metro\u2014meanwhile, are commiserating: One even started a GoFundMe for him. \"He will need somewhere to sleep tonight,\" noted the fundraising effort, which was seeking to bring in $2,500 and has since been taken down."}
{"document": "Chloe Kim made headlines on Tuesday by winning 2018 Winter Olympics gold at just 17 years old in the women\u2019s snowboard halfpipe final, but it was her father who stole the show after becoming \u201cthe American dream\u201d. \n \n American Kim, who is of South Korean heritage, was one of the big rising names in Pyeongchang to keep an eye out for, and the snowboarding prot\u00e9g\u00e9 delivered on her promise as she won the halfpipe final with three brilliant runs. \n \n An emotional Kim soaked up the adulation of her fans after claiming gold, and quickly rushed to embrace her family who were watching on the slopes. \n \n Jong Jin Kim cheers on his daughter Chloe in the Winter Olympics women's snowboard halfpipe final \n \n But it was her father, Jong Jin Kim, who won the adulation of the public as he appeared with a sign reading \u201cGo Chloe\u201d in true dad-style support, and when she was finally crowned Olympic champion, he was heard shouting \u201cAmerican dream!\u201d while pointing at himself with a beaming smile on his face. \n \n He later said: \u201cWhen I came to the United States, this was my American hope. Now, this is my American dream. \n \n \u201cWe all worked so hard. I can take a break now,\u201d Jong Jin added in Korean. \u201cWe worked so hard. Now she\u2019s going to go to college. She\u2019s a student, and she\u2019s got to go study hard. Snowboarding is what you do when you\u2019re young. Who knows how much longer she\u2019s going to keep snowboarding? \n \n \u201cI just want her to study hard. She\u2019s got to go have a good experience in college. I just hope she lives as a happy girl. I just wish she was a little nicer to me! She\u2019s such a teenage girl. \n \n \u201cShe can do what she wants to do. We\u2019ve been so close for so long, now I can take a break.\u201d \n \n Television footage showed Jong Jin cheering on his daughter as she went for a final run to light up the Olympics, having already bagged the gold medal. Not content with her score of 93.75, Kim went for broke and performed her trademark back-to-back 1080s \u2013 the move that only her and two-time men\u2019s gold medallist Shaun White have ever completed. \n \n Winter Olympics 2018: 9 British medal hopefuls to watch \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 9 show all Winter Olympics 2018: 9 British medal hopefuls to watch \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 1/9 Lizzy Yarnold Lizzy Yarnold won Team GB\u2019s first gold medal of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games after dominating the women's skeleton from start to finish. She hs recently take some time away from the sport before returning with the aim of defending her title at PyeongChang 2018. Getty Images \n \n 2/9 Jenny Jones Jenny Jones set Britain alight with slopestyle fever when she produced a spectacular display at Sochi 2014 to take Olympic bronze. having spent a winter in Tignes as a chalet maid, she took up snowboarding, quickly winning everything she entered, included three Winter X Games golds between 2009 and 2010. Getty Images \n \n 3/9 Jamie Nicholls Jamie Nicholls became the first British male snowboarder to win a World Cup event in 2016. The Bradford-born athlete took up the sport aged seven at Halifax Ski and Snowboard centre, but by the age of 13 he was already considered one of the best UK snowboarders. At the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, Nicholls finished sixth overall. Getty Images \n \n 4/9 James Woods James Woods won five consecutive British National Championships in slopestyle between 2007 and 2011. Woods suffered a hip injury in training for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games, but finished a remarkable fifth in the slopestyle. After winning the Big Air competition to take a first ever Winter X Games gold medal in 2017, the Brit went on to take Winter X Games Europe bronze in slopestyle before repeating the feat at the World Championships a week later. AFP/Getty Images \n \n 5/9 Elise Christie Elise Christie was born in Livingston and moved to Nottingham when she was 15 in order to pursue her sporting dream. After representing Great Britain at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Christie enjoyed the most successful season ever by a British female short track speed skater in 2012/13 - finishing the campaign ranked top in the 1000m world rankings, with two European gold medals to her name. Following three disqualifications at Sochi 2014, the 12-time World medallist will be confident of improving on her previous Olympic best result of 11th in the 500m at Vancouver 2010. AFP/Getty Images \n \n 6/9 Eve Muirhead Eve Muirhead became the youngest ever skip to win a Winter Olympic medal when she guided Team GB to bronze at Sochi 2014 in what was her second Winter Olympic appearance. A four-time world junior champion, Muirhead has won multiple European and World senior medals \u2013 including a second gold at the 2017 European Championships \u2013 and will once again skip Team GB\u2019s women\u2019s curling rink in PyeongChang. AFP/Getty Images \n \n 7/9 Dave Ryding Dave Ryding shocked the alpine skiing world when he claimed Britain\u2019s first World Cup skiing podium for 36 years with slalom silver in Kitzbuhel in January 2017. The man from Bretherton had almost made another trip to the podium in Stockholm in the parallel slalom, but finished an agonising fourth, just 0.06 seconds off a bronze medal. Ryding competed at the Vancouver and Sochi Olympic Winter Games, finishing 17th in the slalom in Russia, and achieved his highest World Championship placing in 2017 when he came 11th. Getty Images \n \n 8/9 Charlotte Gilmartin Charlotte Gilmartin began competing as a junior speed skater for Great Britain aged just 15, before rising through the ranks to regularly compete on the world stage. In January 2016, Gilmartin won 3000m gold and overall silver at the European Championships and added 500m bronze a year later. Getty Images \n \n 9/9 Andrew Musgrave Andrew Musgrave\u2019s first outing at the Olympic Winter Games came at Vancouver 2010 where he finished 51st in the 15km + 15km double pursuit, 55th in the 15km freestyle race and 58th in the individual sprint. In 2014, he competed in his second Olympic Winter Games in Sochi where he qualified 27th for the individual sprint before finishing 44th in the 15km classical and 53rd in the 50km freestyle. The Dorset-born athlete finished fourth in the 50km freestyle at the 2017 World Championships \u2013 a higher placing than any previously achieved by a British Nordic skier. Getty Images \n \n Becoming the first woman to land the trick at the Winter Olympics, Kim was given a huge score of 98.25, sealing her victory over China\u2019s Lie Jiayu by more than eight points. \n \n Yet Kim even found time to crack jokes on social media between the runs, tweeting: \u201cWish I finished my breakfast sandwich but my stubborn self decided not to and now I\u2019m getting hangry.\u201d \n \n Wish I finished my breakfast sandwich but my stubborn self decided not to and now I'm getting hangry \u2014 Chloe Kim (@chloekimsnow) February 13, 2018 \n \n \u201cI am a little overwhelmed,\u201d said Kim. \u201cIt\u2019s the best outcome I could have asked for, it\u2019s been such a long journey. \n \n \u201cThis whole experience has been insane. You hear so much about the Olympics but actually being a part of it is a completely different story. I am so fortunate to be able to go through it. \n \n She produced two trademark 1080s on her final run (Getty) \n \n \u201cTo share my story with the world has been amazing. \n \n \u201cI knew if I went home with the gold medal knowing I could do better I wasn\u2019t going to be very satisfied,\u201d she added. \n \n Chloe Kim burst into tears after winning the women's halfpipe final at the Winter Olympics (Getty) \n \n \u201cI did put down a really good run (in the first run) but I was like \u2013 \u2018I can do better than that\u2019. \n \n \u201cI knew that I wanted to do that third run, I wanted to do the back-to-back 10s, go bigger and better.\u201d \n \n DFS is proud to continue its support of Team GB as the official homeware partner, bringing the joy of comfort to Team GB athletes throughout 2018 and beyond. ||||| Wish I finished my breakfast sandwich but my stubborn self decided not to and now I'm getting hangry ||||| The gold medal had been secured, the desire to eat a breakfast sandwich had been conveyed to the world, and the starburst had been completed. She stood at the top at PyeongChang Halfpipe and had only one thing left to do, the thing she loved most, the most peaceful thing in a 17-year-old life about to be upended, to never again be the same. Chloe Kim had to perform. \n \n For competitive purposes, the final run Kim took down the halfpipe meant nothing. For artistic and athletic value, it carried historic weight, both a punctuation and invitation. It stamped her, even at the start of her career, as a groundbreaker, one of the most talented snowboarders in the sport\u2019s history. It begged other girls all over the world to join her: Look at what you can do, look at all the grand possibilities, when you strap a high-tech plank to your feet. \n \n The coronation of a new American Olympic darling occurred here late Tuesday morning. Kim entered these Olympics as an overwhelming favorite in women\u2019s halfpipe, with many snowboard enthusiasts convinced she could have won gold four years ago, at age 13, had she not been too young to compete in Sochi. But the expectation could not diminish the thrill of watching Kim twirl and spin and take the sport to new places. \n \n [Svrluga: Ice cream-loving teen or dominant gold medalist? Chloe Kim is now both.] \n \n Kim\u2019s first run, which scored a 93.75, guaranteed her first place. She spilled in the middle of her second run, which left her \u201ckind of annoyed.\u201d On her third run, she executed three spins on the left side of the halfpipe, whooshed up the other wall and pulled off the same trick on that side. The crowd roared and shrieked: Kim had become the first female to land consecutive 1080s in the halfpipe at the Olympics. The run earned her a 98.25, more than eight points clear of Chinese silver medalist Liu Jiayu. \n \n \u201cI knew if I went home with the gold medal knowing that I could do better, I wasn\u2019t going to be very satisfied,\u201d Kim said. \u201cThat situation, I did put down a really good first run, but I was like, \u2018I can do better than that. I can one-up myself.\u2019 The third run was for me to prove to myself if I did it, and I could go home really happy and excited.\u201d \n \n Kim, an acrobatic performer of Korean heritage and California cool, is destined to become an even bigger star than she already is. She became a prodigy under the watchful eye of her father, Jong Jin, who was born in South Korea \u2014 a biographical fact that enhanced her stardom here. Jong Jin would drive his youngest daughter from La Palma, Calif., to Mammoth Mountain, 5 1 /2 hours away. Jong Jin watched Tuesday from in front of the grandstand at the base of the halfpipe, holding up a sign reading \u201cGo Chloe!\u201d \n \n \u201cI told her, today is the day [she] will turn into a dragon,\u201d Jong Jin said. \n \n [Meet Chloe Kim, the 17-year-old snowboarder poised to rule the Olympics] \n \n The world changed for Kim. She stood on a podium and dabbed a tear from each eye, then received a quick glimpse into a coming whirlwind. Handlers whisked her to an interview. Reporters trailed Jong Jin like ducklings. As her mother, Boran, hugged her and wiped away a tear, photographers clicked cameras and reporters held iPhones aloft. She navigated a gantlet of TV interviews and a maze of reporters. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t really know what\u2019s happening, and I\u2019m actually feeling a little anxious right now,\u201d Kim said. \u201cI\u2019m a little overwhelmed.\u201d \n \n Despite her admission to nerves, Kim carried herself with an easy-going personality and acted very much like the Californian teenager she is. Kim tweeted about jonesing for ice cream Monday afternoon \u2014 between qualification rounds, in which she produced, by far, the two highest-scored runs of the day. She pulled the same schtick between finals runs, telling the world she wished she had finished her breakfast sandwich, and she was now \u201changry.\u201d \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve just been on my phone a lot, just looking at social media, trying to distract myself,\u201d Kim said. \u201cWhen I get drug-tested, I\u2019ll be doing the same thing, because I\u2019ll be nervous when I\u2019m getting drug-tested, because there\u2019s a stranger watching me go to the bathroom.\u201d \n \n But it\u2019s Kim\u2019s athletic charisma and jaw-dropping talent that makes her most appealing. Even to a broad audience with scant snowboarding knowledge, her surpassing ability is obvious. She achieves more amplitude on her jumps, packs more spins and flips into them and lands her board back on the ground like a feather. \n \n Her place in the sport will be pivotal. It may have been the final Olympics for five-time Olympian Kelly Clark, the 34-year-old standard bearer. She won her only gold medal at the 2002 Olympics but remained at the top of the sport long enough to miss out, just barely, on her fourth podium Tuesday. \n \n \u201cIf I did the run I won with in Salt Lake,\u201d said Clark, who finished fourth, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even make a final today.\u201d \n \n American Arielle Gold, who won bronze with an audacious and flawless third run, called it \u201cthe most progressive contest we\u2019ve ever seen. It just shows you the direction women\u2019s snowboarding is going to go.\u201d \n \n Kim is at the vanguard, with a new world about to open to her \u2014 so many more possibilities. Just-minted gold medalists are often asked a version of the same question: What would you tell people like yourself, but younger? Less than an hour after her defining run, Kim nodded along as a reporter asked it of her. \n \n \u201cI\u2019d say do whatever you want,\u201d Kim said. \u201cI think I was so fortunate to find my passion and the thing that brought me so much joy at such a young age. I think, you know, if you\u2019re young \u2014 even if you\u2019re old, it doesn\u2019t matter how old you are \u2014 but if you find something that you really want to try, just give it a try. You\u2019re never going to know. The one thing I learned is, just give everything a shot. You don\u2019t want to live in regret.\u201d \n \n She had nothing to regret Tuesday, on a dazzling morning, bright sun reflecting off pristine snow, people from two nations screaming for her. There is so much Chloe Kim will have to navigate in coming years, but the joy of getting to perform will never grow old. ||||| Chloe Kim, of the United States, celebrates winning gold in the women's halfpipe finals at Phoenix Snow Park at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregory... (Associated Press) \n \n Chloe Kim, of the United States, celebrates winning gold in the women's halfpipe finals at Phoenix Snow Park at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) (Associated Press) \n \n PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) \u2014 Chloe Kim stamped her name on a new era of snowboarding with a run down the halfpipe that, officially, did not mean anything, but to her, meant everything. \n \n The Olympic gold medal was already hers but she knew she could do better. So, she cinched on her gloves, cranked up \"Motorsport\" on her iPod, said \"This one's for you Grams\" \u2014 a shout-out to her South Korean grandmother, who was watching her in person for the first time \u2014 and dropped into the halfpipe to make history. \n \n On the last run of Tuesday's sunsplashed final, Kim hit back-to-back 1080-degree spins on her second and third jumps \u2014 repeating a combination no other woman has ever done in a competition. \n \n She landed them squarely, sent her already super-hyped family at the bottom into overdrive and sent out the message that everyone from grandma to those at the roots of this sport love to hear: \"I knew I wasn't going to be completely satisfied taking home the gold, but knowing that I could've done better.\" \n \n The 17-year-old from California made it look easy, but only afterward did she concede how difficult the past several months have been. Her story has been told and sold and marketed for gold: Her parents both emigrated to the United States from South Korea, and though it was more coincidence than any grand plan, Kim making her Olympic debut in the country where her family was from set up a sure path to stardom in the halfpipe and beyond. \n \n She has commanded the progression in women's snowboarding for at least two years now, and it was hard to imagine anyone beating her on the sport's biggest stage, at her official coming-out party. But halfpipes are hard, the snow is frozen and nothing is for sure. \n \n \"There is a lot of pressure revolving around these games,\" she said. \"You wait for four years to come here and it's definitely a lot of hype around a 1 1/2, 2-hour time period. It's pretty nerve-wracking. You know you're at the Olympics. It's been a dream of mine since I was a little girl, to land a run that's very important for me.\" \n \n She didn't have to do it. \n \n In the first of the day's three runs, she flew higher than anyone on her opening straight air, then landed one 1080, and closed with a pair of inverted spins, each with well-timed, easy-to-see grabs of the board that the judges appreciate. Her score there was a 93.75, which put her nearly nine points clear of the other 11 riders, none of whom would crack 90. \n \n The rest of the day was a contest for second, and China's Liu Jiayu won it. She said injuries made her reboot and reconnect with her love of the sport, regardless of the result. It will be interesting to see how the 25-year-old's attitude shifts four years hence, at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. \n \n Third place went to another young American: 21-year-old Arielle Gold, who casually announced afterward that she had separated her shoulder here on the second day of training, much the way she did on a training run in Sochi four years ago that forced her to scratch from the competition. \n \n \"The doctors (say) that the more that it happens, the less impactful it is,\" Gold said. \n \n That bronze-medal run pushed Kelly Clark \u2014 she of the one gold and two Olympic bronzes \u2014 into fourth. This was Clark's fifth Olympics, and the 34-year-old left the halfpipe with her own future to consider, but knowing the future of the sport she helped bring to the masses is in very good hands. \n \n \"Chloe's an outstanding snowboarder, but I'm more proud of her for how she's handled herself as a person,\" Clark said. \"She's handled success and pressure with grace and class, and it's refreshing.\" \n \n Kim's journey included two years in Switzerland, where she lived with her aunt, learned French and honed her snowboarding skills. \n \n Her father, Jong Jin, gave up his job to chase his daughter's dream. \n \n Down in the fans section, where Jong Jin was joined by his wife, Boran, along with Chloe's two sisters, three aunts, two cousins, and her 75-year-old grandma, dad pointed to himself and said \"American dream,\" then let out a big whoop. \n \n \"I did, like, a 12-year sacrifice, and finally I got my reward,\" he said. \"Thank you very much (to) my daughter.\" \n \n She put on quite a show, and she will be rewarded in ways large and small. Heck, her Instagram following nearly doubled, to 350,000, since she arrived in South Korea \u2014 and that was before she won the gold. \n \n But deep down, she knows where the real thanks belonged. Her way of giving it was the classic run she put down at the end. \n \n \"To just quit work and travel with your kid full-time, leaving your wife behind and really chasing this dream because your kid is really passionate about this sport, I'm always so thankful for that,\" she said. \"And today, I really did it for my family and everything they've done for me.\" \n \n ___ \n \n AP Sports Writer Jake Seiner contributed to this report. \n \n ___ \n \n More AP Olympic coverage: https://wintergames.ap.org", "summary": "\u2013 At 17, American snowboarder Chloe Kim has completed her rise to superstar with a stunning gold medal victory in Pyeongchang. The California teen was already assured of gold after scoring 93.75 in the first run of the women's halfpipe final, but she ended up making history on her third run, the AP reports. She scored an amazing 98.25 with back-to-back 1080-degree spins, one on each side of the halfpipe, a feat never accomplished before by a female at the Olympics. \"I knew if I went home with the gold medal knowing that I could do better, I wasn\u2019t going to be very satisfied,\" she says. \"That situation, I did put down a really good first run, but I was like, 'I can do better than that. I can one-up myself.' The third run was for me to prove to myself if I did it, and I could go home really happy and excited.\" The win makes Kim the youngest female snowboarder to win Olympic gold, and the youngest female Team USA member to win gold on snow. The silver went to China's Liu Jiayu, and the bronze to Arielle Gold, another American. Before finals runs, Kim tweeted that she was \"hangry\" after not finishing her breakfast sandwich, reports the Washington Post. Afterward, the teen, whose parents are from South Korea, told reporters: \"It means a lot just being able to do it where my family is from. A lot of pressure, but I\u2019m happy I was able to do it here and do it for the fans and the family.\" Her father, who held a \"Go Chloe\" sign, shouted \"American dream\" when she was crowned champion, the Independent reports. \"When I came to the United States, this was my American hope,\" Jong Jin Kim told reporters. \"Now, this is my American dream.\""}
{"document": "No one seems to be sure exactly how many people packed the National Mall today for the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear, but there\u2019s one thing everyone can agree on: sanity and/or fear are extremely popular. \n \n MTV\u2019s spokesperson told the Washington City Paper\u2019s Mike Madden that 250,000 people came out to see Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert take the stage Saturday, while Viacom (the parent company of MTV and Comedy Central, home to Stewart\u2019s and Colbert\u2019s show) told the New York Times\u2019 Brian Stelter that \u201cwell over 200,000\u201d were in attendance. \n \n [TPM SLIDESHOW: Sanity Restored: Photos From The Stewart/Colbert Rally] \n \n At the rally itself, Mythbusters hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage said they counted about 150,000. \n \n But The Hill\u2019s Vicki Needham dug into the data and found anecdotal evidence to suggest a crowd size closer to Viacom\u2019s number than the from the Mythbusters dudes. \n \n \u201cMore than 350,000 had ridden Metro [DC\u2019s public transportation system] before 3 p.m.,\u201d Needham reported, \u201ca number typical for an entire Saturday.\u201d \n \n To be sure, even the smaller estimates show an extremely large crowd for a DC event, even one in this year of tea party rallies packing the Mall and the Capitol lawn. I have been to many a tea party rally, from the big ones to the small ones, and jammed in the crowd at Stewart\u2019s rally as I was today I can say there was an amazingly big turnout. \n \n By way of comparison, the crowd was definitely closer in size to that of the first 9/12 rally \u2014 which, of course, famously had no final crowd tally \u2014 than to the second 9/12 rally. \n \n Stewart poked fun at the idea of crowd estimates, even as us media types scrambled to put them together. Joke\u2019s on me guess. Or on you for reading this whole story. Whichever, here\u2019s Stewart mocking us both: \n \n Update: \n \n CBS News commissioned the same group to analyze the crowd size at the Stewart-Colbert rally it used to estimate the crowd at Glenn Beck\u2019s August rally. \n \n The CBS numbers: Beck drew 87,000 people to his rally, Stewart and Colbert drew 215,000. ||||| The crowd at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's \"Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear\" on the Mall in Washington. / AirPhotosLive.Com \n \n An estimated 215,000 people attended a rally organized by Comedy Central talk show hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News. \n \n The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance at the \"Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear\" on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which took place on the Mall in Washington. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent. (See some of the pictures used to create the estimate here.) \n \n \n \n CBS News also commissioned AirPhotosLive.com to do a crowd estimate of Glenn Beck's \"Restoring Honor\" rally in August. That rally was estimated to have attracted 87,000 people. Amid criticism from conservatives that the estimate was low, CBS News detailed the methodology behind it here. \n \n TBD reported that because of the high turnout many would-be rally attendees retreated to bars to watch the event. \n \n The crowd at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's \"Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the Mall in Washington. / AirPhotosLive.Com \n \n The National Park Service does not estimate crowds. The New York Times' Brian Stelter wrote on Twitter during the event that the Park Service privately told Viacom there were \"well over 200,000\" people at the rally, according to an executive. \n \n Stewart joked during the rally that there were ten million people present and, in reference to the difficulty of making crowd estimates, solemnly promised to \"count them all.\" \n \n Comedy Central's permit for the event said it was expecting 60,000 people, though, as the Wall Street Journal notes, it ordered enough port-a-potties for 150,000. \n \n Jon Stewart Rallies for Sanity -- and Against Cable News \n \n Jon Stewart Rally: The Signs \n \n Jon Stewart Rally Attracts Moderates Who Want a to be Heard ||||| 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. ||||| They got the \"wave\" going from front to back of the crowd, got the ladies and guys to compete in a wave down the mall through the crowd that swelled from 3rd street in front of the Capitol past the Smithsonian castle and buzzed around the edges. \n \n Stewart suggested that the only way to get an accurate count would be to \"count off\" one at a time by number and ethnicity. The count reached about three before Stewart and Colbert turned to other distractions like dancing around the stage with Ozzy Osbourne. \n \n Voicing no real concern for any accurate numbers, Stewart thanked the crowd for showing up. \n \n \"Your presence is what I wanted,\" he told everyone late in the rally. \n \n Regardless of the actual numbers, photos and accounts from the mall and the Metro showed packed streets and jammed subway cars and buses on what turned out to be a perfect fall day in Washington. \n \n In fact, more than 350,000 had ridden metro before 3 p.m., a number typical for an entire Saturday. \n \n The National Park Service does not provide attendance figures, at the direction of Congress. Comedy Central said on its event permit that it was expecting 60,000 people. But it ordered 500 port-a-potties, which, at a recommended ratio of 1 for every 300 attendees, suggests that they might have been expecting 150,000. \n \n --Cross-posted from Blog Briefing Room. \n \n \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 The question on everyone\u2019s mind today: Just how many people attended yesterday\u2019s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear? Some estimates: At the rally, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of Mythbusters estimated the crowd at 150,000, according to Talking Points Memo. An MTV spokesperson told the Washington City Paper more than 250,000 were in attendance, while Viacom (parent company to both MTV and Comedy Central) told the New York Times the Parks Service gave a private estimate of \u201cwell over 200,000.\u201d The Hill points out that before 3pm, more than 350,000 had already ridden on DC\u2019s public transportation system\u2014typically, that\u2019s the number for an entire Saturday. CBS News used the same group they used to estimate the size of Glenn Beck\u2019s rally, and that group came up with 215,000. Stewart jokingly put the number at 10 million, while Colbert went even further with his estimate of 6 billion. So was it really larger than the crowd Glenn Beck drew? Click here to see his rally estimates, or if you'd rather take a look at some of the funniest rally signs from yesterday, click here."}
{"document": "5. \u201cShe told me how much pain it brought her when people would question her about them or make comments,\u201d she said. \u201cNo one should ever have to feel like a public museum for people to ridicule.\u201d \n \n Loading View on Instagram \n \n \u201c[Afterwards] people were asking her about her tattoo. The scars became irrelevant \u2013 a thing of the past. I want them to know that they no longer have to feel ashamed and that they no longer have to conceal their scars.\u201d \n \n ID: 8145995 ||||| Last week, Whitney Develle, a tattoo artist based in Brisbane, Australia, posted on her Instagram that she would be dedicating one or two days a week to giving free tattoos to clients with a history of self-abuse; the tattoos would help cover the scars they had from self-harm. \n \n Develle was inspired to make the offer because of a friend who had cut herself while battling an eating disorder. \n \n \"She told me how much pain it brought her when people would question her about them or make comments,\" Develle told 9news.au.com. \"No one should ever have to feel like a public museum for people to ridicule.\" \n \n Develle offered, free of charge, to cover up her friend's scars with tattoos, and the effect that this had on her life was extraordinary. \n \n \"The look on her face \u2014 money can't buy that,\"Develle said. \"[Afterwards] people were asking her about her tattoo. The scars became irrelevant \u2014 a thing of the past.\" \n \n Realizing she could give the same gift to others, Develle put up a posting on social media saying that she would give free tattoos to clients who wanted to conceal their self-inflicted scars. The response was so overwhelming that she has since had to amend the post to say she would only be able to provide 50 free sittings until the end of the year but will offer discounted rates to everyone else who is interested. \n \n \"I want you to be able to look down at the scars that bring you pain, embarrassment, shame, and be able to put those feelings behind you and instead feel proud of the body part that now contains art and offers a new beginning,\" she wrote in her post. \n \n Develle is not the only artist making this type of generous offer, as tattoo artists all over the world are stepping up to help people move on with their lives. An Ohio-based artist named Brian Finn is similarly spending one day a week covering up scars that were inflicted due to domestic violence, human trafficking, and self-harm. \n \n And in Curitiba, Brazil, 31-year-old Flavia Carvalho transforms scars that women have gotten from domestic abuse or mastectomies into stunning floral tattoos. \n \n Follow Diana on Twitter. ||||| ATTENTION: I am now accepting no new emails regarding the free tattoo enquiries. I have received a substantial amount of emails and will be sending out my replies as soon as possible. I am only able to provide around 50 free day sittings, 1-2 each week until the end of the year.Please note that given the overwhelming amount of beautiful people out there, I have decided to dedicate more of my time to offering highly discounted rates to anyone who is seeking to move forward from their past and embark on a new beginning. I want you to be able to look down at the scars that bring you pain, embarrassment, shame, and be able to put those feelings behind you and instead feel proud of the body part that now contains art and offers a new beginning. If you are interested in this please email with an attached photo with the subject line of SCARS BOOKING, from there I will provide you with all the information necessary. Thank you again for coming forward, I await creating something for you to admire. Email: whitneydevelletattoos@hotmail.comInstagram: @whitneydevelle , Location: Garage Ink Brisbane. \u270c\ufe0f NOTE: Due to the larger than expected amount of requests I have received it will take longer than first expected to respond to all emails. I am working my hardest to reply to each and every one of you. Please be patient at this time. \u2764\ufe0f", "summary": "\u2013 A 22-year-old Australian tattoo artist is making headlines after offering free tattoos to people with scars from self-harm, BuzzFeed reports. \"I want you to be able to look down at the scars that bring you pain, embarrassment, shame, and be able to put those feelings behind you and instead feel proud of the body part that now contains art and offers a new beginning,\" Whitney Develle wrote on Facebook and Instagram last week. The posts went viral, and Develle got so many responses she had to update her offer: She will provide 50 free tattoos between March 17 and the end of the year, and will offer discounted rates to others who want to cover their self-harm scars. The overwhelming response to her offer has been \"humbling but also heartbreaking,\" Develle tells 9 News. She says she came up with the idea after a friend showed her her scars and told her how much it hurt when people commented on them; Develle says her friend was much happier after Develle tattooed over her scars and people started commenting on her tattoo instead. In her Facebook post, she notes, \"This offer is not for people who are still self harming. Please have the courage to talk to a friend or family member about seeking professional help.\" Closer to home, Cosmopolitan notes that Brian Finn of Ohio has since October dedicated one day a week to giving free tattoos to those marked by domestic violence or self-harm. (Find more uplifting stories here.)"}
{"document": "The screams rang out just before 1 p.m., rising from the yard of a small bungalow in Scarborough and ringing out through the tree-lined residential street. It was clearly an argument, one neighbour said \u2014 a young man yelling, another man screaming \u201ccalm down,\u201d prompting a woman to come out of the house to join them. By the time police arrived, silence. Responding to a 911 call reporting a stabbing at a home near Lawndale and Argo Rds. Thursday, police officers and emergency personnel were met by a grisly sight. One man was dead on the home\u2019s driveway; the bodies of another man and a woman were found steps away, inside a small garage on the back of the home\u2019s property. All died from what police described as crossbow bolt injuries, and a 35-year-old man arrested soon after the bodies were discovered is believed to be behind the attacks, a police source said. \n \n Article Continued Below \n \n The identities of the victims and the suspect have not yet been released, but the police source said investigators believe they are related. As of late Thursday night, Toronto police had not yet announced any criminal charges. Just two hours after the bodies were found, the bizarre case took another turn as Toronto police launched a separate, related investigation into a possible bomb threat at a condominium in downtown Toronto. Around 3 p.m., police ordered residents to evacuate 218 Queens Quay, then called in the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive team to investigate a suspicious package. \n \n Toronto police Supt. Bill Neadles said late Thursday night that the package was discovered inside one of the units in the building, after police arrived to notify someone in the apartment about \u201csome of the events that may have transpired today.\u201d \n \n Police investigate on Lawndale Road. ( Melissa Renwick ) \n \n They were sent to the unit by a call from one of investigators at the scene of the Scarborough crossbow deaths, Neadles said. He would not say who the condo unit belongs to. Toronto police homicide Det.-Sgt. Mike Carbone told reporters police were only beginning their probe into the complex case, and had few details. \u201cWith this being (only) a four-hour investigation, we still have a ways to go to determine what exactly happened,\u201d Carbone said in a scrum Thursday night. Immediately after the bodies were discovered, police cordoned off a wide area around the small bungalow, in a normally quiet neighbourhood near Kingston and Mason Rds. Residents arriving home in the afternoon were met with police tape blocking them from entering their houses, likely for hours. Neighbours believe the home where the deaths occurred has been occupied in the last few years by a middle-aged couple. \n \n A body is seen covered by a tarp at a home near Lawndale and Argo Rds. ( SUBMITTED PHOTO ) \n \n Property records show the house was bought by Susan and William Ryan in 2010; neighbour Karen Mercado says William passed away two years ago. In an interview with the Star inside her home Thursday night \u2014 with a body still visible under a tarp, just outside her front window \u2014 Mercado said no one inside her home was aware of what happened until a family member went to leave for work and saw a large police presence outside. \u201cIt\u2019s scary this has happened right next door,\u201d Mercado said. \u201cI have two kids and this is usually a very quiet neighbourhood. I was raised in this house for 22 years and nothing like this has ever happened here before.\u201d Jerome Cruz was in his yard around 1 p.m. when he heard screaming coming from across the fence. His backyard abuts the yard where the bodies were found. \u201cI heard somebody screaming in anger and banging. A young man screaming. I heard another man say \u2018calm down\u2019 and a lady come from the house,\u201d Cruz told the Star Thursday. Ragu Sangaramoorthy, who lives in the area, said he arrived home from work to see his street taped off. His kids were in the back seat. \u201cOh my God, in front of where my kids play? . . . I\u2019m scared now. These were human beings.\u201d \n \n Police walk up Mason Road, near the scene where three people were shot by a crossbow. ( Melissa Renwick ) \n \n Dale Lounsbury, who sells crossbows at a sporting goods store in Waterloo, Ont., and owns one himself, said they can be dangerous due to their power and accuracy. But they are not suited to firing multiple shots in quick succession, he said. \u201cCrossbows are not a rapid-fire instrument at all,\u201d Lounsbury said. \u201cI can probably fire two shots a minute, maybe three.\u201d Unlike guns, buying a typical crossbow does not require a licence. In December 2010, a man fired a bolt into his father\u2019s back at a Toronto public library branch in another crossbow incident that captured the city\u2019s attention. In that case, Zhou Fang then crushed his 52-year-old father\u2019s skull with a hammer. Fang was initially charged with first-degree murder but the prosecution accepted a plea of second-degree murder after considering that he was the victim of long-term abuse at the hands of his father. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2012. With files from Jake Kivanc, Sammy Hudes and The Canadian Press \n \n Recap: Police respond to crossbow attack ||||| TORONTO (Reuters) - Three people were killed in an attack involving a crossbow in Toronto\u2019s East End on Thursday and a man was taken into custody, a police spokesman said. \n \n In a related incident, police evacuated a building in the Downtown Core area of the city later in the day due to a suspicious package, Detective Mike Carbone told a news conference. He gave no details on how it was related or what the package contained. \n \n All of the victims were adults, while one other person was taken to hospital, Carbone said. \n \n The National Post newspaper reported that the three victims were shot with a crossbow in the garage of a Toronto home and left to bleed out onto the driveway. Drone footage appeared to show at least one body covered by a tarp in the driveway. \n \n In the initial incident, police responding to a call about a stabbing found three people who appeared to have been wounded by crossbow bolts, said another police spokesman David Hopkinson. The two men and a woman were pronounced dead. \n \n An unidentified man, 35, was taken into custody, police said. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t have any idea with regards to why this may have happened,\u201d said Hopkinson. \n \n Slideshow (6 Images) \n \n According to the Post, one of the victims made a 911 call, and the suspect was also seriously wounded. \n \n Television footage showed police tape surrounding part of a residential street in Scarborough, a suburban area east of the city\u2019s downtown area. \n \n In 2010, a man shot his father in the back with a crossbow in a Toronto public library before smashing his skull with a hammer. Zhou Fang, who had suffered domestic abuse, was convicted of a lesser charge of second-degree murder. ||||| Toronto police confirm there is a link between the three deaths involving a crossbow in east Toronto and a suspicious package found in the downtown area of the city. No further details were provided. \n \n Earlier Thursday, police revealed that three people are dead, all of whom were found with apparent crossbow injuries, in the Scarborough area of Toronto on Thursday afternoon. A source with knowledge of the investigation said it's believed all three deceased are related, CBC News has learned. \n \n Police said the bodies of two men and a woman were found in a garage. Two people were found with no vital signs, and one person died after officers arrived, police confirmed. \n \n Toronto police were investigating a suspicious package on Queens Quay they say is linked to a deadly crime scene in Scarborough. (Marjorie April/CBC) \"We have a lot of work to do,\" Det. Sgt. Mike Carbone said four hours into the police investigation. \"We still have a ways to go.\" \n \n The identities of the victims are not being released until next of kin are notified, Carbone said. \n \n Paramedics said another man was taken to hospital with injuries that were not serious. \"He was another victim,\" spokesman Evert Steenge revealed. \n \n Police have also confirmed that a 35-year-old male suspect, who has injuries, is being held in custody. \n \n Three people are dead, including at least one who was found with an apparent crossbow injury in Scarborough. 0:24 Police responded to a report of a stabbing at around 1 p.m. ET on Lawndale Road near Markham Road and Eglinton Avenue East, Const. David Hopkinson told CBC News. \n \n \"Indications were that [a] person had been stabbed \u2014 their injuries were fairly serious,\" Hopkinson said. \"When officers arrived, they found that person and two others suffering from injuries from what we believe to be a crossbow bolt.\" \n \n Police said a crossbow was found on the floor of the garage. \n \n \"We don't have any idea with regards to why this may have happened,\" said Hopkinson. \n \n Scarborough crossbow deaths scene through neighbour's backyard <a href=\"https://t.co/2a0CtAYQpT\">pic.twitter.com/2a0CtAYQpT</a> \u2014@trevorjdunn Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu said there were other \"things\" found in the area that could have been used as weapons. \n \n Neighbour Jerome Cruz told CBC News that he heard screams before things went silent and said it sounded like a fight in the garage. \n \n \"It was going on for about five minutes \u2014 the screaming,\" he explained. \"After that, all quiet.\" \n \n Cruz said he's lived in the area for the past two years and said the people who reside in the house where the incident took place are normally \"very quiet.\" \n \n Neighbour near crossbow attack heard screams, then silence. <a href=\"https://t.co/1RwalICnsZ\">pic.twitter.com/1RwalICnsZ</a> \u2014@trevorjdunn \"It was very strange to hear a big noise and screaming,\" Cruz said. \n \n \"We are looking to speak to anyone that may have information,\" Hopkinson said. \n \n Nearby streets, including Knowlton Drive, Lockleven Drive and Glenda Road, are closed and the police homicide unit has taken over the investigation. \n \n A bolt is a crossbow projectile that is under 40.6 centimetres (16 inches) in length, according to A bolt is a crossbow projectile that is under 40.6 centimetres (16 inches) in length, according to Phillip Bednar of TenPoint Crossbow Technologies , adding that anything longer is considered an arrow. \n \n Dale Lounsbury, who sells crossbows at a sporting goods store in Waterloo, Ont., and owns one himself, said they can be dangerous due to their power and accuracy, but they are not suited to firing multiple shots in quick succession. \n \n \"I can probably fire two shots a minute, maybe three,\" Lounsbury said. \n \n Unlike guns, no licence is required to buy or own a crossbow. \n \n Toronto Police on Lawndale Rd in Scarborough. 3 people dead. <a href=\"https://t.co/yiaoPxdoEf\">pic.twitter.com/yiaoPxdoEf</a> \u2014@trevorjdunn \n \n This isn't the first time a person has been killed by a crossbow bolt in the city. In December 2010, a man fired a bolt into his father's back at a Toronto Public Library branch before crushing the 52-year-old man's skull with a hammer. \n \n Zhou Fang was charged with first-degree murder but accepted a plea for second-degree murder after it was revealed that he was the victim of long-term abuse by his father. Fang, then 26, was sentenced to life in prison in 2012.", "summary": "\u2013 Three people were killed with a crossbow Thursday afternoon in Toronto, Reuters reports. According to the CBC, police responded to reports of a stabbing to find three people with crossbow bolts in them inside a residential garage in a suburban area of the city. \"It was going on for about five minutes\u2014the screaming,\" a neighbor says. \"After that, all quiet.\" The victims\u2014two men and a woman\u2014are believed to be related. However, it's unknown if they were specifically targeted, the Toronto Star reports. At least one other person was injured in the attack. Police say the crossbow attack is connected to a suspicious package that forced the evacuation of a mixed-use condo building housing a daycare later Thursday afternoon in downtown Toronto. Police aren't saying how the incidents were connected or what was in the package. A 35-year-old man with minor injuries was arrested in connection with the crossbow attack. He has not been identified, and police aren't sure of a motive. The investigation is ongoing."}
{"document": "Kerry Biggs needed help managing her chronic pain. \n \n Years of taking prescription medications to alleviate the pain caused by her fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and other ailments had left the mother of two \"feeling foggy.\" \n \n Desperate to find an alternative, Biggs tried kratom. Derived from the leaves of the kratom tree, a close relative of the coffee plant, it has been used for centuries in Southeast Asia for its medicinal properties. \n \n In small doses, kratom acts as a minor stimulant similar to caffeine. In larger doses its works as a painkiller and can act as an antidepressant for some people. \n \n \"It gave me a new lease on life,\" said Biggs, who was able to wean herself off prescription painkillers by using kratom. \"It dampened down my pain without all the side effects that come with taking prescription drugs.\" \n \n That new lease on life came to an abrupt end last year, because Biggs lives in Wisconsin. In 2014, Wisconsin became the fourth state to ban kratom. \n \n Kratom was never mentioned by state legislators either before or after the vote that made it illegal. \n \n Instead, two of the chemicals in it were included on a list of synthetic opioids lawmakers classified as Schedule 1 drugs, despite the fact kratom is neither synthetic nor an opioid. \n \n No one in Madison has been able to explain how or why the chemicals ended up on the list, but their inclusion means kratom is now in the same category as heroin and cocaine. \n \n At a meeting of the Wisconsin Controlled Substances Board last week, board member Alan Bloom said he was surprised to see the kratom on the list of schedule substances. \n \n \"They stick out like a sore thumb,\" said Bloom, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. \n \n Bloom was blunt in his assessment of the scheduling of kratom. \"There's no scientific basis for it,\" he told his colleagues. \n \n But state lawmakers aren't required to rely on science in their decisions. In 2012, legislators in Indiana made kratom illegal by declaring it to be a synthetic drug. \n \n Tennessee and Vermont followed Indiana's example, treating a tree's leaves like something created in a lab. \n \n \"Most people in this country have never heard of kratom, and there's a lot of bad information out there about it,\" said Susan Ash, executive director of the American Kratom Association. \n \n Ash has used kratom since 2011 to manage the symptoms of advanced Lyme disease. She founded AKA last year to advocate for people who use kratom and combat misinformation and efforts to ban it. \n \n \"There are some companies out there who aren't interested in helping people and they are promoting kratom as a 'legal high.' That's led to some hysterical stories in the media,\" Ash said. \n \n \"Usually it's a story by a local TV news crew. They usually claim it's a dangerous new synthetic drug, even though it's not synthetic and it's been used for hundreds of years in Asia. They never talk to people who use for health reasons.\" ||||| Question \n \n What is kratom, and is it a helpful remedy or a harmful drug? \n \n Gayle Nicholas Scott, PharmD \n \n Assistant Professor, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia \n \n Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a tree-like plant in the same botanical family as the coffee tree and gardenia (Rubiaceae), and is native to Southeast Asia. Other names for kratom are ketum, thang, icthang, kakuam, kraton, thom, and biak-biak. \n \n Kratom has been used for centuries in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia to combat fatigue and, empirically, to treat pain and opioid withdrawal symptoms.[1,2] It is most commonly used orally, as fresh leaves that are chewed or that have been prepared as an extract, or as dried plant material brewed as a tea or ingested in gelatin capsules. Less frequently, kratom is smoked.[1,2] \n \n Effects are reported to be dose-dependent. Doses of 1-5 g have a stimulant effect and increase energy. Moderate to high doses (5-15 g) have opioid-like effects, including euphoria. Doses > 15 g can cause extreme sedation and stupor, similar to opioids. \n \n The indole alkaloid mitragynine appears to be responsible for the opioid-like effects of kratom. Mitragynine has high affinity for mu-opioid receptors, but less than morphine. Affinity for delta- and kappa-opioid receptors are lower than for mu, but higher than the affinity of morphine for delta and kappa. \n \n Animal research suggests that kratom has analgesic effects that are reversed by naloxone, and that kratom may have anti-inflammatory and anorexic effects. Some effects of mitragynine appear to be independent of opioid receptor activity and may involve noradrenergic and serotonergic mechanisms.[1] \n \n Animal research suggests that kratom can be addictive, and observational research in chronic kratom users in Malaysia suggests that kratom can lead to dependence, although social functioning does not appear to be impaired.[3,4] \n \n Despite its potentially addictive properties, kratom is currently legal in most states. Kratom is regulated in the United States as a dietary supplement and can be purchased in smoke shops and on the Internet. Recently, however, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moved to ban the importation of kratom, calling it a \"new dietary ingredient,\" on the basis of lack of marketing documentation in the United States before the enactment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. The FDA also cited the absence of established safety and potential toxicity.[5,6] \n \n Acute adverse effects of kratom include anxiety, irritability, and aggression, as well as opioid-like effects, such as sedation, nausea, constipation, and itching. Chronic high-dose use has been associated with hyperpigmentation of the cheeks, tremor, weight loss, and psychosis.[1,2] \n \n Cases of both overdose and withdrawal have been reported by poison control centers. Common presentations of overdose include palpitations and seizures. Withdrawal symptoms include myalgia, insomnia, fatigue, and chest discomfort. Withdrawal symptoms have even occurred in the infant of a chronic kratom-using mother.[7,8] Fatalities possibly attributed to kratom, usually in combination with other drugs, have been reported.[9-11] \n \n Kratom appears to have a strong drug interaction potential. Kratom extracts inhibit CYP2C9, CYP2D6, and CYP3A4 in vitro.[12,13] Kratom is sometimes combined with O-desmethyltramadol, a tramadol (Ultram\u00ae) metabolite, in a product called \"krypton.\"[9] Additive depressant effects on the central nervous system, along with potential metabolic drug interactions, in theory may increase its opioid-like effects. \n \n Kratom use appears to be increasing in the United States and worldwide.[7,8] Routine toxicologic screens do not detect kratom.[14] Healthcare providers caring for patients who present for emergency treatment should be aware that kratom use may be responsible for otherwise unexplained stimulant or depressive symptoms. ||||| Vivazen, a shot-format herbal liquid supplement marketed for pain relief, has removed the controversial ingredient kratom from its formulation. The decision to do so comes out of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)\u2019s continued crackdown on kratom, a botanical that\u2019s been characterized as producing opiate-like effects and addictive properties. \n \n In February the FDA issued an \u201cImport Alert 54-15\u201d for kratom, made from the leaves of a tree native to Southeast Asia, effectively suspending its import into the United States for use as a dietary ingredient or supplement. \n \n \u201cThere is inadequate information to provide reasonable assurance that such ingredient does not present a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury,\u201d the agency wrote. \n \n The FDA also pointed to scientific research concerning the toxicity of kratom with regards to internal organ systems. In September, 2014, U.S. Marshals, on behalf of the FDA, seized more than 25,000 pounds of raw kratom (estimated to be worth more than $5 million) from Van Nuys, Calif.-based Rosefield Management. \n \n Following the FDA\u2019s suppression of the ingredient, a wave of negative press began surfacing around kratom and specifically Vivazen, which listed the ingredient on its label. In a news report aired in June, Birmingham\u2019s WIAT called the product \u201caddiction in a bottle.\u201d Three months later a machete-wielding man robbed an Anniston, Ala. gas station, taking a half case of Vivazen with him in addition to the contents of the cash register. Online bulletin board Reddit has numerous posts of people chronicling their experiences with the drug. \n \n Meanwhile, Vivazen sales rose dramatically, achieving a 1064.4 percent increase in dollar sales over the 52-week period dating from September 6, 2014 to September 5, 2015, when it reached $5.9 million according to Nielsen sales data. \n \n Following a brief period in which Vivazen was unavailable for purchase, the reformulated product has resurfaced on the company\u2019s website with four new additions to its offerings, all of which are now CGMP-certified. Offering a range of functionalities, the new 2 oz. shots come in Bliss, Relax, Pain and Sleep varieties. Twelve-packs of Vivazen are sold on the site for $66.98. \n \n The popularity of Vivazen has apparently led other companies to emulate its success, albeit illegally, according to United Naturals, the maker of Vivazen. The company filed a legal complaint against LXR Biotech and Capital Sales Company in the U.S. district court for the Eastern District of Michigan, accusing the companies of illegally manufacturing and distributing counterfeit Vivazen products. \n \n United Naturals did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story. ||||| ABC 33/40 has a follow-up to a story we first told you about last week. Talladega County drug agents say a sweep of products containing Kratom was a success. The agents gave store operators 24 hours to remove the herbal supplement from their shelves or face jail. \n \n This time last week, it was not hard to find these little bottles containing Kratom in Talladega County. ABC 33/40 looked for Kratom at a few stores in a half-mile area and couldn't find one. Drug agents in this county told store operators Kratom is illegal. Some law enforcement agencies say it is not true. \n \n \"When they came, we took everything down the same day, boxed it up and took it back to the vendor we bought it from, \" said Cashier Sam Elsaidi. \n \n Elsaidi wasted no time following the orders from Talladega County's Drug Task Force. \n \n \"They said if we still have it after 24 hours, they are going to come back here and there will be a problem like taking someone to jail,\" added Elsaidi. \n \n Customers at Elsaidi's gas station noticed quickly they'd have to go far to get it. \n \n \"They would come in here asking do we have it. We would answer no and they would say Talladega County is crazy and ask why,\" added Elsaidi. \n \n Drug agents hand-delivered letters insisting store owners comply with the law and ordered them off shelves. \n \n \"This all started because we started getting complaints from parents. Some were talking about their kids walking around like a bunch of zombies. Then we had others who said they were bouncing off of the wall,\" said Talladega County Drug Task Force Commander Jason Murray. \n \n Some other law enforcement agencies in Central Alabama have not removed Kratom from stores. \n \n \"It all boils down to the interpretation of the law. My district attorney interprets it is illegal because it hits the opiate receptor of the brain,\" added Murray. \n \n Murray knows some people claim Kratom isn't bad. \n \n \"You know, they said the same thing about spice. They said the same thing about ecstasy. They say the same the same thing about marijuana. There is a debate going on about that. Our job is to protect the public and that is what we are doing,\" added Murray. \n \n Elsaidi has no problem keeping the Kratom out of his store. He's concerned about a similar looking product from vendors, expected to come out next month, claiming to not contain the herbal supplement. ||||| Keep Kratom Safe and Legal \n \n Millions of Americans depend on natural kratom for their health and wellness. In fact, kratom has been used for centuries as a natural remedy for pain management and other benefits. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is using incomplete and even false science in order to prohibit the manufacturing and sale of natural kratom. \n \n The American Kratom Association is your advocate in the effort to keep kratom safe and available, not only by challenging the FDA to be honest and transparent in its analysis and the information it shares about what centuries have proven to be a safe botanical, but working with industry farmers, manufacturers, and distributors to keep natural kratom pure. What you can do\u2026 ||||| Concern is particularly high in South Florida, where a rising concentration of drug-treatment providers has coincided with the sprouting of kratom bars. But kratom is now available around the country. Powdered forms of the leaf are sold at head shops and gas-station convenience stores and on the Internet. Bars have recently opened in Colorado, New York, North Carolina and other states where customers nurse brewed varieties, varying in strength, from plastic bottles that resemble those for fruit juice. \n \n Photo \n \n Kratom exists in a kind of legal purgatory. Because it is categorized as a botanic dietary supplement, the Food and Drug Administration cannot restrict its sale unless it is proved unsafe or producers claim that it treats a medical condition. (Some packages are coyly labeled \u201cnot for human consumption\u201d to avoid tripping such alarms.) \n \n The F.D.A. did ban the import of kratom into the United States in 2014, however, under its authority when a substance is strongly suspected to be harmful. That year, marshals seized 25,000 pounds of it from a Los Angeles warehouse. \n \n The Drug Enforcement Administration has listed kratom as a \u201cdrug of concern\u201d but not a controlled substance, which would require proven health risks and abuse potential. Indiana, Tennessee, Vermont and Wyoming have banned it on their own; several other states, including Florida and New Jersey, have set aside similar bills until more is known about kratom\u2019s health risks. The Army has forbidden its use by soldiers. \n \n Kratom has been linked to seizures and respiratory depression, but deaths related to it appear rare. Linda Mautner, who lives in the Delray Beach area, has claimed that her 20-year-old son, Ian, committed suicide in 2014 in the throes of kratom addiction, but Mr. Mautner was also receiving treatment for depression. Some deaths in the United States have resulted from kratom\u2019s being laced with the prescription pain reliever hydrocodone or morphine. \n \n Kratom\u2019s narcotic effects have been known for centuries in its native Thailand, which banned the substance decades ago amid widespread abuse. Nevertheless, kratom being sold in the United States is still smuggled in from Thailand, as well as several other Southeast Asian countries. Western research of kratom is in its infancy. \n \n Some kratom advocates claim that it helped wean them from stronger and more dangerous opiates. Susan Ash of Norfolk, Va., said she had taken kratom during treatment for dependence on prescription painkillers, and now uses a small amount daily for chronic pain and depression. Last year, she founded the American Kratom Association, a consumer group of more than 2,000 members that lobbies against state bills to ban the substance. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n \u201cWe know from all our experiences that kratom has the potential to be a wonderful medicine,\u201d said Ms. Ash, 46, adding that her organization receives little funding from kratom manufacturers. \u201cWe\u2019re all experiencing that it\u2019s changing our lives. We do agree that more science is needed to actually prove this potential that we know it has.\u201d \n \n Photo \n \n Meanwhile, kratom is sold somewhat under the radar. In Carrboro, N.C., a nonalcoholic bar called Krave serves kratom drinks under the name \u201cketum\u201d to deter connections to the substance\u2019s darker side, the owner, Elizabeth Gardner, said. Ms. Gardner added that if she learns that a customer is in substance-abuse recovery, she will disclose concerns about kratom\u2019s potential addictiveness. \n \n Kavasutra, a popular chain of bars that sell kratom and kava, another plant-based drink, does not list kratom on its menu, but sells it regularly in bottles and small plastic bags of powder. \n \n Kavasutra\u2019s owner, Dylan Harrison, was once one of South Florida\u2019s primary manufacturers and distributors of spice, a synthetic hallucinogen banned under federal law. He was released from federal prison in August 2014 after serving 10 months on drug charges. Several telephone messages left for Mr. Harrison were not returned. \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n Mr. Mautner\u2019s death has fueled debates among South Florida lawmakers over making kratom illegal, a move supported by the Broward County Medical Association. Neither Broward County nor Palm Beach County, which includes Delray Beach, has done so, however, and Palm Beach County decided in April to not require warning signs of kratom\u2019s addictiveness at bars and stores that sell it. \n \n Ms. Pankova frequented the Kavasutra in Delray Beach not only because kratom soothed her cravings for opiates, she said, but also because it was not detectable on the drug tests she took as part of her recovery program. Many drug-treatment providers consider kratom use a full-fledged relapse. Ms. Pankova said she and many friends wound up spending $60 a day on kratom drinks before moving back to less expensive heroin. \n \n Another South Florida resident with that experience, Robert Waina, said he had abused dozens of different drugs before discovering kratom three years ago. He enjoyed the mild high to the point that he found himself ordering bottle after bottle. When he tried to cut back, he couldn\u2019t, and eventually suffered from such withdrawals that he had to go to rehab for kratom three times, most recently last spring. \n \n Sitting in a coffee shop in Delray Beach, Mr. Waina said recently that he had stayed sober since then, avoiding kratom like any other drug. \n \n \u201cIf I\u2019m taking it,\u201d he said, \u201cas far as I\u2019m concerned, I\u2019m not clean.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 There's a little green leaf that relieves pain and helps people kick heroin, but is also addictive\u2014so should it be legal? That's what lawmakers are trying to decide about kratom, a tree-like plant from Southeast Asia, the New York Times reports. The FDA has banned kratom imports while four states (Wyoming, Vermont, Tennessee, and Indiana) have made it illegal, but more kratom bars are emerging that serve the leaf in drink form, and powdered versions are available online and everywhere from convenience stores to gas stations. \"It's a mind-altering substance, so people like me who are addicts and alcoholics, they think just because it's legal, it's fine,\" says Florida resident Dariya Pankova, who took kratom for heroin withdrawal. \"It's a huge epidemic down here, and it\u2019s causing a lot of relapses.\u201d Long taken as a stimulant in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, kratom contains something called mitragynine that seems to cause \"opiod-like effects,\" per Medscape. But kratom also has been linked to respiratory depression, seizures, and possibly suicide; makers of the herbal-liquid \"feel good\" supplement Vivazen recently removed kratom from its ingredients, Bevnet reports. Yet advocates like the American Kratom Association say the leaf helps wean people off dangerous drugs, and Reason argues that states' arguments against kratom (that it's an opioid or synthetic drug) are incorrect. \"It all boils down to the interpretation of the law,\" says a drug official in Alabama, where one county banned all kratom products last month, ABC 3340 reports. \"My district attorney interprets it [as] illegal because it hits the opiate receptor of the brain.\" (One country may give heroin addicts what they want: heroin.)"}
{"document": "MOSCOW \u2014 Russia has taken another major step toward restricting its once freewheeling Internet, as President Vladimir V. Putin quietly signed a new law requiring popular online voices to register with the government, a measure that lawyers, Internet pioneers and political activists said Tuesday would give the government a much wider ability to track who said what online. \n \n Mr. Putin\u2019s action on Monday, just weeks after he disparaged the Internet as \u201ca special C.I.A. project,\u201d borrowed a page from the restrictive Internet playbooks of many governments around the world that have been steadily smothering online freedoms they once tolerated. \n \n The idea that the Internet was at best controlled anarchy and beyond any one nation\u2019s control is fading globally amid determined attempts by more and more governments to tame the web. If innovations like Twitter were hailed as recently as the Arab uprisings as the new public square, governments like those in China, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and now Russia are making it clear that they can deploy their tanks on virtual squares, too. \n \n China, long a pioneer in using sophisticated technology to filter the Internet, has continually tightened censorship. It has banned all major Western online social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google, though it seems not to be bothered by Alibaba, its homegrown e-commerce site, which has filed the paperwork for what could be the biggest public stock offering ever. ||||| Story highlights Putin signs off on new law banning swearing in music, film and books \n \n Under the law, individuals and businesses can be fined for using foul language \n \n It covers live arts and entertainment performances, including plays and concerts \n \n New films containing swear words won't get a distribution certificate \n \n Thinking about making a film? Better leave out the foul language if you want it to be seen in Russia. The same goes for plays. Even rock stars will need to leave their potty mouths at home. \n \n Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on a new law Monday that bans swearing at arts, cultural and entertainment events in the country. \n \n Any new film containing obscene language won't be granted a distribution certificate, so there's no chance of seeing it at the movie theater. \n \n And copies of books, CDs or films containing swearing can only be distributed in a sealed package labeled \"Contains obscene language,\" a Kremlin statement said. \n \n According to state news agency ITAR-Tass, individuals caught using foul language face a fine of up to $70, while officials can be fined up to $40 and businesses nearly $1,400. They face a higher fine and a three-month suspension of business for repeated offenses. \n \n JUST WATCHED Russia's president annexes ... words Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Russia's president annexes ... words 01:41 \n \n JUST WATCHED Russia will enforce anti-gay law Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Russia will enforce anti-gay law 02:47 \n \n JUST WATCHED New Russian law bans U.S. adoptions Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New Russian law bans U.S. adoptions 03:07 \n \n Determination of what counts as profane language will be done through \"an independent examination,\" the news agency said. \n \n According to the Kremlin, the legislation \"bans the use of obscene language when ensuring the rights of Russian citizens to the use of the state language, and protecting and developing language culture.\" \n \n The law could come into effect as soon as July 1, ITAR-Tass said, but it doesn't apply to cultural and artistic works that have already been issued. \n \n While some may hail attempts to clean up the nation's language, it will likely be seen by critics as the latest step under Putin's leadership to limit freedom of expression and promote a conservative, nationalist viewpoint. \n \n A report by rights group Amnesty International in January highlighted a denial of \"basic freedoms\" in Russia, which last year introduced a law barring anyone from talking positively about homosexuality in earshot of minors. ||||| Putin's Internet Plan Requires 'Sharing' With Security Services \n \n i itoggle caption Alexey Nikolsky/RIO Novosti/Kremlin pool/EPA/Landov Alexey Nikolsky/RIO Novosti/Kremlin pool/EPA/Landov \n \n Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new measure that will give the government much greater control over the Internet. \n \n Critics say the law is aimed at silencing opposition bloggers and restricting what people can say on social media. It would also force international email providers and social networks to make their users' information available to the Russian security services. \n \n Putin sent a chill through many Internet users late last month with this comment at a media forum: \"You do know that it all began initially, when the Internet first appeared, as a special CIA project. And this is the way it is developing.\" \n \n I think anything that's published in a blog, that's not to the authorities' liking, can be used against the person who writes the blog. \n \n Putin said Americans set the system up so that everything would go through servers in the United States, where intelligence agencies could monitor it. \n \n The president's statement came as Russia's parliament was working on a package of bills that would place restrictions on bloggers and websites. \n \n Bloggers Must Register \n \n \"The objective of those laws is to block the Russian Internet from the rest of the world,\" says Anton Nosik, a popular blogger, \"and to shut down the biggest foreign social networks, to block access to foreign social networks for Russian users, and to establish control over networks that are physically based in Russia.\" \n \n One key provision of the law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, would require bloggers to register with the government if their blogs receive more than 3,000 hits a day. \n \n Registered bloggers would then be treated like mass media and required to certify the factual accuracy of the information in their blogs, but they wouldn't have the same protections and privileges as other journalists. \n \n One of the leading sponsors of the law, Irina Yarovaya, made it clear what lawmakers are aiming for \u2014 an end to anonymity on the Internet in Russia. \n \n \"In principle, anonymity is always deception,\" she said in an interview earlier this year. \"It's a wish to mislead someone. I can't see any reason to raise lying to [the status of] a human virtue or an understanding of what freedom is.\" \n \n The law also gives the government new grounds to press charges against bloggers, including \"defamation\" and \"inciting hatred.\" \n \n New Restrictions For Social Networks \n \n Journalist Kirill Martynov says these rather vaguely defined offenses could make it impossible to express meaningful opinions. \n \n \"I can't incite hatred toward fascists, for example, or I can't criticize police officers,\" Martynov says. \"I think anything that's published in a blog, that's not to the authorities' liking, can be used against the person who writes the blog.\" \n \n Another provision of the law prohibits revealing information about citizens' homes and their personal or family lives. Critics say that provision could be used against anti-corruption bloggers who have revealed embarrassing details about undeclared bank accounts and luxurious homes owned by public officials. \n \n Finally, Nosik notes that the law says that all email providers and social networks must store information about users, their posts and their email on servers in Russia. \n \n \"This is what Russian authorities traditionally request from local platforms, and they are always given that information,\" he says. \"I doubt it strongly that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, or other Google services will ever comply. And if they don't comply, they have to be blocked. That's what the law says.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Russia's Internet is going to start looking a lot more like China's under a restrictive new law signed by Vladimir Putin, critics say. The measure dubbed the \"blogger's law\" will remove anonymity from bloggers and declares any website with more than 3,000 daily visitors to be a media outlet required to publish accurate information, but without the legal protections journalists have, the New York Times finds. The law comes just weeks after Putin claimed that the Internet began \"as a special CIA project.\" The law, which comes amid a wider crackdown on the Internet, also requires email providers and social networks to make user information available to Russian security services, NPR reports. \"The objective of those laws is to block the Russian Internet from the rest of the world,\" warns popular blogger Anton Nosik, \"and to shut down the biggest foreign social networks, to block access to foreign social networks for Russian users, and to establish control over networks that are physically based in Russia.\" And bloggers aren't the only ones facing a crackdown: Another law signed by Putin earlier this week bans swearing in movies, TV shows, concerts, and other forms of entertainment, CNN reports. New movies with swearing won't be allowed in cinemas, while copies of older ones will come with warning labels."}
{"document": "An Internet company has sued one of its former employees, saying the worker cost the company thousands of dollars in lost business when he took 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left the firm. \n \n PhoneDog LLC filed a lawsuit in July against Noah Kravitz, a writer who worked for the Mount Pleasant, S.C., company from 2006 until last year. Attorneys for the website, which reviews mobile devices like phones and tablets, said Kravitz owes them $340,000. \n \n The company said when Kravitz resigned, he changed his Twitter name from PhoneDog_Noah to noahkravitz, and kept his 17,000 followers. The company said the followers should be treated like a customer list, and therefore PhoneDog's property. \n \n PhoneDog said Kravitz should pay $2.50 per follower per month for eight months, or a total of $340,000. \n \n Steve O'Donnell, a patent and intellectual property attorney, said he hadn't heard of a similar case. He doubted that each follower is worth the $2.50. \n \n \"On Twitter, if you hang out long enough, you'll get hundreds of follows from people who are just gathering accounts and broadcasting their own content _ people who aren't necessarily paying attention to anything PhoneDog has to say,\" said O'Donnell, who practices law in Lancaster, Pa. \"Twitter followers can come and go. ... It's very transient. It's going to be hard for them to put a dollar number on something that's so ethereal.\" \n \n Kravitz, who now lives in Oakland, Calif., eventually went to work for a competitor website and now boasts nearly 24,000 Twitter followers. \n \n In court documents, Kravitz said he used the Twitter account in question mostly for personal musings about sporting events and pop culture and, after leaving the company, even sent out messages at PhoneDog's behest about the company's contests and giveaways. Kravitz said he sent such messages as recently as December 2010 and that PhoneDog only objected to his use of the account after he sued them in June for unpaid wages in an ongoing case. \n \n \"Only after that do they come out of the woodwork for the first time and say, `Hey, you converted our property,'\" Cary Kletter, Kravitz's attorney, said Thursday. \"That case is without merit.\" \n \n PhoneDog's valuation is flawed and inflated, he said. \n \n \"To claim that they're entitled to $2.50 per follower per month defies reason,\" Kletter said. \"If that's the case, Kim Kardashian's account would probably be worth billions of dollars of year.\" \n \n Celebrities can get paid for tweets, sometimes $10,000 or more per post. \n \n Erik Heels, a patent and trademark attorney in Boston, said the lawsuit may provide a monetary determination, but the most valuable outcome could be in helping companies in setting up their own social media guidelines. \n \n \"The lesson for employers is to make sure you define these things in advance for your employees,\" Heels said. \"Don't make any assumptions because you may end up on the wrong side of the lawsuit.\" \n \n A hearing in the case is set for next month in San Francisco. An attorney for PhoneDog president Tom Klein did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. \n \n ___ \n \n Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP ||||| And so he began writing as NoahKravitz, keeping all his followers under that new handle. But eight months after Mr. Kravitz left the company, PhoneDog sued, saying the Twitter list was a customer list, and seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months, for a total of $340,000. \n \n PhoneDog Media declined to comment for this article except for this statement: \u201cThe costs and resources invested by PhoneDog Media into growing its followers, fans and general brand awareness through social media are substantial and are considered property of PhoneDog Media L.L.C. We intend to aggressively protect our customer lists and confidential information, intellectual property, trademark and brands.\u201d \n \n Mr. Kravitz said the lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court in the Northern District of California, was in retaliation for his claim to 15 percent of the site\u2019s gross advertising revenue because of his position as a vested partner, as well as back pay related to his position as a video reviewer and blogger for the site. \n \n The lawsuit, though, could have broader ramifications than its effect on Mr. Kravitz and the company. \n \n \u201cThis will establish precedent in the online world, as it relates to ownership of social media accounts,\u201d said Henry J. Cittone, a lawyer in New York who litigates intellectual property disputes. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually been waiting to see such a case as many of our clients are concerned about the ownership of social media accounts vis-\u00e1-vis their branding.\u201d \n \n Photo \n \n Mr. Cittone added that a particularly important wrinkle is what value the court might set on the worth of one Twitter follower to a media company, saying the price set could affect future cases involving ownership of social media. \n \n \u201cIt all hinges on why the account was opened,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cIf it was to communicate with PhoneDog\u2019s customers or build up new customers or prospects, then the account was opened on behalf of PhoneDog, not Mr. Kravitz. An added complexity is that PhoneDog contends Mr. Kravitz was just a contractor in the related partnership/employment case, thus weakening their trade secrets case, unless they can show he was contracted to create the feed.\u201d \n \n Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. \n \n These situations are likely to arise more often as social media tools like Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook continue to become a way for company representatives and customer service employees to interact with fans and irate customers. \n \n Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n JetBlue, for example, often answers customer queries via Twitter, although its official policy is to not respond to \u201cformal complaints\u201d on Twitter. \n \n Other issues may arise when companies hire popular Twitter users partly because of their social media presence. For example, Samsung Electronics hired the outspoken blogger Philip Berne to review phones for the company internally. \n \n Mr. Berne uses his personal Twitter account but often posts explicitly about Samsung products and his opinions on the phones he has tested. He cleared his Twitter account with the Samsung public relations department, he said, and he owns it. \n \n \u201cTheir stance was that I am entitled to have and express an opinion, but I am not a Samsung representative, and I should make it clear that any opinions are my own and not those of my employer,\u201d Mr. Berne said. In general, social media experts advise companies to tread with caution when it comes to account ownership. \n \n Sree Sreenivasan, a professor at the Columbia Journalism School and the author of Sree\u2019s Social Media Guide, said smart companies let social media blossom where it may. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible thing to say you have to leave your Twitter followers behind,\u201d he said, talking specifically about media companies that may employ popular Twitter writers. \u201cIt sends a terrible signal to reporters and journalists who care about this, and this will make it less attractive to recruit the next round of people.\u201d \n \n He said that many industries had policies that required sales staff to leave their Rolodexes behind, but that these policies were as relevant to social media as Rolodexes are to the modern office. After all, social media accounts are, almost by definition, personal. \n \n He also said that the average Twitter account had less clout than many might think. \n \n \u201cThe value of the individual users is very hard to quantify,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to overestimate the value of an account to an organization and underestimate what it means for an individual.\u201d \n \n Mr. Kravitz said he was confused. \n \n \u201cThey\u2019re suing me for over a quarter of a million dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom where I\u2019m sitting I held up my end of the bargain.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Do a company's Twitter followers belong to the firm, or to the employee doing the tweeting\u2014and how much is each follower worth? The questions are at the heart of a lawsuit in South Carolina, report AP and the New York Times: An online tech review firm is suing a former employee who ran a company Twitter account. When Noah Kravitz left PhoneDog, he changed the name on the account and kept its 17,000 followers. The company says Kravitz owes it $2.50 per follower over 8 months, amounting to $340,000. PhoneDog argues that the Twitter followers are essentially a list of customers. But Kravitz says the company didn't raise the issue until after he sued them over unpaid wages. Plus, Twitter followers are often \"people who are just gathering accounts and broadcasting their own content\u2014people who aren't necessarily paying attention to anything PhoneDog has to say,\" notes an intellectual property lawyer. Kravitz's attorney thinks $2.50 is too much. \"If that's the case, Kim Kardashian's account would probably be worth billions of dollars of year,\" he says."}
{"document": "Credit: NASA People who live and work along coasts and coastlines everywhere may be more likely to experience a super-charged lightning strike, according to new research from Florida Institute of Technology that shows lightning can be much more powerful over the ocean than land. \n \n Florida Tech's Amitabh Nag, assistant professor of physics and space sciences, and Kenneth L. Cummins, research professor at Florida Tech and the University of Arizona, recently published, \"Negative First Stroke Leader Characteristics in Cloud to-Ground Lightning Over Land and Ocean\" in the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Research Letters. The scientists analyzed lightning over parts of Florida and its coasts using data provided by the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network. \n \n Some previous indirect observations led scientists and others to believe that strikes over sea water tend to be more powerful, but the Nag and Cummins study represents the first time that an independent measurement has validated those beliefs. \n \n Lightning scientists break down every cloud-to-ground strike into sub-processes to get a better understanding of the way it formed. Plenty of physics is packed into fractions of a second from when charged particles in thunderclouds form into downward channels of electricity that \"attach\" to electrical, charge-carrying channels rising from land or water to form that familiar zigzag bolt. \n \n In their study, which measured peak currents of various cloud-to-ground lightning strikes over land and ocean from 2013 to 2015, Nag and Cummins calculated the duration of the \"negative stepped leader\" \u2013 the electrical channel that moves down toward ground from a thundercloud. When this leader touches ground a surge of current, typically with a peak value of around 30 kilo amperes, flows upward to the cloud. The durations of negative stepped leaders over the ocean were significantly shorter than those over land, which indicates that they carry more charge in them. This leads to a higher following current surge from ground. \n \n Nag and Cummins found that with strikes over water in western Florida, the median stepped-leader duration was 17 percent shorter over ocean than over land, and in eastern Florida the median durations were 21 and 39 percent shorter over two oceanic regions than over land. Using a relationship between leader duration and lightning peak current derived in this study, the authors estimate that lightning with peak currents over 50 kilo amperes is twice as likely to occur in oceanic thunderstorms. \n \n These findings suggest that people living on or near the ocean may be at greater risk for lightning damage if storms develop over oceans and move on-shore. This new understanding of the nature of lightning could inform how off-shore infrastructure and vessels are to be built to minimize the risk of super-powerful lightning bolts from thunderstorms formed over the sea. \n \n Explore further: Satellite data finds peak in a daily lightning cycle \n \n More information: Amitabh Nag et al, Negative first stroke leader characteristics in cloud-to-ground lightning over land and ocean, Geophysical Research Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1002/2016GL072270 \n \n ||||| Access Eos Archive Issues \n \n Issues from 1997-2014 are freely available to the public. Older issues are available through AGU membership or through an institutional subscription. ||||| Florida often experiences the most lighting-related deaths than any other state, including in 2016 when nine people were killed. \n \n There are persistent myths about lightning that the National Weather Service has tried to dispel. Knowing the facts can save your life. \n \n Lightning is not attracted to metal. Metal is a good conductor of electricity, which is why lightning rods are used on top of tall buildings, but it is the height of the building, not the metal that meteorologists believe draws the lightning. That is why it\u2019s dangerous to seek shelter under a tree during a lightning storm. Lighting will seek out the tallest object to strike. \n \n \u201cLightning is not attracted to anything,\u201d said John Jensenius, an expert with the National Weather Service. \u201cI\u2019ve seen various articles about batteries and screwdrivers, none of which had any effect.\u201d \n \n Check The Palm Beach Post radar map. \n \n A car with a metal roof is good shelter from lightning, but not because of the rubber tires. If lightning strikes the car, it will be conducted by the metal around and into the ground. A convertible does not offer the same protection. \n \n Lightning can strike from 10 miles away, meaning sunny skies when a storm is imminent are still dangerous. \n \n Lightning tends to strike the tallest object in an area, so trees are not safe places to seek shelter. \n \n Related: Watch amazing slow motion video of lightning striking Florida beach \n \n A person injured by lightning is not electrified. Victims typically die of cardiac arrest. People who can administer CPR will not be electrocuted if they do so. \n \n Lightning can strike the same place twice. \n \n People playing golf do not account for the majority of lightning deaths. Fishermen account for more than three times as many lightning deaths as golfers. Camping and boating each account for almost twice as many deaths. \n \n Download the Palm Beach Post WeatherPlus app here. \n \n \u201cPeople get the idea that jewelry, headphones, golf clubs attracts lightning but that\u2019s not the case at all,\u201d said Matt Bragaw, a meteorologist and lightning safety specialist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne. \u201cMetal conducts electricity very efficiently, but it does not draw electricity to it like a magnet.\u201d \n \n If anything, Bragaw said, it\u2019s the act of swinging a club that might draw lightning\u2019s attention because it makes the gofer the tallest object in what is usually the mostly wide open terrain of a tee or fairway. \n \n \u201cAnytime you increase your height, you increase your chances of getting hit,\u201d Bragaw said. \n \n If you haven\u2019t yet, join Kim on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.", "summary": "\u2013 It's a popular myth that golfers account for most deaths from lightning strikes. In fact, the Palm Beach Post reports more than three times as many fishermen die from lightning strikes than golfers. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters in February and recently getting some attention may explain why. Researchers from the Florida Institute of Technology found that lightning strikes over the ocean can be much more powerful than strikes over land. It's the first independent study to show what others have long believed, according to a press release. Researchers studied lightning over Florida and its coasts from 2013 to 2015, measuring the peak currents of the strikes. They found strikes over the ocean carried more charge than those over land. In fact, they estimated that lightning with peak currents of more than 50 kilo amperes is more than twice as likely to occur over the ocean. This could mean people living on or near the ocean may be at greater risk from lightning. Worth noting: Deaths from lightning strikes in Florida\u2014a state with a whole lot of coastline\u2014regularly outpace those in the rest of the country. Nine people were killed by lightning in 2016 in Florida. (Pain is only the beginning of a lightning strike.)"}
{"document": "The FBI found \"no evidence\" of damage caused by a firearm to the windshield of derailed Amtrak 188, National Transportation Safety Board officials said today. \n \n Interested in ? Add as an interest to stay up to date on the latest news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest \n \n \"The FBI has completed its examination of the windshield of the Amtrak #188 locomotive and has found no evidence of damage that could have been caused by a firearm. The NTSB has not ruled out the possibility that another object may have struck the windshield. Additional updates on the investigation will be issued later this week,\" the NTSB said in a statement. \n \n The NTSB added that its investigation into the cause of the accident is expected to last up to 12 months. \n \n Probable cause of #Amtrak 188 accident will be determined at conclusion of NTSB\u2019s investigation -- expected to last up to 12 months. \u2014 NTSB (@NTSB) May 18, 2015 \n \n During an earlier interview on ABC News' \"This Week,\" NTSB lead investigator Robert Sumwalt said there was no communication between the derailed Amtrak train engineer to the dispatch center to suggest that a projectile had hit the ill-fated train, which crashed in Philedelphia on the night of May 12. \n \n \u201cWe interviewed the dispatchers and we listened to the dispatch tape, and we heard no communications at all from the Amtrak engineer to the dispatch center to say that something had struck his train,\u201d Sumwalt told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. \n \n This morning, Amtrak resumed service between Philadelphia and New York City, six days after the derailment, which left eight people dead and more than 200 injured. \n \n The train, which accelerated before the crash, was traveling over 100 mph at the time, well over the speed limit. ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE After the Amtrak crash in Philadelphia, Americans are wondering if rail lines are safe. A technology called Positive Train Control is proven to prevent train derailments and is supposed to be installed on rail lines by the end of 2015 VPC \n \n An Amtrak train travels northbound from 30th Street Station, Monday, in Philadelphia. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains resumed service Monday following last week's deadly derailment that killed eight people and injured more than 200 others. (Photo: Matt Slocum, AP) \n \n As Amtrak resumed full service on the Northeast Corridor six days after the deadly Philadelphia derailment, the FBI has determined that gunfire did not damage the window of the locomotive involved in the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday. \n \n FBI agents had found \"no evidence of damage that could have been caused by a firearm,\" NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said. He noted that the board had not ruled out that \"another object\" may have hit the windshield before the seven-car train derailed on a curve Tuesday night at more than 100 mph. The crash killed eight passengers and injured more than 200 others. \n \n Investigator are looking into whether the Amtrak locomotive was hit by a rock or other projectile and whether that might have contributed to Train 188's traveling at more than twice the posted speed limit. \n \n An Amtrak assistant conductor has told investigators she believed she heard Bostian tell a dispatcher that a rock or something else hit the train and that the engineer of a nearby regional commuter train reported his locomotive's windshield had been smashed by a rock, forcing him to make an emergency stop. \n \n But NTSB investigators who reviewed the recorded conversations between Bostian and dispatchers \"did not hear\" him report anything hitting his train, Knudson said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The safety board has not reinterviewed the conductor and cannot yet account for the discrepancy. \n \n Why the Amtrak train accelerated rapidly before hurtling off the rails remains a mystery. The focus has been on the engineer, Brandon Bostian, who suffered head injuries and has told investigators he has no memory of the crash. \n \n Al Diehl, a former crash investigator at the National Transportation Safety Board who was an expert in human factors of accidents, said the evidence so far points to the 32-year-old engineer inadvertently pushing the throttle forward during the final minute on the tracks. \n \n Diehl said investigators would search for mechanical, electrical or software problems that could have led to the crash. \n \n But he said the train's sudden acceleration from 70 mph to 106 mph during the final minute on the tracks, as the train headed into a 50-mph curve, suggested that Bostian might have been startled and inadvertently pushed forward on the left-hand throttle. \n \n \"The evidence so far is consistent with a startle response or a falling of the engineer and a bumping forward of the throttle control,\" Diehl said. \"The train accelerated and the question is why. Did he fall down and bump the throttle forward?\" \n \n NTSB member Robert Sumwalt on Sunday sought to downplay the significance of reports suggesting a projectile hit the train. \n \n He said on CBS' Face the Nation: \"I've seen the fracture pattern; it looks like something about the size of a grapefruit, if you will, and it did not even penetrate the entire windshield.\" \n \n Diehl discounted the possibility that the engineer, who hit the emergency brake just before derailing, was trying to kill himself, as with the Germanwings pilot who steered a plane into the French Alps in March. \n \n \"I see no indication this guy's crazy,\" Diehl said. \n \n Monday's developments came as train service was restored along the nation's busiest rail corridor, and as funerals for three victims were held in New York, New Jersey and Michigan. \n \n The first train left New York City southbound at 5:30 a.m. ET, and the 5:53 a.m. Philadelphia to New York City train was delayed and departed at 6:07 a.m. Services in that section of America's busiest passenger rail corridor had been suspended since the derailment on Tuesday night. \n \n Announcing on Sunday that service would resume, Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman said the safety of passengers and crew was the firm's \"number one priority.\" \n \n He added: \"Our infrastructure repairs have been made with the utmost care and emphasis on infrastructure integrity including complete compliance with Federal Railroad Administration directives.\" \n \n At a service Sunday evening to honor the crash victims, Boardman called Tuesday \"the worst day for me as a transportation professional\" and vowed that the derailed train and its passengers \"will never be forgotten,\" the Associated Press reported. \n \n He said Amtrak would offer a \"safer service\" and added: \"We quickly made changes, and I'm grateful. I'm thankful,\" according to the agency. \n \n On Saturday, the ordered Amtrak to take immediate steps to employ new speed control technology throughout the following the derailment. \n \n The FRA outlined the orders to Amtrak on Facebookand said it would formalize its action in an Emergency Order. \n \n \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Fng3xx", "summary": "\u2013 The FBI hasn't found any evidence of firearm damage to the windshield of the Amtrak train that derailed last week, killing eight people and injuring more than 200, the National Transportation Safety Board says. \"The NTSB has not ruled out the possibility that another object may have struck the windshield,\" the NTSB says, per ABC News. \"Additional updates on the investigation will be issued later this week.\" The probe into the crash is likely to take up to a year, the NTSB added in a tweet. Investigators want to know whether an object hitting the train may have played a role in its traveling at over 100mph\u2014more than double its allotted speed limit\u2014when it derailed on a curve, USA Today reports."}
{"document": "Watch Queue Queue \n \n Watch Queue Queue Remove all \n \n Disconnect ||||| Egypt's Interior Ministry offered a rare expression of regret Saturday after riot police were caught on camera a day earlier beating a protester who had been stripped of his clothes, and then dragging the naked man along the muddy pavement before bundling him into a police van. \n \n Egyptians flee tear gas fired by security forces during an anti-President Mohammed Morsi protest in front of the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Thousands of protesters denouncing... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptian protesters shout anti-Mohammed Morsi slogans before clashes in front of the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Thousands of Egyptians marched across the country, chanting... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptian riot police beat a man, after stripping him, and before dragging him into a police van, during clashes next to the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Protesters denouncing... (Associated Press) \n \n An Egyptian protester throws a tear gas canister back during clashes with riot police in front of the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Thousands of protesters denouncing Egypt's... (Associated Press) \n \n Egyptian riot police beat a man, illuminated by the green light of a protester's laser, after stripping him, and before dragging him into a police van, during clashes next to the presidential palace in... (Associated Press) \n \n The video of the beating, which took place late Friday only blocks from the presidential palace where protests were raging in the streets, further inflamed popular anger with security forces just as several thousand anti-government demonstrators marched on the palace again on Saturday. The uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011 was fueled in part by anger over police brutality. \n \n In the footage aired live on Egyptian TV, at least seven black-clad riot police used sticks to beat 48-year-old Hamada Saber, who was sprawled out on the ground, shirtless and with his pants down around his ankles. \n \n In a statement, the Interior Ministry voiced its \"regret\" about the assault, and vowed to investigate. But it also sought to distance itself _ and the police in general _ from the abuse, saying it \"was carried out by individuals that do not represent in any way the doctrine of all policemen who direct their efforts to protecting the security and stability of the nation and sacrifice their lives to protect civilians.\" \n \n Later in the day, however, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim put the blame elsewhere entirely, saying initial results from the public prosecutor's investigation indicated that Saber was undressed by \"rioters\" during skirmishes between police and protesters. \n \n \"The Central Security Forces then found him lying on the ground and tried to put him in an armored vehicle, though the way in which they did that was excessive,\" Ibrahim said. \n \n President Mohammed Morsi's office called Saber's beating \"shocking\", but stressed that violence and vandalism of government property is unacceptable. \n \n The abuse took place as thousands of protesters chanted against President Mohammed Morsi on Friday. The march was part of a wave of demonstrations that have rocked Egypt since last week's second anniversary of the 2011 revolt, leaving more than 60 people dead and plunging the country into turmoil once again. \n \n In what appeared to be an effort to protect the police from a harsh backlash over the video, Ibrahim said that nearly 400 policemen have been wounded this past week in clashes, and warned that the disintegration of police will lead to even wider-spread chaos in the Arab world's most populous nation. \n \n \"The collapse of police will affect Egypt and transform it into a militia state like some neighboring nations,\" Ibrahim said, alluding to Libya where militias comprise the bulk of security after that nation's uprising. \n \n Already some Islamists have warned they could set up militias to protect their interests, while a group calling itself \"Black Bloc\" whose followers wear black masks claim to defend protesters opposed to the Islamist president's rule. \n \n Rights groups have accused Morsi of not taking steps to reform the Interior Ministry, which was the backbone of Mubarak's regime. Police under Mubarak were notorious for using excessive force against protesters and beating those in custody. \n \n In a defining image of post-Mubarak violence against protesters, Egyptians were outraged last year when military police were caught on camera dragging a veiled woman through the streets during a protest, pulling her conservative black robe over her head and revealing her blue bra. \n \n Protesters and rights groups have accused police of using excessive force this past week during a wave of mass demonstrations in cities around the country called by opposition politicians, trying to wrest concessions from Morsi. \n \n But many protesters go further, saying Morsi must be removed from office. They are accusing his Muslim Brotherhood of monopolizing power and of failing to deal with the country's mounting woes. Many have been further angered by Morsi's praise of the security forces after the high death toll. Some have taken to attacking government buildings, from prisons to police stations to courthouses. \n \n The chaos prompted Morsi to order a limited curfew in three provinces and the deployment of the military to the streets. \n \n The main opposition National Salvation Front said Saturday that the \"gruesome images\" of Saber's beating demand the interior minister's resignation. \n \n Also Saturday, Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited Cairo's Tahrir Square and the area around the presidential palace. He said those who are camped out there are neither protesters nor revolutionaries. He said protesters \"do not torch, attack hotels, rape women, steal from shops, they do not burn the presidential palace.\" \n \n In an impassioned speech Saturday carried live on Egyptian state TV, Kandil said the street violence and political unrest that has engulfed the country for more than a week is threatening the nation's already ailing economy. \n \n \"The Egyptian economy is bleeding,\" he said. \"It is holding itself, but if this situation persists it will be dangerous, extremely dangerous.\" \n \n Foreign currency earners such as tourism and foreign investment have dried up in the past two years of political unrest. Foreign reserves currently estimate at around $15 billion, less than half of where it stood before the 2011 uprising that ousted Mubarak. The Egyptian pound has also lost around four percent of its value due to the turmoil and planned austerity measures threaten to curb subsidies relied on by millions of poor Egyptians. \n \n Kandil called on the opposition to back away from any more protests or marches. \n \n Also Saturday, Mubarak's former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, was found guilty of abusing his position by forcing police conscripts to work on his mansion and land outside Cairo. Both he and former riot police chief Hassan Abdel-Hamid were sentenced to three years in prison and fined around $340,000. The verdict can be appealed. \n \n Al-Adly is already serving time for corruption and was sentenced to life in prison with Mubarak for failing to prevent the killing of nearly 900 protesters during the 2011 revolt that ousted the longtime leader. Both men appealed, and will be given a retrial.", "summary": "\u2013 Egypt's Interior Ministry offered a rare expression of regret today after riot police were caught on camera a day earlier beating a protester who had been stripped of his clothes, and then dragging the naked man along the muddy pavement before bundling him into a police van. The video of the beating, which took place late yesterday only blocks from the presidential palace where protests were raging in the streets, further inflamed popular anger with security forces just as several thousand anti-government demonstrators marched on the palace again today. The uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011 was fueled in part by anger over police brutality. In the footage aired live on Egyptian TV, at least seven black-clad riot police used sticks to beat 48-year-old Hamada Saber, who was sprawled out on the ground, shirtless and with his pants down around his ankles. In a statement, the Interior Ministry voiced its \"regret\" about the assault, and vowed to investigate. But it also sought to distance itself\u2014and the police in general\u2014from the abuse, saying it \"was carried out by individuals that do not represent in any way the doctrine of all policemen.\" Later in the day, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim put the blame elsewhere entirely, saying initial results from the public prosecutor's investigation indicated that Saber was undressed by \"rioters\" during skirmishes between police and protesters. Click for more."}
{"document": "The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal from a Quebec man who tried to claim a $27 million jackpot based on a lottery ticket printed seven seconds after the cut-off time. \n \n On Thursday, Canada's top court said it would not hear Joel Ifergan's lottery case. The SCC dismissed his request for an appeal with costs. \n \n Ifergan purchased two lottery tickets for the May 23, 2008 Super 7 draw at 8:59 p.m., one minute ahead of the weekly draw deadline. His first ticket printed with the May 23 draw date on it, but his second one came out seven seconds after 9:00, with the May 30 draw date printed at the top. \n \n That second ticket had all the winning numbers for the May 23 jackpot, but Loto-Quebec rejected the claim because the ticket said May 30. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m really disappointed in the decision, and it\u2019s not because it\u2019s about the money,\u201d Ifergan told CTV News Channel after his case was dismissed Thursday. \n \n Ifergan says he\u2019s entitled to half of the $27 million awarded in the May 23 draw because his tickets were purchased ahead of the deadline, regardless of whether they were printed after it. He blames Loto-Quebec\u2019s 10-second processing delay for denying him his share of the jackpot, which was awarded to another winner. \n \n \"Loto-Quebec during the trial never argued the fact that my request for the two tickets was in their system at 8:59.47,\" he told CTV Montreal. \n \n \"The deadline that they advertise was for 9 p.m. \u2013- which I did.\u201d \n \n Ifergan added that Loto-Quebec\u2019s slow processing system puts Quebecers at a \u201cdisadvantage\u201d when compared to the rest of Canada. \n \n In the rest of Canada, they shut down at 9 p.m. and you can't buy a ticket,\" he told The Canadian Press. \"But everything in their system prior to 9 p.m. gets processed and you get a ticket, even if it comes out five minutes later.\" \n \n \u201cHad those tickets been bought anywhere else in Canada, I would have been a millionaire seven years ago,\u201d Ifergan said. \n \n The career accountant spent nearly seven years and $100,000 in legal fees fighting for his half of the jackpot. \n \n The Quebec Superior Court and the Quebec Court of Appeal had also ruled against him in 2012 and 2014 respectively. \n \n \u201cYes, it cost me a lot of money, but it also consumed me for seven years,\u201d he said. He added that the SCC did not provide an explanation with its ruling. \n \n \"My crusade is up, I've done all I can, I spent enough money going to the Supreme Court,\" Ifergan told The Canadian Press \n \n The SCC typically does not provide an explanation when it chooses not to hear an appeal. \n \n Loto-Quebec spokesman, Jean-Pierre Roy, said he is satisfied with the Supreme Court's decision. \n \n \"The (original) judgement was clear and convincing that Loto-Quebec procedures were altogether reliable and integrated and were the right ones,\" Roy said. \n \n He added that no protocol changes are expected in the future. \n \n Ifergan was out for ice cream when he made a last-minute decision to purchase a Super 7 draw ticket \n \n Ifergan says he stopped at a convenience store, where he was told he had less than a minute to buy the two tickets. \n \n The store's owner, Mehernosh Iranpur, says he sold Ifergan the tickets, and Ifergan knew the second ticket was for the next draw. \n \n \"I asked him, \u2018It\u2019s for next week. Do you want it or not?'\" Iranpur said. \"He says, 'No, I'll keep it.'\" \n \n Ifergan says he and Iranpur were both confused by the situation. \n \n \u201cIt was the first time he\u2019d ever seen it,\u201d Ifergan said. \u201cNobody knew.\u201d \n \n But Ifergan told The Canadian Press that he accepted the ticket. \n \n The Lotto Super 7 draw was discontinued in September of 2009 and replaced with Lotto Max. Participants in the Super 7 draw were able select their own numbers or opt for random ones. \n \n With files from The Canadian Press and a report from CTV Montreal. ||||| A Quebec man who bought a winning lottery ticket seven seconds too late has lost his Supreme Court of Canada bid to appeal a decision that has denied him half of the $27-million prize. \n \n \"I'm going to be very very honest with you \u2026 I'm very disappointed in this decision,\" said Joel Ifergan of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, from Montreal's West Island. \n \n Ifergan bought two Super 7 tickets on May 23, 2008, just before the 9 p.m. cutoff. (Super 7 was replaced by Lotto Max in 2009.) \n \n Joel Ifergan, pictured in 2008, had taken Loto-Qu\u00e9bec to court over a lottery loss he said was due to a computer glitch. (CBC) \n \n He said he ordered the tickets at 8:59 p.m. ET \u2014 the convenience store clerk told him he had one minute to buy his tickets. \n \n The first ticket was printed showing the May 23 date \u2014 that night's draw. However, the second ticket, with the winning numbers for that night's $27-million jackpot, was printed after a few seconds' delay, showing a date for the following week's draw on May 30. \n \n Ifergan claims the delay was caused by Loto-Qu\u00e9bec's central computer system, and believes he's entitled to half the jackpot. \n \n He sued the province\u2019s lottery regulator for what he felt was his half of the jackpot. However, his attempts to bring it to Quebec courts were rejected. \n \n The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to accept his appeal, with cost. \n \n Ifergan said the court case has cost him more than $100,000. \n \n Still, the experience hasn't stopped him from buying lottery tickets \u2014 as he said, you never know when you'll get lucky.", "summary": "\u2013 Seven has turned out to be a very unlucky number for Montreal man Joel Ifergan: He missed a $10.5 million prize in Canada's Super 7 lottery by seven seconds, and after almost seven years of fighting lottery authorities, his case has been rejected by the country's top court. Ifergan says that in May 2008, he bought two tickets at 8:59pm, a minute before the 9pm cutoff, the CBC reports. The first ticket out of the convenience store's machine was for that night's draw but the next one\u2014which had the draw's winning numbers\u2014was printed at seven seconds after 9pm and was registered for the following week's draw. If the ticket had been printed a few seconds earlier, he would have shared a $21 million jackpot with another winner. Ifergan sued lottery authorities in Quebec, saying the processing lag was the fault of their slow system. Loto-Quebec never disputed \"the fact that my request for the two tickets was in their system at 8:59.47,\" he tells CTV, saying that \"had those tickets been bought anywhere else in Canada, I would have been a millionaire seven years ago.\" But the courts in Quebec ruled against him, and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his appeal yesterday. Ifergan, who says the case \"consumed him\" for seven years and cost him more than $100,000 in legal fees, says he has done all he can and will stop fighting the decision\u2014but he hasn't stopped buying lottery tickets. (A Washington woman who went to the store for pumpkin spice picked up a ticket that won $90 million as well.)"}
{"document": "Informant claims they were offered $10K a month in murder-for-hire plot Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Nicholas Shaughnessy, left, and Jaclyn Edison (Facebook Photo) [ + - ] Video \n \n TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) \u2014 The son of a prominent Austin jeweler has been arrested and charged with hiring someone to murder his parents. The man's wife was also arrested and faces the same charge. \n \n Nicolas Patrick Shaughnessy, 19, and Jaclyn Alexa Edison, 19, were each booked Tuesday evening into the Travis County Jail on one charge of soliciting to commit capital murder. They are accused of hiring someone to kill Theodore \"Ted\" Shaughnessy, the longtime owner of Gallerie Jewelers in central Austin. \n \n It remains unclear who committed the murder. Shaughnessy, 55, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in his southwest Travis County home on March 2. \n \n His wife Corey \u2014 the suspect's mother \u2014 called 911 around 4:45 a.m. that morning to report a home intruder and that shots had been fired inside her home off Oliver Drive, near US 290 and Circle Drive. Investigators said one or more intruders forced their way into the home, and evidence at the scene led them to believe an intruder might have been injured. \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. A search of Nicholas Shaughnessy's apartment revealed he was married to Jaclyn Edison. \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. A search of Nicholas Shaughnessy's apartment revealed he was married to Jaclyn Edison. \n \n According to court documents, when Shaughnessy heard the dogs bark, he grabbed his firearm to check the house. Less than a minute later, his wife heard gunshots so she grabbed her gun just as the suspects fired at her. She returned fire \"until she ran out of ammunition.\" \n \n Corey told detectives she ran into her closet and called 911. She didn't come out of the closet until deputies arrived at the home. \n \n In a statement by Perry Minton and Rick Flores, attorneys for Nicholas Shaughnessy, they say his mother \"stands firmly behind her son.\" \n \n \u201cWe have been working with the Shaughnessy family over the last several months as they mourn the loss of Ted,\" the attorneys said. \"These allegations are not consistent in any way with the young man we have come to know. Nick has been living with his mother since this tragedy occurred.\" \n \n Minton and Flores said they would review evidence as it becomes available. \n \n According to an arrest affidavit, there were bullet casings throughout the kitchen and in the couple's bedroom. Detectives discovered an open window in Nicholas' bedroom. \n \n The window screen had been removed but there did not appear to be any signs of forced entry to the window, according to the arrest affidavit. Detectives say the \"suspects would have known they had to escape back out the bedroom window\" due to the nature of the door locks. \n \n As authorities were investigating the homicide, the victim's son and his wife arrived at the home around 8 a.m. He said they were in College Station when they received the news about the shooting, according to the affidavit. \n \n When detectives spoke to Edison at the scene, she began \"sobbing heavily\" when they told her they would need to test her for gunshot residue. \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ted Shaughnessy (Facebook Photo) \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ted Shaughnessy (Facebook Photo) \n \n Video taken by KXAN at the crime scene in March showed Nicolas Shaughnessy's hands being photographed by investigators. \n \n According to court documents, the son \"was not showing any emotion at all, and showed very little concern\" for his mother. \n \n When asked about the window, Nicolas Shaughnessy said he would use that window to get in and out of the home sometimes. \n \n The home's alarm system showed the system was remotely accessed three different times the night of the shooting. Detectives say it was traced back to Nicolas' apartment in College Station. Police add that the video corresponding to the time of the break-in was gone. They believe someone logged into the system and manually deleted the videos, the only person who had access at that time was Nicolas. \n \n A few days after the murder, a woman who worked at the apartment complex where Nicolas and his wife lived in College Station called police and said Nicolas contacted her on social media and said if she wanted to make some cash to let him know. \n \n When she asked what he meant, he allegedly responded \"illegal activities\" and anything \"from strippers to murders.\" He said he would pay her $20,000 a head with a $15,000 incentive and ended the message with skeleton emojis, according to court documents. \n \n A friend of Nicolas' told detectives Nicolas had talked to him about faking his own death and getting insurance money as well as his parent's life insurance policy, though he never mentioned anything about killing his parents, the affidavit continued. Records show Nicolas was the sole beneficiary of $2 million in the event his parents died. \n \n As detectives continued investigating, they discovered Nicolas and his wife had gotten married in July 2017. A search of their apartment revealed bullets which matched the casings found at the crime scene. \n \n Cellphone records show the two were texting back and forth at the end of February regarding a possible transaction. Records show Edison message Nicolas with \"Do they want 50K or not\" and \"we can't afford to pay half before.\" Nicolas responded, \"Working on it tho.\" \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Nicolas Shaughnessy being photographed the day his father was shot to death in their home on Oliver Road on March 2, 2018. (KXAN Photo) \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Nicolas Shaughnessy being photographed the day his father was shot to death in their home on Oliver Road on March 2, 2018. (KXAN Photo) \n \n Detectives found a text conversation Nicolas had with a friend on Aug. 2, 2017 saying \"plastic gloves ski masks,\" and when his friend responded \"no no no,\" Nicholas responded, \"Fine fine. Just walk in shoot a family steal all their s--t.\" \n \n On March 3, one day after the shooting, Nicolas asked the same friend if he wanted to see pictures of the crime scene and \"joked about being 'demoted' from a person of interest.'\" \n \n An informant told detectives that Nicolas had approached them about killing his parents. He said he would pay the informant $10,000 per month. The informant said one conversation happened inside a car where Nicolas and his wife were present. \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Nicolas Shaughnessy, right, and his girlfriend, Jaclyn Edison, walking with a deputy on March 2, 2018. (KXAN Photo) \n \n Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Nicolas Shaughnessy, right, and his girlfriend, Jaclyn Edison, walking with a deputy on March 2, 2018. (KXAN Photo) \n \n Nicolas Shaughnessy is being held on a $3 million cash bond. Edison is being held on a $1 million cash bond. \n \n Family friends who did not want to speak on camera told KXAN's Brittany Glas they were shocked to hear of Tuesday's developments, with one saying he \"never saw anything but love in that family.\" \n \n In an April 27 post on the Gallerie Jewelers Facebook page, it was announced that the store would return to its normal hours starting May 1. \"We are happy to announce that Nicolas, Ted's son, will be carrying on his legacy here at Gallerie,\" the post says. \n \n Customers described Ted Shaughnessy as a family man who was always talking about his son's accomplishments and doting on his wife. ||||| See more of Gallerie Jewelers on Facebook ||||| Ted Shaughnessy, owner of Gallerie Jewelers in Austin, died defending his wife, who lived, his obituary says. \n \n A 19-year-old and his wife are accused of conspiring to hire someone to kill his Travis County parents. \n \n Nicolas Shaughnessy received a call from authorities in the wee hours of the morning March 2. His father had been shot to death in a home invasion; his mother survived the attack. \n \n Shaughnessy said he drove three hours before dawn from his home in College Station to his father\u2019s house in southwestern Travis County. A detective at the scene would note that when Shaughnessy arrived, he showed no emotion and seemed unconcerned about his mother. \n \n Shaughnessy and his wife, Jaclyn Alexa Edison, now are accused of hiring a hitman to kill his parents. Both 19-year-olds are charged with solicitation to commit capital murder for their alleged roles in Theodore \u201cTed\u201d Shaughnessy\u2019s killing. \n \n The day of the shooting at the Shaughnessys\u2019 home in the 9900 block of Oliver Drive, Travis County deputies put out word that they were searching for a shooter in a home invasion who might have been wounded in the attack. Both Ted and his wife, Corey Garman Shaughnessy, were armed. She fired back. \n \n But as the investigation pressed on, clues surfaced that pointed to an apparent murder-for-hire plot that might have been orchestrated by the young couple, authorities said. \n \n The next day, Nicolas Shaughnessy asked a friend if he wanted to see pictures of the crime scene and joked about being \u201cdemoted\u201d from being a person of interest because investigators returned his cellphone to him, the affidavit said. \n \n Detectives searched Nicolas Shaughnessy and Edison\u2019s College Station home and found evidence that Shaughnessy had asked several people if they would like to be paid for killing someone weeks and months before his parents were attacked, the affidavit said. In messages sent in February and found on a home computer, the couple appeared to discuss costs, the affidavit shows. \n \n Just two weeks before the shooting, Shaughnessy asked a woman working at his apartment complex if she wanted to make some extra money doing illegal activities, including \u201canything from strippers to murders,\u201d the woman told investigators. According to the affidavit, Shaughnessy offered her \u201c$20,000 a head,\u201d plus a $15,000 incentive. \n \n Detectives did not find signs of a forced entry into the home. All the doors and windows were locked, except for one that had been opened in Nicolas Shaughnessy\u2019s bedroom, according to the affidavit. They said the home\u2019s security alarm system had been remotely deactivated from Shaughnessy\u2019s College Station residence three times that morning after alarms had gone off. \n \n \u201cThe only people with access to the alarm system were Ted, Corey and Nicolas,\u201d the affidavit said. \n \n Security videos during the attack were also deleted from the home alarm system, according to the report. \n \n After the attack, Corey Shaughnessy told investigators that their dog\u2019s barking woke her and her husband about 4 a.m. Ted grabbed his .45-caliber Glock handgun and went to investigate, the affidavit said. \n \n Seconds later, she heard a barrage of gunshots close to the couple\u2019s bedroom. She grabbed the .357-caliber handgun she kept at her bedside and got up, she told investigators. \n \n Someone fired at her, Corey Shaughnessy said, and she shot back until she ran out of ammunition. She then hid in her closet and called 911 at 4:46 a.m. \n \n When dispatchers asked Corey Shaughnessy to leave the closet and open the door for deputies, she found her husband lying unresponsive on the kitchen floor. \n \n Ted was lying in a large pool of blood and bullet casings from two guns littered the kitchen, the affidavit said. Bullet holes perforated kitchen fixtures, walls and windows. One of the couple\u2019s pet Rottweilers was shot dead in the bedroom. \n \n On the opposite side of the house, in Nicolas Shaughnessy\u2019s bedroom, a window was open. Authorities did not arrest anyone that day. \n \n Ted Shaughnessy was pronounced dead at 5:14 a.m. The Travis County medical examiner said he died of multiple gunshot wounds. \n \n When Edison arrived with her husband at the Shaughnessys\u2019 home after the shooting, she started to cry when detectives told her she would be tested for gunshot residue. \n \n She told investigators that her husband worked as a day trader and his business was doing well. He had a good relationship with his parents, she said. \n \n But according to the affidavit, Nicolas Shaughnessy had told multiple people he would receive more than $1 million from his parents\u2019 life insurance. \n \n Detectives confirmed Shaughnessy would receive $2 million in the event of his parents\u2019 death, the affidavit said. \n \n While both Shaughnessy and Edison have been charged in connection with the case, authorities said they are still searching for the shooter. \n \n Travis County sheriff\u2019s office spokeswoman Kristen Dark said nothing has been ruled out in the search. \u201cOur detectives are pursuing every lead they encounter as they work the case,\u201d she said. \n \n The affidavit points out that nine .40-caliber handgun casings were found near Ted Shaughnessy\u2019s body, the affidavit says. During the search, detectives located an empty box for a .40-caliber handgun in a dresser drawer in the bedroom next to the open window. Corey Shaughnessy told investigators that bedroom belonged to Nicolas Shaughnessy, the affidavit says. \n \n Additionally, detectives found five .380-caliber casings near Ted Shaughnessy\u2019s body, the affidavit says. Investigators found a box of .380-caliber ammunition at Nicolas and Jaclyn\u2019s College Station apartment, with six rounds missing from the box, the affidavit says. \n \n \u201cThis ammunition matched the caliber and brand of the fired .380-caliber casings found in the area of Theodore\u2019s body,\u201d the document says. \n \n Perry Minton and Rick Flores, Shaughnessy\u2019s attorneys, issued a statement Wednesday saying they have been working with the Shaughnessy family since Ted\u2019s death. \n \n \u201cThese allegations are not consistent in any way with the young man we have come to know. Nick has been living with his mother since this tragedy occurred. Ms. Shaughnessy stands firmly behind her son. We will review the evidence as it becomes available to us,\u201d Minton and Flores said. \n \n After Ted Shaughnessy was killed, his store, Gallerie Jewelers, was closed for about a month. Eventually, business neighbors said Nicolas Shaughnessy and Edison began visiting the store frequently, sometimes accompanied by Corey Shaughnessy. \n \n At the end of April, Nicolas Shaughnessy visited 32Dental, a dentist\u2019s office next door to Ted\u2019s store in the 3500 block of Jefferson Road, and told the staff he would be taking over for his father at the store, said 32Dental office manager Sasha Sayenko. On Wednesday, a sign at the jewelry store said the business was temporarily closed. \n \n \u201c(Nicolas) was saying that \u2018It\u2019s been tough.\u2019 But they\u2019re going to be reopening, he\u2019s going to be taking over and that they\u2019re going to be getting a new puppy,\u201d Sayenko said. \u201cI think he was just trying to mingle, maybe the way Ted was.\u201d \n \n She said Nicolas Shaughnessy seemed chipper despite what had happened. \n \n Michelle Acosta, a patient coordinator at 32Dental, said she knew Ted Shaughnessy for five years. He would wave when he passed by and occasionally stop into the dental office to see how everyone was doing, Acosta said. he was passionate about his job and would bring by stones before they were set into jewelry, she said. \n \n Every now and then, Nicolas Shaughnessy would join his father at work and Acosta would see the pair walking and talking on the way into the store. \n \n \u201cIt looked like a good relationship,\u201d Acosta said. ||||| A Texas man and his girlfriend were charged with hiring a hitman to kill the boy's father, a Texas jeweler who was gunned down in March during a home break-in. \n \n Nicolas Patrick Shaughnessy and Jaclyn Alexa Edison, both 19, who live together in College Station, were arrested on a count of criminal solicitation to commit capital murder, Travis County sheriff's officials said. They remained in jail Wednesday, with Shaughnessy's bond set at $3 million and Edison's at $1 million, according to the Dallas Morning News. \n \n Neither had an attorney listed in online jail records. \n \n According to investigators, Shaughnessy's mother, Corey Shaughnessy, called 911 on March 2 to report a home intruder. \n \n Deputies headed to the home only to find Theodore Shaughnessy dead of multiple gunshot wounds. A family dog was also killed. Authorities say the plot called for Corey Shaughnessy to be killed as well, but she was physically unharmed. \n \n The shooter hasn't been caught, but sheriff's spokeswoman Kristen Dark said in a statement that detectives \"are following new leads in the case.\" \n \n Theodore Shaughnessy was killed March 2 after his son allegedly hired a hitman to kill him. (Facebook) \n \n Theodore Shaughnessy was the owner of Gallerie Jewelers in Austin. In late April, the company announced that Nicolas would be taking over the family business. \n \n \u201cWe are happy to announce that Nicolas, Ted's son, will be carrying on his legacy here at Gallerie,\u201d the post read. \n \n An obituary for the elder Shaughnessy published in the Austin American-Statesman said he was \"a proud father to his son, Nicolas.\" \n \n In the months before the shooting, Nicolas Shaughnessy approached several people asking if they were willing to kill someone for pay, prosecutors allege in an arrest affidavit. The younger Shaughnessy estimated that he'd receive some $8 million upon his parents' death in life insurance payouts, from the sale of their home and sale of the jewelry store. \n \n Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! \n \n With NEWS WIRE SERVICES ||||| A College Station couple is in jail in Austin. They are at the center of a Travis County Sheriff's Office investigation involving a murder-for-hire plot. Both suspects are only 19 years old. \n \n Tuesday night, Nicolas Shaughnessy and his wife Jaclyn Edison, a Texas A&M; Student, were arrested in Austin for soliciting to commit capital murder. \n \n On March 2, Nicolas's father Theodore Shaughnessy was shot dead in his Austin area home by an intruder. Police say his murderer was a hitman hired by Nicolas and Jaclyn. Footage from the crime scene showed Nicolas being interviewed by Travis County investigators outside the home. \n \n Nicolas and Jaclyn had been living in College Station together, recently married. Just days after the murder in March, investigators showed up to search the couple's College Station home in the 2300 block of Cottage Lane. Nearby neighbors are reacting to the crime. \n \n \"They were here for several hours. There was at least a dozen cop cars,\" said Caleb Miller, a neighbor. \n \n Miller said their interactions as neighbors were strange. \n \n \"He was just a weird guy, a weird character. Really out of place with the college setting,\" said Miller. \n \n He also told News 3 Nicolas Shaughnessy would talk about his family's money and have socially awkward conversations. \n \n \"He made a lot of, he made sure to make a lot of points on his family's wealth and stuff like that which is weird. And just some of the things he would say kind of and so it's not really surprising at all,\" said Miller. \n \n Investigators say Nicolas stood to gain $2 million on a life insurance policy for his parents where he was sole beneficiary. He could have also gained up to $6 million more from the family home and jewelry store, Gallerie Jewelers in Austin. \n \n \"It's really selfish and it's really sad what people would do to acquire a little bit,\" said Miller. \n \n Neighbors tell us the couple moved out earlier this spring. \n \n \"He was just moving out and asked me if I wanted a bench and yeah he was taking his cameras down,\" said Miller, as he sat on the bench they gave him. \n \n Court documents tell us Nicolas's parents' home security system was accessed from his College Station apartment the morning of the murder. Surveillance video from inside was also deleted remotely. \n \n His mother Corey Shaughnessy shot back at the intruder and wasn't hurt. \n \n \"They'll throw away friends, family, even their whole lives just for a little monetary value in their lives, so it's really sad,\" said Miller. \n \n Jaclyn Edison and Nicolas Shaughnessy were both in jail in Austin Wednesday afternoon. Edison's bond is $1 million, while Shaughnessy's is $3 million. \n \n Travis County Sheriff's officials tell us they've not arrested the gunman yet and haven't ruled out more than one shooter being involved. \n \n Investigators also say in the arrest affidavit that they received tips the couple was hiring a hitman, including from a confidential informant who was told they'd receive $10,000 a month for the killings.", "summary": "\u2013 His father was gunned down in a home invasion in March; in April, Nicolas Shaughnessy was named to take over the family business, Gallerie Jewelers in Austin, Texas. Authorities now have other plans for the 19-year-old, per the New York Daily News. Arrested Tuesday on charges of criminal solicitation to commit capital murder, Shaughnessy and his 19-year-old wife, Texas A&M student Jaclyn Edison, are accused of hiring a hitman to kill his parents. Theodore and Corey Shaughnessy traded fire with an unknown intruder on March 2; 55-year-old Theodore and a dog were killed. Authorities say Shaughnessy, an only child, approached multiple people about a hired murder as early as August 2017 and discussed the subject in texts with Edison. Investigators allege he planned to collect $2 million in life insurance; his parents' home and business were worth another $6 million, per KBTX. He's accused of remotely deactivating his parents' security system and deleting surveillance video while at the apartment he shared with Edison some three hours away in College Station, according to an arrest affidavit. The affidavit also outlines possible evidence related to the guns used: Six rounds of .380-caliber ammunition were missing from a box at the couple's apartment, police say, per the Austin American-Statesman, and five .380-caliber casings were located near Theodore's body. Edison's bond is set at $1 million, while Shaughnessy's is set at $3 million. His attorney notes he's been living with his mother, who \"stands firmly behind her son,\" per KXAN. The shooter has not been arrested."}
{"document": "Facebook raised the price range for its IPO to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35 a share, in a sign of investor appetite for the offering. George Stahl has the latest on The News Hub. Photo: AFP/Getty Images. \n \n Facebook Inc.'s coming initial public offering has set off a frenzy of anticipation among Main Street and Wall Street investors desperate to get their hands on the stock. \n \n Late Monday, the social network raised the price range for its IPO to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35 a share, in a sign of investor appetite for the offering. The Menlo Park, Calif., company's initial price range put Facebook's valuation at $77 billion to $96 billion, but that rises to $93 billion to $104 billion under the new price range as investor interest ramps up. \n \n Facebook's coming initial public offering has set off a frenzy of anticipation among Main Street and Wall Street investors desperate to get their hands on the stock. Shayndi Raice has details on The News Hub. Photo: Bloomberg. \n \n Those numbers have created high hopes for both individual and professional investors. The excitement has drawn in fledgling stock buyers such as 11-year-old Jade Supple of Rockville Centre, N.Y., whose father plans to bet money saved to put his daughter through college on Facebook shares, although he has doubts about the price. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Scott Lewis for The Wall Street Journal Money manager Chris Baggini \n \n Enlarge Image Close Supple Family Jade and Jim Supple \n \n Enlarge Image Close Sandy Huffaker for The Wall Street Journal Grossmont High investment-club adviser Todd Benrud \n \n In Berwyn, Pa., hedge-fund manager and mutual-fund manager Chris Baggini of Turner Investment Partners says he tracked Facebook closely and repeatedly called executives at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, which are helping to lead the IPO, to snag a spot in the social network's roadshow stop in Philadelphia last Wednesday. \n \n Across the nation in El Cajon, Calif., technology teacher and investment-club supervisor Todd Benrud is trying to get his club at Grossmont High School into Facebook stock. \"They use Facebook every day,\" Mr. Benrud said. Some students think it is \"guaranteed to make money.\" \n \n Sophisticated investors who can meet financial requirements have been able to trade limited shares of Facebook for some time on secondary markets. But the IPO will turn Facebook into a public company that anyone can own. \n \n Many small investors are eager to grab Facebook at its issue price, hoping the shares will surge in value as IPOs frequently do on the first day. But Internet IPOs have had mixed success. Daily deals website Groupon Inc. has lost about 35% of its value since its Nov. 4 debut, while stock at professional network LinkedIn Corp. has gained nearly 150% since it started trading May 19. \n \n Facebook still hasn't proven that its $3.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profits last year deserve such a lofty valuation. Last month, the company disclosed that its first-quarter profit and revenue declined from the fourth quarter of 2011, which it attributed to seasonal trends in advertising. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment. \n \n Michael Belanger, a lawyer from Oklahoma City, invests his personal money in the stock market. But he will be skipping Facebook's IPO because he thinks its valuation is totally \"out of whack.\" Scott Schermerhorn, chief investment officer of investment-management firm Granite Investment Advisors, says the hype around Facebook's IPO is going to keep his firm away. \"It's a cult stock,\" he says. \n \n Little of that skepticism is weighing on three investors, tracked by The Wall Street Journal since Facebook announced in February that it would go public. \n \n * * * \n \n Rockville Centre, N.Y.\u2014Jim Supple was driving with his daughter Jade last autumn, when she turned to him and said, \"Daddy, can I buy some of the Facebook company?\" \n \n Mr. Supple, 47, had been teaching Jade about investing in the stock market for years. He started putting money for her in stocks like eBay and Disney when she was a baby. But the request still took him aback. \"How do you know about buying Facebook?\" he asked. \n \n \"I saw in the news that they were going to be selling parts of the company,\" she responded. \"Can we buy some?\" \n \n Since then, Mr. Supple has been trying to find a way to take $25,000 he has saved for her college fund and purchase Facebook stock. \"She doesn't need this money for another eight years,\" says Mr. Supple. \"If it goes the Google route, I'll be in good shape.\" \n \n Although he thought Facebook was a strong investment, Mr. Supple had been burned before, having lost some money in a Ponzi scheme, he says. He wanted to be sure that he was being more careful this time before betting so much on one company. \n \n On Jan. 17, Mr. Supple tried to dive in. Two former Facebook employees were selling 70,000 shares in an auction on SharesPost Inc., one of the secondary markets for Facebook shares. The bidding started at $31 a share. He bid $32.01. \"Jim, I'm gonna be honest with you, you're not gonna get it, very rarely does it sell for the minimum,\" Mr. Supple says he was told by his SharesPost broker. \n \n Mr. Supple works for a Manhattan-based company called SNAP Interactive that creates a software application that allows singles to go on Facebook and find dates. Over a Jan. 18 dinner of burgers and beer at the New York steakhouse Del Frisco's, Mr. Supple asked his boss, Cliff Lerner, what he thought about buying up Facebook in the secondary market. \n \n \"You know, there is a very high minimum to get into the secondary market,\" Mr. Lerner cautioned Mr. Supple. Mr. Supple said he could figure out a way, between his 401K and an IRA fund and the college savings, to squeeze together the $100,000 minimum recommended by SharesPost. \"Am I out of my mind?\" Mr. Supple asked Mr. Lerner. \"No, I think you're gonna kill it in this thing,\" responded Mr. Lerner. \n \n Mr. Supple lost the SharesPost auction. It closed on Jan. 20 for $34 a share, less than $2 above his bid. \n \n Just two weeks later, Facebook filed for its IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission, driving the price of secondary market shares up drastically. The next auction was $44 a share, too expensive for Mr. Supple. Mr. Supple turned his energy away from the secondary market and began plotting how to buy shares on the day of the IPO, or shortly after. \n \n On April 9, just after the roadshow kicked off, Mr. Supple said he was getting concerned about the frenzy and rethinking his plan to buy on the day of the IPO. \n \n \"Here in New York, it's on every single news channel, it's in all the newspapers that the roadshow has started and [Facebook Chief Executive Mark] Zuckerberg was here in New York,\" he said at the time. \"I'm going to sit on the sidelines on IPO day,\" Mr. Supple decided. \"We're going to have to wait until the smoke clears.\" \n \n * * * \n \n El Cajon, Calif.\u2014On Jan. 30, amid reports that Facebook would file for its IPO within days, high school senior Brandon Hyatt scrawled an exuberant message to the online forum of his investment club at Grossmont High School, under the heading \"BUY FACEBOOK!!!!\" \n \n The note clued technology teacher and club supervisor Todd Benrud into the frenzy that would follow. When the club next met that Wednesday, Mr. Benrud faced some 10 teenagers who thought they could buy shares that day. \n \n Every Monday and Wednesday at lunchtime, Mr. Benrud converts his technology classroom into the trading floor of the Charity Student Investment Project, a nonprofit student-run investment club. A live feed of a financial TV show fills the projection screen. Students each take a computer to research investments for their real-money pool of $2,900. \n \n When Mr. Benrud called an initial vote on whether to pursue Facebook shares, every hand shot up, even after Mr. Benrud told students that they couldn't get shares immediately. Since the club's rules don't allow it to put more than 10% of their money into any one stock, they would only be able to buy a few shares, depending on where it was priced. \n \n In an attempt to help the club buy at the IPO price, Mr. Benrud met with a Morgan Stanley broker in March and showed interest in giving the brokerage his retirement account. At the end of their hour-and-a-half meeting, he told the broker that he had one more question. He said the broker slumped his shoulders and said one word: \"Facebook?\" \n \n The broker told Mr. Benrud that neither he nor the club had enough money to qualify. \"It really took the wind out of their sails,\" Mr. Benrud says of his club members. \"They immediately started asking, 'What else can we do?' \" \n \n Students began to get frustrated as the weeks wound on without more news of the IPO date. In mid-April, when Facebook said it would acquire Instagram, which makes a photo-sharing app, for $1 billion, several students questioned the deal. Antonio Robles, a junior in the club, lamented that Instagram \"wasn't even making money\" and wondered if investors would think that Mr. Zuckerberg had poor judgment. \n \n Nonetheless, the students decided it was time to vote on whether or not to buy Facebook shares. A plan to buy two shares on the open market the morning of the IPO\u2014no matter the price\u2014and sell later that afternoon passed the club\u2014eight in favor, one against, with one abstention. \n \n The week before the roadshow, the students decided to hold a second vote\u2014this time to buy two shares in the morning but sell only one in the afternoon, keeping the other indefinitely. The measure passed\u2014six ayes to one abstention. \n \n After hearing the week before the IPO that some Facebook shares would be available to small investors at the IPO price, Mr. Benrud made one last attempt to get IPO shares through the club's Wells Fargo broker but was told his club didn't qualify. \n \n On Tuesday, Grossmont High School's Mr. Hyatt, the student who started the Facebook discussion, posted to his club's forum again, noting that Facebook's projected debut share price of $28 to $35 would let his club buy more than the two shares they planned on. (Facebook raised the price range on Monday.) The group ended up voting to buy up to four shares on the open market, depending on the price, and sell half of what they get the same afternoon. \n \n \"Every single person in the investment club has a Facebook\" page, says junior Adam Sturgeon. \"We relate to it.\" \n \n * * * \n \n Berwyn, Pa.\u2014Chris Baggini, a hedge-fund and mutual-fund manager, was in New York meeting with clients and media on Feb. 1, the day Facebook would release a first glimpse at its financials. At about 9 in the morning, sitting in a booth in a posh dining room at the Royalton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, he gushed about the company's prospects. \"Of course we're interested,\" he said. \n \n Mr. Baggini's firm, Turner Investment Partners, in 2004 had managed to grab 700,000 shares of Google at its IPO and make a $10.5 million paper profit for investors on the first day of trading. The firm now manages about $13.4 billion in mutual funds, hedge funds and separate accounts for institutions. \n \n Even before seeing Facebook's financials, Mr. Baggini thought it likely that Turner would be involved. He noted Americans spend 16% of their time online on Facebook and said that it had the chance of being the biggest IPO of the decade. \n \n After hearing that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs would set the roadshow schedule, he started to call and email bankers at both companies regularly. Neither gave hints on when the roadshow would begin, and Mr. Baggini said it felt like they were \"walking on eggshells.\" \n \n In late April, Mr. Baggini traveled to San Francisco to meet prospective clients. There, too, he was met by a bevy of questions about what the company thought about Facebook and whether they would get in on the IPO. \n \n Facebook's S-1 filing brought a new round of questions. Mr. Baggini was pleased that its research and development expenditures had ticked up but wasn't sure why revenue growth per user had slowed. \n \n \"The question becomes the level of interest. Is Facebook marginally exciting, very exciting or extremely exciting?\" he said. \"Right now, I think we're at 'very exciting.' \" \n \n Mr. Baggini and around 25 other executives finally got their chance to meet Facebook executives Wednesday afternoon at the Westin hotel in downtown Philadelphia. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and chief financial officer David Ebersman showed up, but not Mr. Zuckerberg, which Mr. Baggini said didn't bother him. \n \n He said that he hadn't yet decided on the price he would be willing to pay for shares. \"We're still very excited and are likely to participate,\" he said. \n \n More on the Facebook IPO \n \n Previously \n \n Write to Shayndi Raice at shayndi.raice@wsj.com \n \n A version of this article appeared May 15, 2012, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: In Facebook IPO, Frenzy, Skepticism. ||||| An investor holds prospectus explaining the Facebook stock after attending a show for Facebook Inc's initial public offering at the Four Season's Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts May 8, 2012. \n \n NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc increased the price range on its initial public offering an average of 14 percent to raise more than $12 billion, giving the world's No. 1 social network a valuation potentially exceeding $100 billion. \n \n The company, founded eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room, raised the target range to between $34 and $38 per share in response to strong demand, from $28 to $35, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. \n \n That would value Facebook at roughly $93 billion to $104 billion, rivaling the market capitalization of Internet powerhouses such as Amazon.com Inc, and exceeding that of Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc combined. \n \n Facebook also extended the time frame for its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app maker Instagram, projecting that the deal would close in 2012 instead of closing in the second quarter as it had previously indicated. \n \n Facebook provided no reason for the change, though a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached out to Google Inc and Twitter as part of the agency's standard review for deals of that size. \n \n The price increase indicates intense market demand, which means Facebook's shares are likely to see a big pop on their first day of trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, analysts said. \n \n \"It's confounding but the evidence is that if companies raise the range, they will pop more,\" said Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based financial services firm IPOX Schuster LLC. \"It signals that there is such a strong demand that it will create a momentum for other investors who want to jump on.\" \n \n Facebook said in its latest filing that it arrived at the higher IPO price range after one week of marketing the offering - part of a cross-country \"road show\" in which CEO Zuckerberg has occasionally taken the stage to lay out his vision for the company's money-making potential and its top priorities. \n \n The Facebook range hike, coupled with strong results from Internet and social media players Groupon Inc and China's RenRen Inc overnight, contributed to a dotcom rally on Wall Street on Tuesday. \n \n Shares of Pandora Media Inc were up 6.9 percent at $10.50 in afternoon trading, while Zynga Inc was up 8.3 percent at $8.61. Groupon was up 13.7 percent at $13.33, while Renren gained 9.5 percent to $6.01. Yelp Inc stock was up 7.5 pct at $21.55. \n \n In the biggest-ever IPO to emerge from Silicon Valley, Facebook will raise $12.1 billion based on the midpoint price of $36 and the 337.4 million shares on offer, or 12.3 percent of the company. \n \n At this midpoint, Facebook would be valued at roughly 27 times its 2011 annual revenue, or 99 times earnings. When Google went public in 2004 at a valuation of $23 billion, it was valued at 16 times trailing revenue and 218 times earnings. Apple Inc, meanwhile, went public in 1980 at a valuation of 25 times revenue and 102 times earnings. \n \n Wall Street had expected Facebook to increase its price range, with investors eager to get a slice of a strong consumer brand. The IPO road show began last week and has drawn crowds of investors from coast to coast. \n \n Facebook plans to close the books on its IPO later on Tuesday, two days ahead of schedule, a source familiar with the deal told Reuters on Monday. It is scheduled to price its shares on Thursday and begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. \n \n The IPO is already \"well-oversubscribed,\" which is why the company will close its books earlier than expected, the source said. \n \n Facebook's capital-raising target far outstrips other big Internet IPOs. Google raised just shy of $2 billion in 2004, while last year Groupon tapped investors for $700 million and Zynga raked in $1 billion. \n \n The IPO comes amid concerns from some investors that Facebook has not yet figured out a way to make money from an increasing number of users who access the social network on mobile devices such as smartphones. Revenue growth from Facebook's online advertising business has also slowed in recent months. \n \n Company executives met with prospective investors in Chicago on Monday and were slated to travel to Kansas City, Missouri, and Denver, before returning to Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters. \n \n A host of Wall Street banks are underwriting Facebook's offering, with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs serving as leads. Facebook will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol \"FB.\" \n \n (Reporting By Olivia Oran in New York and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco, additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Matthew Lewis)", "summary": "\u2013 Looks like Facebook's IPO roadshow has done a pretty good job of drumming up investor interest. The company has raised its IPO price range up to $34 to $38 a share from $28 to $35 a share, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. The new price range gives the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg\u2014who turned 28 yesterday\u2014a valuation of $104 billion. At the mid-point of $36, Facebook would raise $12.1 billion with the IPO. The company plans to close the books on the IPO today, set the price range on Thursday, and start trading on Friday, sources tell Reuters. Small investors are jumping at the chance to get in on Silicon Valley's biggest-ever IPO, although many larger investors doubt whether its $3.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profits last year deserve such a high valuation, the Journal notes. \"It's a cult stock,\" says the chief investment officer of investment-management firm Granite Investment Advisors."}
{"document": "\n \n (Getty Images) \n \n Actor Alec Baldwin is no stranger to unhappy run-ins with the paparazzi\u2014and earlier on Sunday, he was involved in yet another such altercation. Baldwin told us he was assaulted by a NY Post photographer near his East Village apartment, and called the cops to file a formal complaint against him. But it seems the photographer is planning on accusing Baldwin of using a racial epithet against him. \"If you want to paint a picture of me that is a denigrating picture, I've seen that,\" Baldwin told us. \"If you want to put words in my mouth...I've certainly had my moments. But this is not one of them. I don't think I've ever uttered a racial epithet to someone in my lifetime.\" \n \n Baldwin said he was returning home from the gym when the altercation took place. \"This guy was right up in my face as I crossed University Place,\" he told us, saying the photographer\u2014who may have been following him due to the recent lawsuit against his wife\u2014was acting aggressively. \"I get to the other side of the street, and he bumped into me.\" He believes it was a very deliberate provocation: \"He banged into me with his shoulder, because he was right on top of me with the camera,\" he added. \"In my mind, it was deliberate. I've had that happen before. It happens sometimes, because they want to bait you, they want you to do something.\" \n \n Baldwin noted some of his previous experiences with photographers from The Post and other local dailies, recalling one time around his wedding last summer to Hilaria Thomas when a photographer tripped and sat on a baby in a stroller while trying to get a photo of him. \"My wife is pregnant and I'm trying to make sure she has as much peace as possible,\" he said. \"Who knows what these people can do.\" \n \n So after he got home, Baldwin called the cops; two cop cars and four officers, who he said were nothing but kind and professional, responded and took his complaint. He also tweeted about the experience. The photographer, who was still there at the time, claimed he was a former cop himself, and was able to provide valid ID to prove it. Considering that, Baldwin is perplexed by what happened later: \"My publicist has informed me that the \"photographer\" from the Post is claiming I called him a racial epithet, prior to me contacting NYPD,\" he tweeted. \n \n He further explained to us: \"When they were there, no one made any mention of anything. While police were here, you'd figure that'd be an opportune time for this guy to really attempt to tar me in some way. But there was no mention of anything I said to him, no one said anything about me saying the N-word or taunting him or anything. So it was after the fact. He wants to say I used some racial slur against him.\" \n \n As he put it in a separate tweet, \"Why did the photographer make no mention of this when the cops showed up? Cops make rather good witnesses.\" We've contacted The Post for comment about the confrontation, but they have not responded as of publication. \n \n Baldwin is clearly frustrated that these kinds of interactions keep happening, although he is not too concerned about people taking the photographer's accusations seriously: \"I don't think anyone who knows me would think that was possible.\" \n \n He had strong words for the newspaper however: \"The Post will stop at nothing\u2014that's what The Post is. Their function is to denigrate people, humiliate people, reduce people, make excuses for people who are their political partisans. It's a highly biased, highly politicized group of people. However, I'm stunned that they would resort to that.\" He concluded, \"Even for The Post, this is a new low.\" \n \n UPDATE: Here's the NY Post's story. ||||| Actor Alec Baldwin allegedly called a black Post photographer a racial epithet, a \u201ccrackhead\u201d and a \u201cdrug dealer\u201d during a confrontation on an East Village street yesterday morning, prompting police to intervene. \n \n Baldwin had first been approached by a Post reporter while walking his dogs outside his East 10th Street pad at around 10:50 a.m. He was asked for comment on a lawsuit against his wife, Hilaria, involving her work as a yoga instructor. \n \n The \u201c30 Rock\u2019\u2019 star grabbed the reporter, Tara Palmeri, by her arm and told her, \u201cI want you to choke to death,\u201d Palmeri told police, for whom she played an audiotape of the conversation. \n \n He then called G.N. Miller \u2014 a decorated retired detective with the NYPD\u2019s Organized Crime Control Bureau and a staff photographer for The Post \u2014 a \u201ccoon, a drug dealer,\u2019\u2019 Miller\u2019s police statement said. \n \n At one point, Miller showed Baldwin ID to prove he\u2019s a retired NYPD cop, which Baldwin dismissed as \u201cfake.\u201d \n \n Cops were called, and Miller, 56, and Baldwin, 54, both filed harassment claims against each other. \n \n Minutes later, Baldwin ranted on Twitter. \n \n \u201cThank u 2 NYPD officers who came to my home 2day so that I could file a formal complaint against NY Post \u201cphotographer\u2019\u2019 who assaulted me,\u2019\u2019 he tweeted. \n \n In another post, Baldwin referred to Miller, for unknown reasons, as \u201cRalston,\u201d writing, \u201cMoments after I tweet about the Post, Ralston, the ex-crackhead \u2018photographer\u2019 shows up at my door w 1 of Murdoch\u2019s nieces in tow.\u201d \n \n He added, \u201cRalston claims he\u2019s ex NYPD!! That can\u2019t be!!! Ex NYPD don\u2019t become crackhead, ex jailhouse paparazzi!\u201d \n \n The actor eventually removed most of the posts. \n \n Miller also said the actor bumped him in the chest during their tete-a-tete, although Baldwin told cops the photographer \u201cpushed into him,\u2019\u2019 according to the actor\u2019s complaint. \n \n Baldwin said he \u201casked [Miller] to keep his distance,\u2019\u2019 the complaint said. \n \n But Miller said Baldwin was the one getting \u201ctoo aggressive,\u2019\u2019 so he showed him his retired-cop ID. \n \n Baldwin called the ID a \u201cfake\u2019\u2019 and added Miller was a \u201ccrackhead\u201d and a \u201cdrug dealer\u201d who \u201cjust got out of jail,\u201d Miller said. \n \n Baldwin also made \u201cdisparaging remarks\u2019\u2019 about Miller\u2019s mother, the photographer said. \n \n As oblivious pedestrians walked by, Baldwin told him to \u201csuck my d\u2013k,\u201d Miller said. \n \n Baldwin also walked up to random people \u2014 including a dad pushing his child in a stroller \u2014 and told them Miller was an ex-con and drug dealer, Miller said. \n \n \u201cHe was saying some serious racist stuff,\u201d Miller said. \u201cHe said some choice words about my mother, and he was telling people in the street that I\u2019m a drug dealer. \n \n \u201cHe could have said a lot of other stuff. But he used all of the stereotypes associated with black people.\u201d \n \n Miller worked for the NYPD for nearly 15 years, spending most of his time in narcotics. \n \n Although both men made police reports, it\u2019s a case of he said-he said because the incident did not happen in the presence of a police officer. \n \n Neither police complaint will go any further, except in possible civil action. \n \n Baldwin\u2019s spokesman, Matthew Hiltzik, called Miller\u2019s accusations \u201ccompletely false.\u2019\u2019 \n \n Baldwin, through Hiltzik, denied making the racist remarks, adding, \u201cThat\u2019s one of the most outrageous things I\u2019ve heard in my life.\u2019\u2019 \n \n But Baldwin has a history of making inappropriate comments to photographers. \n \n Last June, the day before his wedding, Baldwin shouted to a black photographer on the street, \u201cYou gotta back up there Rodney.\u201d \n \n The photographer\u2019s name wasn\u2019t Rodney.", "summary": "\u2013 Is Alec Baldwin going down the Mel Gibson road? A New York Post reporter says that when she approached Baldwin yesterday morning while he was walking his dogs, he grabbed her by the arm and told her, \"I want you to choke to death.\" He then allegedly called a black Post photographer who was with her a \"coon,\" an \"ex-con,\" and a \"drug dealer.\" Reporter Tara Palmeri, who had been asking Baldwin about the yoga lawsuit recently filed against his wife, apparently got the encounter on tape and played it for police. The cops were called, and both Baldwin and the photographer, GN Miller, filed harassment claims against one another. Miller, who the Post identifies several times as a former NYPD detective, claimed Baldwin bumped him in the chest, while Baldwin claimed Miller \"pushed into him.\" Humorous tidbit: The police report also claims Baldwin made \"disparaging remarks\" about Miller's mother. Baldwin talked to Gothamist about the encounter, calling it a \"new low\" for the Post and posing the following question about the supposed slur, \"Why did the photographer make no mention of this when the cops showed up? Cops make rather good witnesses.\""}
{"document": "Notice \n \n You must log in to continue. ||||| A Florida mom whose 14-year-old left a note and then disappeared five years ago says her daughter has mailed a letter home. \n \n \u201cTo all our friends and extended family, we want to let you know that we have heard from Emily,\u201d Pam Massimiani wrote on Facebook about her daughter Emily Paul, who now would be 19. \u201cWe do not have any further information to share at the moment. Thank you all for your love and support you have shown for our family.\u201d \n \n Bay County Sheriff Chief Deputy Joel Heape tells PEOPLE in a statement: \u201cWe are still looking to confirm that it is truly Emily Paul.\u201d \n \n Massimiani says that while the letter\u2019s contents suggest it\u2019s from her daughter, she\u2019s keeping the exact details out of the public eye for now. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s from her,\u201d she told the Panama City News Herald. \n \n \u2022 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. \n \n Emily\u2019s last known contact with her family came in April 2013, when authorities and her family said she left a note stating her intentions to run away and then vanished with a packed suitcase from the family\u2019s home in Southport. \n \n Police logged her disappearance as a missing person\u2019s case, and noted that she appeared to follow tips found on websites that describe steps to take for a successful runaway, the News Herald reports. Emily fled with items such as her Xbox that might have linked her to online connections, and she has never resurfaced on social media. Three pings of Emily\u2019s cell phone in the week that followed were the last evidence of her movements. \n \n \u201cThe ball is in her court still,\u201d Emily\u2019s mother said, while asking for further privacy for the family, according to the newspaper. PEOPLE could not reach the family. \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of mixed emotions and a lot of feelings,\u201d Massimiani told the outlet. ||||| UPDATE: Emily Paul has been confirmed safe by BCSO. For the latest, read the story here: http://www.newsherald.com/article/20180815/NEWS/180819044 \n \n SOUTHPORT \u2014 After disappearing more than five years ago, the mother of missing teenager Emily Wynell Paul believes she has received a letter from her daughter. \n \n Paul\u2019s mother, Pam Massimiani, posted on social media last Thursday that she had heard from her now 19-year-old daughter for the first time in five years. On Monday, Massimiani confirmed that she had received a letter. Though the family is keeping the details private now, Massimiani said that based on the contents of the letter, they believe it came from her daughter. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s from her,\u201d Massimiani said. \n \n This is the first the family has heard from the missing teen since April 2013, when the then 14-year-old packed up a suitcase and left her Southport home, leaving behind only a note stating her intention to flee. Massimiani said she will be speaking to the Bay County Sheriff\u2019s Office about the case and while she hopes to hear more from her daughter, \u201cthe ball is in her court still.\u201d \n \n For now, the family asks for privacy as they navigate this difficult situation. \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of mixed emotions and a lot of feelings,\u201d Massimiani said. \n \n Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford said he was aware of the letter and that, while he would like more confirmation, he feels \u201cpretty good\u201d that the letters are from Paul. \n \n Investigators believe Emily learned from websites that teach young people how to be successful runaways, and she has followed the advice. She took the items she had used for online communications, such as her Xbox, and she has never been back on her Facebook account. \n \n Her cellphone powered on three times in the week after she left home, pinging once each off towers in Callaway, near the port and not far from Southport Road, where Massimiani lives. That was the last of her cellphone activity. \n \n Zack McDonald contributed to this report.", "summary": "\u2013 A Florida mother says she has finally heard from missing daughter Emily Paul, who left a note and vanished from the family home five years ago, when she was 14. \"To all our friends and extended family, we want to let you know that we have heard from Emily,\" Pam Massimiani said in a Facebook post. \"We do not have any further information to share at the moment.\" Massimiani says she has received a letter which she is \"pretty sure\" came from Emily, though she is not going to reveal the contents, the Panama City News-Herald reports. \"There\u2019s a lot of mixed emotions and a lot of feelings,\" she says. \"The ball is in her court still,\" Massimiani says. Bay County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Joel Heape tells People that the sheriff's office is still trying to determine whether the letter really came from Emily, who apparently followed online advice on how to disappear successfully. She took items she had used to get online, including her XBox, and never reappeared on Facebook or other social media sites. (This runaway Georgia teen ended up spending years with traveling hippies.)"}
{"document": "The troubled actress from That \u201970s Show died at the age of 43 after a long struggle with sobriety and a congenital heart defect \u2014 drinking up to a half-gallon of vodka every day in 2011. \n \n Lisa Robin Kelly passed away in her sleep last Wednesday while in a rehab treatment facility, for the 22nd time. \n \n \u201cYou can\u2019t do to the human body what Lisa did, for the length of time that she did, and expect to survive,\u201d Lisa\u2019s estranged husband, Robert Gilliam, told the National Enquirer. \n \n \u201cNot with the congenital heart defect, which Lisa had. Her poor little body just couldn\u2019t take all that abuse anymore.\u201d \n \n As Radar previously reported, the actual cause of Lisa\u2019s death is still unknown following an autopsy and toxicology reports are expected to yield some answers but will take another eight to 10 weeks. \n \n PHOTOS: Celebs Who Died Young \n \n \u201cLisa called me in May 2011 and asked me if I would detox her,\u201d Gilliam told the tabloid. \n \n \u201cShe was drinking more than a half-gallon of vodka a day. I got her off everything in six weeks.\u201d \n \n After marrying Lisa in 2012, Gilliam says she then fell off the wagon again \u2014 which was followed by a downward spiral of DUIs, a hospital stay with a blood alcohol level of .387 and domestic violence and assault charges. \n \n To find out more about what Gilliam believes might have saved Lisa\u2019s life, pick up the latest issue of the National Enquirer, on newsstands Thursday. ||||| What caused Lisa Robin Kelly to die in her sleep Wednesday is still unknown, following an autopsy on the That 70s Show star. \n \n Toxicology tests have been ordered and it will take another eight to 10 weeks for the results, said Los Angeles County Coroner Lt. Cheryl MacWillie. \n \n The actress had voluntarily checked herself into a treatment center after several years of battling substance abuse problems. \n \n Kelly was only 43 at the time of her death. \n \n PHOTOS: Celebs Who Died Young \n \n PHOTOS: The Most Shocking Celebrity Drug Transformations ||||| Poor Lisa Robin Kelly. Fans of That '70s Show were shocked to hear that the actress, who once played Topher Grace's older sister, Laurie Forman, died from cardiac arrest on Wednesday. She had long been battling drug and alcohol addiction, and her depressing train of mugshots, showing her more and more disheveled and distressed with each one, was a huge red flag about how much trouble she was in. But she had recently checked into a rehab facility, and her agent said that she was determined to slay her demons once and for all. The drug and alcohol demon is incredibly difficult to slay -- but so is the bad partner demon. And Lisa looks like she may have had that too. \n \n Lisa had been married to Robert Gilliam, but they got divorced last year. It sounds like the polar opposite of a healthy relationship. Both of them had been arrested for assault on each other -- a mere month after getting married. And Gilliam was eventually jailed on assault charges for battering Lisa. \n \n But apparently the two were still in contact. Lisa's new boyfriend even went so far as to blame Lisa's drinking relapse on her ex-husband -- saying they had gotten into a huge fight over That '70s Show residuals. \n \n But TMZ is reporting that Gilliam is blaming Lisa's recent troubles on her new boyfriend. It was the boyfriend who helped Lisa check into a California rehab facility on Monday, but according to Gilliam, she really wanted to get away from him. Gilliam reportedly told TMZ: \n \n He's trying to cover his own ass. In the last two weeks, she called me 22 times to get away from him. \n \n Gilliam says he offered to help rescue her, but only if she checked into a rehab facility close to where HE lived, in North Carolina. She apparently agreed and Gilliam was working to get her out when she unexpectedly died. \n \n The boyfriend says these claims are untrue and that it was years of abuse at the hands of Gilliam that caused Lisa's drinking demons. \n \n Who knows what the truth is here, but one thing is for sure: Lisa may have been better off being single. Someone with alcohol issues can easily be triggered by stress and these relationships are sounding pretty stressful. \n \n Do you think relationships can contribute to substance abuse? \n \n \n \n \n \n Image via Fox \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 That '70s Show actress Lisa Robin Kelly was pronounced dead by a doctor at her LA rehab facility at 8:07am Thursday, but the county coroner reportedly didn't learn of the death until noon ... when someone from the office read about it on TMZ. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ no one from the rehab facility called the county coroner\u2014and now both the coroner and the LA County Sheriff's Department are suspicious and are investigating Kelly's death. Another cause of their suspicion: The rehab doctor said an embolism caused Kelly's death, but the coroner says there's no way he could have known that without doing an autopsy. Kelly's autopsy was completed over the weekend, but her official cause of death is not yet known. The doctor also told the coroner Kelly was on detox drugs when she died, sources say, but it won't be clear whether they played a role in her death until the toxicology report is in. Meanwhile, Kelly's estranged husband (who earlier blamed Kelly's new boyfriend for the actress' recent troubles) is blabbing away about her death in a National Enquirer article picked up by Radar. He says the 43-year-old had a congenital heart defect, and that back in 2011 she was drinking as much as a half-gallon of vodka per day. \"You can't do to the human body what Lisa did, for the length of time that she did, and expect to survive,\" he says. Click for more."}
{"document": "It was something perfectly ordinary: Lindsay Gottlieb, who coaches the University of California at Berkeley\u2019s women\u2019s basketball team, was about to fly with her 1-year-old son. \n \n But her family then had what Gottlieb called an \u201cuncomfortable and hurtful\u201d interaction with a Southwest Airlines employee at a Denver International Airport ticket counter: On Monday, she said, the employee asked Gottlieb to \u201cprove\u201d she was the mother of her biracial son, even after seeing the toddler\u2019s passport. \n \n The employee then asked for her son\u2019s birth certificate, citing \u201cfederal law\u201d \u2014 and proceeded to ask the dismayed mother if she could prove she was the mother with a Facebook post, Gottlieb wrote in a tweet. \n \n \u201cWe had a passport that verified our son\u2019s age and identity, and both parents were present,\u201d Gottlieb said in a statement to The Washington Post on Tuesday. \u201cBut still being pushed further to \u2018prove\u2019 that he was my son felt disrespectful and motivated by more than just concern for his well-being.\u201d \n \n [A Delta flight crew asked if there was a doctor on board. There was: The U.S. surgeon general.] \n \n On Twitter, Gottlieb wrote that the employee claimed she requested further documentation of her and her son\u2019s relationship because the boy had a different last name. \n \n \u201cMy guess is because he has a different skin color,\u201d wrote Gottlieb, who is white. \n \n She added that a mother next to her told her she had never been asked for \u201cproof\u201d when traveling with her child, who also had a different last name but was of the same race. \u201cNot shockingly, not mixed face fam,\u201d Gottlieb added of the other mother. \n \n Gottlieb and her fiance Patrick Martin welcomed 1-year-old Jordan Peter Martin last May. Jordan has flown frequently with his mother and the basketball team this season, and Gottlieb wrote on Twitter that she had flown with him approximately \u201c50 times\u201d before. \n \n @SouthwestAir I\u2019m appalled that after approx 50 times flying with my 1 year old son, ticket counter personnel told me I had to \u201cprove\u201d that he was my son, despite having his passport. She said because we have different last name. My guess is because he has a different skin color. \u2014 Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 28, 2018 \n \n @SouthwestAir she 1st asked for proof with birth certificate. She then said it\u2019s a \u201cfederal law\u201d (not true) but asked me to prove I\u2019m mother with Facebook post.What??Mother next to me said she\u2019s never been asked for proof despite diff last name..not shockingly, not mixed face fam \u2014 Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 28, 2018 \n \n @SouthwestAir it was demeaning and insensitive, not to mention inefficient. Would have missed flight if it was not delayed. I would advise better training for employees to avoid this happening to others \u2014 Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 28, 2018 \n \n Gottlieb reported the incident to Southwest Airlines through Twitter and said officials quickly apologized. She said airline officials told her they would make the incident a \u201ccoaching\u201d moment for their employees \u2014 a reference to Gottlieb\u2019s coaching job. \n \n Southwest said in a statement that it contacted Gottlieb to address her concerns and that the airline was sorry \u201cif our interaction made this family uncomfortable.\u201d \n \n \u201cThat is never our intention,\u201d officials said. \n \n Officials added that Southwest\u2019s policy is to verify that lap children are younger than 2 by reviewing a birth certificate or government-issued ID, and that employees aren\u2019t required to match the last names of a child and guardian on domestic flights. \n \n Gottlieb said the incident made her aware that the sort of questioning she experienced was probably common among nonwhite families. \n \n \u201cWhile it was upsetting and emotional, I realize that this was just one day of my life where I was uncomfortable and our family was made to feel \u2018less than\u2019 whereas others face similar situations on a daily basis,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope the coverage this has received can serve as a learning opportunity and that all families \u2014 regardless of how \u2018traditional\u2019 they may or may not look \u2014 are treated with dignity and respect.\u201d \n \n We are fine. It was wild, but, I fear, much more common for people that don\u2019t look like me \ud83d\ude22 \u2014 Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 29, 2018 \n \n Read more: \n \n An American Airlines passenger was refused beer \u2014 so he screamed, fought and spit blood, FBI says \n \n Self-driving Uber did not have emergency braking turned on when it hit pedestrian, NTSB says \n \n Uber shutting down self-driving operations in Arizona ||||| We are fine. It was wild, but, I fear, much more common for people that don\u2019t look like me ||||| @ SouthwestAir it was demeaning and insensitive, not to mention inefficient. Would have missed flight if it was not delayed. I would advise better training for employees to avoid this happening to others ||||| Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez (AP Images) \n \n The airlines are back at it again, with Southwest being accused of demanding that a white mother prove that her infant biracial son was indeed her own. \n \n \n \n According to CBS San Francisco affiliate KPIX-TV, University of California women\u2019s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb said that she was approached at a Denver airport by a Southwest Airlines employee who asked to know her relationship to her son before she could get on a flight. \n \n Gottlieb took to Twitter to express her shock at what happened to her, stating that this happened after approximately 50 times of flying with her now 1-year-old son. \n \n Gottlieb gave birth to her son, Jordan Peter Martin, last year. Patrick Martin, Gottlieb\u2019s fiance, is black. As KPIX notes, the tot has traveled often, even on Southwest, with his mom\u2019s basketball team this past season. \n \n \n \n Advertisement \n \n However, this trip didn\u2019t go as smoothly. Gottlieb said that she presented her son\u2019s passport, only to have the agent demand the child\u2019s birth certificate. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Gottlieb said in her tweets that the employee insisted that the demand was made because she and her son do not share a last name, but a mother next to her pointed out that even though her family uses a different last name, they\u2019ve never been asked. \n \n The basketball coach noted that that woman was not part of a mixed-race family. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Nonetheless, Gottlieb stayed woke, acknowledging in her tweets that incidents like this happen far more often to \u201cpeople that don\u2019t look\u201d like her. \n \n \u201cI do feel like as a white female, with a position of privilege, and a platform where someone is going to listen, it is my responsibility to say, \u2018Hey, this happened, this isn\u2019t OK,\u2019\u201d Gottlieb explained to the news station. \u201cAnd maybe somewhere down the line, that helps my son, who is biracial and will be for his entire life.\u201d \n \n Advertisement \n \n Of course, Southwest is now apologizing (for the umpteenth time?) and saying that it is investigating: \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re looking into this specific interaction, and we have engaged with the customer directly to address her concerns,\u201d a statement from the airline read. \u201cOur employees are well regarded for their hospitality and we always strive for the best experience for anyone who entrusts us with their travel.\u201d ||||| @ SouthwestAir she 1st asked for proof with birth certificate. She then said it\u2019s a \u201cfederal law\u201d (not true) but asked me to prove I\u2019m mother with Facebook post.What??Mother next to me said she\u2019s never been asked for proof despite diff last name..not shockingly, not mixed face fam", "summary": "\u2013 Lindsay Gottlieb, coach of the University of California at Berkeley women\u2019s basketball team, has flown with her son \"approx 50 times\" with no incident. So she was \"appalled,\" as she wrote in a series of tweets to Southwest Airlines Monday, that during her most recent trip with the one-year-old, an airline employee in Denver insisted she \"prove\" she was the boy's mother. \"She said because we have different last name. My guess is because he has a different skin color,\" Gottlieb wrote. She is white; her fiance, Patrick Martin, is black; and their son is biracial, the Root reports. Gottlieb tells the Washington Post that both she and Martin were present at the time and that they had their son Jordan Peter Martin's passport. But the Southwest employee claimed that \"federal law\" required her to view the boy's birth certificate Gottlieb says that claim is not true; Southwest's own website says birth certificates are only required to verify the age of infants flying as lap children without their own ticket. The agent then, Gottlieb tweeted, \"asked me to prove I\u2019m mother with Facebook post. What??\" She adds that a woman who witnessed the incident told her she had never been asked to prove she was her child's mother even though they have different last names; \"shockingly,\" Gottlieb tweeted, that woman is not part of a mixed-race family. In a later tweet, she added that she fears this sort of thing is \"much more common for people that don\u2019t look like me.\" She tells KPIX that as a white person, she has \"a position of privilege, and a platform where someone is going to listen,\" so it's her responsibility to call out behavior like this. Southwest has apologized and says it is investigating."}
{"document": "Lee Jin-gyu fell for his 'dakimakura' - a kind of large, huggable pillow from Japan, often with a picture of a popular anime character printed on the side. \n \n \n \n In Lee's case, his beloved pillow has an image of Fate Testarossa, from the 'magical girl' anime series Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. \n \n \n \n Now the 28-year-old otaku (a Japanese term that roughly translates to somewhere between 'obsessive' and 'nerd') has wed the pillow in a special ceremony, after fitting it out with a wedding dress for the service in front of a local priest. Their nuptials were eagerly chronicled by the local media. \n \n \n \n 'He is completely obsessed with this pillow and takes it everywhere,' said one friend. \n \n \n \n 'They go out to the park or the funfair where it will go on all the rides with him. Then when he goes out to eat he takes it with him and it gets its own seat and its own meal,' they added. \n \n The pillow marriage is not the first similarly-themed unusual marriage in recent times - it comes after a Japanese otaku married his virtual girlfriend Nene Anegasaki, a character who only exists in the Nintendo DS game Love Plus, last November. ||||| Hello! \n \n We notice that you are trying to access Hulu from your an unsupported device. It's not available, but we are working hard to bring our Hulu Plus subscription service to this device! Stay tuned for updates. \n \n continue to browse", "summary": "\u2013 A South Korean man\u2019s dream came true recently when he married a body pillow bearing an illustration of an anime character. Lee Jin-gyu, 28, fell for a dakimakura, or body pillow, printed with an image of Fate Testarossa, a character in a popular cartoon series, the UK Metro reports. \u201cWhen he goes out to eat he takes it with him and it gets its own seat and its own meal,\u201d says an acquaintance. The video above shows the couple on a big day out. If all this sounds awfully familiar, click here to see some behind-the-scenes footage of James Franco and the body pillow his character had a fling with on a recent episode of 30 Rock."}
{"document": "Ads withdrawn, and a online petition started in support of a northwest Arkansas gay couple who wants to announce their engagement in a local newspaper. \n \n Cody Renegar and his partner Thomas say they wanted to celebrate their upcoming union with friends and family, by publishing their engagement in the Northwest Arkansas Times. \n \n According to the Northwest Arkansas Times publisher Rusty Turner, its policy is to only print announcements for marriages legally recognized by the state. \n \n Turner says the policy has been around for a long time and has not changed. \n \n Depite the denial the couple says news of the rejection brought a flood of support. The local Backyard Burger franchise pulled it's ads from the paper and an online petition in support of the couple has surpassed 1,000 signatures. ||||| Related Content \n \n A teen has been arrested on a charge of sexually assaulting a female assistant principal at Heritage High School.... \n \n 20% of adults and 26% of children will have a mental health challenge this year in Northwest Arkansas. Ozark Guidance Center breaks that number down and offers tips for those who facing this... \n \n A couple of KNWAers hit the books Wednesday.... \n \n Holiday shopping is still booming for a couple local businesses in Rogers, despite the threat of raised taxes coming next year.... \n \n A student in Rogers is overcoming his disability by getting out of his wheelchair and into a harness.... \n \n Knile Davis has chosen to enter the NFL Draft and will forgo his senior season at Arkansas... \n \n Jim Chaney, who boasts experience in the NFL, SEC and Big Ten, has been named Arkansas' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach... \n \n Mercy Medical Center welcomed the first babies of 12-12-12 Wednesday.... \n \n A Fayetteville woman was killed in an accident Tuesday afternoon on I-40 in Prairie County.... \n \n The owner of War Eagle Cavern is expanding his tourist attraction even deeper underground....", "summary": "\u2013 When Cody Renegar got engaged to his partner, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops\u2014or at least announce it in his hometown paper. No dice, said the Northwest Arkansas Times. \"There's a certain amount of validation that comes with putting it in the paper. You know, you grow up with that, you see this, you love to look at these beautiful photos of couples,\" he tells KNWA. But the Times told Renegar, who is planning a big wedding in June, that the paper only runs engagement announcements for marriages that the state legally recognizes\u2014ie, not gay marriages. \"It's not a law for it not to be put in the paper, it's a choice of theirs, it felt to me like they were making a stance,\" Renegar says. \"You want to be recognized as a taxpayer, as a human being, as a person in love \u2026 it's not that complicated for them to print a picture of people in love.\" The community has rallied around the couple, according to Arkansas Matters: Ads have been pulled from the Times, an online petition has gotten more than 1,000 signatures, and another paper has agreed to publish the announcement."}
{"document": "Cinnamon is a delicious addition to toast, coffee and breakfast rolls. Eating the tasty household spice also might improve learning ability, according to new study results published online in the July issue of the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology. \n \n The study by neurological scientists at Rush University Medical Center found that feeding cinnamon to laboratory mice determined to have poor learning ability made the mice better learners. \n \n \"This would be one of the safest and the easiest approaches to convert poor learners to good learners,\" said Kalipada Pahan, PhD, the lead researcher of the study and the Floyd A. Davis Professor of Neurology at Rush. \n \n Some people are born naturally good learners, some become good learners by effort, and some find it hard to learn new tasks even with effort. Little is known about the neurological processes that cause someone to be a poor learner and how to improve performance in poor learners. \n \n \"Understanding brain mechanisms that lead to poor learning is important to developing effective strategies to improve memory and learning ability,\" Pahan said. \n \n Cinnamon role reversal \n \n The key to gaining that understanding lies in the hippocampus, a small part in the brain that generates, organizes and stores memory. Researchers have found that the hippocampus of poor learners has less CREB (a protein involved in memory and learning) and more alpha5 subunit of GABAA receptor or GABRA5 (a protein that generates tonic inhibitory conductance in the brain) than good learners. \n \n The mice in the study received oral feedings of ground cinnamon, which their bodies metabolized into sodium benzoate, a chemical used as a drug treatment for brain damage. When the sodium benzoate entered the mice's brains, it increased CREB, decreased GABRA5, and stimulated the plasticity (ability to change) of hippocampal neurons. \n \n These changes in turn led to improved memory and learning among the mice. \n \n \"We have successfully used cinnamon to reverse biochemical, cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with poor learning,\" Pahan said. \n \n The researchers used a Barnes maze, a standard elevated circular maze consisting of 20 holes, to identify mice with good and bad learning abilities. After two days of training, the mice were examined for their ability to find the target hole. They tested the mice again after one month of cinnamon feeding. \n \n The researchers found that after eating their cinnamon, the poor learning mice had improved memory and learning at a level found in good learning mice. However, they did not find any significant improvement among good learners by cinnamon. \n \n \"Individual difference in learning and educational performance is a global issue,\" Pahan said. \"We need to further test this approach in poor learners. If these results are replicated in poor learning students, it would be a remarkable advance.\" \n \n Cinnamon also may aid against Parkinson's disease \n \n Cinnamon has been a sweet spot for Pahan's research. He and his colleagues previously that cinnamon can reverse changes in the brains of mice with Parkinson's disease. \n \n These studies have made the researchers spice connoisseurs: They used mass spectrometric analysis to identify the purer of the two major types of cinnamon widely available in the United States -- Chinese cinnamon (Cinnamonum cassia) and original Ceylon cinnamon. \n \n \"Although both types of cinnamon are metabolized into sodium benzoate, we have seen that Ceylon cinnamon is much more pure than Chinese cinnamon, as the latter contains coumarin, a hepatotoxic (liver damaging) molecule,\" Pahan said. \n \n The study of cinnamon and learning ability was supported by grants from National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Alzheimer's Association. ||||| Cinnamon has been used as a medicine for over 3,000 years. Modern studies confirm that this sweet and spicy bark can help with diabetes, digestion, and pain. But recent research reveals a potentially new function for cinnamon: improving our ability to learn. \n \n In a study published June 2016 in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, researchers found that mice that had previously demonstrated poor spatial memory learned to navigate a maze in less than half the time after taking cinnamon orally for a month, even when the location of the exit was changed with each test. \n \n Researchers also discovered that the cinnamon treatment contributed to favorable changes in the hippocampus of these mice. \n \n If the effects seen in mice are translated to human-size doses, adults would need about half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder per day. \n \n If the effects seen in mice are translated to human-size doses, adults would need about half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder per day. \n \n A previous trial by the same research group found that cinnamon protected brain proteins and neurons that have been shown to deteriorate in Parkinson\u2019s disease. \n \n How It Works \n \n According to researchers, the mechanism behind cinnamon\u2019s brain-enhancing influence is sodium benzoate\u2014a chemical our body extracts from cinnamon when metabolized by the liver. Studies have shown that sodium benzoate has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant actions and helps promote strong, healthy neurons. That\u2019s why the chemical is an approved drug for some neural disorders. \n \n Related Coverage Can Cinnamon Help Protect You From Cancer? \n \n So why not skip the cinnamon and just use pure sodium benzoate? According to Kalipada Pahan, Ph.D.\u2014one of the study authors and a neurology professor at Rush University Medical Center\u2014cinnamon is a superior source of this chemical. \n \n \u201cIf we are using sodium benzoate, we have to use a higher dose or three to four doses per day because sodium benzoate is water soluble and quickly excreted out through the urine,\u201d Dr. Pahan wrote in an email. \n \n \u201cOn the other hand, sodium benzoate is released from cinnamon within our body slowly throughout the day. Therefore, cinnamon itself works as a slow-releasing formulation of sodium benzoate. This is definitely an advantage of cinnamon,\u201d according to Dr. Pahan. \n \n Another drawback of synthetic sodium benzoate is toxicity. The chemical is often used as a preservative in food and beverages because it inhibits mold, but it has also been linked to neurodegenerative disease at high doses. Even worse, when synthetic sodium benzoate mixes with vitamin C, it forms benzene, a known carcinogen. \n \n Such ill effects do not occur with cinnamon. \n \n How to Use \n \n Mouse studies are a first step, but it remains to be seen whether cinnamon\u2019s brain-boosting virtues hold up in a human trial. Pahan says there is discussion about testing cinnamon on slow-learning school children to see if they have experience similar to mice. \n \n Dementia patients are another group that might benefit from cinnamon consumption. \u201cWe are talking with the neurologists for a possible clinical trial in Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d Pahan said. \n \n Related Coverage 9 Herbs and Spices With Proven Health Benefits \n \n Cinnamaldehyde and other compounds specific only to cinnamon are what trigger sodium-benzoate production in the body, and both cassia bark (Chinese cinnamon) and true cinnamon exhibit this effect. But Pahan recommends sweeter Ceylon or Sri Lankan cinnamon (Cinnamonum verum) for long-term use because cassia bark contains small amounts of coumarin, a molecule toxic to the liver. \n \n If the effects seen in mice are translated to human-size doses, adults would need about 3 grams (a little more than half a teaspoon) of cinnamon powder per day. \n \n Of course, seeing what cinnamon can do in the lab, Pahan enjoys a larger dose. \n \n \u201cI take about one U.S. teaspoonful of cinnamon powder (Cinnamonum verum) mixed with honey as a supplement every night,\u201d he said. \n \n Read More 6 Things You Should Know About Cinnamon \n \n Read more about the history of cinnamon.", "summary": "\u2013 Scientists say they've discovered \"one of the safest and the easiest approaches to convert poor learners to good learners.\" And all you have to do is eat cinnamon. Researchers at Rush University Medical Center say that feeding cinnamon to mice with a poor learning ability turned them into a bunch of brainiacs by transforming the part of the brain that controls memory. Previous research has found poor learners have less of a protein vital to memory and learning, known as CREB, and more of a protein known as GABRA5 in the hippocampus. However, poor-learning mice showed increased CREB and decreased GABRA5 after a month of daily cinnamon doses, study author Kalipada Pahan explains in a release. Essentially, the body converts cinnamon into sodium benzoate, which promotes healthy neurons, reports the Epoch Times. The mice were then able to navigate a maze in half the time it took them before, even though the exit moved with each test. The ability was similar to that of so-called good-learning mice. Mice who were given cinnamon but were already good learners, however, didn't exhibit any change. \"We have successfully used cinnamon to reverse biochemical, cellular, and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with poor learning,\" says Pahan, adding \"if these results are replicated in poor learning students, it would be a remarkable advance.\" Interestingly, Pahan notes cinnamon is superior to straight doses of sodium benzoate because the chemical is slowly released from cinnamon but is \"quickly excreted out through the urine\" when taken on its own. (This doesn't mean you should take the cinnamon challenge.)"}
{"document": "- It is one of the most infamous murder cases in metro Detroit history involving two men, a secret crush and an appearance on a nationally-televised talk show. \n \n Now the killer at the center of it all -- is about to walk free. Same sex secret crushes revealed on the Jenny Jones show \n \n It was March of 1995 when Scott Amedure surprised Jonathan Schmitz during a taping of the show about his crush on him. Three days later back in Michigan, Schmitz went to Amedure's mobile home in Lake Orion and shot and killed him. \n \n There was a shot and I remember seeing Scott standing in the kitchen grasping his chest and falling to the floor,\" testified Gary Brady, Amedure's roommate during the trial. \n \n Schmitz was arrested, blaming mental illness, alcoholism and humiliation that fueled his rage - led to the shooting after the show. \n \n Schmitz was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 25 to 50 years behind bars. Now he's being released from prison and granted parole for next week. \n \n \"He deserved imprisonment but so did everybody else involved in that Jenny Jones show,\" said attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who served as the attorney for the Amedure family. \"He was the perpetrator but he was also a victim of them and they got off scott free. \n \n \"That show set him up and certainly took Scott Amedure's life for no reason.\" \n \n Fieger put the sensational talk show on trial, blaming their ambush for Amedure's death. \n \n In court at the time he said, \"They solicited a victim, they picked the murderer and the provided the motive. They did everything in this case except actually pull the trigger.\" \n \n The jury agreed, awarding Amedure's family $25 million. \n \n \"Maybe they'll do something about these shows that are happening and there won't be any more killings - like I lost my son,\" said Amedure's father Frank Sr. after the verdict. \n \n \"They ambushed him, they ambushed my brother,\" said Frank Amedure, Jr. at the time. \"If they would have warned my brother that Jonathan Schmitz didn't want to be on the TV show, Scott wouldn't have gone through with it.\" \n \n \n \n That ruling was overturned on appeal but Schmitz would continue to serve his time until now. \n \n FOX 2 spoke with Scott Amedure's brother, Frank, by phone. He said he still has so many questions for Schmitz and they still feel the Jenny Jones show is to blame. \n \n \"They're very dangerous and they produced a tragedy here in Michigan,\" Fieger said. \"I hope he makes something of his life.\" \n \n Schmitz was granted parole in March. The Michigan Department of Corrections said that the exact place and time of his release will not be made public. \n \n ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Workers at an Ohio auto supplier factory have robot colleagues | 1:03 The Universal UR10 robots' task is both simple and repetitive: pick up flimsy insulation pads known as shoddy; transfer them to a machine to be inserted into a door panel; then move the panel to a human worker for inspection. Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press 1 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES State senator accused of buying clothes, fast food with campaign funds | 0:58 State Sen. Jim Marleau has been under scrutiny by state election officials for charging large credit cards bills to his campaign fund, without itemizing the charges. Wochit 2 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Death Toll Rises in Mogadishu Blasts | 1:01 Police say the death toll is now 18 in an attack on a hotel in Somalia's capital, with a running gunbattle between security forces and a small number of remaining extremists holed up inside. (Oct. 28) AP 3 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Maxine Waters leads chant, \"Impeach 45\" | 1:09 Congresswoman Maxine Waters chants \"Impeach 45\" at the end of her speech Junfu Han/Detroit Free Press 4 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Red Berenson's meeting with Vladimir Putin 'memorable' | 2:05 Former Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson talks about his meeting with Vladimir Putin as part of a trip to Russia to celebrate the 1972 Summit Series. Video by George Sipple/DFP 5 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Talkin' Spartans: Weird middle part of game costs 'em | 7:44 Free Press sports writers Chris Solari and Shawn Windsor and Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch break down Michigan State's 39-31 triple-overtime loss at Northwestern on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2017. 6 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Michigan gets much-needed spark from QB Brandon Peters | 8:49 Free Press sports writers George Sipple, Nick Baumgardner and Jeff Seidel break down the big news items from Michigan's 35-14 win over Rutgers on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2017, in Ann Arbor. 7 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES How Trick or Treat beer is made | 1:09 Black Lotus Brewing Co. in Clawson infused its export stout with toffee for 2017 Detroit Fall Beer Festival. Wochit 8 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES JFK files: 4 big findings | 1:34 The National Archives released over 2,800 records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The once-classified records have fascinated researchers and fueled conspiracy theorists for decades. USA TODAY 9 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Magic Johnson: A look back at greatness | 1:18 Remembering Magic Johnson's career in college and the pros. Video by Ryan Ford/DFP Wochit 10 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Rose McGowan snaps at reporter that asked about Weinstein: 'Who's your rapist?' | 0:56 Actress Rose McGowan snapped back at a Detroit Free Press reporter when she asked her why she didn't mention Weinstein's name during her speech at the Women's Convention in Detroit. Wochit 11 of 12 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Carve a Halloween Trumpkin | 1:20 Impress your neighbors bigly! Use our stencil and follow our instructions to carve your very own Halloween Trumpkin! Wochit 12 of 12 Last VideoNext Video Workers at an Ohio auto supplier factory have robot colleagues \n \n State senator accused of buying clothes, fast food with campaign funds \n \n Death Toll Rises in Mogadishu Blasts \n \n Maxine Waters leads chant, \"Impeach 45\" \n \n Red Berenson's meeting with Vladimir Putin 'memorable' \n \n Talkin' Spartans: Weird middle part of game costs 'em \n \n Michigan gets much-needed spark from QB Brandon Peters \n \n How Trick or Treat beer is made \n \n JFK files: 4 big findings \n \n Magic Johnson: A look back at greatness \n \n Rose McGowan snaps at reporter that asked about Weinstein: 'Who's your rapist?' \n \n Carve a Halloween Trumpkin \n \n Jonathan Schmitz was convicted in the 1995 murder of Scott Amedure and he was granted parole after a March 2017 hearing and is scheduled to be released from Parnall Correctional Institution in late August 2017. (Photo: Michigan Department of Corrections) \n \n A man convicted of murdering another man days after they appeared on a taping of the \"Jenny Jones\" show about same-sex crushes is scheduled to get out of prison next week. \n \n Jonathan Schmitz, now 47, was convicted in the 1995 killing of Scott Amedure. A judge sentenced Schmitz to 25-50 years in prison for second-degree murder. \n \n The case in Oakland County Circuit Court garnered national attention and put a spotlight on the tactics and motives of television talk shows. \n \n Michigan Department of Corrections spokeswoman Holly Kramer said Schmitz is expected to be released from the Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson next week, but she didn\u2019t give the exact date. \n \n Read more: \n \n Schmitz interviewed with a member of the Michigan Parole Board in March and a three-member panel made the decision to parole him in April, she said. \n \n Frank Amedure Jr., Scott\u2019s older brother, recently spoke to the Oakland Press and said he\u2019d like to know how Schmitz feels about what he did. \n \n \u201cThis was hard on the whole family,\u201d he told the Oakland Press. \u201cThis practically ruined my life and my family\u2019s life.\u201d \n \n A relative of Schmitz declined to comment when reached by the Free Press today. \n \n Shortly after jurors returned a verdict in 1996, they said the talk show was a catalyst for the murder. The show \u2014 and Amedure \u2014 deceived Schmitz into thinking his admirer was a woman, the jurors said. \n \n Schmitz, a heterosexual, shot Amedure, who was gay, three days after Amedure revealed his crush. \n \n Schmitz called 911 after the murder and told an operator he did it because Amedure put him on the show. \n \n Schmitz\u2019s attorneys have said their client was fighting alcoholism and depression and the show ambushed him. Prosecutors and gay rights activists contended the killing was motivated by Schmitz\u2019s hostility toward gays. \n \n After the criminal trial, a jury awarded Amedure\u2019s family a $25-million judgment against the \"Jenny Jones\" talk show and Warner Bros., but the award was overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2wf1Q8D ||||| Jonathan Schmitz (Photo from Michigan Department of Corrections) \n \n A case that became known to some as \u201cThe Jenny Jones Killing\u201d \u2013 after one guest of the now-defunct television talk show was shot to death by another guest \u2013 is resurfacing 22 years later as the convicted murderer is set to be freed from prison. \n \n Jonathan Schmitz was 24 years old when his gay acquaintance, Scott Amedure, 32, revealed he had a crush on him during a 1995 taping of the Jenny Jones Show. Schmitz, who claimed to not be gay, killed Amedure three days afterwards at his Lake Orion home and then turned himself in to police, saying he murdered Amedure because of the embarrassment he suffered on national television. The episode never aired, though clips were shown on news shows. \n \n \u2022 RELATED: More than 60 photos from the criminal trial of Schmitz and the 1999 wrongful death suit against \u201cThe Jenny Jones Show.\u201d \n \n Sentenced 25-50 years for second degree murder, Schmitz was granted parole following his hearing this past March and is scheduled to be released next week from Parnall Correctional Institution, formerly known as Jackson State Prison. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Frank Amedure, Jr., Scott\u2019s older brother, is somewhat troubled by the parole board\u2019s decision \u2013 unsure that Schmitz \u201clearned what he should have\u201d from being imprisoned, he said. Amedure had mistakenly hoped to attend the parole hearing, and said he even submitted a list of questions that he wanted the parole board to ask Schmitz \u2013 but by then parole had already been approved. \n \n \u201cI wanted assurance that the (parole board\u2019s) decision was not based on just good behavior in prison. I\u2019d like to know that he learned something, that he\u2019s a changed man, is no longer homophobic and has gotten psychological care,\u201d Amedure said. \n \n \u201cI\u2019d also like to know how he feels about Scott now, after all these years \u2013 and how he feels about what he did.\u201d \n \n According to Holly Kramer, communications representative for the Michigan Department of Corrections, parole hearings are closed to the public \u2013 including victims and victims\u2019 families \u2013 except in cases where life sentences are being reconsidered. Specific information on Schmitz\u2019s hearing won\u2019t be released, but Kramer said factors that help the parole board make its decision for all inmates include behavior while incarcerated, family support, plans after parole, victim testimony, the nature of the crime and more. \n \n Amedure said he received notification from the MDOC that Schmitz will be paroled Aug. 22, but Kramer wouldn\u2019t confirm that specific date. \n \n \u2018I\u2019m still living it\u2019 \n \n His brother\u2019s death and Schmitz\u2019s trial in Oakland County Circuit Court had an impact beyond compare, Amedure said, and remains to this day. \u201cIt\u2019s still very fresh, at least to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still living it.\u201d \n \n The psychological shake-up from the murder and time spent in court ultimately led to him losing his corporate sales director position, he said. And he was forced to switch careers \u2013 no longer able to deal with the public as he had before the killing. He also said he was turned down for a job due to the \u201cnotoriety\u201d resulting from the high-profile case. \n \n Their parents have since died, but the surviving Amedure siblings \u2013 Frank has two other brothers and a sister \u2013 have each been affected \u201cin their own way,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cThis was hard on the whole family,\u201d he said. \u201cThis practically ruined my life and my family\u2019s life...maybe if I had gotten my questions answered I could have had some closure. But I don\u2019t really know who Schmitz is. I don\u2019t know if he deserves to be out.\u201d \n \n Schmitz, now 47, is \u201cstill a relatively young man,\u201d Amedure said. \u201cHe can still have a family, he can still have a life. But my brother, he didn\u2019t have a life. And I just don\u2019t know if justice has been served.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 The Michigan man who murdered another man days after the victim revealed his crush on the murderer on the Jenny Jones talk show is scheduled to be released on parole next week, the Detroit Free Press reports. Jonathan Schmitz, now 47, was led to believe he was going on the show in 1995 so a woman could reveal herself as his secret admirer; during his appearance, he found out his admirer was actually Scott Amedure. Three days later, Schmitz went to Amedure's home and fatally shot him, then called 911 and told the operator he did it because of what happened on the show. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. The jury found that the talk show had been a catalyst for the murder, and the case threw the sometimes controversial tactics used by TV talk shows into the spotlight. Schmitz's attorneys argued that he was ambushed by the show, while prosecutors said he was spurred to kill Amedure by his negative attitudes about gay people. \"He deserved imprisonment but so did everybody else involved in that Jenny Jones show,\" the Amedure family's attorney tells Fox 2 Detroit. \"He was the perpetrator but he was also a victim of them and they got off scot-free. That show set him up and certainly took Scott Amedure's life for no reason.\" Schmitz, then 24, and Amedure, 32, were acquaintances at the time; the episode never aired, though clips were featured on news shows, the Oakland Press reports."}
{"document": "Far out! Loxahatchee dad convinced his son was hit by meteorite fragments \n \n Far out! Loxahatchee dad convinced his son was hit by meteorite fragments \n \n LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. -- The odds are astronomical, but 7-year-old Steven Lippard and his dad are convinced the boy was struck by pebbles from a meteorite Saturday while playing outside.Steven has a gash -- stitched up with three staples -- on his head to prove it. Initial testing at Florida Atlantic University indicates the little stones -- pea sized and smaller -- are metallic, a good sign they came from space. Other testing supports the meteorite theory.When it happened Saturday, Steven was bleeding from a wound that apparently came out of nowhere. His dad Wayne thought it might be from a golf ball or maybe a bird swooping down.Moments later they found the little rocks. A chemical test can confirm they came from space.What are the odds? Astronomer Phil Plait figures it's almost impossible to calculate . Only two people in America have had close brushes with meteorites in recent times. An eight-pound fragment hit an Alabama woman in 1954, and a 27-pounder crushed a car in New York in 1992.Steven says he hasn't gained any super powers -- yet -- from the collision, but he's got a story he says he will share with his kids when he grows up. ||||| Wayne Lippard knows the odds are \"astronomical,\" but he\u2019s convinced his 7-year-old son was struck by a small meteorite while playing in the driveway of the family's Florida home. \n \n Lippard, of Loxahatchee, told FoxNews.com that his son Steven was enjoying his new toolbox in the family\u2019s driveway on Saturday when he was struck in the head by something unusual, causing a small gash that later required three staples to close. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT \n \n \"As soon as I looked at it, I realized it was something different.\" - Wayne Lippard \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s playing in the driveway and I walk into the house and about four minutes later, he comes to the window screaming,\u201d Lippard said Wednesday. \u201cThe gash looked pretty bad, but it wasn\u2019t bleeding a lot so we didn\u2019t panic. He actually wanted to go play again because he was so into his new toolbox.\u201d \n \n Lippard, 43, said he wanted to immediately take his son \u2014 who suffers from an autism spectrum disorder \u2014 to the hospital for observation, but didn\u2019t want to frighten or startle him. The boy\u2019s grandparents then arrived at the home and were told the incredible story as Lippard searched for any clues online. \n \n \u201cI did some research and tried to figure out what hit him,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe it was a golf ball or maybe it was debris from the landing gear of a plane.\u201d \n \n The possibility that his son was simply covering up for a self-inflicted wound with his new toys also crossed his mind, Lippard said. \n \n \u201cWhat if he hit himself with a claw hammer and didn\u2019t want to admit it?\u201d Lippard asked. \n \n Lippard then returned outside to scour the ground near where Steven was hit and noticed a handful of small rocks \u2014 each about the size of a pea or smaller \u2014 in a 3-foot diameter that didn\u2019t look like any others in his large driveway. \n \n \u201cAs soon as I looked at it, I realized it was something different,\u201d he said. \n \n Lippard\u2019s next move was to take the rocks \u2013 which he later learned where magnetized, further supporting his claim \u2013 to Florida Atlantic University. But scientists at the school were ill-equipped to analyze the rocks and make a determination whether it came from space or not. \n \n \"Upon preliminary observation, researchers at the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Science were not able to determine if the material brought to the laboratory by Mr. Lippard is a meteorite or not,\" school officials said in a statement to FoxNews.com. \"Laboratory equipment used for the study of meteorites would be necessary to make this determination.\" \n \n Lippard still has the fragments in his possession and he won\u2019t give them up unless there\u2019s an agreement that they\u2019ll be returned to him once properly analyzed and perhaps verified. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t want to let go of them,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a meteorite, I know it. I want to make sure they\u2019re truly investigated properly.\u201d \n \n The odds of being struck by a meteorite are reportedly astronomically low. Discovery Magazine reported in 2008 that only one person in modern times had been hit: a woman in Sylacauga, Ala., who was struck by an 8-pound meteorite. In 1992, a woman\u2019s car was crushed in New York. In 1997, another Alabama woman was struck by something that plunged to Earth from space, this time a piece of space junk. \n \n Meteorites, which are pieces of asteroids and other celestial bodies that fall to Earth, are frequently distinguished from terrestrial rocks because they are magnetized due to the presence of iron or nickel. And whatever struck his son, Lippard said, it\u2019s highly magnetic, strengthening the claim in his mind. \n \n Lippard said his son was not traumatized by the experience, but realizes it could\u2019ve been much worse. \n \n \u201cHe talks about it all the time, he thinks it\u2019s cool,\u201d he said. \u201cBut he could\u2019ve been killed. It hit cement and shattered; it grazed him.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Did cosmic debris crash through the atmosphere from outer space to give a 7-year-old Florida boy a nasty gash on his head as he played in his driveway? Steven Lippard's dad believes it did, and initial testing on the pea-sized fragments of rock found in the driveway suggests he might be right, CBS 12 reports. Scientists at Florida State University say the rocks are metallic, which could be a sign they are meteorite fragments, but more testing needs to be done. The father discovered the unusual rocks while trying to figure out how his son had received a sudden injury to the head. Steven needed three staples to close the gash but wasn't traumatized by the experience. \"He talks about it all the time, he thinks it\u2019s cool,\" his father tells Fox. \"But he could've been killed. It hit cement and shattered; it grazed him.\" If the meteorite strike is confirmed, the boy will join just one other known victim in US history: an Alabama woman who was seriously hurt by an 8-pound space rock in 1954."}
{"document": "NEW DELHI (AP) \u2014 India's top court on Tuesday issued a landmark verdict recognizing transgender rights as human rights, saying people can identify themselves as a third gender on official documents. \n \n Indian eunuchs dance after Supreme Court\u2019s verdict recognizing third gender category, in Nagpur, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2014. India's top court on Tuesday issued a landmark verdict recognizing transgender... (Associated Press) \n \n The Supreme Court directed the federal and state governments to include transgendered people in all welfare programs for the poor, including education, health care and jobs to help them overcome social and economic challenges. Previously, transgendered Indians could only identify themselves as male or female in all official documents. \n \n The decision was praised as giving relief to the estimated 3 million Indians who are transgender. \n \n The court noted that it was the right of every human being to choose their gender while granting rights to those who identify themselves as neither male nor female. \n \n \"All documents will now have a third category marked 'transgender.' This verdict has come as a great relief for all of us. Today I am proud to be an Indian,\" said Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a transgender activist who, along with a legal agency, had petitioned the court. \n \n The court's decision would apply to individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. \n \n \"The spirit of the (Indian) Constitution is to provide equal opportunity to every citizen to grow and attain their potential, irrespective of caste, religion or gender,\" the court said in its order. \n \n The Supreme Court specified its ruling would only apply to transgender people but not to gays, lesbians or bisexuals. India's LGBT communities have been protesting the court's recent decision to reinstate a colonial-era law banning gay sex, which they say will make them vulnerable to police harassment. \n \n The court also ordered the government to put in place public awareness campaigns to lessen the social stigma against transgender people. \n \n Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan told the court that the \"recognition of transgender (people) as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue.\" \n \n \"Transgenders are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other rights,\" he said. \n \n The court ruled that transgender people would have the same right to adopt children as other Indians. \n \n The court said any person who underwent surgery to change his or her sex would be entitled to be legally recognized as belonging to the gender of their choice. \n \n The apex court also ordered state governments to construct separate public toilets for transgender people and create health departments to take care of their medical problems. \n \n Recently, India's Election Commission for the first time allowed a third gender choice \u2014 \"other\" \u2014 on voter registration forms. The change was made in time for the national elections being held in phases through May 12. \n \n Some 28,000 voters registered themselves in that category. \n \n Many transgendered men in India earn a living by singing and dancing at weddings and births, but others must resort to begging or prostitution. ||||| In India, as in almost every nation in the West, members of the transgender population have historically been forced to designate themselves as either a \u201cmale\u201d or \u201cfemale\u201d on all governmental forms. \n \n No longer. \n \n In what local media are calling a landmark judgment, India\u2019s Supreme Court on Tuesday created a \u201cthird gender\u201d status for transgender people, granting the group formal recognition for the first time. \u201cRecognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue,\u201d Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan said when he announced the ruling. \u201cTransgenders are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other rights.\u201d \n \n He directed local governmental bureaucracies to identify transgender people as a neutral third gender, adding that they will now have the same access to social welfare programs as other minority groups in India, the world\u2019s largest democracy and currently in the midst an election campaign. \n \n The court\u2019s decision would apply to individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth, the Associated Press said. \n \n The Supreme Court specified that its ruling would apply only to transgender people and not to gays, lesbians or bisexuals. India\u2019s LGBT communities have been protesting the court\u2019s recent decision to reinstate a colonial-era law banning gay sex, which they say will make them vulnerable to police harassment. \n \n The case was brought in 2012 when a group led by transgender activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a Hindi film actress, sought equal rights for India\u2019s transgender population. \n \n On Tuesday, Tripathi was triumphant. \u201cToday, for the first time I feel very proud to be an Indian,\u201d she told reporters gathered at the New Delhi court. \u201cToday, my sisters and I feel like real Indians, and we feel so proud because of the rights granted to us by the Supreme Court.\u201d \n \n Across much of South Asia and Southeast Asia, the language of gender is substantially more ambiguous than it is in the West. In countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, transgender people aren\u2019t usually referred to as either a man or a woman \u2014 but as kathoey. India\u2019s decision follows other regional countries\u2019 decisions to recognize a third gender. Last year, neighboring Nepal offered a third gender option on official documents for its transgender population. \n \n The West has been a tad slower to adopt such measures. Last year, Germany became the first European country to recognize a third gender, allowing parents of newborns to mark \u201cmale,\u201d \u201cfemale\u201d or \u201cindeterminate\u201d on birth certificates. \n \n Across the rest of Europe, Spiegel Online reports, change has been more halting. \u201cThings are moving slower than they should at the European level,\u201d human rights activist Silvan Agius said. \u201cThough Brussels has ramped up efforts to promote awareness of trans and intersex discrimination, I would like to see things speed up.\u201d \n \n Things in India sped up this year. For the first time, India\u2019s Election Commission allowed a third gender of \u201cother\u201d on voter registration forms for this election. Nearly 30,000 people designated themselves as \u201cother,\u201d the Associated Press reported, and there are an estimated 3 million transgender individuals in India. \n \n \u201cThe progress of the country is dependent upon [the] human rights of the people, and we are very happy with the judgment,\u201d Tripathi said. \u201cThe Supreme Court has given us those rights.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 In a major Supreme Court decision today, India is changing the way it defines gender. Transgender people are now officially considered a third gender, along with male and female, the Washington Post reports. \"Recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue,\" says a justice. \"Transgenders are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other rights.\" Transgendered people, the court says, must be granted access to social programs offering career, educational, and health care support, the AP adds. \"All documents will now have a third category marked 'transgender.' This verdict has come as a great relief for all of us. Today I am proud to be an Indian,\" said transgender activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi. Some 3 million people in India identify as transgender, the AP notes. The new rules do not, however, apply to gay, lesbian, and bisexual citizens, the court said. Indeed, the court is currently facing protests for reviving a law against gay sex."}
{"document": "Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| On May 15, the WNBA suspended Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson\u2014two married all-stars for the Phoenix Mercury and Tulsa Shock, respectively\u2014for seven games apiece, calling the behavior of both parties equally \u201cunacceptable\u201d in a statement. However, contrary to what was originally reported, evidence provided by Johnson's attorney, Howard Snader, suggests that Johnson was the target rather than the perpetrator of the incident. \n \n On April 22, Griner and Johnson were arrested in Goodyear, Ariz., after police were called to a residence for a domestic dispute. Many of the details of the incident remain murky, but in a medical evaluation conducted two days after Johnson was arrested\u2014according to records provided by Johnson\u2019s lawyer\u2014Phoenix-based orthopedic doctor Thomas C. Fiel noted that Johnson had been struck twice \u201con the back of her head by a hard carrying case.\u201d A CT scan corroborated that Johnson had experienced head trauma and suffered a concussion. The CT scan also found evidence of spinal trauma. Griner, according to the police report, suffered only minor scratches. \n \n Attorney Jane Bambauer, who is a professor at Arizona\u2019s James E. Rogers College of Law and teaches and writes about criminal procedure, wrote in an email to SI.com that the police report and Johnson\u2019s medical reports clearly indicate to her that Griner \u201cwas the aggressor\u201d even though each woman was referred to as \"The Victim\" in separate probable cause statements taken at the time of their arrests. \n \n \u201cIf I\u2019m being fought,\u201d Johnson said during an exclusive interview with SI.com last Thursday. \u201cI\u2019m not just gonna sit back \u2026 there\u2019s probably a better way to handle it. But at the time \u2026 you\u2019re just thinking of protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to stand up for yourself.\u201d \n \n Despite having access to all of the legal and medical information, the WNBA still decided to punish both spouses equally. \n \n Photo: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office via AP \n \n \u201c[The WNBA] definitely knew about it,\u201d Johnson said, referring to her injuries and how they occurred. \u201cAnd that\u2019s another reason it surprised me that they came up with the same conclusion. I\u2019m not going to throw Brittney under the bus \u2026 and she\u2019s not going to throw me under the bus \u2026 [but] what the [ \n \n ] did not say in the statements they released was that I pled not guilty \u2026 So for them to release a statement saying that we were both guilty in the situation, it\u2019s not right. It\u2019s not correct \u2026 Brittney pled guilty \u2026 Brittney understands why I pled not guilty, and I understand why she pled guilty \u2026 she was even willing to speak to whoever she needed to, to get the point across.\u201d \n \n WNBA \n \n Johnson, who is 6'4\" said police officers told her she was being arrested along with the 6'8\" Griner (despite the fact that neither wanted to press charges) due to official policy. When domestic disputes occur between a man and a woman, the officers said, it's not automatic to arrest either party, but that \u201cwhen it\u2019s two women \u2026 they take both.\u201d Lieutenant Scott Benson of the Goodyear police department says that the same-sex policies conveyed to Johnson were either \"misunderstood or misrepresented. There's not anything with male or female in domestic violence laws,\" he says. \"When there's a dual arrest made, [it's because] we can't determine who the aggressor is.\" \n \n According to Stacey Long Simmons, director of public policy and government affairs at the National LGBTQ Task Force, the dual arrest policy Benson describes is part of a larger problem in police protocol. \"While we are unable to comment on the facts of [Johnson's] case, we find that local police departments still lack sufficient knowledge and cultural competency of LGBTQ couples and their families,\" Simmons wrote in an email to SI.com. \"For example, in cases related to intimate partner violence involving same-sex couples, local officers still continue to arrest both parties.\" \n \n Bambauer agreed that dual arrests create problems for victims like Johnson. \u201cAfter looking at these [documents],\u201d Bambauer wrote, \u201cI suspect the \u2018primary aggressor\u2019 issue is pretty relevant and important. If police (or the WNBA, for that matter) do not put in the work to figure out who the first, or most dominating, aggressor is, victims are doubly punished\u2014first by their partner, and then by the state.\u201d From a legal standpoint, Bambauer wrote, \u201cthe treatment of Johnson is a real source of liability for the Goodyear prosecutors. They, and the WNBA, deserve some criticism over their handling of this sad incident.\" \n \n Photo: Shane Bevel/NBAE via Getty Images \n \n Tulsa Shock issued a statement agreeing with the \n \n A popular player among fans, Tulsa\u2019s Facebook, \n \n and Twitter pages featured photos of Johnson up until her arrest. Images of Johnson are noticeably absent from these pages now. \n \n \u200bTheWNBA\u2019sWhen asked whether his position on the suspensions had changed in light of the circumstances surrounding Johnson's concussion, Steve Swetoha, president of the Shock, said that he stood by the statement he made after the WNBA's decision was released. Meanwhile, a representative from the Mercury told SI.com, \"We're a little bit confused about it because [this new information] wasn't in the findings of the police report. It wasn't in the findings of the WNBA investigation.\" Griner's agency did not return calls seeking a comment.Instagram \n \n Although Johnson admits to being confused and disappointed by the league\u2019s decision, her feelings about Griner haven\u2019t changed. Throughout last Thursday\u2019s phone conversation, she laughed whenever Griner\u2019s name came up\u2014there was a lightness in her voice, even when she was describing something difficult between them. She remains committed to her spouse, and said that one of the stressors leading to their altercation\u2014on top of the strain of moving, buying a house, planning a wedding, and dealing with health crises in both of their families\u2014was that the two were also meeting with fertility doctors to begin planning their own family. \n \n \u201cA lot of people know we were considering the process\u2014a lot of friends, anyway. But with two women, you know, it\u2019s not like you can get somebody pregnant overnight. It\u2019s a very huge process. \n \n \"A lot of people were telling us that we rushed the wedding,\" she continued. \"But if we had done it Brittney's way, we would have gone somewhere without telling anybody, and we would have done it way before anybody knew\u2014which is something that I really like about her. She doesn't care what people think.\" In spite of the media storm surrounding her arrest, Johnson said she is enjoying being a newlywed and looking forward to playing against her spouse this season. \"Our schedules are really hectic, and we might meet up maybe four times the entire season. It's tough at times, so [I need to] take advantage of each time [I] see her.\" ||||| WNBA's Brittney Griner OUR MARRIAGE IS OVER Files for Annulment (Update) \n \n Brittney Griner -- OUR MARRIAGE IS OVER ... Files for Annulment (Update) \n \n EXCLUSIVE \n \n 4:31 PM PT -- In court docs obtained by TMZ Sports, Griner says she has NO biological connection to the baby ... and she doesn't know any of the key details about Johnson's pregnancy. \n \n In short, it seems like Griner is suggesting they were not on the same page when it came to the pregnancy. \n \n Griner also says the marriage to Johnson is based on \"fraud and duress\" -- because Griner was \"pressured into marriage under duress by [Johnson's] threatening statements.\" \n \n Griner does not specify the nature of the threats. \n \n Griner also says there was fraud -- but does not say why. It seems to be related to the pregnancy. \n \n As for the fetus, Griner does not say if she wants to have any type of parenting arrangement with the child. IT'S OVER -- WNBA superstar Brittney Griner has officially filed papers seeking to annul her 28 day marriage to her pregnant new wife Glory Johnson ... TMZ Sports has learned. \n \n Griner and Johnson tied the knot on May 8th in a small ceremony in Arizona ... just weeks after they were both arrested in a domestic violence incident at their home. \n \n The move is especially shocking considering Johnson just announced she's pregnant. \n \n Johnson and Griner have been together for a while -- and even appeared on an episode of \"Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta\" together back in January. \n \n As we previously reported, Griner and Johnson were taken into custody for domestic violence on April 22nd. Both women say it was mutual combat after a heated argument got physical. \n \n Griner later pled guilty to disorderly conduct and was ordered to complete a 26 week domestic violence counseling program. Johnson's case is still pending. \n \n Both women were hit with 7 game suspensions from the WNBA ... though it's unclear how the league will handle the situation with Johnson, considering she's missing the entire 2015 season due to pregnancy. ||||| Glory Johnson Brittney Griner Is a Liar ... She Blindsided Me \n \n Glory Johnson -- Brittney Griner Is a Liar ... She Blindsided Me \n \n EXCLUSIVE \n \n Glory Johnson says she was \"blindsided\" by Brittney Griner's decision to file for an annulment today -- telling TMZ Sports she's \"extremely hurt\" by Brittney's actions. \n \n We spoke with Johnson's sports marketing agent, D.J. Fisher, who tells us \"Glory was unaware of the filing and still loves and cares for Brittney.\" \n \n TMZ Sports broke the story ... Griner filed the court docs Friday -- saying Johnson essentially threatened her into getting married ... and claims the whole thing was a fraud. \n \n Griner issued a statement saying, \"Last Wednesday, Glory and I agreed to either legally separate, get divorced, or annul our marriage. In the week prior to the wedding, I attempted to postpone the wedding several times until I completed counseling, but I still went through with it. I now realize that was a mistake.\" \n \n But Johnson's camp says Brittney's full of crap -- saying they NEVER agreed to annul the marriage. \n \n Johnson's rep adds, \"Glory loves Brittney and made a huge sacrifice to carry a child, put her career on hold, to invest in their relationship and their future. As a result she won't be playing this season.\" \n \n \"Glory wouldn't intentionally do anything to hurt Brittney and has tried her best to protect her and their marriage. Obviously this marriage was about them starting their life together. Glory is the sweetest thing in the world and she was dedicated to their partnership.\" \n \n \"She knows how important marriage is and made a lifetime commitment and decision to spend the rest of her life with Brittney.\"", "summary": "\u2013 This looks messy: WNBA players Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson seem headed for a breakup just 28 days into their budding marriage, People reports. The move comes right after Johnson announced her pregnancy, and six weeks after the 24-year-olds were arrested and got league suspensions for getting in a fight at home. \"Last Wednesday, Glory and I agreed to either legally separate, get divorced, or annul our marriage,\" Griner says in a statement; she filed papers to annul their marriage on Friday, TMZ reports. Hours later, Johnson posted an Internet meme about \"unperfect people refusing to give up on each other,\" but deleted it soon after and said Griner's move blindsided her. Johnson revealed her pregnancy Thursday in an Instagram photo of a bun going into a cake shaped like an oven, but Griner says the pair agreed to call it quits Wednesday. She also claims to know very little about the pregnancy. On Friday, Johnson posted on Instagram, \"One day until I'm reunited with my wife @brittneygriner. . . This is about to be one CRAZY SUMMER!!!\" All of this follows a Sports Illustrated interview with Johnson published Tuesday, in which she claims Griner targeted her in their Goodyear, Arizona, domestic dispute. Medical records say Johnson was hit twice \"on the back of her head by a hard carrying case,\" giving Johnson spinal trauma and a concussion, while Griner escaped with minor injuries. Adding to the mix, Griner now says Johnson threatened her into getting married in the first place, but doesn't dish on details, notes TMZ."}
{"document": "FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump has panned Saturday Night Live's season premiere but tweeted praise for Kanye West. As the show... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump has panned Saturday Night Live's season premiere but tweeted praise for Kanye West. As the show... (Associated Press) FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump... (Associated Press) \n \n NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has panned Saturday Night Live's season premiere but tweeted praise for Kanye West, who closed the show with a pro-Trump message. \n \n Saturday's show opened with Matt Damon playing Brett Kavanaugh in a parody of Thursday's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on sexual assault claims. \n \n As the show ended, West took the stage wearing a \"Make America Great Again\" hat and made an unscripted pro-Trump speech after the credits rolled. \n \n Videos of the speech circulated on social media. \n \n Trump tweeted Sunday that he didn't watch the show \u2014 it's \"no longer funny\" and \"is just a political ad for the Dems.\" \n \n He added: \"Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told 'no'), was great. He's leading the charge!\" ||||| Rapper Kanye West got boos and jeers from the audience at \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d after he went on a pro-President Trump rant during the closing credits of the season premiere. \n \n West, wearing a red \u201cMake American Great Again\u201d hat and with the show\u2019s cast standing behind him, launched into the screed off camera, but it was caught on video by comedian Chris Rock. \n \n \u201cI wanna cry right now, black man in America, supposed to keep what you\u2019re feeling inside right now,\u201d he sang as he paced the stage. \n \n He continued: \u201cThe blacks want always Democrats you know it\u2019s like the plan they did, to take the fathers out the home and put them on welfare. Does anybody know about that? That\u2019s a Democratic plan.\u201d \n \n Then he turned to his support of Trump. \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s so many times I talk to like a white person about this and they say, \u2018How could you like Trump? He\u2019s racist.\u2019 Well, if I was concerned about racism I would\u2019ve moved out of America a long time ago.\u201d \n \n A smattering of applause was quickly drowned out by boos in the audience. \n \n Rock could be heard on the video saying, \u201cOh, my God.\u201d \n \n West appeared on the show\u2019s 44th season opener as a last-minute replacement for Ariana Grande, who canceled. ||||| Like many, I don\u2019t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) - no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems. Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told \u201cno\u201d), was great. He\u2019s leading the charge! ||||| The rapper, sporting a Make America Great Again hat, called for more open political dialogue and hinted at a 2020 run. \n \n During the 44th season premiere of NBC's Saturday Night Live on Saturday, musical guest Kanye West gave a pro-Trump speech while wearing a Make America Great Again hat in a speech made after the TV broadcast ended. \n \n \u201cThere\u2019s so many times I talked to a white person about this and they\u2019re like, \u2018How can you like Trump, he\u2019s racist?\u2019 Well, if I was concerned about racism I would have moved out of America a long time ago,\u201d West said to the crowd at Studio 8H in New York, eliciting several claps and a number of boos. \n \n \"You\u2019ve got a situation where you need to have a dialogue and not a diatribe...It\u2019s easy to make it seem like it's so, so, so one-sided,\" West said in his speech. \n \n West also briefly alluded to plans of running for political office in 2020. \n \n His speech was filmed and posted to Instagram by comedian Chris Rock, who was in the crowd at the taping. \n \n Looks like we missed a lot after the credits \n \n \n \n Kanye is back to talking about running for president in 2020. \n \n \n \n : @chrisrock pic.twitter.com/yObaal85CA \u2014 Complex Music (@ComplexMusic) September 30, 2018 \n \n The rapper delivered the comments after a final performance following the cast's sign-off. He was given extra time to perform a third song and when the broadcast ended, West invited the cast back onstage. When he began speaking, the moment made the cast uncomfortable, says a show insider \u2014 something that could be seen in the videos posted on social media. The insider said the cast returned to the stage assuming they would be dancing for his performance and what transpired was \"unfair.\" \n \n During his speech from the SNL stage, West said he was \"bullied\" backstage before coming out in his MAGA hat. \"You see they're laughing at me, they screamed at me,\" West said onstage. \"They said, 'Don't go out there with that hat on.' They bullied me backstage. They bullied me! And then they say I'm in a sunken place. You want to see the sunken place? Okay, I'm going to listen to y'all now, or I'm going to put my Superman cape on,\" he said, replacing his MAGA cap. \"This means you can't tell me what to do.\" \n \n West went on to say: \"Follow your heart and stop following your mind. That's how we're controlled. That's how we're programmed. If you want the world to move forward, try love.\" \n \n The insider refuted West's \"bullied\" claim. West also wore the MAGA hat in promos leading up to the premiere with host Adam Driver and castmember Kenan Thompson, and in show photos leading up to his performance that aired during the broadcast. \n \n SNL goes off the air at 1 a.m. and West began his speech several minutes after 1 a.m., said the insider about why the moment didn't make it to air. \n \n KANYE SNL TALK THAT GOT CUT OFF FREEDOM OF SPEECH SHOULD HAVE EXTENDED pic.twitter.com/IpULoEJxsN \u2014 MIKE DEAN! #MWA (@therealmikedean) September 30, 2018 \n \n On Sunday morning, President Donald Trump responded to West's performance on Twitter: \"Like many, I don\u2019t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) - no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems. Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told \u201cno\u201d), was great. He\u2019s leading the charge!\" \n \n Trump has not been shy about criticizing SNL in the past. The president has been strongly critical of Alec Baldwin's impersonation of him on the program, saying, \"Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch.\" \n \n The rapper had previously voiced support for Trump, tweeting a picture of a MAGA hat he owned signed by the president and declaring they both had similar \"dragon energy.\" \n \n \"Just as a musician, African-American, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me and then told me that I couldn't say that I like Trump,\" West told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this year. West also took issue with the notion that \"blacks can only be Democrats,\" an adage that fellow Chicago musician Chance the Rapper echoed on Twitter in April. \n \n Trump, at the time, responded to West's support by thanking the rapper via Twitter. \n \n Jackie Strause contributed to this story. \n \n Oct. 1., 9: 30 a.m. This story has been updated with additional details of West's performance.", "summary": "\u2013 Kanye West's Saturday Night Live performance drew both praise and criticism after the vocally pro-Trump rapper appeared onstage in a \"Make America Great Again\" hat over the weekend. However, he reportedly made another statement regarding the president during his appearance, one that was cut from the show's final broadcast. Per the New York Post, West was booed by the audience as he ranted during closing credits that Democrats want to keep black Americans on welfare. He then addressed his well-known support of President Trump. \"I talk to like a white person about this and they say, \u2018How could you like Trump? He\u2019s racist.\u2019\" West said. \"Well, if I was concerned about racism I would\u2019ve moved out of America a long time ago.\u201d Per the Hollywood Reporter, West also briefly suggested a 2020 run could be in his future. In the audience was former SNL cast member Chris Rock, who recorded West's statement on video and cringed audibly from behind the camera as West spoke. Among West's supporters was none other than the president himself, who tweeted Sunday that he doesn't watch the show (\"a political ad for the Dems\") but that he heard about West's hat. \"Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told 'no'), was great,\" Trump wrote, per the AP. \"He's leading the charge!\" Among the topics tackled earlier in the Adam Driver-hosted premiere were the Kavanaugh testimony and show writer Pete Davidson's engagement to singer Ariana Grande."}
{"document": "Image copyright Reuters Image caption This file photo shows an identical coin from the same mintage \n \n A giant gold coin bearing the Queen's image, and worth $4m (\u00a33.2m), has been stolen from a museum in Germany. \n \n The Canadian coin, nicknamed the \"big maple leaf\", has a face value of $1m - but because it is 100kg (220lb) of pure 24-carat gold, its value is much higher at today's price for gold bullion. \n \n It was taken during the night from the Bode Museum in Berlin. \n \n It is not clear how the thieves evaded the alarm system or carried the heavy, half-metre (20.9 in) coin away. \n \n The theft is believed to have happened at around 03:30 Monday morning (01:30 GMT). \n \n The coin is thought to be too heavy for a single person to carry, and police believe the thieves entered through a window. \n \n A ladder was found on the train tracks nearby. \n \n \"Based on the information we have so far we believe that the thief, maybe thieves, broke open a window in the back of the museum next to the railway tracks,\" police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel told Reuters news agency. \"They then managed to enter the building and went to the coin exhibition.\" \n \n Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The stolen Canadian \u00a31m coin was stolen from behind bulletproof glass \n \n \"The coin was secured with bullet-proof glass inside the building. That much I can say,\" he added - but refused to discuss details about security staff or the alarm system. \n \n The coin was minted by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007. \n \n It is 3cm (1.18in) thick, 53cm in diameter, and carries a likeness of Queen Elizabeth II on one side, as Canada's head of state. \n \n The other side shows the Canadian national symbol, the maple leaf. \n \n The coin cabinet at the Bode Museum holds more than 540,000 objects, but German media report only the \"big maple leaf\" was stolen. ||||| (CNN) A precious gold coin that's in the Guinness Book of Records for its unsurpassed purity was stolen early Monday from a museum in Germany. \n \n The coin, which weighs more than 200 pounds and has a diameter of more than 20 inches, was taken from the Bode Museum in Berlin after 2 a.m. local time. German media reports put the current value of the gold coin at 3.7 million euros, or slightly more than $4 million. \n \n Nicknamed \"the \"Big Maple Leaf,\" the coin was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, ahead of Queen Elizabeth II's state visit to Germany. It has a face value of more than $1 million and a purity of 999.99/1000 gold. \n \n The coin had been in the Bode Museum collection since 2010. \n \n Read More ||||| A group of Berlin thieves pulled off an improbable heist early Monday morning, breaking into a German museum with a ladder and carting away a 100-kilogram gold coin named the \u201cBig Maple Leaf\u201d in a wheelbarrow. \n \n Between 3:20 and 3:45 on Monday morning, thieves entered the Bode Museum through a window and stole the coin, which was originally issued by the Royal Canadian Mint. It has a face value of $1-million but, according to current gold prices, could be worth at least $5-million. \n \n Thieves steal 100-kilogram gold coin worth millions (Reuters) \n \n Martin Halweg, a spokesman with the German police, told The Globe and Mail that the suspects are believed to have set up a three-metre-long ladder, which enabled them to enter at the back of the Bode next to a set of railway tracks. They then used a wheelbarrow to remove the valuable, which is one in a series of six certified by Guinness World Records because of its size and 999.99/1000 gold purity. \n \n Pictures taken before the burglary show that the coin, which is three centimetres thick and roughly as wide as a car tire, was displayed inside a glass-enclosed, bulletproof cabinet. Like all Canadian gold coins, it bears the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse side. \n \n The coin has been on display since 2010 and was part of the Munzkabinett collection, Berlin\u2019s most important archive of coinage, which includes more than 540,000 objects. \n \n No other thefts have been announced. \n \n A Berlin police communiqu\u00e9 said a museum security staffer alerted police after 4 a.m. \n \n Quoting unnamed police sources, the German newspaper Bild said that the thieves took advantage of construction work at the museum and that the chances of its recovery are slim because the coin could be promptly melted. \n \n Police later had to interrupt service on the S-Bahn rapid-transit system after they discovered the ladder on rail tracks near the Bode, which is at the tip of an island on the Spree River, in the middle of the German capital. \n \n It is not clear how this seemingly old-hat operation eluded the museum\u2019s high-tech alarm system. \n \n The police communiqu\u00e9 asked the public to report any occurrence where someone had offered to sell large, unusual volumes of gold. \n \n The big coin exhibited by the Berlin museum was on loan from an owner who had purchased it from the Royal Canadian Mint. \n \n The mint had made six of them in 2007 to promote a new line of high-purity bullion. \n \n A Royal Canadian Mint spokesman said five of the giant coins were sold while the sixth remains in a vault in Ottawa. \n \n When asked what the thieves could do with the coin, police spokesman Winfred Wenzel told the German newspaper Die Welt: \u201cEither they were hired to do it by someone who wanted to have the coin, but it\u2019s more likely that it will be melted down.\u201d \n \n Report Typo/Error", "summary": "\u2013 Thieves kept their eyes on the target in the early hours of Monday morning when they somehow circumvented a German museum's security system and made off with just one coin. But it's not just any old coin; the so-called \"big maple leaf\" Canadian coin is pure 24-carat gold, big and heavy, and valued at around $4 million, reports the BBC. Thieves carried away the 220-pound coin, which is more than 20 inches in diameter, sometime after 2am local time, reports CNN. It has a face value of $1 million, and while it would make investigators' job very easy if the crooks tried to spend it, police believe they will either melt the coin down or deliver it to a collector who hired them to steal it, the Globe and Mail reports. The Bode Museum in Berlin has housed the coin in its collection since 2010, reports the CBC. First issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 with an image of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and the country's symbolic maple leaf on the other, the coin made it into the Guinness Book of Records for its record-breaking gold purity of 99.999%. Authorities say the coin was secured behind bullet-proof glass in the building and that the bandits appear to have entered through a window, using a ladder that they left on nearby train tracks. The original coin is in Ottawa, while five others, including this one, were sold to private individuals. (Check out which day these thieves picked to pull off a jewelry heist.)"}
{"document": "Winner of the Science (Adult Non-Fiction) Foreword INDIES Award of the FOREWORD Reviews \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n PRESS KIT \n \n \n \n TABLE OF CONTENTS \n \n \n \n Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it\u2019s a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the test case. \n \n In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a \"sting,\" the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering. \n \n The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he\u2019s sampled so far, Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: \"Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless\" and \"Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel.\" \n \n Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars for long enough to lay eggs inside them, so that their larvae emerge within a living feast. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates. With colorful descriptions of each venom\u2019s sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild\u2019s one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination. ||||| Stung By 83 Different Insects, Biologist Rates His Pain On A Scale Of 1 To \u2014 OW! \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Jillian Cowles/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press Jillian Cowles/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press \n \n If you think your job is painful, try spending a workday with Justin Schmidt. \n \n Schmidt is an entomologist who focuses on a group of insects called Hymenoptera \u2014 we know them as stinging ants, wasps and bees. \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Justin Schmidt Courtesy of Justin Schmidt \n \n Schmidt has traveled all over the world looking for bugs ... and getting stung by them. The result of his work is an alarmingly comprehensive pain index, ranking 83 insect stings on a spectrum of 1 to 4. \n \n For example, the red fire ant, native to South America is a 1: \"Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming,\" Schmidt writes. \"Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.\" \n \n Far worse is the tarantula hawk, which clocks in at a 4: \"Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.\" \n \n As for whether he wants to be stung, Schmidt says \"want\" isn't quite the right way to put it. \"Want is kind of a dual word,\" he tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. \"I want the data, but I don't want the sting.\" \n \n Schmidt has written a book about his travels (and travails) called The Sting of the Wild: The Story of the Man Who Got Stung for Science. \n \n Interview Highlights \n \n On the giant mandarin Japanese hornet \n \n These things are about 2 inches long \u2014 they're huge, absolutely enormous. And I was so worried about getting stung by those that I actually succeeded in doing a really nice couple of studies on them and never got stung. So I guess you could say that was disappointing in the respect that I'm missing a very valuable data point, but I'm also still in tact. \n \n On bullet ants \n \n Bullet ants are wonderfully beautiful organisms. They live going from Nicaragua down to about southern Brazil. They live in the forest and nest usually on the bottom of the forest floor. But they go up into the canopy, way, way up into the top of the trees and that's where they forage for prey. \n \n They're black and very stocky looking \u2014 you look at them and you say: That's kind of like a dinosaur, that's a very primitive looking ant. But, boy, don't let that deceive you because these ants are really, truly acrobats. You often think of big ants as being sluggards and slow ... don't make that mistake with bullet ants. \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Graham Wise/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press Graham Wise/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press \n \n On his favorite \u2014 the harvester ant \n \n They have the most toxic known insect venom. It's really potent \u2014 something like 40 times stronger than a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. The good news, of course, is that they have very little of it. They have this extremely long, lasting pain. \n \n They're the only insect sting venom that causes the hair on your arm where you've been stung to stand up kind of like the hair on the back of a dog's neck when it's frightened. And it causes sweating. These are all kind of neurological things which are unique to it. It's got very complex biochemistry that still, after 35 years, we have lots of mysteries left to discover with them. ||||| This Scientist Stung Himself With Dozens Of Insects Because No One Else Would \n \n \u201cThey have really won the psychological warfare game over us.\u201d \n \n More Science & Health \n \n On What\u2019s The Point, we often talk to people who are trying to gather data and build cohesive information in a new field. This week\u2019s show is about that, but it\u2019s also unlike any conversation I\u2019ve had so far. Dr. Justin Schmidt, an entomologist, is obsessed with trying to codify the pain associated with various stinging insects. And the only way Schmidt has found to gather his data is by stinging himself, over and over, with more than 80 insects so far. His new book, \u201cThe Sting of the Wild,\u201d chronicles that process. \n \n The Schmidt Pain Index, as its informally known, runs from 1-4. The common honey bee serves as its anchor point, a solid 2. At the top end of the scale lie the bullet ant and the tarantula hawk (which is neither a tarantula nor a hawk; it\u2019s a wasp). \n \n Schmidt isn\u2019t just measuring raw pain levels as he feels it, but also incorporating more subjective information into his data set. The honey bee sting is, as he writes, like \u201ca flaming match head lands on your arm and is quenched first with lye and then sulfuric acid,\u201d while a harvester ant produces \u201cwaves of deep, throbbing visceral pain.\u201d \n \n With all the stinging, Schmidt hopes not just to build a body of knowledge within entomology but also help us come closer to understanding what pain is and how to treat it. \n \n Stream or download the full episode above, or subscribe using your favorite podcast app. Below, transcripts of a few highlights from the conversation, and a video showing Justin Schmidt at work. \n \n What is pain? \n \n Justin Schmidt: I view pain as the body\u2019s indication that damage has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur. In other words, it\u2019s really a warning. Pain in itself is not damage. You could say, to a certain extent, it\u2019s a signal that is suitable for being \u201ccheated,\u201d which is what stinging insects do. They make this intense pain with their sting, which is cheating. \n \n The amount of pain that you get in, say, a honey bee sting, is like putting your hand on a glowing red burner of a stove. But that does serious damage, and a honey bee doesn\u2019t do any damage at all. You get a little swelling \u2026 maybe some itching, but you\u2019re none the worse. You don\u2019t have skin falling off or scars or real damage. \n \n So it\u2019s kind of cheating. It\u2019s making you think that something really serious is happening to you. And yet it hasn\u2019t. They\u2019ve really won the psychological warfare game over us. \n \n Our language for pain falls short \n \n Jody Avirgan: We\u2019ve been discussing how hard it is to discuss pain. I wonder if you feel there are implications there for the fact that there\u2019s a growing crisis of addiction to pain medicine in this country. Does the fact that we don\u2019t have reliable language play a part in that? \n \n Schmidt: Exactly. That\u2019s a real problem. We don\u2019t have reliable language. Think of colors. We have hundreds of different names for different hues and tints. But there are just a very few words we use to describe pain. And it has to do with how we measure and how we quantify different kinds of pain and intensity and flavors of pain, so to speak. We don\u2019t have good terms for either one of those. \n \n I try to use \u201cpiercing\u201d vs. \u201cburning\u201d and combine that with the 1-4 [scale] to give you intensity. But it\u2019s really rather primitive, in retrospect. And it\u2019s kind of a disappointment. I think [that] causes the medical profession a lot of trouble, because if you can\u2019t precisely define something, it\u2019s awfully hard to treat it. \n \n If you\u2019re a fan of What\u2019s The Point, subscribe on iTunes, and please leave a rating/review \u2014 that helps spread the word to other listeners. And be sure to check out our sports show Hot Takedown as well. Have something to say about this episode, or have an idea for a future show? Get in touch by email, on Twitter, or in the comments. \n \n What\u2019s The Point\u2019s music was composed by Hrishikesh Hirway, host of the \u201cSong Exploder\u201d podcast. Download our theme music. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| View Images A mud dauber's (Sceliphron caementarium) sting isn't much fun, but it rates only a one on Schmidt's pain scale for insect stings. \n \n Photograph by Rolf Nussbaumer, Alamy \n \n We know there\u2019s not supposed to be any math in summer, but this word problem is unavoidable: outdoor activity + exposed skin = higher risk of insect stings. \n \n Peeking from behind our bug net, Weird Animal Question of the Week takes the author\u2019s prerogative to wonder, why do insects sting us in the first place? \n \n Take the Hint \n \n Stings are insects\u2019 defense when they feel threatened, says biologist Justin Schmidt\u2014and he ought to know. In his new book The Sting of the Wild, he puts the thousand or so stings he\u2019s endured while collecting and studying insects to good use. Not only does he explain his Schmidt Sting Pain Index, wherein he rates the pain of numerous stings on a scale of one to four, but he also relates the fascinating natural histories of these animals. \n \n Mud dauber wasps, for example, rate a lowly one on the scale, like \u201cjalapeno cheese when you were expecting Havarti,\u201d Schmidt says, while the chapter on the warrior wasp, a 4, opens with the word \u201cTorture.\u201d (For more nasty stingers, see Ask Your Weird Animal Questions, Insect Edition: Wings and Stings) \n \n Insects typically try to avoid stinging, an act which could cost them \u201ca leg or an antenna or a chunk of wing,\u201d if the target fights back, Schmidt says. This is why they try to clue us in with warning colors, like the bright red velvet ant\u2019s (which is actually a wasp) or loud, buzzing wing beats, like the noisy cicada killer wasp\u2019s. \n \n Male insects don\u2019t have stingers, but they\u2019\u2019ll fake it, \u201ccurling their abdomen around and jamming it into you,\u201d causing you to drop them so they live another day, Schmidt says. \n \n View Images A naturalist views a tarantula hawk, a wasp with a four-inch wing span. \n \n Paul Zahl, National Geographic \n \n Why Do Only Females Sting? \n \n Stingers evolved from ovipositors, the tubes through which eggs are laid, which are, of course, found only in females. Stinger and ovipositors are now separate in all insects except parasitic wasps, which often inject their eggs into a host with just a splash of paralyzing venom. (An immobile host is easier for babies to eat.) \n \n Tarantula hawk wasps have major stings because they take tarantulas on which they lay their eggs which will hatch out and eat the hairy host. Rating the wasps a four on the sting-pain scale, Schmidt advises that if you\u2019re stung, \u201clie down and scream,\u201d as you\u2019re likely to hurt yourself even more while stumbling around in an out-of-control state of total agony. \n \n Why Don\u2019t All Insects Sting? \n \n Stingless insects, like butterflies and moths, lay their eggs on top of plants\u2019 surfaces rather than injecting them. They \u201cdon't need an ovipositor, thus they haven't evolved stingers,\u201d says Katy Prudic, an entomologist at the University of Arizona. \n \n She does warn that some caterpillars pack a punch. \n \n \u201cDon\u2019t touch a caterpillar that looks like Donald Trump\u2019s hair,\" she says. \u201cIt will sting you.\u201d Called the puss moth caterpillar, this species has hollow spines through which it secretes venom and is one of the most venomous caterpillars in the U.S. \n \n View Images A puss moth caterpillar (Megalopyge opercularis) feeds on a leaf. Puss moth larvae have venomous spines which inflict painful stings. \n \n Photograph by George Grall, National Geographic Creative \n \n How Not to Get Stung \n \n Giving stinging insects a wide berth is the best way to avoid getting zapped, Schmidt says, but there\u2019s an additional trick for avoiding bee stings: Hold your breath. (Related: \u201cHot Bee Balls\u201d Cook Enemy Hornets - But How Do Bees Endure The Heat?) \n \n Our humid, chemical-laden breath smell says \u201cpredator\u201d to bees, and Schmidt advises moving slowly and holding your breath so they won\u2019t notice you. Anecdotal evidence: I tried it while walking past some Utah torch lilies abuzz with bees and remained unstung. \n \n Great advice, but would I keep cool enough to try it near a whole hive? \n \n I wouldn\u2019t hold my breath.", "summary": "\u2013 If you ever get stung by a tarantula hawk, Justin Schmidt has some advice: \"Lie down and scream.\" The entomologist has endured the sting of that wasp, along with the stings of 82 other insects from around the world, as part of what FiveThirtyEight describes as an obsession with \"codify[ing] the pain associated with various stinging insects.\" He's even come up with the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which is included in his recently released book, The Sting of the Wild. The index runs from one to four; the aforementioned wasp's sting comes in at a four, and Schmidt likens it, per NPR, to this scenario: \"A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.\" Compare that with the mud dauber wasp, whose sting is akin to \u201cjalapeno cheese when you were expecting Havarti\u201d; it registers as a one, to the common honeybee's two. In addition to providing colorful, connoisseur-grade descriptions of the pain caused by stings, the Sting of the Wild provides all sorts of information about stinging insects. For instance, stingers evolved from the tubes through which eggs are laid, ovipositors, so only female insects can sting. Male insects fake it, Schmidt tells National Geographic, by \u201ccurling their abdomen around and jamming it into you,\u201d in hopes you'll let them go. Butterflies, moths, and other insects that don't sting don't need to, another entomologist tells National Geographic. They lay their eggs on the surface of plants, in a process that doesn't require an ovipositor, hence, no stinger. When asked whether he wants to be stung, Schmidt tells NPR, \"Want is kind of a dual word. I want the data, but I don't want the sting.\" (Another researcher has determined the most painful spot to get a bee sting.)"}
{"document": "Mayor Ed Lee (D) announces ban on public funding of city employee travel \n \n North Carolina law prohibits local laws against LGBT discrimination \n \n New policy includes exception for \"absolutely essential\" matters \n \n Bloomberg/Getty Images San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (D) sent a strong message to North Carolina on Friday. \n \n San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (D) is barring public funding for city employees\u2019 travel to North Carolina in protest of the state\u2019s new law prohibiting localities from passing legislation to protect LGBT rights. \n \n \u201cWe are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolina\u2019s new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals,\u201d Lee said in a Friday statement announcing the ban. \n \n The mayor specified, however, that there would be an exception for travel that is \u201cabsolutely essential to public health and safety.\u201d \n \n The North Carolina legislature passed a law on Wednesday that prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, country of origin, age or \u201cbiological sex,\u201d but deliberately excludes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. It also barred municipalities in the state from passing their own laws against LGBT discrimination. \n \n North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) promoted the law in part by stoking fears that laws against transgender discrimination would effectively allow men to prey on women in the bathroom. \n \n It is not clear how often the city of San Francisco paid for trips to North Carolina, but the effort carries symbolic weight. The mayor\u2019s move is part of a growing wave of governments and businesses trying to penalize the state for enabling anti-LGBT discrimination. \n \n Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has fought state-level anti-LGBT laws across the country, has said he will enlist the help of the CEO of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America in an effort to overturn the law. \n \n PayPal, Dow Chemical, the NCAA, NBA and Google have come out against the law. \n \n Lee indicated that San Francisco\u2019s travel boycott is intended to serve as a warning to other states. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| San Francisco mayor bans government travel to North Carolina \n \n \n \n \n \n Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press Image 1 of / 2 Caption Close Image 1 of 2 File - In this Jan. 15, 2015 file photo, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee gestures while delivering his State of the City address at a new facility of the Wholesale Produce Market in San Francisco. File - In this Jan. 15, 2015 file photo, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee gestures while delivering his State of the City address at a new facility of the Wholesale Produce Market in San Francisco. Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press Image 2 of 2 Demonstrators rally outside the Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center in Charlotte, a day after North Carolina passed a law forbidding cities from enacting anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT community, March 24, 2016. The measure \ufffd hastily presented, passed and signed into law in just 12 hours \ufffd quickly prompted a wave of criticism from the business community as well. (Travis Dove/The New York Times) less Demonstrators rally outside the Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center in Charlotte, a day after North Carolina passed a law forbidding cities from enacting anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT ... more Photo: TRAVIS DOVE, NYT San Francisco mayor bans government travel to North Carolina 1 / 2 Back to Gallery \n \n SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has banned city workers from non-essential travel to North Carolina after that state approved legislation preventing anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people. \n \n Lee said in a statement Friday that residents in the city with a large gay and lesbian population \"will not subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination.\" He says the new law turns back the clock on civil rights protections. \n \n North Carolina Gov. Pat McGrory signed legislation this week voiding a Charlotte ordinance that would have allowed transgender people to legally use restrooms aligned with their gender identity. The ordinance also would have provided wide protections against discrimination in public accommodations. \n \n The law prevents cities and counties from passing anti-discrimination rules and imposes a statewide standard that leaves out protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.", "summary": "\u2013 San Francisco has banned travel to North Carolina in protest of what Mayor Ed Lee calls the state's \"new discriminatory law,\" CBS San Francisco reports. Specifically, the mayor banned any city-funded and non-essential travel to the state. The Huffington Post notes he made an exception for travel that is \"absolutely essential to public health and safety.\" This week, North Carolina passed a non-discrimination law that pointedly excludes lesbian, gay, and transgender people while simultaneously barring cities and counties from passing their own protections for LGBT people. Lee's travel ban is meant to ensure San Francisco residents don't \"subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination,\" according to the San Francisco Chronicle. \"We are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolina\u2019s new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals,\" CBS quotes Lee in a statement issued Friday. HuffPo points out it's unclear how many trips to North Carolina San Francisco was paying for, but the travel ban carries \"symbolic weight.\" Other governments and businesses, including Google and the NBA, are also making their disapproval over the North Carolina law known in various ways. Lee says San Francisco will issue similar travel bans to Georgia or any other state that passes laws discriminating against LGBT people."}
{"document": "Move over President Donald Trump. You are yesterday\u2019s news. It seems like this is now The Anthony Scaramucci Show. And Trump better get used to it. \n \n The new White House communications director called the New Yorker\u2019s Ryan Lizza, a member in good standing in the Opposition Party, on Wednesday evening to blast his co-workers in a rambling rant that was so outrageous and discordant that reporters wondered whether Scaramucci drunk-dialed Lizza, was drunk with power, or, revealing he was unqualified for his communications director job, did not know how to smoothly go on and off the record \u2014 like Trump skillfully did recently with three New York Times reporters \u2014 so that such inflammatory comments do not reflect badly on his boss. \n \n There is absolutely no way that Scaramucci could be stupid enough to make those comments on the record, so Scaramucci, in a fit of rage about leaks about him, may have temporarily forgotten he was on the record or not realized that he was talking to someone in the Opposition Media, whose members only protect liberals when it comes to sweeping such comments under the rug. \n \n Regardless, his defamatory comments about Steve Bannon, the White House\u2019s chief strategist, will only ensure that the story will be all about Scaramucci again. At this point, Scaramucci might as well just be Trump\u2019s permanent replacement on The Apprentice. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m not Steve Bannon, I\u2019m not trying to suck my own cock,\u201d he reportedly said. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I\u2019m here to serve the country.\u201d \n \n In a rambling interview, Scaramucci also vowed to hunt down the White House\u2019s leakers, suggested that embattled White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus would be fired if he leaks, and was incensed that Priebus \u201ccock-blocked\u201d him for six months from getting a position in the Trump administration. He also called Priebus \u201ca fucking paranoid schizophrenic\u201d and seemed to imply that some White House staffers may have committed a felony by leaking sensitive financial information about Scaramucci even though his financial disclosure form was publicly available. \n \n It is also interesting that Scaramucci had nothing bad to say about globalists Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, and Dina Powell during his rant. \n \n Scaramucci also called a member of the Opposition Party when he was seething because details about his dinner with Sean Hannity, President Donald Trump, and First Lady Melania Trump leaked. That\u2019s usually never a good idea given those in the Opposition Party are looking to bring down conservatives and nationalists, especially when they are not in the soundest of emotional states and thus vulnerable to such comments. \n \n His comments about Bannon also sound like someone falsely hating in another person what he secretly may hate about himself. \n \n Since accepting the communications director job, Scaramucci has promoted his book from the White House podium. Despite having told students not to brag about Harvard, Scaramucci has name-checked his alma mater nearly every chance he gets, acting like someone who needs to reference \u201cHarvard\u201d to try to prove to others that he is not in over his head and actually belongs. Scaramucci, the ultimate self-promoter and brand-builder, also ran the \u201cSALT\u201d conference, which is a wanna-be Davos-style conference that brings together globalists and members of the permanent political class from the D.C. swamp to hobnob and self-perpetuate. \n \n Legacy media reporters have also mocked Scaramucci for vowing to crack down on leakers given that he was reportedly known as the \u201cgo-to\u201d leaker for those seeking info from Mitt Romney\u2019s and Jeb Bush\u2019s campaigns. \n \n \u201cI sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump\u2019s agenda. #MAGA,\u201d Scaramucci tweeted on Thursday evening. \n \n I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump's agenda. #MAGA \u2014 Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 27, 2017 \n \n But Scaramucci\u2019s reckless interview raises serious concerns about whether he may accidentally put Trump and members of his administration and family in legal limbo since every word that is spoken by Trump\u2019s team will be parsed endlessly. In addition, Stephanie Ruhle, one of the savviest anchors around when it comes to Wall Street and someone who obviously knows even more about the financial industry than she publicly reveals, said on Thursday evening that Scaramucci\u2019s comments may make it more difficult for him to sell off his hedge fund firm to Chinese investors, which is a deal he must seal and get approval for in order for Scaramucci to officially work in the White House. \n \n Here's a question-if HNA was buying SkyBridge its pristine reputation&possible WH hook up..what exactly are they thinking now? #nocoverbid \u2014 Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) July 27, 2017 \n \n If Scaramucci is tarnishing his brand at the moment when it needs to be the most spotless and pristine, then imagine the disregard he will have for Trump\u2019s brand, which Trump has built up over his lifetime. If Trump thinks that Scaramucci\u2019s outbursts will damage Trump\u2019s brand for the long haul, he may see Scaramucci as a gamble that is not worth taking. \n \n UPDATE: 8:50 PM ET: ||||| Donald Trump\u2019s new communications chief has already delivered some choice phrases \u2013 but can you tell which quotes are his, and which come from Veep? \n \n Who said it: Anthony Scaramucci or someone from Veep? \u2013 quiz \n \n Most people keep their heads down and try not to ruffle any feathers during their first few days at a new job. But Anthony Scaramucci is not most people. The new White House communications director, aka \u201cThe Mooch\u201d, has burst on to the national stage sounding more like a character dreamed up by the Veep and The Thick of It creator, Armando Iannucci, than a real-life political operative. \n \n Can you tell the difference between Scaramucci\u2019s actual comments to CNN, the BBC or the New Yorker and some of the choicest lines from Veep\u2019s satirical White House? ||||| Fox News host Sean Hannity said Thursday that Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, thought he was off the record during the explosive interview with a reporter in which he unloaded on White House leaks and key players within the Trump administration. \n \n \"Now speaking with Anthony Scaramucci, as he expressed -- and as [Fox News chief national correspondent] Ed Henry reported -- in his tweets, he regrets using some of the language he used with the reporter,\" Hannity said during the opening monologue of his evening program. \"He told me he thought it was off the record.\" \n \n Hannity admitted leaks and infighting have plagued Trump's first six months as chief executive, but said such discord was not uncommon in work environments. \n \n \"And the president, Anthony Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, you know what? The one thing they all have in common in spite of maybe disagreeing here and maybe some infighting, they're all tired of the deep state leaks,\" Hannity said, using a term employed by some conservatives to talk about Obama administration holdovers who are trying to undermine Trump. \"Anthony Scaramucci rightly is trying to put an end to it. I don't know who's leaking in the White House, I've no idea but I hope it ends.\" \n \n Hannity interviewed Scaramucci on Wednesday. During the interview, Scaramucci referred to taking \"dramatic steps\" to stop leakers. The pair also reportedly had dinner together with President Trump. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Good Friday morning. Situational awareness: \"Bomb cyclone\" flight cancellations at U.S. airports yesterday, per FlightAware: 4,395. Cancellations today: 1,128. \n \n 1 big thing: What Wolff got most right @realDonaldTrump There are definitely parts of Michael Wolff's \" of Michael Wolff's \" Fire and Fury \" that are wrong, sloppy, or betray off-the-record confidence. But there are two things he gets absolutely right, even in the eyes of White House officials who think some of the book's scenes are fiction: his spot-on portrait of Trump as an emotionally erratic president, and the low opinion of him among some of those serving him. Why it matters: Wolff captures the contempt some Trump aides have for the president and his family. Axios' Jonathan Swan notes that this includes people you see trumpeting their loyalty to him. \n \n Wolff captures the contempt some Trump aides have for the president and his family. Axios' Jonathan Swan notes that this includes people you see trumpeting their loyalty to him. So Wolff's liberties with off-the-record comments \u2014 while ethically unacceptable to nearly all reporters \u2014 have the effect of exposing Washington's insider jokes and secret languages, which normal Americans find perplexing and detestable. In the past year, we have had many of the same conversations with the same sources Wolff used. We won't betray them, or put on the record what was off. But, we can say that the following lines from the book ring unambiguously true: How Trump processes (and resists) information: \"It was during Trump's early intelligence briefings \u2026 that alarm signals first went off among his new campaign staff: he seemed to lack the ability to take in third-party information.\" \n \n \"Or maybe he lacked the interest; whichever, he seemed almost phobic about having formal demands on his attention.\" \n \n \"Trump didn't read. He didn't really even skim. ... [H]e could read headlines and articles about himself, or at least headlines on articles about himself, and the gossip squibs on the New York Post's Page Six.\" \n \n \"Some ... concluded that he didn't read because he just didn't have to, and that in fact this was one of his key attributes as a populist. He was postliterate \u2014 total television.\" \n \n \"[H]e trusted his own expertise \u2014 no matter how paltry or irrelevant \u2014 more than anyone else's. What's more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention.\" Instinct over expertise: \"The organization ... needed a set of internal rationalizations that would allow it to trust a man who, while he knew little, was entirely confident of his own gut instincts and reflexive opinions, however frequently they might change.\" \n \n \"Here was a key Trump White House rationale: expertise, that liberal virtue, was overrated.\" Ill-preparedness: \"[T]he president's views of foreign policy and the world at large were among [his White House's] most random, uninformed, and seemingly capricious aspects. His advisers didn't know whether he was an isolationist or a militarist, or whether he could distinguish between the two.\" \n \n \"He was enamored with generals and determined that people with military command experience take the lead in foreign policy, but he hated to be told what to do.\" \n \n \"In the Trump White House, policy making ... flowed up. It was a process of suggesting, in throw-it-against-the-wall style, what the president might want, and hoping he might then think that he had thought of this himself.\" Low regard by key aides: \"He spoke obliviously and happily, believing himself to be a perfect pitch raconteur and public performer, while everyone with him held their breath. \n \n \"If a wackadoo moment occurred on the occasions \u2026 when his remarks careened in no clear direction, his staff had to go into intense method-acting response. It took absolute discipline not to acknowledge what everyone could see.\" \n \n \"At points on the day's spectrum of adverse political developments, he could have moments of, almost everyone would admit, irrationality. When that happened, he was alone in his anger and not approachable by anyone.\" \n \n \"His senior staff largely dealt with these dark hours by agreeing with him, no matter what he said.\" Be smart: More than half a dozen of the more skilled White House staff are contemplating imminent departures. Many leaving are quite fearful about the next chapter of the Trump presidency. \n \n 2. How to sell a book Letter from Trump's lawyer to Wolff and Steve Rubin, president and publisher of Henry Holt President Trump is so furious about Michael Wolff's book that some aides are just trying to avoid him. Key aides tried to talk him out of legal threats against the author and Steve Bannon, the key source. \n \n tried to talk him out of legal threats against the author and Steve Bannon, the key source. Lawyers laughed: Does Trump really want to give discovery to Michael Wolff? \n \n Does Trump really want to give discovery to Michael Wolff? But Trump was insistent on following a tactic he frequently used in business \u2014 rattling cages with lawyers' letters that resulted in no actual legal action. \n \n was insistent on following a tactic he frequently used in business \u2014 rattling cages with lawyers' letters that resulted in no actual legal action. His demand that the publisher withhold the book (POTUS needs to see \"The Post,\" with its takeaway on prior restraint) was a publisher's impossible dream that had the predictable effect: more publicity and presales. \n \n that the publisher withhold the book (POTUS needs to see \"The Post,\" with its takeaway on prior restraint) was a publisher's impossible dream that had the predictable effect: more publicity and presales. The publisher issued this statement: \"Henry Holt confirms that we received a cease and desist letter from an attorney for President Trump. We see 'Fire and Fury' as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book.\" \n \n issued this statement: \"Henry Holt confirms that we received a cease and desist letter from an attorney for President Trump. We see 'Fire and Fury' as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book.\" Not only that: \"Due to unprecedented demand, we are moving the on-sale date for all formats ... to [today] from the [previous] on-sale date of [next] Tuesday.\" \n \n \"Due to unprecedented demand, we are moving the on-sale date for all formats ... to [today] from the [previous] on-sale date of [next] Tuesday.\" In D.C., Kramerbooks started selling copies at midnight. P.S. WashPost Style front, \"Breitbart may see a Bannon backlash,\" by Paul Farhi: \"The website and its chairman found themselves isolated ... after Bannon's comments ... caused a backlash inside the White House, among rival conservative media outlets and among Trump supporters.\" \n \n and its chairman found themselves isolated ... after Bannon's comments ... caused a backlash inside the White House, among rival conservative media outlets and among Trump supporters.\" \"Bannon's comments ... prompted a key backer, the billionaire Mercer family, to withdraw financial support for Bannon's political activities. So far, however, the Mercers have not signaled that they will walk away from Breitbart itself, which would be a crippling blow.\" Be smart: Key conservatives tell us Bannon could wind up being ousted from Breitbart. \n \n 3. Is obstruction the new collusion? \"Legal experts said that of the two primary issues ... Mueller appears to be investigating \u2014 whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice ... and whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia \u2014 there is currently a larger body of public evidence tying the president to a possible crime of obstruction,\" the N.Y. Times' Michael Schmidt writes in the paper's lead story: \"Mueller has ... substantiated claims that [former FBI Director James] Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May.\" \n \n substantiated claims that [former FBI Director James] Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May.\" \"Mueller has also been examining a false statement that the president reportedly dictated on Air Force One in July ... about a meeting that Trump campaign officials had with Russians in 2016.\" \n \n been examining a false statement that the president reportedly dictated on Air Force One in July ... about a meeting that Trump campaign officials had with Russians in 2016.\" But, but, but: \"[I]t could be difficult to prove that the president, who has broad authority over the executive branch, including the hiring and firing of officials, had corrupt intentions when he [ousted] the F.B.I. director.\" \n \n 4. Bugs named Meltdown and Spectre \"The disclosure of security flaws in computer chips dealt Intel Corp.what seemed like a sudden crisis, but behind the scenes it and other tech companies and experts have been grappling with the problem for months,\" the Wall Street Journal reports on the front page: \"Apple ... became the latest tech giant to acknowledge it was affected by the vulnerabilities. The company said all iPhones, iPads and Mac computers were exposed, and that it already issued updates to fix the flaws.\" \n \n the latest tech giant to acknowledge it was affected by the vulnerabilities. The company said all iPhones, iPads and Mac computers were exposed, and that it already issued updates to fix the flaws.\" \"The flaws, which could allow hackers to pilfer sensitive information like passwords, affect most modern chips from an array of companies.\" \"Nonetheless, the impact on Intel is likely to be minimal ... Intel said it expects by the end of next week to have issued software updates for more than 90% of processors introduced in the past five years.\" \n \n which could allow hackers to pilfer sensitive information like passwords, affect most modern chips from an array of companies.\" Why it matters: \"The issue called into question the security of Intel's products, and requires many customers to take action to protect their systems.\" \"It also highlights how the growing complexity in chips and the software that runs on them makes them difficult to lock down and allows them to harbor flaws that can go undetected for years.\" \n \n \"The issue called into question the security of Intel's products, and requires many customers to take action to protect their systems.\" Go deeper: Axios' Ina Fried on the chip vulnerability \n \n 5. Global economy absorbs Trump \"2017 turned out to be the global economy's best year since 2010, according to the International Monetary Fund, and 2018 looks even better,\" the WashPost's David Lynch writes on A1: The takeaway: \"[T]he contrast between Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and the placid economic scene is striking.\" \"Investors and corporate executives ... have learned to cope with an unpredictable president, often by ignoring his most provocative statements.\" \n \n \"[T]he contrast between Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and the placid economic scene is striking.\" The big picture : \"Economics dominated politics last year outside the United States, too. In Europe, fears that ascendant populism in Britain, Poland, and Hungary would destabilize the E.U. proved exaggerated. And in Asia, prosperity surged despite rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.\" \n \n : \"Economics dominated politics last year outside the United States, too. In Europe, fears that ascendant populism in Britain, Poland, and Hungary would destabilize the E.U. proved exaggerated. And in Asia, prosperity surged despite rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.\" What's next: \"[S]ome foreign executives are acting on concerns that the president may finally erect barriers against countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. ... Japanese companies [including] Toyota ... have stepped up investments in U.S.-based research, production and distribution.\" N.Y. Times Quote of the Day ... From a front-page James Stewart \"Common Sense\" column, \"The Dow Hits 25,000: The Party Will End One Day, but When?\": James Stack, a market historian and president of InvesTech Research: \"A correction would be healthy. The longer we go without one, the greater the risk this will end badly.\" \n \n 6. Trump, GOP leaders to Camp David today The reflecting pool was frozen yesterday at the Capitol. (AP's Jose Luis Magana) Republicans have begun the year divided over whether their legislative agenda should include the use of a special budget tool (reconciliation) allowing them to pass legislation without Democrats \u2014 and whether to use it for health care or a welfare overhaul, Axios' Caitlin Owens the year divided over whether their legislative agenda should include the use of a special budget tool (reconciliation) allowing them to pass legislation without Democrats \u2014 and whether to use it for health care or a welfare overhaul, Axios' Caitlin Owens writes What to watch: This will be discussed when GOP leaders meet with President Trump at Camp David beginning this afternoon. \n \n This will be discussed when GOP leaders meet with President Trump at Camp David beginning this afternoon. The takeaway: While Speaker Ryan is eager to tackle welfare and entitlements, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said it's not happening. \n \n 7. Fears of weed crackdown by feds \"The buzz kill long dreaded in the marijuana industry came just days after California opened what is expected to be the world's largest legal pot market,\" AP long dreaded in the marijuana industry came just days after California opened what is expected to be the world's largest legal pot market,\" AP reports from L.A. \"The Trump administration announced ... that it was ending an Obama-era policy to tread lightly on enforcing U.S. marijuana laws.\" \n \n announced ... that it was ending an Obama-era policy to tread lightly on enforcing U.S. marijuana laws.\" \"The declaration renewed anxiety, confusion and uncertainty that has long shadowed the bright green leafy drug still forbidden under federal law but now legal in a majority of states as medicine and in a handful of those for recreational purposes.\" \n \n anxiety, confusion and uncertainty that has long shadowed the bright green leafy drug still forbidden under federal law but now legal in a majority of states as medicine and in a handful of those for recreational purposes.\" Why it matters: \"The action by Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not unexpected given his longtime opposition to pot, but comes at a heady time for the industry as retail pot sales rolled out New Year's Day in California.\" What's next: Citing states' rights, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he found Sessions' announcement \"extremely alarming,\" and said he was prepared to place a hold on Justice Department nominees.\" A DoJ source: \"Cory Gardner can change federal law; the Department of Justice cannot.\" \n \n 8. \"My personal challenge for 2018\" Facebook screenshot Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his \n \n announced his 2018 personal challenge : \"fixing\" the platform he created so that \"we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory.\" Zuckerberg wrote that when he announced his first challenge in 2009, \"the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder.\" \n \n that when he announced his first challenge in 2009, \"the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and \"Today feels a lot like that first year. The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do \u2014 whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.\" \n \n a lot like that first year. and Facebook has a lot of work to do \u2014 whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.\" What's next: The issues facing Facebook \"touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology. I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics.\" Why it matters: Zuckerberg's post is the latest indication that Facebook leaders recognize that misuse of the platform during the 2016 election \u2014 including fake news, and infiltration by Russian manipulators \u2014 are no passing blip, and require fixes from the top. Facebook execs tell us they plan to change without waiting for legislation, and this is a sign of that. \n \n tell us they plan to change without waiting for legislation, and this is a sign of that. Go deeper: See Zuckerberg's full post. For each of us: What's your singular personal challenge for 2018? If you have an interesting one, shoot me a note at mike@axios.com (or must reply to this email!), and I'll share your idea with other AMers. \n \n 9. New overnight: Sports talker Robert Kraft, owner and CEO of the New England Patriots, head coach Bill Belichick and Tom Brady celebrate a year ago at the AFC Championship Game in Foxboro, Mass. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) Power struggle at Foxboro: \"For Kraft, Brady and Belichick, is this the beginning of the end?\" by ESPN The Magazine senior writer Seth Wickersham: \"[T]he three most powerful people in the franchise \u2014 [coach Bill] Belichick, [QB Tom] Brady and owner Robert Kraft \u2014 have had serious disagreements.\" \n \n people in the franchise \u2014 [coach Bill] Belichick, [QB Tom] Brady and owner Robert Kraft \u2014 have had serious disagreements.\" \"They differ on Brady's trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team's long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick's bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing.\" \n \n on Brady's trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team's long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick's bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing.\" Why it matters: \"Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the last year together for this group.\" \n \n \"Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the \"Kraft, Brady and Belichick were supposed to meet in late December to clear the air, but that never happened. It probably won't until after the season. Those interviewed describe a lingering sadness around the team, as if coaches and staff know that the end might be near.\" \n \n were supposed to meet in late December to clear the air, but that never happened. It probably won't until after the season. Those interviewed describe a lingering sadness around the team, as if coaches and staff know that A classic Brady moment ... In a legendary playoff game, the Snow Bowl in 2002 (the Tuck Rule Game), when the Patriots played the Raiders in the snow, Brady once recalled in an NFL Films interview that \"he took the field for warm-ups wearing a sleeveless T-shirt in the thick snow. He was 24 years old, at the beginning of a career only he saw coming. He wanted to send a message to everyone watching that nobody was tougher, both mentally and physically, than this California kid.\" \n \n In a legendary playoff game, the Snow Bowl in 2002 (the Tuck Rule Game), when the Patriots played the Raiders in the snow, Brady once recalled in an NFL Films interview that \"he took the field for warm-ups wearing a sleeveless T-shirt in the thick snow. He was 24 years old, at the beginning of a career only he saw coming. He wanted to send a message to everyone watching that nobody was tougher, both mentally and physically, than this California kid.\" Worthy of your time. ||||| On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn\u2019t happy. Earlier in the night, I\u2019d tweeted, citing a \u201csenior White House official,\u201d that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question\u2014for me. \n \n \u201cWho leaked that to you?\u201d he asked. I said I couldn\u2019t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. \u201cWhat I\u2019m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we\u2019ll start over,\u201d he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he\u2019s inherited in his new job. \u201cI ask these guys not to leak anything and they can\u2019t help themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I\u2019m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.\u201d \n \n In Scaramucci\u2019s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him. While they have publicly maintained that there is no bad blood between them, Scaramucci and Priebus have been feuding for months. After the election, Trump asked Scaramucci to join his Administration, and Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of taking on a senior role. But Priebus didn\u2019t want him in the White House, and successfully blocked him from being appointed to a job until last week, when Trump offered him the communications job over Priebus\u2019s vehement objections. In response to Scaramucci\u2019s appointment, Sean Spicer, an ally of Priebus\u2019s, resigned his position as press secretary. And in an additional slight to Priebus, the White House\u2019s official announcement of Scaramucci\u2019s hiring noted that he would report directly to the President, rather than to the chief of staff. \n \n Scaramucci\u2019s first public appearance as communications director was a slick and conciliatory performance at the lectern in the White House briefing room last Friday. He suggested it was time for the White House to turn a page. But since then, he has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters. Michael Short, a White House press aide considered close to Priebus, resigned on Tuesday after Scaramucci publicly spoke about firing him. Meanwhile, several damaging stories about Scaramucci have appeared in the press, and he blamed Priebus for most of them. Now, he wanted to know whom I had been talking to about his dinner with the President. Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background. \n \n \u201cIs it an assistant to the President?\u201d he asked. I again told him I couldn\u2019t say. \u201cO.K., I\u2019m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven\u2019t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.\u201d \n \n I asked him why it was so important for the dinner to be kept a secret. Surely, I said, it would become public at some point. \u201cI\u2019ve asked people not to leak things for a period of time and give me a honeymoon period,\u201d he said. \u201cThey won\u2019t do it.\u201d He was getting more and more worked up, and he eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source. \n \n \u201cThey\u2019ll all be fired by me,\u201d he said. \u201cI fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I\u2019ll fire tomorrow. I\u2019ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus\u2014if you want to leak something\u2014he\u2019ll be asked to resign very shortly.\u201d The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn\u2019t been invited. \u201cReince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,\u201d Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: \u201c \u2018Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.\u2019 \u201d (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.) \n \n Scaramucci was particularly incensed by a Politico report about his financial-disclosure form, which he viewed as an illegal act of retaliation by Priebus. The reporter said Thursday morning that the document was publicly available and she had obtained it from the Export-Import Bank. Scaramucci didn\u2019t know this at the time, and he insisted to me that Priebus had leaked the document, and that the act was \u201ca felony.\u201d \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,\u201d he told me. \n \n \u201cAre you serious?\u201d I asked. \n \n \u201cThe swamp will not defeat him,\u201d he said, breaking into the third person. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to resist me, but it\u2019s not going to work. I\u2019ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they\u2019re going to have to go fuck themselves.\u201d \n \n Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. \u201cI\u2019m not Steve Bannon, I\u2019m not trying to suck my own cock,\u201d he said, speaking of Trump\u2019s chief strategist. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I\u2019m here to serve the country.\u201d (Bannon declined to comment.) \n \n He reiterated that Priebus would resign soon, and he noted that he told Trump that he expected Priebus to launch a campaign against him. \u201cHe didn\u2019t get the hint that I was reporting directly to the President,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I said to the President here are the four or five things that he will do to me.\u201d His list of allegations included leaking the Hannity dinner and the details from his financial-disclosure form. \n \n I got the sense that Scaramucci\u2019s campaign against leakers flows from his intense loyalty to Trump. Unlike other Trump advisers, I\u2019ve never heard him say a bad word about the President. \u201cWhat I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President\u2019s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,\u201d he told me. \n \n He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. \u201cO.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I\u2019ve got digital fingerprints on everything they\u2019ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.\u201d \n \n \u201cWhat?\u201d I interjected. \n \n \u201cWell, the felony, they\u2019re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.\u201d He added, \u201cThe lie detector starts\u2014\u201d but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this. \n \n \u201cWell, he doesn\u2019t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he\u2019ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.\u201d \n \n Scaramucci said he had to get going. \u201cYeah, let me go, though, because I\u2019ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.\u201d \n \n Minutes later, he tweeted, \u201cIn light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.\u201d With the addition of Priebus\u2019s Twitter handle, he was making public what he had just told me: that he believed Priebus was leaking information about him. The tweet quickly went viral. \n \n Scaramucci seemed to have second thoughts. Within two hours he deleted the original tweet and posted a new one denying that he was targeting the chief of staff. \u201cWrong!\u201d he said, adding a screenshot of an Axios article that said, \u201cScaramucci appears to want Priebus investigated by FBI.\u201d Scaramucci continued, \u201cTweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks. @Reince45.\u201d \n \n A few hours later, I appeared on CNN to discuss the overnight drama. As I was talking about Scaramucci, he called into the show himself and referenced our conversation. He changed his story about Priebus. Instead of saying that he was trying to expose Priebus as a leaker, he said that the reason he mentioned Priebus in his deleted tweet was because he wanted to work together with Priebus to discover the leakers. \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s the chief of staff, he\u2019s responsible for understanding and uncovering and helping me do that inside the White House, which is why I put that tweet out last night,\u201d Scaramucci said, after noting that he had talked to me Wednesday night. He then made an argument that journalists were assuming that he was accusing Priebus because they know Priebus leaks to the press. \n \n \u201cWhen I put out a tweet, and I put Reince\u2019s name in the tweet,\u201d he said, \u201cthey\u2019re all making the assumption that it\u2019s him because journalists know who the leakers are. So, if Reince wants to explain that he\u2019s not a leaker, let him do that.\u201d \n \n Scaramucci then made a plea to viewers. \u201cLet me tell you something about myself,\u201d he said. \u201cI am a straight shooter.\u201d \n \n More: David Remnick and Ryan Lizza listen back to audio of the phone call from Anthony Scaramucci. \n \n David Remnick on why Scaramucci\u2019s attack on Priebus and Bannon matters.", "summary": "\u2013 Just how foul-mouthed was Anthony Scaramucci's tirade against his West Wing enemies? The Guardian is running a who-said-it quiz pitting his quotes against those of the comically foul-mouthed staff from Veep. In the immediate aftermath of the story going public on Thursday, Scaramucci tweeted a mea culpa of sorts, promising to refrain from such \"colorful language\" in the future. And two hours after that, he suggested that he thought he was off the record. \"I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter,\" he tweeted. \"It won't happen again.\" Fox News' Sean Hannity backed up the latter point: \"He told me he thought it was off the record,\" Hannity said on his Thursday night show, per the Washington Examiner. However, both the reporter involved and his publication, the New Yorker, dispute that. \"Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background,\" Ryan Lizza wrote in the original story. And a spokesperson for the magazine tells Axios that \"Scaramucci was clear and agreed that the conversation was on the record.\" Neither of Scaramucci's main targets, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, have responded publicly. But Bannon's former publication, Breitbart, offers a theory: \"There is absolutely no way that Scaramucci could be stupid enough to make those comments on the record, so Scaramucci, in a fit of rage about leaks about him, may have temporarily forgotten he was on the record.\" Either that, or he figured Lizza wouldn't run the volatile stuff. The piece also warns that Scaramucci will be in trouble with President Trump if the president thinks he'll damage the Trump brand."}
{"document": "(CNN) Another American has come down with the plague -- and this time, they're not out West. \n \n The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday that a person in that state had the bubonic plague, one of what is now 14 such cases reported nationwide in 2015. \n \n The affected resident is from Marquette County, which is in northern Michigan along Lake Superior. But the resident didn't necessarily contract the disease in Michigan. The state agency noted he or she \"recently returned from Colorado in an area with reported plague activity.\" \n \n Colorado has been hit hardest by the plague this year. A teenager in Larimer County and an adult in Pueblo County died from the disease. \n \n The current annual U.S. tally is double the recent average (although not yet a record). \n \n What would be even more notable -- if it's pinned down -- is if this person contracted the plague in Michigan, rather than Colorado. \n \n Between 1970 and 2012, the majority of human plague cases have been in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. There have been other cases, but they have been in nearby Western and Southwestern states. \n \n There was one exception, in Illinois. But as the CDC notes on a map showing all the reports, \"the case ... in Illinois was lab-associated,\" meaning it arose out of a laboratory, rather than human-to-human or some other natural transmission. \n \n Plague still around, but no longer a death sentence \n \n This year's other cases, out of places like Colorado and in northern California's Yosemite National Park, better fit the traditional pattern of plague cases. \n \n While the plague is often associated with the Middle Ages, when the Black Death took millions' lives, it has never completely gone away. That's true even in highly developed countries. \n \n The United States, for instance, has seen an average of seven such cases annually in recent decades, according to the CDC . About 80% of those involve the bubonic plague. \n \n The good news is that, for most people, the plague isn't the death sentence for most everyone that it was centuries ago, especially if it's detected early. It can be treated with modern medicine such as antibiotics and antimicrobials. ||||| \n \n The first case of bubonic plague reported in a Michigan resident was confirmed in a Marquette County resident after a visit to Colorado, health authorities say. \n \n The patient received appropriate treatment and is recovering, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Health officials said there is no concern about human-to-human transmission in the case. \n \n The person who contracted the illness had recently returned from Colorado in an area where the plague has been reported. \n \n Related: Bubonic plague survivor describes life-threatening ordeal \n \n There has been an increase in cases of plague reported in the western U.S. this year -- with 14 human cases and four deaths reported. Nationally, an average of three cases is reported annually. \n \n The plague is a life-threatening but rare illness transmitted by fleas. It is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which occurs among rodents and their fleas in rural and sem-rural areas of the U.S. \n \n Health officials say the risk of contracting it is highest in places that provide food and shelter for rodents -- such as campsites and cabins and rural settings. \n \n Plague does not naturally occur in Michigan. Health officials say this is the first report of the disease in a Michigan resident. \n \n \"People who are traveling and recreating outdoors in the western U.S. should be aware of the risk for exposure to plague,\" said Dr. Eden Wells, chief medical executive for the state department of health and human services. \"Use insect repellent on your clothing and skin and make sure that any pets that may be along are receiving regular flea treatments.\" \n \n Human-to-human transmission is rare and usually requires direct contact with someone with pneumonic plague, health officials said. People usually are infected when they are bitten by infected fleas or have direct contact with tissues or body fluids from a sick animal. \n \n A patient may suffer sudden onset of fever and malaise, which can be accompanied by abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. The illness can be fatal. Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague and results from the bite of a flea. \n \n The latest information about plague and where it has been detected in the U.S. is provided by the CDC at cdc.gov/plague/. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| First ever bubonic plague case confirmed in Michigan \n \n Under a low magnification of 96X, this hematoxylin-eosin stained (H&E;) photomicrograph reveals some of the histopathologic changes seen in a lymph node tissue sample in a case of fatal human plague. Note the medullary necrosis accompanied by fluid due to the presence of Yersinia pestis bacteria. (Photo: Courtesy CDC) \n \n A Michigan resident has contracted the rare, life-threatening bubonic plague \u2014 the first documented case in Michigan\u2019s public health history, state officials confirmed. \n \n The Marquette County adult is recovering after apparently contracting the flea-borne illness during a trip to Colorado. Officials are reassuring the public there is no cause for alarm, despite the disease's connection to the microorganism that caused the Black Death plague in Europe in the 1300s, killing millions and reshaping history. \n \n \"It\u2019s same organism but, in this case, the infection resides in a lymph node,\" said Dr. Terry Frankovich, medical director for the Marquette County Health Department. \n \n The bubonic plague, in fact, is notably marked by one or more swollen, tender and painful lymph nodes, usually in the groin, armpit or neck. \n \n With the bubonic plague, people are most often infected by bites from infected fleas or when they have direct contact with the tissues or body fluids from an infected animal. The highest risk is in settings that offer food and shelter for rodents \u2014 campsites and cabins, for example, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. \n \n The Michigander's case did not develop into the more contagious pneumonic form of the plague. Pneumonic plague may be passed between humans, infecting the lungs and causing a rapidly developing pneumonia that can lead to respiratory failure and shock, according to the CDC. \n \n A third form, septicemic, occurs when the plague organism multiplies in the blood, and it can lead to shock, organ failure and \u2014 as in the case of a Colorado teen earlier this year \u2014 death. \n \n \"Theoretically, the illness can move to bloodstream or to a lung infection, but this (Michigan) individual had localized infection, so there\u2019s no concern about transmission,\" Frankovich said. \n \n In fact, the adult is recovering after a hospitalization and diagnosis \"within the past weeks.\" A lab confirmed the culture Monday, Frankovich said. \n \n State officials echoed the reassurance. \n \n In the Michigan case, \u201ctruly there is no risk to anyone,\u201d said Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. \u201cThis is not something that occurs (in) Michigan. \u2026 This is a person who contracted this while they were away, and the individual is making a recovery and is not a public health (threat).\u201d \n \n The plague is rare, with an average of seven human cases reported across the U.S. each year, according to the CDC. However, the western U.S. is experiencing an increase in reported cases of plague in 2015, with 14 human cases, including four deaths reported. \n \n \n \n The reason for the increase is not known. \n \n Contact Robin Erb: rerb@freepress.com, 313-222-2708 or on Twitter @Freephealth \n \n Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1URtUjt", "summary": "\u2013 Michigan doctors have an unwanted first on their hands: a patient with bubonic plague. It sounds a lot worse than it is, however. The unidentified patient is recovering and has a form of the plague that isn't contagious, reports MLive. And Michigan residents will be happy to learn that the person is believed to have picked up the disease not at home but on a recent trip to Colorado, probably from the fleas of an infected animal. This is actually the 14th plague case in the US this year, well above the national average of three, notes the CDC. Four of them have been fatal, and the reason for this year's uptick isn't clear. \"Theoretically, the illness can move to bloodstream or to a lung infection, but this (Michigan) individual had localized infection, so there\u2019s no concern about transmission,\" the medical director of the Marquette County Health Department tells the Detroit Free Press. Despite its devastation in the Middle Ages, the plague isn't the dreaded killer it used to be, explains CNN. Antibiotics and antimicrobials can generally conquer it, especially when detected early. (Rats have taken the blame for the Black Death centuries ago, but it turns out that another rodent may be the culprit.)"}
{"document": "The Hank Williams Jr. song that has opened \"Monday Night Football\" for 20 years was not part of the opening of this week's Indianapolis-Tampa Bay game after Williams made controversial comments about President Barack Obama. \n \n Williams compared Obama to Adolf Hitler on Fox News Channel's \"Fox and Friends\" show Monday morning. \n \n ESPN, in a statement, said: \"While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight's telecast.\" \n \n Williams issued a statement through his publicist, saying: \n \n \"Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My \n \n analogy was extreme -- but it was to make a point. I was simply \n \n trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me -- how ludicrous that \n \n pairing was. They're polar opposites and it made no sense. They \n \n don't see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the \n \n office of the president.\" \n \n Williams, whose song \"All My Rowdy Friends\" has been the \"Monday Night Football\" theme on both ABC and ESPN since 1991, said on \"Fox and Friends\" that he thought House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner playing golf with President Obama \"would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu ... In the shape this country is in?\" \n \n Told by anchor Brian Kilmeade that he didn't understand the analogy, Williams said: \"I'm glad you don't, brother, because a lot of people do. They're the enemy.\" \n \n Asked who the enemy was, Williams said: \"Obama. And Biden. Are you kidding? The Three Stooges.\" \n \n Boehner played golf with Obama in June at the height of the national budget debate in Washington, D.C. \n \n Williams, from Tennessee, has said he would run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in 2012. \n \n Later in the Fox interview with Williams, anchor Gretchen Carlson told Williams he used the name of one of history's most hated men to describe the president. \n \n \"Well, that's true. But I'm telling you like it is,\" Williams said. \n \n Williams has been critical of Obama in the past. He campaigned for Sen. John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin in 2008, even changing the words of one of his songs, \"Family Tradition,\" to blast Obama and the Democrats for the financial crisis the country was facing prior to that year's election. ||||| CORRECTS COLTS' OPPONENT - FILE - In this July 14, 2011, file photo, Hank Williams Jr. performs during the recording of a promo for ESPN's broadcasts of \"Monday Night Football,\" in Winter Park, Fla. ESPN... (Associated Press) \n \n CORRECTS COLTS' OPPONENT - FILE - In this July 14, 2011, file photo, Hank Williams Jr. performs during the recording of a promo for ESPN's broadcasts of \"Monday Night Football,\" in Winter Park, Fla. ESPN... (Associated Press) \n \n ESPN pulled Hank Williams Jr.'s classic intro song from its broadcast of Monday night's NFL game after the country singer famous for the line \"Are you ready for some football?\" used an analogy to Adolf Hitler in discussing President Barack Obama. \n \n In an interview Monday morning on Fox News' \"Fox & Friends,\" Williams, unprompted, said of Obama's outing on the links with House Speaker John Boehner: \"It'd be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.\" \n \n Asked to clarify, Williams said, \"They're the enemy,\" adding that by \"they\" he meant Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. \n \n Anchor Gretchen Carlson later said to him, \"You used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the president.\" Williams replied, \"Well, that is true. But I'm telling you like it is.\" \n \n \"While Hank Williams Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to `Monday Night Football,'\" the network said in a statement. \"We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight's telecast.\" \n \n Williams released a statement through his publicist, saying: \"Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme _ but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me _ how ludicrous that pairing was. They're polar opposites and it made no sense. They don't see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the office of the president.\" \n \n ESPN did not say whether the intro, synonymous with \"Monday Night Football\" since 1989, would be used again after this week's Colts- Buccaneers game. \n \n \"Every time the media brings up the tea party it's painted as racist and extremists _ but there's never a backlash _ no outrage to those comparisons,\" Williams' statement continued. \"Working-class people are hurting _ and it doesn't seem like anybody cares. When both sides are high-fiving it on the ninth hole when everybody else is without a job _ it makes a whole lot of us angry. Something has to change. The policies have to change.\" \n \n ESPN covered the story during \"SportsCenter\" and the pregame show but did not mention the song's absence at the start of the game telecast when fans would normally be hearing \"Are you ready for some football?\" Instead of a music video, viewers just saw clips of both teams and heard a voice-over about the matchup. \n \n The song \"All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night\" is a remixed version of his 1984 hit \"All My Rowdy Friends are Coming Over Tonight.\" The version won Williams four Emmy Awards in the early 1990s as the opening theme to \"Monday Night Football,\" then on ABC.", "summary": "\u2013 You may have noticed something missing from Monday Night Football last night: namely, Hank Williams Jr. asking, \"Are you ready for some football?\" as he's been doing for more than 20 years. ESPN pulled the country star's iconic song from the broadcast after Williams compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler yesterday on Fox and Friends. Williams is not technically an ESPN employee, but the company was \"extremely disappointed with his comments,\" it said in a statement. No word yet on whether the song will make a comeback next week, the AP notes. Williams was talking about Obama's golf summit with John Boehner when he made the analogy, saying it \"would be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu.\" In his own statement, Williams said, \"My analogy was extreme\u2014but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me\u2014how ludicrous that pairing was. They're polar opposites and it made no sense. They don't see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the office of the president.\" Click to watch his bizarre Fox and Friends interview in full."}
{"document": "\n \n (Jay Paul/for The Washington Post) \n \n The thieves allegedly arrived in the dark of night and worked quietly and meticulously to steal their items \u2014 2\u00bd tons of grapes that the owner of the Virginia vineyard says were on the cusp of being harvested. \n \n It\u2019s a loss worth $50,000 in supplies, labor and potential wine sales for Firefly Hill Vineyards in Elliston, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 20 miles from Roanoke. \n \n David Dunkenberger, who has owned the family-run vineyard for 12 years, said he doesn\u2019t know who could have taken the grapes or what the thieves might plan to do with them. He said he doubts another winery would purchase grapes without knowing their history and suspects the thieves might try to sell them outside the area. \n \n \u201cI can handle losing a crop to Mother Nature, but to come in and take my crop in the middle of the night and steal what we\u2019ve worked for for eight months, that\u2019s disheartening,\u201d he said. \n \n Dunkenberger, who lives about a 10-minute drive away, said his daughter took samples of the grapes Sunday, and the family planned to harvest them Tuesday. Dunkenberger said he and his father showed up that morning and \u201ceverything was gone.\u201d They suspect the heist occurred earlier that morning. \n \n Dunkenberger estimated it would have taken his team of eight people about 12 hours to pick the grapes and process them properly. Vandals probably made away with his crop in much less time, he said. \n \n \u201cIf they were cutting, they could have picked it clean in six hours,\u201d Dunkenberger said. \u201cI have no idea what they will do with them.\u201d \n \n He shared his feelings in several Facebook posts, describing how the 36-acre vineyard is a family experience and how his daughters, his father and others help during the season. \n \n \u201cCherished memories spoiled by a bunch of low life, no soul, heartless excuses for human beings,\u201d he wrote. \n \n Capt. Brian Wright, a spokesman for the Montgomery County sheriff\u2019s office in Christiansburg, Va., which is investigating the grape theft, said the \u201cmillion-dollar question\u201d is the whodunit. \n \n A police report indicated \u201cthe victim discovered a crop of grapes about to be harvested had been stolen overnight.\u201d Wright said it appeared the grapes had \u201cjust been cut off the vine.\u201d \n \n He said the case was unusual for the agency. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve had cases of plants being stolen,\u201d he said. \u201cThe occasional shrubbery or ornamental trees. But we\u2019ve not had a large case of crops.\u201d \n \n A bird netting that normally covers the grapes was still in place when Dunkenberger arrived Tuesday morning. He said the thieves apparently removed the netting, cut the grapes, then replaced it. \n \n Dunkenberger said he expected to have a good crop this year, despite heavy amounts of rain that could have damaged the grapes. \n \n He had planned to use the grapes for two French-American hybrid wines. But with fewer than 200 pounds of grapes available, the business is closed for the time being. \n \n \u201cYou work your whole year for the harvest day and we were about to have that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were almost there, and somebody stole it.\u201d ||||| Thank you for Reading. \n \n Please purchase a subscription to continue reading. \n \n A subscription is required to continue reading. \n \n Thank you for reading 10 free articles on Roanoke.com. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information. If you are a current 7-day subscriber to the Roanoke Times newspaper you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click Sign Up to subscribe, or Login if you are already a member. \n \n Thank you for reading 10 free articles on Roanoke.com. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information. If you are a current 7-day subscriber to the Roanoke Times newspaper you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click below to Get Started. ||||| Notice \n \n You must log in to continue.", "summary": "\u2013 A family-run Virginia winery is indefinitely closed and in the \"grieving process\" after a theft that stripped it of nearly all its grapes. Allison Dunkenberger, co-owner of Firefly Hill Vineyards in Elliston, tells the Roanoke Times that someone she thinks \"knew something about the winery's operations\" came onto the property overnight Monday, then cut and removed up to 2.5 tons of grapes from 2,500 vines. The theft came the night before a staff of eight was to harvest the same grapes, husband David Dunkenberger tells the Washington Post. \"Quick, efficient, multiple, pathetic pieces of excrement,\" a post on the vineyard's Facebook page called the pilferers. All that's now left of Firefly Hill's inventory: not even 200 pounds of grapes. \"We still can't wrap our heads around this,\" Allison Dunkenberger says. David Dunkenberger put it more forcefully in his rebuke of \"the pieces of cowardly, human scum\" behind the theft. \"May you die a slow and agonizingly painful death so that when you are writhing in pain someone will be kind enough to offer you a drink of wine so you know for what you suffer,\" he wrote. Between the grapes themselves, as well as the labor, supplies, and lost sales potential, the Dunkenbergers estimate they're out about $50,000, and Allison Dunkenberger says their insurance doesn't include coverage for crop theft. David Dunkenberger says he suspects whoever took the grapes will try to sell them far away from Elliston. \"I can handle losing a crop to Mother Nature, but to ... steal what we've worked for for eight months, that's disheartening,\" he says. Police are investigating. (In Canada, someone stole 20,000 cases of beer.)"}
{"document": "Flying with Children \n \n Did you know that the safest place for your child on an airplane is in a government-approved child safety restraint system (CRS) or device, not on your lap? Your arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence. \n \n The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strongly urges you to secure your child in a CRS or device for the duration of your flight. It's the smart and right thing to do so that everyone in your family arrives safely at your destination. The FAA is giving you the information you need to make informed decisions about your family's travel plans. \n \n Media Kit Tips Sheet (PDF) \n \n Graphics \n \n About Child Restraint Systems (CRS) \n \n A CRS is a hard-backed child safety seat that is approved by the government for use in both motor vehicles and aircraft. FAA controls the approval of some but not all CRSs. Additional information is available in FAA guidance (PDF) and on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website. Not all car seats are approved for use in airplanes. \n \n Make sure your CRS is government approved and has \"This restraint is certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraft\" printed on it. Otherwise, you may be asked to check the CRS as baggage. \n \n Back to Top \n \n Installing a CRS on an Airplane \n \n To play this video, upgrade to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Download Video: FAA Video \u2013 rtmp://ondemand.faa.gov/ondemand/mp4:Child_Safety_FAA (MP4) \n \n Back to Top \n \n A CRS must be installed in a forward-facing aircraft seat, in accordance with manufacturer's instructions. This includes placing the CRS in the appropriate forward- or aft-facing direction as indicated on the label for the size of the child. \n \n Booster seats and harness vests enhance safety in vehicles. However, the FAA prohibits passengers from using these types of restraints and belly belts during ground movement, take-off and landing because they do not provide the best protection. The FAA encourages parents to make the best safety choice by using an approved CRS during all phases of flight. While there is no regulatory prohibition from using a booster seat or harness vest (or other non-approved devices) for a lap child during the cruise portion of the flight only, airlines have policies which may or may not allow the use of those devices. Check with your airline. \n \n Back to Top \n \n FAA-Approved Child Harness Device (CARES) \n \n The CARES Child Safety Device is the only FAA-approved harness-type restraint for children weighing between 22 and 44 pounds. This type of device provides an alternative to using a hard-backed seat and is approved only for use on aircraft. The CARES Child Safety Device is not approved for use in motor vehicles. Learn more about CARES. \n \n If you're using a CARES child safety device, make sure it has \"FAA Approved in Accordance with 14 CFR 21.8(d), Approved for Aircraft Use Only\" or \"FAA Approved in Accordance with 14 CFR 21.305(d), Amd 21.50 6-9-1980, Approved for Aircraft Use Only\" on it. \n \n Installing a CARES Child Safety Device on an Airplane \n \n To play this video, upgrade to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Download Video: FAA Video \u2013 rtmp://ondemand.faa.gov/ondemand/mp4:cares-install_FAA (MP4) \n \n Back to Top \n \n Tips for Parents \n \n Make sure your CRS or device is approved for use on airplanes. \n \n Measure the width of your CRS. It should fit in most airplane seats if it is no wider than 16 inches. \n \n Ask your airline for a discounted fare. Buying a ticket for your child is the only way to guarantee that you will be able to use a CRS. \n \n Reserve adjoining seats. A CRS must not block the escape path in an emergency. Many airlines have policies that require a CRS to be placed in a window seat. Do not place a CRS in an exit row. \n \n If you do not buy a ticket for your child, ask if your airline will allow you to use an empty seat. If your airline's policy allows this, avoid the busiest days and times to increase the likelihood of finding an empty seat next to you. \n \n Arrange for your airline to help you if you need help making a connecting flight. Carrying a CRS, a child, and luggage through a busy airport can be challenging. \n \n Pack a bag of toys and snacks to keep your child occupied during the flight. \n \n Always use a CRS when driving to and from the airport. \n \n Wear your seat belt at all times. \n \n A CRS must be installed in a forward-facing aircraft seat, in accordance with manufacturer's instructions. This includes placing the CRS in the appropriate forward- or aft-facing direction as indicated on the label for the size of the child. \n \n Back to Top \n \n Seat Fit \n \n If an approved CRS, for which a ticket has been purchased, does not fit in a particular seat on the aircraft, the airline is responsible for accommodating the CRS in another seat in the same class of service. The airline may have polices that dictate the specific safe seat locations for specific aircraft. See Regulatory Requirements Regarding Accommodation of Child Restraint Systems (PDF) to learn more. However, a CRS may not be used in oblique seats in certain premium class cabins. FAA guidance (PDF) to airlines explains this prohibition. \n \n Back to Top \n \n Children with Special Needs \n \n Children Under 18 with Special Needs \n \n Most young children who use a CRS weigh 40 lbs. or less. However, there are some children with physical challenges who weigh more than 40 lbs. and need the support and security of a CRS or device so they can travel safely on an airplane. \n \n Airlines must allow a child who is under the age of 18 to use an approved CRS that is properly labeled, appropriate for the child's weight, and as long as the child is properly secured in the CRS. Many companies manufacture CRSs approved for use on aircraft that are specifically designed for larger children who are physically challenged. See Child Safety Seat Ease of Use Ratings for more information. \n \n Adults with Special Needs \n \n Adults (18 years or older) who have physical challenges that require the support and security of a CRS or device in order to travel safely on an airplane may request an exemption to the FAA's regulations that require each passenger to be properly secured by a safety belt. This request may also be made by an airline on the passenger's behalf. Several companies manufacture restraint systems for adults with physical challenges. \n \n How to submit a petition for exemption \n \n Go to http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FAA-2007-0001-0001 Select a \"Comment Now!\" button Enter your comment Complete required fields Provide contact information Select category (i.e., to submit a comment on a Docket, choose \"Public Comments(s)\") To attach files/documentation (as part of your submission), select the \"Choose file(s)\" button. Once desired file(s) are uploaded, select the \"Continue\" button Select the \"Continue\" button Now you will see the \"Your Preview\" screen. This shows you how your comment will appear on Regulations.gov Read and agree to the disclaimer. To submit your petition/comment, check the disclaimer box for \"I read and understand the statement above\" Select the \"Submit Comment\" button \n \n To review previously granted exemptions on special needs travel, go to the FAA Automated Exemption System and type \"7831\", \"8264\" or \"9834\" in the \"Exemption Number\" search field and hit \"enter\" or click on \"Search\" on the left side of the screen. Highlight the document you wish to view and click on \"View Document\" on the left side of the screen. \n \n Back to Top \n \n Where Can I Find More Information? \n \n Other Sites and FAQs \n \n Back to Top ||||| EMBED More News Videos A Southern California family says they were kicked off an overbooked Delta airplane because they refused to yield a seat held by their young son. \n \n Brian Schear and his wife were ordered to yield the purchased seat of their infant son Grayson and hold him on their lap. \n \n A Southern California family says they were kicked off an overbooked Delta airplane because they refused to yield a seat held by their young son.The Schear family of Huntington Beach says they were flying from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when airline staff asked them to give up a seat occupied by their 2-year-old son and carry him on their laps for the duration of the flight.They tried to refuse and argued with airline staff, but say they were threatened with being sent to jail.\"You have to give up the seat or you're going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they'll take your kids from you,\" Brian Schear recalled the airline staff telling him.Despite feeling they were in the right, that threat was terrifying, said Brian's wife, Brittany Schear.\"As a mother, you have a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old - it doesn't matter whether that's true or false. It put fear in me,\" she said.They filmed the encounter with airport staff and posted it on YouTube.\"You're saying you're gonna give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat?\" Brian Schear says to an airline employee. \"That's not right.\"Eventually he agreed to hold his son on his lap for the flight - but it was too late. The airline said the whole family had to leave.That was around midnight, and the couple and their two toddlers were left having to scramble for a hotel room and pay $2,000 for another flight the next day, on United.Schear says he originally bought the seat for his 18-year-old son Mason, but then decided to send him home on an earlier flight so that he could use the seat for his younger child, Grayson, who was placed in a car seat.The airline staff tells him they need the seat because the flight is overbooked and the original passenger whose name was on the seat isn't using it. One airline employee tells him that under FAA regulations, 2-year-old children are not supposed to have their own seats at all and are supposed to sit in parents' laps for the duration of the flight.\"With him being two, he cannot sit in the car seat,\" one airline employee tells him. \"He has to sit in your arms the whole time.\"The accuracy of that statement is not entirely clear, as the websites for both the FAA and Delta appear to encourage parents to buy separate seats for young children and use a child safety restraint system.\"We want you and your children to have the safest, most comfortable flight possible,\" Delta's website advises parents. \"For kids under the age of two, we recommend you purchase a seat on the aircraft and use an approved child safety seat.\"Schear says Grayson flew in his own seat on the original flight out to Hawaii without a problem. He says Delta knew he was planning to use the seat for his younger son when they boarded their return flight.\"You need to do what's right,\" he tells the airline employee. \"I bought the seat and you need to just leave us alone.\"The encounter came as the airline industry is already facing bad publicity for video that showed a doctor being forcibly dragged off an overbooked Chicago flight on United, resulting in a concussion, broken nose and two lost teeth.The Schear family says the airline reached out to them earlier Wednesday to find out more information after they posted their encounter on Facebook and YouTube and began talking to Eyewitness News.Delta released the following statement to Eyewitness News:The airline also said the family was not kicked off the plane because the flight was overbooked but did not elaborate or offer any other details as to why the family was booted from the flight. ||||| SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) \u2014 Add it to the list of recent airline fiascos caught on tape. \n \n An Orange County family is demanding an apology from Delta Airlines after they said they were kicked off a flight and threatened with jail time if they refused to get off an LAX-bound flight last month. \n \n The father is heard saying on tape, \u201cWell, you should have thought of that before you oversold the flight. I bought that seat.\u201d \n \n The flight was headed to LAX from Maui. Brian Schear of Huntington Beach says his family was kicked off the flight. \n \n Cellphone video captured the moment when they were asked to deplane. \n \n An employee appears to tell the father if he doesn\u2019t comply, his entire family \u2014 wife and kids included \u2014 would find themselves in jail. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re going to be in jail?\u201d he asks incredulously. \n \n Schear said his family was buckled up and ready to fly home. He was told he would have to give up his son\u2019s seat. \n \n He says when he refused, the airline then told him the entire family would have to go. \n \n Schear was flying with his wife, his young son and daughter after a family vacation. The family bought four tickets. \n \n At the last minute, their teen took an earlier flight home. Their young children, aged 1 and 2, were initially going to sit on their parents\u2019 laps, but the couple could keep the third seat that they bought and put one of the toddlers in a car seat. \n \n Schear said the airline told him that because his oldest son wasn\u2019t using the ticket, they needed to give the seat to another passenger. \n \n He says the problem was the plane was overbooked. \n \n On video, he asks the employee, \u201cSo what are we supposed to do? I\u2019ve got two infants, nowhere to stay, there\u2019s no more flights. What am I supposed to do? Sleep in the airport?\u201d \n \n \u201cWe never thought it was going to get to the point where they were actually getting us all off the flight,\u201d Schear told CBS2\u2019s Stacey Butler. \u201cAs we were leaving the plane, there\u2019s four or five passengers waiting for our seat. The bottom line is, they oversold the flight.\u201d \n \n Butler asked the airline if they caused the problem by overbooking the flight. They said in a statement: \n \n \u201cWe are sorry for what this family experienced. Our team has reached out, and we will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution.\u201d \n \n Schear said he lost their seats, got no refund and had to book a hotel room and buy three more plane tickets the next day. He told Butler he doesn\u2019t want any money back \u2013 he just wants an apology from Delta. \n \n On Thursday, Delta issued the following statement: \n \n \u201cWe are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we\u2019ve reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation. Delta\u2019s goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologize.\u201d ||||| A Southern California father said he and his family were booted from a Delta flight after they declined to give up a seat they had bought for their teenage son and were attempting to use for his 2-year-old sibling. \n \n Brian and Brittany Schear, of Huntington Beach, were on a red-eye flight April 23 from Maui to Los Angeles when they got into an argument with officials after being told that they had to give the seat to another passenger. \n \n \u201cI bought the seat,\u201d Brian Schear is seen telling the agents in a video of the incident, explaining that he initially purchased the seat for his 18-year-old son but sent the teen home early on another flight so that the toddler would have a seat on the plane. \u201cIt\u2019s a red-eye. He won\u2019t sleep unless he\u2019s in his car seat. So, otherwise, he\u2019d be sitting in my wife\u2019s lap, crawling all over the place, and it\u2019s not safe.\u201d \n \n The couple said they were also traveling with a 1-year-old. \n \n [\u2018I tried to hold it\u2019: A Delta passenger said he was kicked off a plane for using the restroom] \n \n Whether it's an overbooked flight or getting stuck on a tarmac, this is what you need to know about your rights when common flight troubles come up. (Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post) \n \n An agent told Schear that unless he complied, he would have to leave the plane, which had yet to take off. \n \n \u201cThen they can remove me off the plane,\u201d he replied. \n \n \u201cYou and your whole family?\u201d the agent asked. \n \n \u201cYeah, that\u2019s fine,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cSo, then, it\u2019s going to be a federal offense,\u201d another agent quickly chimed in, \u201cand you and your wife will be in jail and your kids will be \u2014.\u201d \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re going to be in jail and my kids are going to be what?\u201d Schear interrupted. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a federal offense if you don\u2019t abide by it,\u201d she said. \n \n \u201cI bought that seat,\u201d Schear said. \u201cYou\u2019re saying you\u2019re going to give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat. That\u2019s not right.\u201d \n \n Later in the video, an agent can be heard telling Schear that according to Federal Aviation Administration regulations, his 2-year-old son could not occupy a seat during the flight and would need to sit in an adult\u2019s lap. \n \n Schear explained that his toddler had been strapped into a car seat in his own seat on the destination flight, but the agent brushed him off. \n \n In actuality, the FAA states that children are safer in government-approved car seats \u2014 not on laps, saying, \u201cYour arms aren\u2019t capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence.\u201d \n \n \u201cThe Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strongly urges you to secure your child in a CRS or device for the duration of your flight,\u201d the agency states. \u201cIt\u2019s the smart and right thing to do so that everyone in your family arrives safely at your destination. The FAA is giving you the information you need to make informed decisions about your family\u2019s travel plans.\u201d \n \n Even Delta urges parents to purchase seats for children younger than 2 and to use approved child-restraint systems during the flights. \n \n The issue, it seems, is transferring airline tickets from one passenger to another. Delta Air Lines maintains on its website that \u201call tickets are nontransferable per the fare rules. Name changes are not permitted.\u201d \n \n [\u2018I\u2019ll kill you!\u2019 American arrested after brawling on flight from Tokyo.] \n \n Eventually, Schear asked whether he could concede, move the toddler and get in the air, but an agent told him it was too late, saying his family would either have to exit the aircraft or the crew would have to deplane all of the passengers. \n \n \u201cSo we\u2019re getting off this plane no matter what now?\u201d Schear asked. \n \n \u201cI told you guys at the beginning you had two options and now it\u2019s come too far,\u201d an agent replied. \n \n \u201cI have two infants,\u201d he said, \u201cand nowhere to stay. There\u2019s no more flights. What are we supposed to do \u2014 sleep in the airport?\u201d \n \n \u201cAt this point, you guys are on your own,\u201d she said. \n \n Delta Air Lines said it was \u201csorry\u201d for what the Schears went through. \n \n \u201cOur team has reached out and will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution,\u201d Delta Air Lines said in a statement to The Washington Post. \n \n In another statement late Thursday, the airline said, \u201cWe are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we\u2019ve reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation. Delta\u2019s goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologize.\u201d \n \n The incident occurred April 23 but didn\u2019t make headlines until Wednesday, when Schear posted his video on YouTube. \n \n Fiascoes on airplanes are hardly uncommon \u2014 but they have been receiving increased attention in recent months. \n \n United Airlines became embroiled in a public relations crisis in April when security agents were seen brutally dragging a passenger from a plane because he would not give up his seat to a crew member. \n \n Videos showed 69-year-old David Dao being knocked against an arm rest and dragged down the aisle and back to the terminal at Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare International Airport. \n \n Days later, a passenger was booted from a Delta flight because he had to get up from his seat to make an emergency restroom run. \n \n United came under fire again when a giant rabbit that was being transported from Britain to Chicago died after its flight. \n \n On Tuesday, a video recorded on an All Nippon Airways flight captured a fistfight that broke out between two male passengers. \n \n [An airline passenger went off on a Trump supporter. Her rant got her kicked off the flight.] \n \n After the release of Schears\u2019 video, his wife told ABC affiliate KABC that she and her husband were justified in refusing to give up the seat. But, she said, when agents threatened her with jail time, she was terrified. \u201cAs a mother, you have a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter whether that\u2019s true or false,\u201d Brittany Schear said. \u201cIt put fear in me.\u201d \n \n The FAA says it\u2019s a federal crime to interfere \u201cwith the duties of a crewmember.\u201d \n \n Brian Schears told CBS Los Angeles that he and his wife never expected the situation to escalate to the point where they would get booted from the plane. \n \n \u201cWe never thought it was going to get to the point where they were actually getting us all off the flight,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we were leaving the plane, there\u2019s four or five passengers waiting for our seat.\u201d \n \n This story has been updated. \n \n Read more: \n \n An unruly couple forced their flight to turn back. Police boarded, and passengers cheered. \n \n A man got a middle seat on a 13-hour flight. Passengers recorded his \u2018fit of rage,\u2019 then arrest. \n \n A United pilot ranted about Trump, Clinton and divorce. Her passengers fled. \n \n United and man dragged from flight reach \u2018amicable\u2019 settlement \n \n Here\u2019s what United will do differently after the infamous dragging incident \n \n \u2018How much do you hate the American people?\u2019: Airline executives get a brutal lashing in Washington", "summary": "\u2013 \"Did you know that the safest place for your child on an airplane is in a government-approved child safety restraint system (CRS) or device, not on your lap?\" That's per the FAA, but Delta ordered a California family to go the lap route as they returned from a Hawaii trip last month. Per KABC, Brian Schear was with his wife and two babies after deciding to send their teen son, Mason, home on an earlier flight. They put 2-year-old Grayson, in his car seat, in Mason's seat instead. But the flight was overbooked and Delta wanted Mason's seat. Schear posted a YouTube video of the incident, in which a Delta staff member tells him Grayson has to sit on his lap for the entire flight. \"It's not a Delta rule, it's FAA, because he's 2 and under,\" the woman says. \"You and your wife will be in jail and your kids will be in foster care,\" another worker notes when Schear says he bought that seat and they'll have to remove him from the flight. The issue, as the Washington Post notes, is Delta tickets are \"nontransferable,\" meaning because Mason wasn't there, the airline could take the seat back. As for Delta's lap-sitting mandate to Schear, FAA rules are murky (there's no age reference), but Delta's own site spells it out clearly. \"You'll need to purchase a ticket for your child when you have a child that is age two or older \u2026 a reserved seat and ticket are required for the entire journey.\" The Schears finally agreed to hold Grayson, but by then the airline wanted them off. The family disembarked around midnight, tracked down a hotel, and coughed up another $2,000 for a flight home the next day on United. Per CBS Los Angeles, Schear said he doesn't want their money back\u2014just an apology. Delta told CBS in a statement it was sorry for the family's experience and has \"reached out\" to them. (Another recent airline fiasco.)"}
{"document": "\"I can't speak on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it,\" Lee told the mag when asked if he planned to see the film. \"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors.\" \n \n But that actually wasn't all he was going to say. \n \n Lee went on to give his take on the slavery flick's subject matter on Twitter Saturday. \n \n \"American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust.My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them,\" Lee wrote. ||||| Don\u2019t expect legendary film maker Spike Lee to catch Quentin Tarantino\u2019s latest creation. \n \n While his own visions of race and culture have sparked dialogue beyond the New York most of his work pays homage to, the director of \u201cRed Hook Summer\u201d had little to say about the slavery love story \u201cDjango Unchained.\u201d \n \n \u201cI cant speak on it \u2019cause I\u2019m not gonna see it,\u201d he tells VIBETV. \u201cAll I\u2019m going to say is that it\u2019s disrespectful to my ancestors. That\u2019s just me\u2026I\u2019m not speaking on behalf of anybody else.\u201d ||||| Add a location to your Tweets \n \n When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 Quentin Tarantino's Civil-War-era Django Unchained is getting good reviews from critics and audiences alike, but don't count Spike Lee in the thumbs-up camp. \"I can't speak on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it,\" he tells Vibe. \"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors.\" That's more restrained than an earlier tweet in which he called US slavery a \"holocaust\" that should not be treated like a \"Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.\" E! Online notes that's there's no love lost between the two directors, with Lee previously calling out Tarantino for excessive use of the n-word."}
{"document": "Just One More Thing... \n \n We have sent you a verification email. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your profile. \n \n If you do not receive the verification message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your Spam or Junk folder. \n \n Close ||||| (CNN) A keeper at the Palm Beach Zoo died Friday afternoon after being attacked by a rare kind of tiger, zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter said. \n \n Stacey Konwiser, 38, lead tiger keeper at the zoo, was killed by a 13-year-old male Malayan tiger, one of four at the facility, in the contained area where the animals are fed and sleep, Carter said. \n \n Zoo officials said it didn't appear Konwiser did anything out of the norm as she worked in the enclosure, known as the tiger night house, and prepared to talk with zoo visitors about the animals in a \"Tiger Talk.\" \n \n The tiger was off-exhibit at the time and no guests could see what happened, Carter said. The tiger was never on the loose, contrary to early reports on social media, she said. \n \n West Palm Beach police said the tiger was tranquilized and officers waited until the drugs took effect before they could reach the victim, CNN affiliate WPEC reported. Konwiser was taken by helicopter to St. Mary's Medical Center. \n \n 'A tiger whisperer' \n \n Konwiser had worked three years at the zoo and was very experienced with tigers, Carter said. Her husband, Jeremy Konwiser, is also a trainer at the zoo. \n \n \"This was her specialty,\" she said. \"She loved tigers. You don't get into this business without the love for the animals and understanding the danger that's involved even more.\" \n \n Konwiser had a special bond with the big cats, Carter told the Palm Beach Post. \n \n \"I kind of referred to her as a tiger whisperer,\" she said. \"They spoke to each other in a language that only they could understand. And I can't put into words or make you understand for anyone who didn't know Stacey how much she loved these tigers and how much this zoo family loved her. And while she's no longer with us, her memory will live on.\" \n \n Konwiser graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor's degree in biology and received her master's degree in conservation biology from the University of Queensland in Australia, the Palm Beach Zoo's official Facebook page said. \n \n OSHA will investigate \n \n Stacey Konwiser, 38, was lead keeper at the zoo. \n \n Malayan tigers are a critically endangered subspecies . The Palm Beach Zoo provides a special program in which guests can pay extra to see the tigers. \n \n There are less than 250 left in the world, Carter said. The zoo is part of a breeding program that aims to keep the animals from becoming extinct. Carter would not comment about the condition of the tiger except to say it has been contained. The investigation is ongoing and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is taking over. \n \n When the attack happened about 2 p.m., guests at the zoo were ushered into the gift shop before being told the zoo was closed for the day. \n \n \"This is my first time at the zoo,\" one zoo visitor, Beverly Johnson of Fort Pierce, told the Palm Beach Post. \"I wasn't expecting this.\" \n \n The zoo was evacuated and will be closed all weekend. \n \n 'They are trained to feel like that's their territory' \n \n Dave Salmoni, the large predator expert for Animal Planet, said he was not surprised such an attack happened in the tiger night house. \n \n \"Typically, zoo cats, that's where they feel most comfortable,\" Salmoni said on \"Anderson Cooper 360.\" \"They are trained to feel like that's their territory. So when you talk about acts of aggression or acts of dominance, which this might have been either, that would be the most likely place for something like this.\" \n \n Salmoni said people who work with big cats understand and accept the danger. \n \n \"It's heartbreaking to hear about a story of someone who loves an animal so much,\" he said. \"I can relate. The same thing could possibly happen to me tomorrow.\" \n \n PETA criticizes zoo \n \n People for Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a statement criticizing the zoo. \n \n \"Today's incident is only the latest in a long list of fatal maulings around the world, and that list will continue to grow as long as tigers and other exotic animals are locked in cages and compounds for human amusement,\" said PETA Foundation Deputy Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. \n \n \"In nature, tigers have home ranges of hundreds of miles, so it's no wonder that confining them to small spaces causes them to lash out in the frustration, stress, anxiety and agitation that they suffer when they're denied their freedom and the ability to behave normally in every way \u2014 including choosing their mates, raising their young and seeking privacy from prying eyes. \n \n \"PETA sends our condolences to the zookeeper's family and hopes that this incident will save human lives in the future by making zoos everywhere reconsider the confinement of big cats and other wildlife.\" \n \n A zookeeper at my local zoo just got killed by a tiger and I'm crying bc I feel so bad for the woman and her fam and actually the tiger too \u2014 \u2728 (@instagramslut) April 15, 2016 \n \n Zoo issues statement \n \n The zoo issued a statement Friday night and posted it on the zoo website \n \n \"This marks the first death of a human involved in an animal incident in the history of Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society. Grief counselors remain available to zoo staff affected by this tragic incident. Our focus remains on providing the adequate support for our staff and family members who have been affected by this tragic incident. \n \n \"This is a very difficult situation for all zoo staff, family members of Konwiser, her family and the extended zoo family. We ask the media and public to respect the privacy of those involved during this difficult time.\" \n \n Other recent attacks by big cats \n \n \u2022 In January, a keeper was severely injured at In January, a keeper was severely injured at an Australian zoo founded by the late wildlife conservationist Steve Irwin \n \n \u2022 In June 2015, police shot and killed In June 2015, police shot and killed a white tiger that killed a man in Tbilisi, Georgia , after severe flooding allowed hundreds of wild animals to escape the city zoo. \n \n \u2022 In 2007, In 2007, an escaped Siberian tiger attacked and killed one zoo patron and injured two others in a cafe at the San Francisco Zoo. ||||| The Palm Beach Zoo said it will reopen Monday at 9 a.m., three days after a tiger killed a zookeeper. \n \n Naki Carter, the zoo's public information officer, said the zoo is mourning the death of Stacey Konwiser. \n \n Video: Zoo holds news conference \n \n Konwiser, 38, was in the tiger\u2019s enclosure, preparing to give a talk to guests, when she was attacked by one of the zoo's Malayan tigers. \n \n Konwiser, whose husband, Jeremy also works at the zoo, was the lead zookeeper. She had worked at the zoo for three years. Officials said Konwiser was an expert at caring for tigers. \n \n Download app: iOS | Android \n \n The attack took place at the Night House, an area designed to keep handlers separate from the tiger. Guests were not present during the attack. \n \n \"We want to underscore that at no time was the public at any risk,\" Carter said. \"The zoo immediately went into lockdown mode. Guests were never in danger at any time.\" \n \n Carter continued: \"We also want to emphasize that at no time did any animal escape.\" \n \n Zoo officials said they don\u2019t know exactly what happened. \n \n \"The zoo has a safety protocol in place for crisis situations and these protocols were employed today,\" Carter said. \"Immediately after the Code Red was issued guests, who were never in any danger, were ushered out of the zoo in an orderly fashion and the zoo went into lockdown.\" \n \n The tiger habitat is located in the right rear of the zoo. It is a large area with room for the tigers to roam. \n \n When night falls, the tigers are transferred to the Night House. \n \n Konwiser was transported to St. Mary's Medical Center by helicopter after a tranquilizer given to the tiger took effect. She was listed in critical condition and later succumbed to her injuries. \n \n The tiger was tranquilized and contained. \n \n Carter said this is the first time in the Palm Beach Zoo's history a death of this nature has occurred. \n \n Grief counselors are available to zoo staff, Carter said. \n \n The zoo has set up the Stacey Konwiser Conservation Fund and will hold a private ceremony. All donations will go toward a cause she cared dearly about, preserving Malayan tigers. \n \n Funeral arrangements are being made by family members. \n \n The tiger involved in the attack remains at the zoo and has recovered from being tranquilized, Carter said. \n \n Officials made it clear the life of the animal has never been in jeopardy nor will it be removed. \n \n \"There has never been any threat to the animals welfare. In fact, it does not belong to Palm Beach Zoo,\" Carter said. \"As I stated repeatedly, there are less than 250 Malayan tigers in the wild. Four of them live here at the Palm Beach Zoo.\" \n \n The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the tiger attack. \n \n The Palm Beach Sheriff's Office is also investigating the case. \n \n WPBF 25 News reporter Jimmie Johnson contributed to this story.", "summary": "\u2013 The chief tiger keeper at the Palm Beach Zoo was killed on Friday by one of the animals she loved. Stacey Konwiser, 38, was attacked in a tiger enclosure as she prepared to give a \"Tiger Talk\" to visitors, CNN reports. Cops had to tranquilize the 13-year-old male Malayan tiger before they could reach Konwiser, who was taken to a hospital by helicopter but died from what authorities say was a \"severe bite.\" Zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter tells the Palm Beach Post that she called Konwiser, a beloved staff member whose husband also works at the zoo, the \"tiger whisperer\" because they \"spoke to each other in a language that only they could understand.\" \"I can't put into words or make you understand for anyone who didn't know Stacey how much she loved these tigers and how much this zoo family loved her,\" she says. The attack happened out of sight of visitors in a sleeping and feeding area known as the \"tiger night house,\" and the zoo stresses that contrary to reports on social media, the tiger was never loose, WPBF reports. The zoo \"has a safety protocol in place for crisis situations and these protocols were employed today,\" Carter says. \"Immediately after the Code Red was issued, guests, who were never in any danger, were ushered out of the zoo in an orderly fashion and the zoo went into lockdown.\" She says the tiger\u2014one of four members of the endangered subspecies at the zoo and fewer than 250 in the world\u2014has been \"contained.\" This was the first fatal attack on a human in the zoo's history, she says. (Visitors sheltered in the manatee house after a polar bear escape in Cincinnati.)"}
{"document": "Columbia Pictures Will Smith, left, and Jaden Smith in 'After Earth.' \n \n Is \"After Earth\" the worst movie ever made? Maybe not; there's always \"Battlefield Earth\" to remind us how low the bar can go. But that's the wrong question, since it implies that this bizarre enterprise is a movie in the conventional sense. \n \n At first the production exhibits movielike characteristics, a sort of \"Star Trudge\" crossed with a hero's journey by way of Joseph Campbell. The story begins on a planet that has served as humanity's refuge since Earth became uninhabitable. Will Smith is Cypher Raige, the commanding general of a U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping group\u2014I'm only reporting what's on the screen\u2014called the United Ranger Corps. Mr. Smith's son, Jaden Smith, is the general's son, Kitai, a painfully earnest 13-year-old who's desperately seeking approval from his authoritarian father, even though the old man seems to have no approval to give. Despite the sci-fi trappings, and dollops of almost literally unspeakable dialogue\u2014\"Graviton buildup could be a precursor to mass expansion,\" someone warns someone else\u2014\"After Earth\" is basically a two-character study of what happens to father and son after their spaceship crashes on a quarantined planet that is, in fact, Earth, but Earth infested with exceedingly cheesy digital monsters. \n \n Watch a clip from the film \"After Earth.\" A crash landing leaves Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after events forced humanity's escape. (Photo/Video: Sony) \n \n Here again, the action conforms to a recognizable movie template. With his father gravely injured and unable to extricate himself from the ship's wreckage, Kitai must summon the courage to go forth on his own and fight whatever demons come his way in order to find the electronic beacon that will bring lifesaving help. In other words, a familiar tale of a boy surviving vicissitudes to become a man. Yet this variant of the template, as directed by M. Night Shyamalan from a script he wrote with Gary Whitta\u2014and based on a story by Mr. Smith\u2014soon takes the form of turgid pontifications that Cypher lays on Kitai at every step of the poor kid's way. (They're connected by a fancy communication system that only emphasizes the disconnections of the quasidramatic structure.) \"Every single decision you make will be life or death,\" the general intones. Or, rather, \"Every...single\u2026decision\u2026you\u2026make\u2026will\u2026be\u2026life...or...death,\" because every\u2026single\u2026word\u2026the\u2026general\u2026speaks\u2026is\u2026spoken\u2026slowly\u2026for\u2026emphasis. It's gravity without gravitas. \n \n I've never seen a movie that moves so slowly, or takes itself so seriously, which is why it doesn't seem like a movie at all, but a sermon whose central subject is fear: \"Danger is real,\" the father tells the son, \"but fear is a choice.\" So a right question might be why \"After Earth\" was made. The sermon echoes a central theme of Scientology. Is that the production's subtext, or are there reasons yet to be uncovered why humor and humanity have been essentially banished; why everyone looks pained; why the very notion of entertainment has been banished in favor of grinding didacticism, and why Mr. Smith, who has been such a brilliant entertainer over the years and decades, looks as if he has undergone a radical charismaectomy? It\u2026is\u2026all\u2026very\u2026mysterious\u2026and\u2026deeply\u2026dreary. \n \n Watch a clip from the film \"The East.\" An operative finds her priorities changing after she is tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations. (Photo/Video: Fox Searchlight) \n \n 'The East' \n \n In one of many anxiety-provoking sequences in \"The East,\" the heroine, Sarah, who is played by Brit Marling, must find a way to feed herself even though she, like her companions at a large dinner table in an abandoned house, has had her arms tied up in a straitjacket. (The solution is both practical and symbolic.) Part of the anxiety\u2014good anxiety, almost as good as suspense\u2014grows out of the situation: Sarah is in a scary spot. A former FBI agent newly hired by a private intelligence group, she has infiltrated an anarchist collective that's bent on punishing corporations for their supposed crimes. I felt bad anxiety, though, about the cartoonish characters\u2014hippie stereotypes, clumsily updated, plus smarmy corporate execs\u2014and about Ms. Marling, a gifted actress, tying herself up in a story that's essentially a glib preachment to the anticorporate choir. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Fox Searchlight Brit Marling in 'The East.' \n \n The film takes its title from the name of the collective, a shadowy group whose leader, Benji (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd), has a tragic past and a fatalist's view of the turbulent present: \"Things would be easier,\" he tells Sarah, \"if we didn't feel the need to fight.\" She feels the need to fight against falling in love with him, and against being radicalized in the course of her dangerous mission. \n \n Ms. Marling makes Sarah's moral dilemma interesting, even sporadically convincing; she's an unusually economical actress who can express unspoken feelings with a piercing glance or pensive stare. But Sarah's exertions in the action realm\u2014listening to the tumblers as she cracks a safe, feeling for a bullet in a shooting victim's belly\u2014are hard to take seriously. It's harder still to find any grounding in contemporary life for the vengeful anarchists. They operate in a realm that's part Woody Guthrie from the 1930s\u2014hobos in freight cars, beset by brutal railroad bulls\u2014and part counterculture from the 1960s, with an overlay of up-to-the-minute ecoterrorism. (Ellen Page plays one member of the collective, Izzy; her father runs a company that has dumped arsenic in its local water supply. Patricia Clarkson is Sharon, the intelligence-group boss who hires Sarah after warning her about the dangers of the ego, and of being too smart. Roman Vasyanov did the handsome cinematography.) \n \n \"The East\" was directed by Zal Batmanglij, from a script he wrote with Ms. Marling. Two years ago they collaborated on \"Sound of My Voice,\" the director's small but impressive debut feature. In that film, Ms. Marling played an enigmatic beauty who might have been, as she claimed, a time-traveler from the future, or the cynical priestess of a crackpot cult in the San Fernando Valley. This new film deals with cult behavior in a different setting. Sarah, who'd been listening to Christian radio in her car on her way to applying for the counterterrorism job, must renounce her faith, at least outwardly, by submitting to the collective's secular version of a baptism. The whole movie has the smugness of a cult. At one and the same time it's devoid of reality and insufferably full of itself. \n \n Watch a clip from the film \"Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay,\" a documentary on the world-renowned magician, author, historian and actor. (Photo/Video: Hopscotch Films) \n \n 'Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay' \n \n Maybe I should have recused myself from reviewing Molly Bernstein's marvelous documentary, which opened while I was on vacation and is now entering national release. For one thing, I count myself a friend of the main subject, the peerless magician, historian and actor Ricky Jay. For another, I would have been satisfied if the film had contained nothing but closeups of his hands manipulating a deck of cards\u2014shuffles and arcs and cascades, fans appearing and vanishing as in a silent version of \"The Mikado\" accompanied by visual music. But I'm no more prejudiced in his favor than anyone else who has seen him perform. Nor do I know any more than anyone else about how he does the astonishing things he does. And the film isn't only about him, though it does contain such closeups, and some fascinating footage of his early performances. The larger subjects, eloquently evoked, are the sources of his knowledge and inspiration, and the singular tradition within which he works and flourishes. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Kino Lorber Ricky Jay in the documentary 'Deceptive Practice.' \n \n It's a tradition that goes back more than a century, a continuum of virtuosi with names to conjure with: Malini, Houdini, Kellar, Thurston, Slydini, Cardini, Charlie Miller, the unquenchably comic Al Flosso, the incomparable Dai Vernon. Magic is inherently honest, the film insists; you tell people you're going to deceive them before you deceive them. But honesty isn't the issue; enchantment is. For a working definition of the word, watch Ricky Jay watching his fingers as they tear a piece of paper into the shape of a moth's wings, and\u2014watch closely now\u2014the paper moth turns into a real moth that silently flutters away. \n \n DVD Focus \n \n 'Hitch' (2005) \n \n Enlarge Image Close Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection Will Smith and Eva Mendes \n \n Will Smith is a self-styled date doctor, Alex Hitchens, in an uneven but likable comedy that Andy Tennant directed from an original script by Kevin Bisch. When the film came out, I wrote that Mr. Smith \"has been a fluid concept until now\u2014immensely likable, reliably droll and self-assured, though never self-important.\" Self-importance and solemnity have set in since then, but \"Hitch\" allows its star to fulfill what seemed like his manifest destiny at the time\u2014becoming an urbane comedian who is also, shades of Cary Grant, a romantic hero. Eva Mendes is alluring as a gossip columnist. \n \n 'Melancholia' (2011) \n \n Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd is an immature husband-to-be in this hauntingly beautiful drama by the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. Kirsten Dunst is the wife-to-be, Justine, beset by depression in a movie that isn't depressing at all. Its true subject is melancholia as a spiritual state, a destroyer of happiness that emerges from its hiding place behind the sun, just like the menacing planet of the film that may or may not put an end to terrestrial life. The extraordinary cast includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Charlotte Rampling, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt and Alexander's father, Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd. \n \n 'Heist' (2001) \n \n Ricky Jay is Pinky Pincus, a sad-faced associate of Joe Moore, the zestful mastermind played by Gene Hackman in David Mamet's intricately entertaining caper. One assessment of Joe comes from Bobby (Delroy Lindo), a hitherto stalwart member of his crew, after Joe's plans for an ambitious robbery have seemingly turned to dross. \"Baby,\" Bobby says, \"you got old.\" Another comes from Pinky. Joe is so cool, Pinky says, that \"when he goes to bed sheep count him.\" Which appraisal to bank on? An easy call if you're familiar with the movies of Mr. Mamet, whose specialty is scammers scamming scammers. \n \n Write to Joe Morgenstern at joe.morgenstern@wsj.com ||||| Laremy Legel May 30, 2013 \n \n 1.2 \"The level to which 'After Earth' is a catastrophe is amazing.\" \n \n We open with a voice-over, followed immediately by flashbacks. Incredibly, with these bold strokes, \u201cAfter Earth\u201d announces it will be terrible right from the outset, and woe be upon the person who holds out hope that it will get better after the initial wobbly start. It will not get better, it will only get worse, until you\u2019re actively cheering for a teenage kid to get eaten by a tiger (and wanting the tiger to savor every bite). I didn\u2019t plan to feel this way, and no one could have predicted the best possible outcome for the film would be the brutal murder of a character one of the Smithlettes was portraying, but you did this to me, \u201cAfter Earth\u201d. You made me root against the good guy, mostly because you made him so incompetent, so repugnant, so unlikable, that you rendered his journey and story arc meaningless. For when is a hero not a hero? When he acts worse than your average guy off the street. \u201cAfter Earth\u201d stupefies us with nonsense, such little thought and logic went into this idea that it can\u2019t even be considered a rough draft, this is a movie almost daring an audience to emotionally detach throughout. For shame! \n \n To explain the threadbare plot shouldn\u2019t take particularly long, even though the 100-minute running time of \u201cAfter Earth\u201d lasts around six years. Will Smith, as the delightfully named Cypher Raige, is a general in a futuristic army. He\u2019s human, a descendant of Earthlings forced to flee the planet because \u201cwe destroyed it,\u201d though the destruction seems to have been a mix of nuclear bombs, pollution, and natural disasters. 1,000 years later, everyone lives on a planet called Nova Prime, where things are pretty peachy except for the occasional Ursa monster, a predator that is utterly blind, able to hunt based solely upon the scent humans make when they\u2019re afraid. Cypher is FEARLESS, and thus doesn\u2019t secrete the \u201cfear\u201d pheromone, so he\u2019s able to waltz up to these Ursas and wallop them with impunity. He definitely gives them the ol\u2019 \u201cwhat for,\u201d I tell you. Look here, Ursa, there\u2019s a new sheriff in town, and this one can\u2019t be smelt. \n \n Also check out: The Films of M. Night Shyamalan, Ranked from Best to Worst \n \n Now, set aside your thinking cap for just a moment, the one that says, \u201cwell couldn\u2019t they wear airtight suits, or make a perfume, or use missiles, or mix fear smells with poisonous gas, or have robots punch all the Ursas, or use drones that existed a full millennium earlier to hunt the Ursa down, all while they snacked in front of a futuristic monitor?\u201d No! Put all of these thoughts right out of your head! \u201cAfter Earth\u201d has no time for your foolishness, because it\u2019s too busy getting Cypher and his son, Kitai (Jaden Smith, clearly typecast as Will\u2019s son) together for an adventure. Kitai wants to be a Ranger too, just like his dad, but he doesn\u2019t have the \u201cno fear\u201d part down yet, which would make him Ursa lunch, or dinner, depending on the time of day. \n \n Cypher and Kitai (coincidentally the name of my new CBS pilot) are having trouble connecting, because dad is always out stomping around, secreting nothing but machismo and Old Spice. To alleviate the growing distance between them, Cypher brings Kitai along on a training mission, that, you guessed it, goes horribly wrong. They are then marooned on Earth, and Cypher is hurt, leaving Kitai to perform a dangerous life-saving mission by his lonesome. He\u2019s got his dad to virtually lead him, using futuristic \u201cGo-Pro\u201d technology every step of the way, but he\u2019s going to have to prove he\u2019s got the right stuff, or else they are both, gulp, dead meat. \n \n That\u2019s not a terrible premise. Or rather, it\u2019s not a wholly terrible premise, there are good parts in there, like the father-son bonding, future Rangers, and men who have been named Cypher without any subtext whatsoever. Sadly, as soon as the action switches to Earth, around 20 minutes in, it\u2019s all doom from there on out. Little Kitai fights poisonous slugs, a giant bird, tigers, simians, and ultimately, ugh, himself. Along the way he\u2019ll have to prove he\u2019s every bit the man that dad is, even if dad happens to come off as a complete jerky jerk who raised a son that wouldn\u2019t be fit to deliver newspapers on a rainy day. Indeed, Kitai is the kid you\u2019d put in charge if you were working for Team Ursa, he has so many ways to fail that the scouts would label him a \u201cfive-fool player\u201d and draft him the first round of the \u201cnincompoop draft\u201d. \n \n Yes, Kitai is instantly unlikable, when he\u2019s not listening to his parents, he\u2019s proving he knows nothing about the world, and when he is tuning into what his father is saying, it\u2019s usually just so he can come back with a genius rejoinder such as, \u201cI can do it myself, Dad! I don\u2019t need your help!\u201d \n \n So, unlikable hero, a distant and disposable father-son bond, but surely the futuristic aspect of \u201cAfter Earth\u201d gets in there and salvages this thing, right? Well, no. Not at all. If anything it makes it so much worse, because when the action parts are playing out, riddled with logic problems, you find yourself pining for the quiet stupidity of an abusive dad and his ninny son. For instance, Kitai wears a fancy suit that alerts him to danger by turning black, or to toxins by turning white. Now, whatever you do, don\u2019t ask, \u201cwell, does it do something else besides turn color, like say put up a force field, or make him faster, or give him medicine, or maybe turn on an emergency jetpack, or provide a distraction to the predator, or camouflage him somewhat?\u201d No! Do not ask these things, for the suit has just turned white, ooooh, how impressive. Why, they\u2019ve stumbled onto the same lofty technology that the Coors guys use, to tell me when my beer is cold! \n \n Here\u2019s another example \u2013 the use of spears. Little Kitai Raige (Best band name ever) is sent out to fight thousands of predators with a mutable spear. Oh, it changes shapes, it can become a scythe, a sword, whatever sort of weapon you like, except for the one that would actually help, something along the lines of a machine gun. Can you imagine fighting off a pack of tiger-wolves with a freaking spear?! Or outrunning simians without anything resembling advanced technology? \u201cAfter Earth\u201d takes place in a time where we were able to figure out light speed and interstellar travel, but any weapon above \u201cSwiss Army Knife\u201d seems to outpace our ambition. That\u2019s \u201cAfter Earth\u201d for you, where nothing makes any sense at all, not the weaponry, the relationships, the antagonists, or the mission itself. It\u2019s astoundingly awful. \n \n Thankfully, once you\u2019ve gotten past the terrible logic and meaningless relationships, \u201cAfter Earth\u201d assaults you with a complete lack of tension. They are trying to kill this Kitai fellow off every ten minutes, only what are the chances of them doing just that? Especially 25 minutes in, when all the \u201caction\u201d commences? Everything in \u201cAfter Earth\u201d is arbitrary. Kitai must get to a transmitter because he needs to transmit. Cypher must not leave the ship himself because he\u2019s hurt, no one else an be around because they\u2019ve only got the one camera crew and so on, and so forth. He has exactly enough oxygen to finish the mission! Safety, each evening, is the exact distance he could plausibly reach! Cypher can man the computer interface 24/7 because he never needs bathroom breaks or food! And so on, and so forth, into the cold receding distance of irrelevance. \n \n The level to which \u201cAfter Earth\u201d is a catastrophe is amazing, but what\u2019s even more impressive is the lengths everyone must have had to gone to for such an epic level of failure. Everyone involved, from director M. Night Shyamalan all the way down to Jaden Smith is culpable, and truly capable of so much better. \u201cAfter Earth\u201d shouldn\u2019t be seen on this planet, and if we ever discover new ones, habitable ones, we should take steps to make sure it\u2019s never shown there either, just in case. \n \n SCORE: 1.2 / 10 \n \n Laremy wrote the book on film criticism and thinks Shamalan\u2019s best movie is actually \u201cUnbreakable\u201d. \n \n Categories: Reviews \n \n Tags: After Earth ||||| \u2018May cause extreme drowsiness\u2019\u2019 reads the flashing warning on a pain killer that Will Smith takes after breaking both legs in his new movie \u2014 a caution that applies equally to \u201cAfter Earth.\u2019\u2019 \n \n Basically, this is Smith and his real-life son, Jaden (both affecting ridiculous mid-Atlantic accents) talking the audience to death for something like 90 minutes before the closing credits. \n \n I\u2019m giving it one star because Smith\u2019s longtime enablers at Sony apparently encouraged him to whittle this humorless sci-fi epic down from a much longer movie. \n \n The back story in the opening narration \u2014 Earth\u2019s evacuation following a vague environmental catastrophe \u2014 is boiled down to a couple of sentences. \n \n A thousand years later, Smith is the aptly named Cypher, a general in the United Ranger Corps, the military arm of the former Earthlings who have settled on a distant planet and produced exceedingly dull descendants. \n \n On the verge of retirement, Cypher decides to take his 14-year-old son, Kitai, along on his last mission. \n \n The two have a frosty relationship because, we\u2019re told, Kitai blames his frequently absent dad for his sister\u2019s death. I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact Cypher wears a perpetual scowl probably doesn\u2019t help things. \n \n A meteor shower forces their spacecraft to crash land on Earth, where Cypher and son are the only survivors in a hostile environment. \n \n \u201cDo exactly as I tell you, and we will survive!\u2019\u2019 the disabled Cypher barks at Kitai in an order that would probably sound better if papa Smith had delivered it as a rap lyric. \n \n Most of the film consists of Kitai traveling miles on foot to recover a rescue beacon, and then, even less interestingly, trying to find the intergalactic equivalent of a cellphone signal. \n \n There are exactly two action sequences \u2014 brief pursuit by what look like deranged orangutans, and a climactic battle with a badly executed special effect that\u2019s supposed to represent a deadly extraterrestrial. \n \n Eleven years and several progressively more dreadful movies after \u201cSigns,\u2019\u2019 director M. Night Shyamalan would be lucky to get a gig directing traffic. \n \n His work on this reported $150 million vanity project manages to generate no suspense or excitement. Only yawns. \n \n Will Smith, who co-produced with assorted family members, also contributed the vaguely \n \n L. Ron Hubbard-ish story, for what is laughably described in the press notes as a \u201cfranchise.\u2019\u2019 \n \n The erstwhile box-office king, who appears to be suffering from delusions of grandeur in recent years, really should stick to his day job. \n \n Separating father and son for most of the film certainly limits the dramatic possibilities. What\u2019s more, while Jaden Smith pulled off the remake of \u201cThe Karate Kid,\u2019\u2019 he\u2019s not quite a good enough actor (or sufficiently charismatic) to hold the screen by himself in scene after scene. \n \n We\u2019re left to ponder how Earth remains so green and leafy when the temperatures drop below freezing every night, or why all that plant life can\u2019t supply sufficient oxygen so that Kitai doesn\u2019t have to rely on an imperiled supply of inhalers. \n \n He is able to receive Dad\u2019s overbearing self-help lectures via a communication device \u2014 which, like all the 31st-century technology on view, is surprisingly more fragile than anything you could buy at the Apple store these days. \n \n \u201cFear is not real, it is a production of your imagination!\u2019\u2019 Cypher exhorts Kitai. \u201cDanger is very real but fear is a choice!\u2019\u2019 \n \n And so is avoiding the crashing bore that is \u201cAfter Earth.\u2019\u2019 \n \n Follow @LouLumenick on Twitter for the latest movie news and reviews.", "summary": "\u2013 Are you a huge fan of sci-fi adventure epics? Do you insist on seeing every movie Will Smith makes? Are you one of the last remaining M. Night Shyamalan fans? Well, then we have some bad news, because After Earth appears to be a train wreck of epic proportions. But if you just love reading snarky movie reviews, then the news is good indeed. Here's what people are saying: \"Is After Earth the worst movie ever made?\" asks Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal. Heck, \"it doesn't seem like a movie at all, but a sermon.\" Will Smith's character endlessly pontificates at his son, uttering his \"almost literally unspeakable dialogue\" very .... very .... slowly \u2026 for \u2026 some \u2026 reason. \"I've never seen a movie that moves so slowly, or takes itself so seriously.\" By the end \"you\u2019re actively cheering for a teenage kid to get eaten by a tiger,\" writes Laremy Legel at Film.com. \"I didn't plan to feel this way \u2026 but you did this to me, After Earth,\" by making your characters so horrifically unlikeable\u2014one's a jerk, the other's a \"nincompoop.\" The story, meanwhile, \"stupefies us with nonsense, such little thought and logic went into this idea that it can\u2019t even be considered a rough draft.\" Lou Lumenick at the New York Post gives it one star, and it's only getting that much \"because Smith's longtime enablers at Sony apparently encouraged him to whittle this humorless sci-fi epic down from a much longer movie.\" Even now, the movie is likely to put you to sleep. After this (and his last decade of duds), \"director M. Night Shyamalan would be lucky to get a gig directing traffic.\" But Dana Stevens at Slate cuts the film a tiny amount of slack. \"Once you accept the elemental simplicity of After Earth\u2019s plot ... you can stop resenting the movie for all the things it\u2019s not (a rollicking summer actioner, a typical Shyamalan twist-based narrative),\" she writes. And \"there's a compelling creepiness to this quasi-mythical quest tale.\" But Jaden Smith simply isn't ready to \"carry an entire action movie on his slender shoulders.\""}
{"document": "North Korea KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles on display during a military parade on May 31, 2016. A new ICBM could be put on show on April 15, according to a South Korean press report. File Photo by KCNA. \n \n April 7 (UPI) -- North Korea is expected to stage a massive military parade on April 15, and possibly use the event to showcase its latest weapons, including a new intercontinental ballistic missile, according to South Korean officials. \n \n The parade will commemorate the 105th birth anniversary of founder Kim Il Sung. \n \n The weapons display could be a low-key way for North Korea to show the world it is ready for war, without launching new projectiles, officials in Seoul said, according to local television network MBC. \n \n Satellite images of the country indicate North Korea is preparing for a large-scale parade at Mirim Airport in Pyongyang, the report stated. \n \n More events are expected on April 25, when the country celebrates the founding of the Korean People's Army. \n \n But the anniversary on April 15 is expected to be symbolically important. North Korea has already publicized the parade to foreign press outlets and tour groups, according to MBC. \n \n In previous parades, North Korea unveiled new missile models, including the KN-09 300-mm Artillery Rocket, the KN-08 ICBM, the KN-14 and nuclear backpacks. \n \n The backpacks were strapped to marching North Korean soldiers in a past parade and could be used to spray radioactive material, according to experts. \n \n North Korea belligerence, however, has been accompanied by increased emphasis on reconciliation with the South following the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, the former president. \n \n On Friday a pro-North Korea newspaper in Japan reported on a women's ice hockey tournament in the South, where teams from the two Koreas faced off on Thursday in a match where the South Korean team won 3-0. \n \n The Choson Sinbo described the atmosphere at the rink as \"reminiscent of the June 15 unification period,\" a reference to a declaration signed by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2000. \n \n The statement from the paper run by North Korea's de facto embassy in Japan is believed to be a sign North Korea is interested in boosting civic exchange ahead of South Korea presidential elections on May 9. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. \n \n / Updated By William M. Arkin, Cynthia McFadden, Kevin Monahan and Robert Windrem \n \n The National Security Council has presented President Donald Trump with options to respond to North Korea's nuclear program \u2014 including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un, multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials told NBC News. \n \n Both scenarios are part of an accelerated review of North Korea policy prepared in advance of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. \n \n The White House hopes the Chinese will do more to influence Pyongyang through diplomacy and enhanced sanctions. But if that fails, and North Korea continues its development of nuclear weapons, there are other options on the table that would significantly alter U.S. policy. \n \n The first and most controversial course of action under consideration is placing U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. The U.S. withdrew all nuclear weapons from South Korea 25 years ago. Bringing back bombs \u2014 likely to Osan Air Base, less than 50 miles south of the capital of Seoul \u2014 would mark the first overseas nuclear deployment since the end of the Cold War, an unquestionably provocative move. \n \n \"We have 20 years of diplomacy and sanctions under our belt that has failed to stop the North Korean program,\" one senior intelligence official involved in the review told NBC News. \"I\u2019m not advocating pre-emptive war, nor do I think that the deployment of nuclear weapons buys more for us than it costs,\" but he stressed that the U.S. was dealing with a \"war today\" situation. He doubted that Chinese and American interests coincided closely enough to find a diplomatic solution. \n \n An undated file photograph released by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un overseeing Korean People's Army military exercise in Pyongyang, North Korea. KCNA/EPA/REX/Shutterstock / Shutterstock \n \n \"I don\u2019t think that [deploying nuclear weapons] is a good idea. I think that it will only inflame the view from Pyongyang,\" retired Adm. James Stavridis told NBC News. \"I don't see any upside to it because the idea that we would use a nuclear weapon even against North Korea is highly unlikely.\" \n \n Two military sources told NBC News that Air Force leadership doesn't necessarily support putting nuclear weapons in South Korea. As an alternative, it's been practicing long-range strikes with strategic bombers \u2014 sending them to the region for exercises and deploying them in Guam and on the peninsula as a show of force. \n \n Mark Lippert, the former U.S, ambassador to South Korea, said nuclear deployment there is a concept that's been embraced by a growing number of Koreans. \n \n \"Some polls put it at well over 50 percent,\" he said. \"It's something that's being debated, and support for it over time, at least at this point, is climbing.\" \n \n Still, he thinks it's a bad idea, undermining the U.S. objective of a nuclear-free zone and \"South Korea's moral authority toward de-nuclearization of the peninsula.\" \n \n A woman walks past a television screen showing file footage of a North Korean missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul on April 5, 2017. Jung Yeon-Je / AFP - Getty Images \n \n Another option is to target and kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and other senior leaders in charge of the country's missiles and nuclear weapons and decision-making. Adopting such an objective has huge downsides, said Lippert, who also served as an assistant defense secretary under President Barack Obama. \n \n \"Discussions of regime change and decapitation...tend to cause the Chinese great pause of concern and tends to have them move in the opposite direction we would like them to move in terms of pressure,\" he said. \n \n Stavridis, a former NATO commander, said that \"decapitation is always a tempting strategy when you're faced with a highly unpredictable and highly dangerous leader.\" \n \n \"The question you have to ask yourself,\" he said, \"is what happens the day after you decapitate? I think that in North Korea, it's an enormous unknown.\" \n \n A third option is covert action, infiltrating U.S. and South Korean special forces into North Korea to sabotage or take out key infrastructure \u2014 for instance, blowing up bridges to block the movement of mobile missiles. The CIA, which would oversee such operations, told NBC News it could offer \"no guidance\" on this option. But Stavridis said that he felt it was the \"best strategy\" should the U.S. be forced to take military action. He described such action as: \"some combination of special forces with South Korea and cyber.\" \n \n Last year, South Korea announced the creation of a special operations unit called Spartan 3000 to operate behind enemy frontlines inside North Korea. \n \n Trump has already indicated he's open to unilateral action if China fails to rein in its ally, telling the Financial Times over the weekend, \"If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.\" \n \n But on Wednesday, Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that \"any solution to the North Korea problem has to involve China.\" He said that while his job was to present \"military options\" to the White House, he finds it \"hard ... to see a solution without China.\" \n \n Related: Defense Secretary Says North Korea 'Has Got to be Stopped' \n \n Still, military exercises and simulations focused on North Korea have been getting larger and more complex in recent years. In 2017 alone, these exercises have included; \n \n \"Key Resolve,\" a command post exercise held in March \n \n \"Foal Eagle,\" a peninsula-wide mobilization and logistics exercise underway now, \n \n An anti-submarine exercise taking place this month, part of the \"Silent Shark\" series. \n \n \"Nimble Titan,\" a gigantic multinational missile defense synchronization experiment last month. \n \n And last month, the Army announced that it would permanently station its version of the armed Predator \u2014 called Gray Eagle \u2014 on the Korean Peninsula. That follows an exercise last summer in which hunter-killer Reaper drones practiced the mock destruction of North Korean mobile missile launchers. \n \n Since North Korea\u2019s first successful nuclear test in 2009, the United States has adopted a strategy to \"slow, stop, and defeat\" the North\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile pursuits. That ranges from interdiction of supplies to interception of a ballistic missile actually in the air. \n \n The Trump White House, through the National Security Council, asked for blue sky options in early February, a senior official told NBC on background. \"Think big,\" the official said that the agencies were instructed. Many proposals have already been abandoned, but on the military side, sources say, the three options with the highest impact still constitute the next steps. \n \n \"It is absolutely appropriate,\" Stavridis said, for all contingencies to be considered. \"In fact, it's mandatory for the Pentagon to present the widest possible array of options. That's what enables presidents to make the right decisions, when they see all the options on the table in front of them.\" ||||| NORTH Korea is ready to deliver the \u201cmost ruthless blow\u201d if provoked by the United States, its ambassador to Moscow said overnight, after US President Donald Trump pledged to keep building up defences against Pyongyang. \n \n \u201cOur army has already said that if there will be even the smallest provocation from the United States during exercises, we are ready to deliver the most ruthless blow,\u201d Interfax news agency quoted ambassador Kim Hyong-Jun as saying. \n \n \u201cWe have the readiness and ability to counter any challenge from the US,\u201d he was quoted as saying. \n \n Mr Trump on Wednesday pledged to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the US would \u201ccontinue to strengthen its ability to deter and defend itself and its allies with the full range of its military capabilities,\u201d a day after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan (East Sea). \n \n North Korea\u2019s foreign ministry on Monday assailed Washington for its tough talk and for an ongoing joint military exercise with South Korea and Japan which Pyongyang sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion. \n \n The \u201creckless actions\u201d are driving the tense situation on the Korean peninsula \u201cto the brink of a war\u201d, a ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency. \n \n The idea that the US could deprive Pyongyang of its \u201cnuclear deterrent\u201d through sanctions is \u201cthe wildest dream\u201d, it said. \n \n The US military said on Tuesday that nuclear-armed North Korea had fired a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan but that it did not represent a threat to North America. \n \n Pyongyang is on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.", "summary": "\u2013 President Trump may be considering putting American nuclear missiles in South Korea\u2014or even assassinating Kim Jong-un. Military and intelligence officials tell NBC News the National Security Council has presented Trump with options on responding to North Korea's refusal to curtail its nuclear program. The options all represent big changes in US foreign policy. The US removed its nukes from South Korea 25 years ago; putting them back would be the first time US nuclear weapons were located overseas since the Cold War. Another option\u2014apart from the assassination of North Korea's leader\u2014is sneaking special forces into North Korea to sabotage its nuclear program and abilities. The options would be considered if China doesn't successfully put more pressure on North Korea. And one intelligence official tells NBC he doesn't see a diplomatic solution forthcoming. Trump has vowed to keep building defenses against North Korea, prompting a North Korean ambassador to threaten the \"most ruthless blow\" if the country is provoked, News.com.au reports. \u201cWe have the readiness and ability to counter any challenge from the US,\u201d Kim Hyong-Jun says. Meanwhile, South Korean officials say North Korea appears ready to unveil a new intercontinental ballistic missile during a huge military parade planned for April 15, according to UPI."}
{"document": "MOUNT Etna is one of the most active and destructive volcanoes in the world - having wiped out entire villages after shooting lava and ash hundreds of feet into the air. \n \n We examine Europe's tallest active volcano and look at where it is based, when it last erupted, and why it's sliding into the Mediterranean. \n \n Rex Features 2 Etna regularly erupts, spewing lava and ash up into the sky \n \n Where is Mount Etna? \n \n The volcano Mount Etna sits on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy. \n \n It is set between the cities of Messina and Catania and lies between the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. \n \n Towering Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and stands at a staggering 3,329m - making it the highest peak in Italy south of the Alps. \n \n Etna is also by far the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy and roughly two and a half times the height of the second largest Mount Vesuvius. \n \n Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is an almost constant state of activity. \n \n The fertile soil around the volcano allows for extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across its lower slopes. \n \n The volcano was added to a list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2013. \n \n AFP - Getty 2 Mount Etna in Sicily is edging 14mm closer to the sea every year \n \n When did did the volcano last erupt? \n \n Mount Etna's most severe recent eruption was on March 16, 2017, when ten people including a BBC news crew were injured. \n \n A further eruption in August 2018 sent plumes of ash and lava spewing in the air but no evacuations or injuries were reported. \n \n The volcano is active and still erupts because of its position between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, as well as the fault between the African and lonian micoplate. \n \n The lonian plate is tilted backward - allowing space for mantle magna to well up to the surface. \n \n Volcano explorer flies drone camera over Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy \n \n Is Etna sliding into the sea and could it cause a tsunami? \n \n Scientists say the giant volcano is edging closer to the Mediterranean Sea by 14mm every year, which could result in \"devastating\" consequences. \n \n The movement has been put down to underlying platform of weak, pliable sediments. \n \n Open University geologist Dr John Murray believes this is the first sliding of this magnitude to be recorded. \n \n Writing in the Bulletin of Volcanology, he wrote: there was \"strong geological evidence\" of sliding have a natural tendency to result in \"large catastrophic sector collapse\" and \"devastating consequences\" such as a tsunami. \n \n Research published in Science Advances in 2018 showed a \"slow landslide\" taking place that could could accelerate and move fast into the sea. \n \n Speaking to the Independent, Dr Morelia Urlaub from Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research said they had been monitoring Etna on shore for 30 years - just a fraction of the mount's age. \n \n About the landslide she said: \u201cIt could happen in 10 or 100 or 100,000 years \u2013 we can\u2019t tell.\u201d \n \n MOST READ NEWS SHRIEK-END Britain to endure 65mph gales and rain - while 6in of snow threatens road chaos RACE AGAINST TIME Mum's lifesaving surgery CANCELLED after bank blocked \u00a3250k payment HUNT FOR ANSWERS Sala search to RESUME after Messi & stars raise \u00a3200k for private jet GOODBYE JULEN Boy, 2, found dead after 250ft well plunge arrives at funeral home SLASH AND BURN Tesco set to 'axe 15k jobs and close deli counters in massive staff cull' SUSPICIOUS MINDS Elvis is ALIVE and his corpse was wax dummy, wacky theory claims \n \n What other eruptions of Mount Etna have taken place? \n \n Etna's most destructive eruption took place in March 1669 and produced lava flows that destroyed at least 10 villages on its southern flank. \n \n The lava reached the walls of the city of Catania five weeks later on April 15. \n \n An eruption in 1928 was the first time a population a centre had been destroyed by Etna since 1169. \n \n The village of Mascali was almost completely destroyed in two days. \n \n In 1971 the Etna Observatory destroyed the first generation of the Etna cable car. \n \n Between 2002 and 2003 a series of activity threw up a huge column of ash that could be seen from space. \n \n It fell as far away as Libya - 370miles from Sicily. \n \n Through January 2011 to February 2012 Etna experience intense activity and erupted frequently, causing Catania airport to be closed on several occasions. \n \n We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours. ||||| Mount Etna, Europe\u2019s largest and most active volcano, is slowly sliding towards the Mediterranean Sea, scientists have observed. \n \n The entire 3,350m (11,000ft) stratovolcano, located on the east coast of the Italian island of Sicily, is currently moving downslope at an average rate of 14 mm per year - or 1.4 metres over 100 years. \n \n Experts have warned the sliding could eventually lead to greater risk of large scale slope failure, which could trigger landslides, however researchers at The Open University emphasised there is currently no sign of that happening. \n \n Dr John Murray, lead author of the paper published in the Bulletin of Volcanology, stressed the minute movement currently posed no danger to life, but warned that monitoring the volcano for more significant changes was crucial. \n \n \u201cAt the moment there is no cause for concern from the sliding of the volcano towards the sea, the movement is just too small,\u201d Dr Murray told The Telegraph. \u201cHowever, the possibility of things changing in the future needs to be taken seriously, so it is important to keep monitoring the movement.\u201d ||||| Our results are broadly similar to GPS data published by other workers (Bonaccorso et al. 2006, 2011; Bonforte et al. 2008), bearing in mind that slightly different time periods are involved, and different base stations used. They are also similar to measurements of deformation in the period 1993\u20132000 between the major flank eruptions of 1991\u20131993 and 2001 (Bonaccorso et al. 2011; Bonforte et al. 2011). In every case, there is strong asymmetry in displacement vector magnitudes, much longer deformation vectors occurring to the ESE, and the vectors do not radiate from the summit, but from points to the WNW of it. InSAR is a useful technique that complements GPS measurements, but InSAR data are blind to the north-south component of movement, due to satellite configurations, so cannot be used to measure displacement vector length nor direction, but only the east-west component of movement. Solaro et al. (2010) have a table of east-west displacements which covers the period 2003\u20132008, taking a station in Catania as stable, though actually this is in the unstable SE sector of Etna and might be subject to local fault movement. Nonetheless, it is clear from their data that east flank stations show persistently eastward movement between 2003 and 2008, whereas the west flank stations show generally smaller movements with no overall trend eastwards between major flank eruptions. \n \n 2008 2008 7 Open image in new window It would be interesting to know what happens during periods of horizontal contraction instead of expansion: does Etna continue to slide during periods of deflation? Unfortunately there are no periods of contraction in any of the inter-eruptive periods we are considering. Some episodes of horizontal contraction have occurred outside these inter-eruptive periods, e.g., during the period July 2004 to July 2005, interpreted by Bonforte et al. () as a deflation associated with the 2004 eruption that occurred during this interval. The 2004 eruption was noteworthy for the generally small amounts of deformation, behaving like a summit eruption in that respect, so can be regarded as similar to an inter-eruptive period. If we subtract the sliding vector from Bonforte et al.\u2019s () published data (Fig.), it is clear that horizontal contraction has indeed occurred all around the summit, with vectors pointing towards the summit, the eruption site, and the area of subsidence on the north flank. Like the period 2008\u20132012, also seen is clear displacement associated with the well-known areas of local faulting, particularly the Pernicana fault, where a small left-lateral displacement averaging 4 cm has taken place, though this movement diminishes with distance from the fault. \n \n Dozens of short explosive summit eruptions occurred in the period 2011\u20132012, when a new summit cone adjacent to the Southeast Crater was formed (Behncke et al. 2014). Deformation related to magma movements associated with these eruptions included periods of contraction, notably in 2011, but this was small: of the order of 5 ppm (Patan\u00e9 et al. 2013) and it has not affected the overall dilation between 2008 and 2012 (Fig. 2c). \n \n Regarding the relationship between eruptive fracturing and basement sliding, geophysical measurements confirm that intrusions take place within the volcanic edifice (Sanderson 1982; Murray and Pullen 1984; Bonaccorso 1996; Bonaccorso et al. 2002; Aloisi et al. 2003, 2009) whereas the uniformity and direction of the basement sliding are consistent with it taking place in the ductile sediments below the base of the volcanic pile. However, it is likely that the basement sliding will have an influence, for example on the position and orientation of the eruptive fractures, due to changes in the stress field at the volcano/basement interface, brought about by sliding. \n \n The sloping model basement used in the laboratory analogue model is planar, in contrast to the Etna basement surface which is an almost horizontal plateau surface beneath the NW flanks, with a 17-km wide horseshoe-shaped depression scooped out of the eastern and southeastern sector (Neri and Rossi 2002; Norini and Acocella 2011; Branca and Ferrara 2013), that reaches a depth of about 400 m, and includes the summit craters, which lie about 1 km inside its northeastern edge. The overall slope of the basement is towards the ESE, and Fig. 6b shows a WNW-ESE section through the volcano showing the basement topography, compared to the model planar substratum (Fig. 6a). However, the present basement of Etna is the end product of tens of thousands of years of gravitational spreading (Borgia et al. 1992), and of conduit formation below the summit. At the end of our laboratory experiment, the silicon putty basement also had a pronounced valley downslope from the summit, caused by the basement sagging under the weight of the sand volcano, as is the case with all such experiments (Merle and Borgia 1996; Acocella et al. 2013b). The effect of a different starting basement slope angle is demonstrated in Wooller et al. (2004). On Etna, the sedimentary basement outcrops near Vena, 700 m above sea level on the NE flank, and the Pernicana Fault displaces both the sedimentary basement and the volcanic superstructure (Neri et al. 2004), so it is highly likely that the basement is involved in the sliding, which will have modified its original surface. \n \n Regarding the cause of the component of radial expansion between eruptions, we have used two different models. One simulates a magmatic inflation on a sliding basement (Fig. 4) in which the component of radial expansion is the direct result of magma pressure, and the other gravitational spreading on a shallow slope (Fig. 6) in which radial expansion is caused by the volcano deforming under its own weight (Borgia et al. 1992; Borgia 1994). Both models reproduce the main features of Etna\u2019s horizontal deformation; it remains to be seen which of the two processes is dominant. In this paper, we have only considered horizontal movements; adding the vertical component of movements could help discriminate the two models. Our model demonstrates that if inflation of a magma chamber is causing the dilation of Etna, then the chamber is directly beneath the summit, rather than WNW of it as suggested by previous authors (Nunnari & Puglisi 1994; Puglisi et al. 2004; Bonaccorso et al. 2011). \n \n This is the first time that current persistent basement sliding of the entire edifice has been detected and measured on an active volcano. These results are important because there is strong geological evidence that volcanoes that have slid downslope in this manner have a propensity to experience very large catastrophic sector collapse on the downslope side later in their history, as at Socompa, Chile (Wooller et al. 2004), and at Colima, Mexico, which is situated on the steep slopes of the larger, older Nevado da Colima (Cort\u00e9s et al. 2010). Such events are rare, occurring about four times a century worldwide (Siebert 1992), but have devastating consequences, so the possibility of future occurrences needs to be taken seriously, both at Etna and other volcanoes. It has already been suggested that a sloping substrate may be presently playing a major role at two other volcanoes. Teide volcano, Tenerife, is built upon a 5\u00b0 sloping clay-rich substratum and has evidence of downslope movement (Marquez et al. 2009), and slow sliding or spreading is taking place at Piton des Neiges volcano, which may have been a contributory factor to the large flank collapse events at Piton de la Fournaise volcano (Le Friant et al. 2011), built upon its flanks (Upton and Wadsworth 1965). Colima volcano is also showing signs of downslope movement (Murray 1993; Murray and Wooller 2002), which may result in another sector collapse, which has already occurred at least five times on this volcano (Cort\u00e8s et al. 2010). \n \n Regarding possible future major slope failure at Etna, this has been discussed many times following an episode in the 1980s when a 2-km sector of the upper eastern flank of Etna began subsiding at an accelerating rate, some levelling stations attaining nearly 2 m of subsidence before stabilizing. Tilting of stations at Pizzi Deneri and Citelli between 1980 and 1987 suggested that much of the NE flank of the volcano was affected (Murray et al. 1994). There were small local slope failures during east flank eruptions in 1986, but the feared catastrophic sector collapse did not occur. These events inspired the E.U.-funded multi-disciplinary EPOCH project 1990\u20131993 on slope stability at Etna. More recently, the Italian national FLANK project, also on flank instability at Etna (Acocella et al. 2013a), has revived interest in slope failure. The EPOCH project emphasized the importance of gravitational spreading and slope metastability/intrusion interaction (Borgia et al. 1992; Murray et al. 1994) on potential slope failure, whereas the FLANK project looked at a wide range of factors such as degassing (Federico et al. 2011), faulting (Bonaccorso et al. 2013), intrusions and extensional tectonics (Bonaccorso et al. 2011; Norini and Acocella (2011). Poland et al. (2017), summarizing knowledge of volcano instability worldwide, and particularly at Etna, Kilauea, and Piton de la Fournaise, propose two principal driving forces: gravitational spreading, which dominates at Kilauea, and magmatic activity, which dominates at Etna and Piton de la Fournaise. \n \n We would suggest that basement gravitational sliding is a third force, though it is as yet unclear what part this plays in relation to events and mechanisms discussed in the previous paragraph. The sliding identified in this paper is a slow precursive phenomenon, likely to be important over very long time scales, which may eventually prime the edifice for a major collapse and confine it to one preferential direction. Such large edifice-wide events may include large amounts of substrata, like at the Heart Mountain slide, Wyoming (Anders et al. 2011). \n \n Such an event is likely to be triggered by a large, brief event of an intrusive or seismic nature (Bonaccorso et al. 2013), perhaps aided by hydrothermal weakening, for which there is some evidence at the present time (Behncke et al. 2008; Liotta et al. 2010). Such a scenario has also been invoked for the Heart Mountain slide (Mitchell et al. 2015). \n \n However, the low velocity of sliding, amounting to 1.4 m per century at present, is at least four orders of magnitude lower than that observed prior to the Mount St Helens event (Voight et al. 1983). Failure is likely to be preceded in the short term by a progressive acceleration in downslope movement (Voight and Cornelius 1991; Murray et al. 1994). This could be missed if data are interpreted without allowing for the effect presented here. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Etna is a big draw for scientists and tourists because of its constant fiery rumblings \n \n Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, is sliding towards the sea. \n \n Scientists have established that the whole structure on the Italian island of Sicily is edging in the direction of the Mediterranean at a rate of 14mm per year. \n \n The UK-led team says the situation will need careful monitoring because it may lead to increased hazards at Etna in the future. \n \n The group has published its findings in the Bulletin of Volcanology. \n \n \"I would say there is currently no cause for alarm, but it is something we need to keep an eye on, especially to see if there is an acceleration in this motion,\" lead author Dr John Murray told BBC News. \n \n The Open University geologist has spent almost half a century studying Europe's premier volcano. \n \n In that time, he has placed a network of high-precision GPS stations around the mountain to monitor its behaviour. \n \n This instrumentation is sensitive to millimetric changes in the shape of the volcanic cone; and with 11 years of data it is now obvious, he says, that the mountain is moving in an east-south-east direction, on a general track towards the coastal town of Giarre, which is about 15km away. \n \n Essentially, Etna is sliding down a very gentle slope of 1-3 degrees. This is possible because it is sitting on an underlying platform of weak, pliable sediments. \n \n Dr Murray's team has conducted lab experiments to illustrate how this works. The group believes it is the first time that basement sliding of an entire active volcano has been directly observed. \n \n Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mount Etna is close to the east coast of Sicily \n \n On the human scale, a movement of 14mm/yr - that is 1.4m over a hundred years - will seem very small, and it is. But geological investigations elsewhere in the world have shown that extinct volcanoes that display this kind of trend can suffer catastrophic failures on their leading flank as they drift downslope. \n \n Stresses can build up that lead eventually to devastating landslides. \n \n Dr Murray and colleagues stress such behaviour is very rare and can take many centuries, even thousands of years, to develop to a critical stage. \n \n Certainly, there is absolutely no evidence that this is about to happen at Etna. Local residents should not be alarmed, the Open University scientist said. \n \n \"The 14mm/yr is an average; it varies from year to year,\" he explained. \n \n \"The thing to watch I guess is if in 10 years' time the rate of movement has doubled - that would be a warning. If it's halved, I'd say there really is nothing to worry about.\" \n \n Of more immediate concern is the confounding effect this sliding could have for the day-to-day assessment of the volcano. \n \n Scientists get hints that eruptive activity is about to occur when magma bulges upwards and deforms the shape of the mountain. To gain an unambiguous view of this inflation, researchers will need to subtract the general E-S-E motion. \n \n Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos", "summary": "\u2013 Europe's biggest and most active volcano is sliding into the Mediterranean Sea and could suffer catastrophic failure one day\u2014even if that day is far away, the BBC reports. Scientists who studied Mount Etna on the Italian island of Sicily say it is sliding just over half an inch annually thanks to weak sediment and a modest slope of 1-to-3 degrees. Moving east-south-east, Etna should reach the coastal town of Giarre nine miles away in just over a million years. Of greater concern: Etna could endure catastrophic failure on her lead flank, as experts have seen in extinct volcanoes that went adrift. \"I would say there is currently no cause for alarm, but it is something we need to keep an eye on, especially to see if there is an acceleration in this motion,\" says lead author John Murray. \"Around one million people live on Etna and its immediate surroundings, so the destruction of property and loss of life could be catastrophic,\" says Murray, per the Telegraph. \"Clearly even the mention of such a dangerous event would be very unnerving for the people who live on Etna, so I am anxious that they don't get the wrong impression.\" Murray suggests measuring Etna's slide in 10 years to see if it has doubled\u2014which \"would be a warning,\" he notes. His team's 11-year study marks the first time experts have seen an entire active volcano sliding on its base. Standing nearly 11,000 feet high between the cities of Catania and Messina, Etna spewed lava three times over just three weeks last March, the Sun reports. (Another volcano's eruption recently \"annihilated\" a mountain peak.)"}
{"document": "Italian prosecutors have filed an appeal against the acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of the British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia. \n \n Knox and Sollecito were initially handed 26- and 25-year sentences for the fatal stabbing of Kercher, who was found partially clothed with her neck slashed in her apartment in November 2007. \n \n The pair were acquitted on appeal last October after a court ruled that Knox had been pressured to make compromising statements during interrogation and that key DNA evidence was poorly handled. \n \n Under Italian law, both prosecutors and the accused have the right to take cases to a second appeal at Italy's supreme court, and the filing on Tuesday was expected. Depositing the 111-page appeal, the prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola said: \"I immediately had the feeling that the appeal decision was profoundly unjust and now I am convinced that it should be annulled.\" \n \n A local drifter, Rudy Guede, was given a definitive conviction in a separate trial for his role in the murder. \n \n Reacting to news of the appeal, Sollecito said: \"This is a story that never ends. For me it's a real torment which has lasted for four years.\" \n \n The supreme court will not reconsider evidence and cannot convict but will examine whether correct legal procedures were followed. Should it decide procedures were violated, it will order a retrial. \n \n Prosecutors have previously questioned whether the appeal court was within its rights to order the review of DNA evidence that proved crucial to the acquittal. \n \n Carlo dalla Vedova, a lawyer representing Knox, said: \"Hypothetically speaking, should there be a new hearing, it would be held in Florence. But I doubt the supreme court will rule before the end of 2012. Then you would need months to fix a new hearing and neither the supreme court nor the court in Florence could order the defendants to be taken into custody before a final verdict, which would be three to four years from now.\" \n \n Knox moved back to her home town in Seattle after serving four years in jail in Perugia. Asked whether she could be extradited from the US should a new trial find her guilty, Dalla Vedova said: \"There is an extradition treaty between Italy and the US which is automatic for Italian citizens, but in the case of US citizens you would need approval from the US government.\" \n \n Knox has launched an appeal of her own against the three-year sentence she received for initially claiming that a local barman, Patrick Lumumba, was in the house the night Kercher was killed. Lumumba was arrested and then released when his alibi stood up. Knox's sentence was upheld on appeal although she was freed having already served the time. \n \n Knox is still on trial in Italy charged with falsely claiming that Italian police hit her during her interrogation. ||||| ROME \u2014 Italian prosecutors filed an appeal to the country\u2019s highest court on Tuesday seeking a new trial for Amanda Knox of Seattle and her onetime boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in the fatal stabbing of a British student in Perugia, Italy . \n \n The appeal was filed four months after an appellate court overturned the 2009 convictions of Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito, in the murder of Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student found dead in November 2007 in the apartment she shared with Ms. Knox. \n \n The appeal had been expected as part of the appeals in the Italian justice system, which could stretch out for some time. If it is granted, prosecutors could retry Ms. Knox in absentia, if necessary, and she could ultimately face extradition if convicted. But her lawyers dismissed that outcome as highly unlikely. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re not considering that possibility; for us she has been acquitted,\u201d said one of her lawyers, Luciano Ghirga. \u201cThat\u2019s how the system works, but for us it\u2019s a hypothesis far into the future.\u201d \n \n Carlo Dalla Vedova, who also represents Ms. Knox, denounced reviving the case, saying it would \u201creopen painful wounds\u201d and again draw attention to a sensational tale of sex and violence. \u201cI am sorry for the two kids,\u201d he said of Ms. Knox, 24, who moved back to her hometown, Seattle, after her release from prison, and Mr. Sollecito, 27, who has been living in southern Italy. \n \n \u201cBut I am especially sorry for Meredith Kercher; silence would have been better,\u201d he said by telephone. \n \n Speaking to reporters in Perugia on Tuesday, the prosecutors Giovanni Galati and Giancarlo Costagliola said they remained convinced that Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito were guilty of the killing, the news agency ANSA reported. And they challenged the October decision to overturn the conviction, arguing that it was \u201cfull of errors,\u201d ANSA reported. \n \n In their original case against Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito, prosecutors suggested that the killing was the result of a drug-fueled game of rough sex gone awry, involving a reluctant victim, the two defendants and a third man, an Ivorian living in Perugia, Rudy Guede. The seminaked body of Ms. Kercher was found under a duvet, her throat slit, in the house the women shared. \n \n After two appeals, Mr. Guede was found guilty in 2010 of participating in a homicide and is serving a 16-year sentence. \n \n While the prosecutors won convictions of Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito in the original case, serious questions were raised about the prosecutor\u2019s theory of the crime and the quality of the evidence. After an independent review cast doubt on the DNA evidence, the appellate court ruled that the prosecution\u2019s case no longer stood up. \n \n The Supreme Court will not hear new evidence, ruling only on the appeal presented by the prosecution and whether or not proper legal procedures have been followed, Mr. Dalla Vedova said. \n \n Last week, Ms. Knox\u2019s defense also filed its appeal in the same case, asking the Supreme Court to overthrow her conviction on slander charges, which was upheld by the appellate court last October. Ms. Knox was found guilty of falsely accusing her former employer, the barman Patrick Lumumba, of being at her apartment on the night that Ms. Kercher was killed. He was arrested but later released. Ms. Knox later said she had been pressured to accuse him. \n \n Mr. Ghirga said he thought the Supreme Court would rule on the admissibility of the appeal later this year. \n \n On Tuesday lawyers for the Kercher family also challenged the appellate court\u2019s ruling, \u201cin the interests of the family,\u201d said their lawyer, Francesco Maresca. \n \n Ms. Knox is not required to attend the Supreme Court hearing. She could, however, return to Italy in June, Mr. Dalla Vedova said, as a witness in a trial involving her parents, who have been charged with defamation through the press after they said in an interview in a British newspaper that Ms. Knox had told them that she had been verbally and physically abused by the police. \n \n Mr. Dalla Vedova said his client was not worried because her innocence had \u201cbeen proven.\u201d He added, \u201cWe\u2019re just sorry she has to deal with all this again.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Amanda Knox moved back to Seattle after her murder conviction was overturned last October, but Italian prosecutors hope they haven't seen the last of her. They have, as expected, filed an appeal to reinstate her and Raffalle Sollecito's convictions for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, reports the Guardian. Italy's supreme court can order a third trial if it decides legal procedures were not followed in the pair's retrial. Knox can be tried in absentia if necessary, and extradited to Italy if convicted, but her lawyers say that is highly unlikely, reports the New York Times. One of her lawyers slammed the decision to revive the case, saying it would \"reopen painful wounds\" for everybody involved. \"I am sorry for the two kids,\" she said, \"but I am especially sorry for Meredith Kercher\u2014silence would have been better.\" A drifter from the Ivory Coast was found guilty of taking part in Kercher's murder, and is serving a 16-year sentence."}
{"document": "Washington, Wahlberg Are Bad Boys, And Whatcha Gonna Do? \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Patti Perret/Universal Patti Perret/Universal \n \n 2 Guns Director: Baltasar Kormakur \n \n Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime \n \n Running Time: 109 minutes Rated R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity With: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Edward James Olmos, Paula Patton \n \n Hypermacho but tongue-in-cheek, the first 20 minutes of 2 Guns are enormous fun. Tough guys Bobby and Stig (Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg) bicker and flirt \u2014 with a pretty diner waitress, and with each other \u2014 while casing a small-town Texas bank. \n \n Then they set the diner on fire, don masks, and knock over the bank for $43 million, all while taking care to save any cops from getting hurt and even kissing an available baby. The heist, it would seem, has gone according to plan. Yet something's a little off. \n \n In fact, nearly everything's a little off, including the bulk of Blake Masters' script (derived from a comics series written by Steven Grant). As the countdown-clock plot ticks toward its conclusion, every tock moves the movie further into overplotted tedium. \n \n It turns out that, though neither knows the other's true identity, both Bobby and Stig are not crooks but undercover agents, and each is trying to use the other to snare a Mexican drug lord (Edward James Olmos). Bobby works for the DEA, which is plausible, while Stig toils for, uh, Naval Intelligence. \n \n Naval Intelligence targets Mexican drug cartels? Why not have Stig employed by the CIA? The movie does provide an answer to the latter question: Bobby can't be CIA because the tale also has a role for that agency, embodied by the purringly sadistic Earl (Bill Paxton). So the battle over the stolen $43 million becomes a four-way contest, and that's not counting a few double-crossers. \n \n Enlarge this image toggle caption Patti Perret/Universal Pictures Patti Perret/Universal Pictures \n \n Stig reports to a by-the-rulebook officer (James Marsden) who may not apply the same rigor to his own behavior; Bobby, to his colleague and sometime lover Deb (Paula Patton). She's depicted nearly nude and with leering close-ups of her sexy bits in a hotel makeout-session scene so much like the one in Flight as to suggest that such moments are obligatory in any R-rated Denzel Washington movie. (Maybe they're in the actor's rider, like Van Halen's no-brown-M&M's directive?) \n \n Having betrayed each other, Bobby and Stig are then forced to work together, though they're still inclined to quarrel. (During one dispute, they roll around in the dirt, punching as wildly as little boys.) The agents are constantly on the move, with regular jaunts across the Mexican border, all while being pursued by multiple varieties of thugs. \n \n One advantage of their being frantically and forever on the run is that the guys are constantly grabbing new cars, trucks or dune buggies; they switch vehicles as often as the protagonists of a chick flick might change shoes. \n \n The action is helmed efficiently, and with blessedly little CGI, by Baltasar Kormakur, who directed Wahlberg in Contraband but started by making arty little films in his native Iceland. Kormakur's work is well supported by Michael Tronick's taut editing and Clinton Shorter's rousing if predictable ambient-blues score. \n \n The script is less propulsive, and not just because it's overstuffed with reversals and revelations. 2 Guns loses its charm amid multiple incidents of torture and brutality, including animal cruelty, and its attempt to riff on reports of CIA involvement in the drug trade just burdens a movie whose adolescent-daydream ideas about manliness aren't terribly helpful as an approach to real-world issues. When two charismatic bad boys are being chased across the border by phalanxes of cops, thugs and spies, social commentary is just so much excess baggage. ||||| 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. ||||| The only thing simple and direct about \"2 Guns\" is its title. This self-consciously nihilistic action movie is one slick piece of business as well as something of a double-edged sword. \n \n On one hand, it can be briefly diverting to see Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur and stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg use style and attitude to put a different spin on traditional genre plot dynamics in a story of misplaced drug money and mistaken identity. \n \n But it's also true that the plot of \"2 Guns\" \u2014 filled as it is with multiple feints, dodges and mystifications \u2014 is so tricky that events all but evaporate as soon as they happen. Though individual set pieces are well done, the film inevitably leaves an empty taste behind it once it's done. \n \n PHOTOS: Summer Sneaks 2013 \n \n Written by Blake Masters and based on Steven Grant's series of five graphic novels, \"2 Guns\" throws us into the middle of a story, then almost immediately tells us that everything we think we know about that story is completely wrong. \n \n We're introduced to Robert \"Bobby\" Trench (Washington) and Michael \"Stig\" Stigman (Wahlberg), a pair of wise-cracking hard guys whose glib patter is more irritating than amusing. \n \n Seated in a diner in a small Texas town, they're directly across the street from the Tres Cruces Savings & Loan, a fiduciary establishment with ties to a Mexican drug cartel that they are fixing to rob. \n \n Just a week earlier, however, both men were south of the border trying to do a deal with the cartel's leader, ruthless Manny \"Papi\" Greco (Edward James Olmos). \n \n VIDEO: Upcoming summer films \n \n Nothing about Trench and Stigman, as it turns out, is as it seems, including Trench's strategically placed gold teeth. They are both undercover agents, Trench for the Drug Enforcement Agency, Stigman for U.S. naval intelligence. More than that, neither one knows that the other guy is an agent. \n \n Even more baffling is the fact that this small-town savings & loan turns out to have more money in its vaults than either man anticipated. A whopping $40 million more, which scares the pants off everyone involved, including Trench's DEA boss Deb Rees (Paula Patton) and Stigman's superior officer Lt. Cmdr. Quince (James Marsden). \n \n Not amused one little bit by the robbery is Earl (a nasty Bill Paxton), who shows up representing the owner of all that money, an entity whose identity the film keeps secret for as long as it can. A man so scary he is known as \"God's S.O.B.,\" Earl is beside himself when it turns out that no one, including Trench and Stigman, seems to know where that money they stole has disappeared to. \n \n Though they are both arrogant and antisocial, these two guns are forced to cooperate in the face of Earl's machinations if they want to stay alive in a world where you never know where you stand. \n \n It can be fun initially to see how director Kormakur, who first came to international attention with expert Icelandic films such as \"101 Reykjavik\" and \"Jar City,\" doles out this information to us with cinematic elan (helped by energetic, persuasive editing by Michael Tronick). But this is not enough for the long haul, particularly when Trench and Stigman's non-winning personalities and the film's exploitative attitude toward women and violence are added into the mix. Slickness can take you only so far. \n \n kenneth.turan@latimes.com \n \n \"2 Guns\" \n \n MPAA rating: R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity \n \n Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes \n \n Playing: In general release \n \n \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 The laid-back action flick 2 Guns, starring Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington, has a comic-book feel, refreshingly little CGI, and two characters that just won't quit. But though the title hardly describes the amount of gun-wielding that goes on, it's probably a good indication of how many stars critics would slap on this shoot-em-up. Read on as critics shoot it down: Wahlberg and Washington are \"a hugely likable pair, exchanging one-liners with the same ease in which they trade gunfire,\" but it's not enough for Rene Rodriguez at the Miami Herald, who calls 2 Guns an \"unremarkable, standard-issue shoot-em-up that rests entirely on the charisma of its two stars.\" She liked the set pieces, though. So did Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles Times. But \"though individual set pieces are well done, the film inevitably leaves an empty taste behind it once it's done.\" And he disagrees when it comes to the stars, or at least their characters: This is a slick movie, but that can only take it so far when the characters' \"non-winning personalities and the film's exploitative attitude toward women and violence are added into the mix.\" The \"multiple incidents of torture and brutality, including animal cruelty,\" didn't sit well with Mark Jenkins at NPR, either, though the first 20 minutes of flirting and bickering were \"enormous fun.\" After that, \"nearly everything's a little off, including the bulk of Blake Masters' script,\" Jenkins writes. \"As the countdown-clock plot ticks toward its conclusion, every tock moves the movie further into overplotted tedium.\" So is there anyone who liked it? Sure. Chris Knight at the National Post writes that the movie \"succeeds on the script, which has Wahlberg and Washington sparring and trading quips like a couple in an old screwball comedy. ... Even the stellar supporting cast tends to fade into the background; with these 2 guys, there\u2019s no need for anyone else.\""}
{"document": "A rescue dive team removes the body of a child found in a frozen pond in Olympic Park, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017, in Aurora, Colo. An identification has not been made yet, but authorities notified David Puckett's... (Associated Press) \n \n A rescue dive team removes the body of a child found in a frozen pond in Olympic Park, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017, in Aurora, Colo. An identification has not been made yet, but authorities notified David Puckett's family because of suspicions the body is that of the boy, Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said.... (Associated Press) \n \n AURORA, Colo. (AP) \u2014 Divers looking for a 6-year-old boy who apparently wandered away from his suburban Denver home on New Year's Eve found the body of a child in a frozen pond Tuesday. \n \n The body has not been identified yet, but authorities notified David Puckett's family because they suspect it is that of the boy, Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said. \n \n Bloodhounds looking for David didn't get good results, but a dog that can track scents in the air pointed authorities to the pond in a park Monday just a few minutes' walk from the boy's home, Metz said. \n \n The area had been searched extensively, but not the water because there was no sign of a break in the ice, the chief said. \n \n After the body was recovered, two holes were left in the frozen pond, which was surrounded by police tape. A bouquet of flowers was left along the perimeter. \n \n Police have said they don't suspect foul play in the disappearance of David, who has wandered off before. Investigators would try to re-create how a child could have ended up in the pond, Metz said. \n \n The FBI and other law enforcement agencies helped search for the boy missing for three nights, going door to door within 2\u00bd miles of his home in Aurora, handing out fliers and using a helicopter with an infrared system. \n \n Temperatures dropped into the teens overnight, and David was wearing only a light jacket when he vanished Saturday. \n \n Authorities issued an Amber Alert and offered a $10,000 reward. Though police didn't suspect foul play, they contacted registered sex offenders who live nearby as a precaution. \n \n His mother and authorities appealed for help finding the boy as quickly as possible, partly because of the cold weather. \n \n \"The public can help by physically searching their homes, automobiles, and any structures on their property where a child may be able to hide,\" police said in a statement. \n \n The FBI told the Denver Post that the agency assigned 50 agents to the case, including one who is highly specialized in searching for missing children. ||||| AURORA, Colo. -- Police in the Denver suburb of Aurora say they have found a child\u2019s body amid a search for a 6-year-old boy who is believed to have wandered away from his home on New Year\u2019s Eve. \n \n Late Monday afternoon, authorities issued an Amber Alert for David Puckett. Over 150 law enforcement personnel from a variety of agencies including the FBI, Aurora Police and Arapahoe County Sheriff\u2019s Office, along with more than 200 volunteers, joined the search, said Aurora Police Chief Nicholas Metz. \n \n Tuesday, Metz said, crews discovered a child\u2019s body in an iced-over pond. \n \n The body remains unidentified, according to Metz, but he said Puckett\u2019s family has been notified. \n \n \u201cI have the very unfortunate news of letting you know \u2026 we found the body of what appears to be a child, inside the pond, underneath the ice,\u201d Metz said. \n \n Before the grim discovery, police said foul play isn\u2019t suspected, but asked for help to find David as quickly as possible partly because of coming cold weather. Police said David had wandered off before. Metz said authorities are treating the pond as a crime scene to ensure a throrough investigation. \n \n His mother said he was only wearing a light jacket. On Sunday night, she issued a tearful appeal for people to help find him. \n \n Metz said it could take time to confirm the body\u2019s identity.", "summary": "\u2013 Divers looking for a 6-year-old boy who apparently wandered away from his suburban Denver home on New Year's Eve found the body of a child in a frozen pond Tuesday, the AP reports. The body has not been identified yet, but authorities notified David Puckett's family because they suspect it is that of the boy, Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said. Bloodhounds looking for David didn't get good results, but a dog that can track scents in the air pointed authorities to the pond in a park Monday just a few minutes' walk from the boy's home, Metz said. \"I have the very unfortunate news of letting you know \u2026 we found the body of what appears to be a child, inside the pond, underneath the ice,\" Metz said, per CBS. The area had been searched extensively, but not the water because there was no sign of a break in the ice, the chief said. After the body was recovered, two holes were left in the frozen pond, which was surrounded by police tape. A bouquet of flowers was left along the perimeter. Police have said they don't suspect foul play in the disappearance of David, who has wandered off before. Temperatures dropped into the teens overnight, and David was wearing only a light jacket when he vanished Saturday."}
{"document": "Activists protest outside the French embassy, during the \"wear what you want beach party\" in London, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016. The protest is against the French authorities clampdown on Muslim women wearing... (Associated Press) \n \n Activists protest outside the French embassy, during the \"wear what you want beach party\" in London, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016. The protest is against the French authorities clampdown on Muslim women wearing... (Associated Press) \n \n PARIS (AP) \u2014 The Latest on the ruling by France's top administrative court on burkini bans (all times local): \n \n 3:10 p.m. \n \n France's top administrative court has overturned a town burkini ban amid shock and anger worldwide after some Muslim women were ordered to remove body-concealing garments on French Riviera beaches. \n \n The ruling by the Council of State Friday specifically concerns a ban in the Riviera town of Villeneuve-Loubet, but the binding decision is expected to set a legal precedent for all the 30 or so French resort municipalities that have issued similar decrees. \n \n Lawyers for two human rights groups challenged the legality of the ban to the top court, saying the orders infringe basic freedoms and that mayors have overstepped their powers by telling women what to wear on beaches. \n \n Mayors had cited concern about public order after deadly Islamic extremist attacks this summer, and many officials have argued that burkinis oppress women. \n \n Lawyer Patrice Spinosi, representing the Human Rights League, told reporters that the decision should set a precedent, and that other mayors should conform to it. He also said women who have already received fines can protest them based on Friday's decision. \n \n ___ \n \n 10:05 a.m. \n \n France's highest administrative court is considering whether it's legal for towns to ban body-covering burkini swimsuits, which have become a symbol of tensions around the place of Islam in secular France. \n \n After human rights groups challenged a local burkini ban, the Council of State is scheduled to issue a ruling Friday afternoon. \n \n At a hearing Thursday, lawyers for the rights groups argued that the bans are feeding fear and infringe on basic freedom. Mayors who have banned burkinis cite concern about public order after deadly Islamic extremist attacks this summer, and many officials argue that burkinis oppress women. \n \n The bans have divided France's government and society and drawn anger abroad, especially after images circulated online showing police appearing to force a Muslim woman to take off her tunic. ||||| (CNN) Mayors do not have the right to ban burkinis, France's highest administrative court ruled Friday. \n \n The Council of State's ruling suspends a ban in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, near Nice, and could affect cities around the country that have prohibited the full-length swimsuit. \n \n More than 30 French towns have banned burkinis , which cover the whole body except for the face, hands and feet. \n \n Officials say banning the burkini -- worn mostly by Muslim women -- is a response to growing terror concerns and heightened tensions after a series of terror attacks. \n \n Human rights activists argue that burkini bans are illegal, and that pushes to outlaw the garment are Islamophobic. \n \n They hailed Friday's ruling as a significant step. \n \n \"By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fueled by and is fueling prejudice and intolerance, today's decision has drawn an important line in the sand,\" Amnesty International Europe Director John Dalhuisen said in a statement. \n \n But it's unclear how other towns with burkini bans will respond to Friday's decision. If mayors continue to enforce and enact such decrees, they could face similar legal challenges. \n \n No matter what, battles over the burkini in the court -- and in the court of public opinion -- are far from over. \n \n Friday's decision was an initial ruling by the Council of State while it continues to prepare its more detailed judgment on the legal issues in the case. \n \n Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said he supports banning burkinis. And former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who plans to run again for the nation's top job, has said he would immediately enact a national ban of the swimsuits. \n \n Photo sparks outrage \n \n Critics of the bans say they discriminate against the women they claim to protect. \n \n \"These bans do nothing to increase public safety, but do a lot to promote public humiliation,\" Dalhuisen said. \"Not only are they in themselves discriminatory, but as we have seen, the enforcement of these bans leads to abuses and the degrading treatment of Muslim women and girls.\" \n \n Earlier this week, photos of police enforcing a ban in Nice spread rapidly on social media. The images show armed officers apparently ordering a woman to remove part of her clothing \n \n Police confront a woman in a burkini on the beach along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice this week. \n \n Authorities in Nice say the officers were simply exercising their duties. Deputy Mayor Christian Estrosi denounced the photos, saying they put the officers in danger. \n \n \"I condemn these unacceptable provocations,\" he said. \n \n In London, demonstrators created a makeshift beach Thursday outside the French Embassy for a \"Wear what you want beach party.\" \n \n Jenny Dawkins, a Church of England priest, told CNN she joined the protest after seeing a photo of the incident in Nice. \n \n \"I think it's a frightening image,\" she said. \"I find it quite chilling to see an image of a woman surrounded by men with guns being told to take her clothes off.\" \n \n What are France's burqa laws? \n \n In April 2011, France became the first European country to ban wearing in public the burqa, a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil with an opening for the eyes. \n \n And much like the recent burkini bans, opinion in the country is divided between those who see the laws as an infringement on religious freedom, and those who view the Islamic dress as inconsistent with France's rigorously enforced secularism. \n \n Those breaking the burqa law f ace fines of 150 euros (about $205) or public service duties. \n \n The law was upheld by the European Convention on Human Rights in 2014 after a 24-year-old woman brought the case to court, claiming it infringed on her religious freedom.", "summary": "\u2013 France's tussle with the burkini was just dealt a strong blow by the country's top administrative court, which on Friday overturned one resort town's ban against the full-body beachwear, the AP reports. The ruling from the Council of State comes during a summer of high-profile cases along the French Riviera in which Cannes and more than two dozen other municipalities have forbidden Muslim women to don the specialized swimsuits. In the words of the Cannes mayor, the burkini is a \"symbol of Islamic extremism\" that doesn't respect \"good morals and secularism\" in a country that's been hard hit by militant attacks in recent months. But the director of Amnesty International's European office disagrees with this tactic, noting \"these bans do nothing to increase public safety, but do a lot to promote public humiliation,\" per the BBC. The Council of State heard arguments from lawyers for two human rights groups who noted that mayors in the towns that have nixed the burkinis don't have the right to tell women what to wear. Protests in support of the burkini have been taking place around the world, per CNN, including a \"wear what you want beach party\" Thursday held on a DIY \"beach\" outside the French Embassy in London. Although Friday's decision refers specifically to the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, it's expected to set a legal precedent for other resorts that have issued the same mandate. At least one mayor\u2014in Corsica\u2014is already saying he'll continue to enforce the ban, despite the court's ruling, the BBC reports. (What the inventor of the burkini has to say about all of this.)"}
{"document": "UPDATE: \n \n When most BASE jumpers come to Twin Falls they jump from the Perrine Bridge. Tuesday night a stunt jumper ascended from the canyon\u2019s edge and found himself in a bit of trouble. \n \n The jumper miscalculated his takeoff and the result left him hanging by his parachute from the rocky edge. \n \n Regardless of experience some jumps aren\u2019t worth the risk. Miles Daisher, a professional Red Bull BASE jumper and Twin Falls native, declined to jump from the same spot two years prior due to the dangers of not only the rocks but powerlines in the area. \n \n \u201cIf you have a 180 degree off headed opening that wall is coming at you fast, and if you\u2019re not like lightening on your toggles, you\u2019re going to hit the wall, like what happened yesterday,\u201d Daisher said. \n \n Luckily for the stunt jumper, the Magic Valley Paramedics, Search and Rescue and Twin Falls Fire Department are trained and prepared for these rescues. Though rare, they're always high risk. \n \n Chad Smith is the director of special operations of Magic Valley Paramedics and was the one who descended into the cliff to rescue the jumper. Smith and his team train year-round for these rescues even though they perform one to 50 a year. \n \n \"Obviously, it's pretty dangerous. We don't have the known obstacles as we do with the bridge, where everyone thinks the common area is. So safety is a huge factor. We try to make sure we get a good look from the top and the bottom before we do go perform those rescues so we can be as safe as possible,\u201d Smith said. \n \n The jumper refused medical treatment even though there were injuries to his leg. However, the irony was that this was not the first time he had to be rescued from the canyon. \n \n \u201cThis is the second time we\u2019ve rescued this BASE jumper. We picked him up by the Perrine Bridge last year. He wasn\u2019t BASE jumping then but was out hiking and had a fall,\u201d Smith said. \n \n The rocks and terrain in the area are unstable. Smith wants to express to visitors that safety should always be their number one priority. \n \n ------------ \n \n Around 8:30 Tuesday night, a call came in to emergency responders of a BASE jumper stuck on the canyon wall just below Elevation 486 restaurant. \n \n Crews with the Twin Falls Fire Department, Magic Valley Special Operations Reach and Treat (SORT) and Twin Falls County Search and Rescue performed a rope rescue, pulling the man off the wall just after 10 p.m. \n \n Authorities drove him out to Clear Springs grade, but they told a reporter on scene that he refused medical attention and to go to the hospital. \n \n Magic Valley Paramedics were also on scene. \n \n Witnesses said one other man made the jump and landed safely on the canyon floor. \n \n KMVT will update this story as more information becomes available. \n \n Clarification: An earlier version of this story mistakenly stated the Magic Valley Paramedics performed the rope rescue. Magic Valley SORT is part of the Magic Valley Paramedics that assisted with the rescue. ||||| TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- Emergency responders rescued a BASE jumper from the wall of a canyon late Tuesday night after the man apparently got stuck. \n \n CBS affiliate KMVT-TV reports that authorities received a call around 8:30 p.m. about the jumper, who was located on the wall of a canyon below a restaurant. \n \n Paramedics arrived and one descended the face of the cliff on a rope, rescuing the man just after 10 p.m. Witnesses said another man successfully made the jump and landed safely at the bottom of the canyon. \n \n Authorities told a reporter the rescued jumper declined to go to the hospital or receive medical treatment.", "summary": "\u2013 A BASE jumper apparently trying to make it to the floor of an Idaho canyon instead ended up stuck on the canyon wall Tuesday night, KMVT reports. Emergency responders were called to the scene in Twin Falls, where one descended the cliff face to perform a rope rescue, CBS News reports. Witnesses said another man made the same jump but did end up safe on the floor of the canyon. The man who was rescued declined medical attention."}
{"document": "KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban said on Monday that Kevin King, one of two professors from the American University of Afghanistan who were kidnapped in Kabul last year, is seriously ill and needs urgent medical attention. \n \n Kevin King in an undated photo. REUTERS/via FBI \n \n Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said King, an American, was suffering from \u201cdangerous\u201d heart disease and kidney problems. \n \n \u201cHis illness has intensified, his feet have swollen and sometimes he becomes unconscious and his condition worsens every day,\u201d Mujahid said in a statement. \n \n \u201cWe have tried to treat him time to time but we do not have medical facilities as we are in a war situation,\u201d he said. \n \n The U.S. State Department called for the immediate and unconditional release of King and other hostages. \n \n King and his Australian colleague Timothy Weeks were kidnapped in August 2016 as they were returning to their compound in the Afghan capital. \n \n Afghan and Western officials believe the men are being held by the Haqqani network, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban that has carried out many other kidnappings. They acknowledge that an unsuccessful rescue attempt was made in eastern Afghanistan months after the two were taken. \n \n The Taliban statement came around two weeks after Pakistani troops rescued Canadian Joshua Boyle and his American wife Caitlan Coleman from an area near the Afghan border. They had been held by the Haqqanis since being kidnapped in 2012. \n \n Earlier this year, the Taliban released a video of King and Weeks showing them pleading with their governments to release Taliban prisoners in turn for their freedom. \n \n Kidnapping high profile targets has become a lucrative business for the Taliban and other militant groups in Afghanistan who in return often demand huge ransom or release of their members. ||||| The Taliban claimed that an American teacher being held hostage in Afghanistan for over a year has a \"dangerous\" disease and said it wouldn't be held responsible if he dies. \n \n Interested in Taliban? Add Taliban as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Taliban news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest \n \n Kevin King, a teacher who was kidnapped from the American University in Kabul in Aug. 2016, is suffering from \"dangerous heart and kidney disease\" that has \"exponentially worsened,\" the militant group said in a statement. The 60-year-old suffers from swollen feet and frequently loses consciousness, the statement said. \n \n King was abducted at the university with fellow teacher Timothy Weekes, an Australian national. Both are still being held hostage by the Taliban. \n \n The group said that it has tried to periodically treat King's illness but is \"facing war conditions and do not readily have access to health facilities.\" \n \n It wasn't clear what kind of illness King is suffering from or what, if any, treatment he is receiving. \n \n The Taliban had previously released at least two videos in which the hostages make statements pleading for the U.S. government to negotiate a prisoner swap with the Taliban for their release. \n \n The recent story of American Caitlan Boyle and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and their three children, who arrived in Canada this month after being held captive in Afghanistan for more than five years, has highlighted the cases U.S. hostages being held in the war-torn country. \n \n Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl spent more than five years in Taliban captivity after he walked away from his post in eastern Afghanistan in 2009. He pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior and faces up to life in prison at sentencing due to take place this month.", "summary": "\u2013 An American professor kidnapped in Afghanistan more than a year ago is extremely ill and getting worse all the time, the Taliban says. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says 60-year-old Kevin King has \"dangerous\" heart and kidney diseases that have \"exponentially worsened\" during his time in captivity. \"His illness has intensified, his feet have swollen, and sometimes he becomes unconscious and his condition worsens every day,\" Mujahid says, per Reuters. \"We have tried to treat him [from] time to time, but we do not have medical facilities as we are in a war situation.\" Mujahid also warned that it wouldn't be the Taliban's fault if he dies, ABC News reports. King and a colleague, Australian citizen Timothy Weekes, were seized by militants last August as they traveled between the Kabul compound they lived in and the American University of Afghanistan, where they worked. Both men are believed to be in the hands of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, the group an American-Canadian couple and their three children were rescued from earlier this month. The US State Department called for the immediate release of the two men, who pleaded for then President-elect Trump to help them in a video militants released in January. (A US raid last year missed King and Weekes by hours.)"}
{"document": "Notice \n \n You must log in to continue. ||||| DETROIT, MI - Kid Rock is responding to the National Action Network who is asking him to denounce the Confederate Flag. \n \n On Monday, The National Action Network Michigan chapter asked the Detroit-area rocker to denounce the flag and stop displaying it at his concerts. Kid Rock has displayed the flag at some of his shows in the past. \n \n FOX News reports Kid Rock released a statement to them in response, with the host modifying it on-air to say: \"please tell the people who are protesting to kiss my...ask me some questions.\" \n \n The National Action Network also wants an exhibit about Detroit music inside the museum, which is paid for in part by Kid Rock, to be taken down if the rocker does not denounce displaying the Confederate Flag. \n \n The Kid Rock Music Lab at the Detroit Historical Museum is one of ten permanent exhibitions there. \n \n The museum released this statement: \"The lab explores Detroit's rich musical legacy and the worldwide impact made by Detroiters in every genre of music, including pop, rock, gospel, blues, hip-hop, techno and more. Kid Rock's contribution to Detroit's music history is significant and warrants his inclusion along with other key figures like Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Aretha Franklin and Eminem. There are no displays of the Confederate flag in the Kid Rock Music Lab or anywhere else inside the Detroit Historical Museum.\" \n \n Kid Rock is touring right now, with a show in Virginia Beach on July 10. \n \n He will be at DTE Energy Music Theatre beginning August 7 for 10 shows. \n \n Here is the FOX News report: \n \n Edward Pevos is the entertainment reporter for Mlive covering Detroit and Southeast Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter @PaparazzoPevos ||||| Just because the Confederate flag has been removed from the South Carolina states house doesn't mean the flag has stopped generating controversy. On Monday, the National Action Network's Michigan chapter protested outside the Detroit Historical Museum, which houses a Kid Rock exhibit, demanding that the rocker stop displaying the Confederate flag, Deadline Detroit reports. In a statement to Fox News' Megyn Kelly, Kid Rock relayed his message to those upset in his native Detroit: \"Please tell the people who are protesting to kiss my ass/Ask me some questions.\" \n \n Related The Killer Inside Kid Rock Shooting hogs and talking trash with America's wildest red-state rocker \n \n Although Kid Rock was born and raised in Michigan, a Union state during the Civil War, the rocker has adopted the Confederate flag to highlight his Rebel Soul, the name of his 2012 album. In recent years, Rock has retreated to his estate in rural Alabama. Rock also toured extensively with Lynyrd Skynyrd, another \u2013 albeit Southern \u2013 act that made frequent use of the Confederate flag. However, Rock's current trek does not display the flag. \n \n A representative for Kid Rock declined to comment. \n \n As Fox News points out, Kid Rock aligns himself with the Southern pride connotations of the flag and not its racial implications, since Rock's son Robert Ritchie Jr., is biracial, and as of December 2014, the First Kiss singer also has biracial grandchildren. \n \n Despite the controversy, the Detroit Historical Museum stood by the rocker, saying his contributions to the Motor City outweigh his appropriation of the Confederate flag, which does not feature at all in the exhibit. \n \n \"The Kid Rock Music Lab is one of 10 permanent exhibitions at the Detroit Historical Museum,\" the museum said in a statement, WXYZ reports. \"Kid Rock\u2019s contribution to Detroit\u2019s music history is significant and warrants his inclusion along with other key figures like Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Aretha Franklin and Eminem. There are no displays of the Confederate flag in the Kid Rock Music Lab or anywhere else inside the Detroit Historical Museum.\"", "summary": "\u2013 With South Carolina taking down the confederate flag and NASCAR banning it, Kid Rock chose to defend his own use of the Old South emblem: In his words, protesters can \"kiss my ass.\" The rocker was reacting to people who opposed his display at the Detroit Historical Museum, which included the Confederate Flag but may not anymore, Rolling Stone reports. Rock sent a statement to Megyn Kelly at Fox News, saying, \"Please tell the people who are protesting to kiss my ass/Ask me some questions.\" Kelly quoted it in a video available on her Facebook page, editing his words to read, \"kiss my ... ask me some questions,\" she says. \"I modified that.\" Raised in Michigan, Rock lives on an estate in Alabama and uses the Confederate flag \"to highlight his Rebel Soul, the name of his 2012 album,\" Rolling Stone says. He has also toured with Lynyrd Skynyrd, a southern band that often used the Confederate flag. But Rock isn't using the flag on his current tour. While Rock says he hasn't raised the flag to symbolize hate, a reverend at Michigan Chapter of the National Action Network tells MLive.com that if the flag stays up, the museum is \"consenting to this attitude and this promotion of the flag that we feel is a hate symbol.\" For its part, the museum says that \"there are no displays of Confederate Flag in the Kid Rock Music Lab or anywhere else inside the Detroit Historical Museum.\""}
{"document": "Aug 25, 2015 2:44 PM Aug 25, 2015 2:44 PM \n \n For eight seasons, Jerry Seinfeld\u2019s television persona dealt with the fictional \u201cNewman,\u201d his neighbor and arch-nemesis. Mr. Seinfeld, a part-time East Hampton resident, dealt with a real-life meddling neighbor last Tuesday afternoon, August 18, when his family\u2019s lemonade stand on Egypt Lane in the village was shut down following complaints. \n \n \n \n Mr. Seinfeld\u2019s wife, Jessica, posted a photo on Instagram of Mr. Seinfeld, their son, Julian, and two friends with their hands on top of their heads in surrender. An East Hampton Village Police car could clearly be seen in the back right corner of the photo. \n \n \n \n \u201cLemonade dreams crushed by local neighbor, but not before raising lots of money for @loverecycled,\u201d wrote Ms. Seinfeld in the caption. \u201cThanks to all of our customers and big tippers! Thanks, Xander and Jaden, for crushing it today with Julian and Jerry.\u201d \n \n \n \n East Hampton Village Police Chief Jerry Larsen said police received a complaint about illegally parked vehicles at the location of the lemonade stand. At the scene, an officer advised the Seinfeld family that village code does not permit lemonade stands on village property. The village prohibits all forms of peddling on its property. \n \n \n \n While the money was ultimately raised for Ms. Seinfeld\u2019s charity, Baby Buggy, many of Ms. Seinfeld\u2019s Instagram followers expressed their disdain over the neighbor\u2019s complaint and strict policies about lemonade stands in the area. \n \n \n \n \u201cPeople always talk about how kids today need to get back to the basics, and when they do, they change their mind,\u201d PamB2001 commented in an Instagram post. \n \n \n \n Tom Keaney, Mr. Seinfeld\u2019s publicist, said he could not add anything beyond what was posted on Instagram. \n \n \n \n Ms. Seinfeld founded Baby Buggy in 2001. The organization focuses on providing families under financial strain with clothing, gear and services, and has donated 16 million items since its formation. Its motto is \u201cLove Recycled,\u201d hence its Instagram handle. ||||| Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n \n It\u2019s \u201cNo lemonade for you!\u201d in East Hampton, where a sourpuss neighbor put the squeeze on the drink stand Jerry Seinfeld and his family had set up for charity, resulting in this goofy \u201carrest.\u201d \n \n The roadside business was selling cold drinks on hot days to benefit the group Baby Buggy, before it was shut down for violating a village prohibition on peddling. \n \n \u201cLemonade dreams crushed by local neighbor but not before raising lots of money for @loverecycled. Thanks to all of our customers and big tippers!\u201d Seinfeld\u2019s wife, Jessica, wrote on Instagram. \n \n An accompanying photo shows Jerry, son Julian and two young pals standing with their hands behind their heads. \n \n Police Chief Jerry Larsen told the East Hampton Press that cops got a complaint about cars parked illegally at the spot, and that the Seinfelds were told their philanthropic efforts weren\u2019t permitted under village law. \n \n Jerry couldn\u2019t be reached for comment Wednesday. \n \n Jessica\u2019s Baby Buggy charity, founded in 2001 after the birth of the couple\u2019s first child, has given away more than 16 million pieces of children\u2019s clothing, strollers and other gear to needy families.", "summary": "\u2013 Whether it's Newman or a grumpy person in the Hamptons, Jerry Seinfeld seems to have bad luck with neighbors. The comedian and his family were selling lemonade for charity in East Hampton last week, but were shut down after someone called the police. The Seinfelds were raising money for Baby Buggy\u2014an organization founded by Jerry's wife, Jessica, that provides baby clothes and childcare items to needy families, according to Page Six. Out hawking lemonade were the couple, their son Julian, and his two friends. The problem? Peddling is illegal on East Hampton Village property. Police were called to the scene because of illegally parked vehicles, and told the Seinfelds to move it along, the East Hampton Village Police Chief tells the East Hampton Press. Jessica captured a photo of Jerry and the boys with their hands behind their heads, as if they were being arrested. An East Hampton Village police car and officer are in frame. \"Lemonade dreams crushed by local neighbor but not before raising lots of money for @loverecycled,\" Jessica captioned the Instagram post. \"Thanks to all of our customers and big tippers!\""}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| As Saudi officials lashed out at Canada, the US remained on the sidelines, signaling a blatant shift in the relationship \n \n Soon after Donald Trump took office, it became clear that the longstanding relationship between the United States and its northern neighbour was about to change: there were terse renegotiations of Nafta, thousands of asylum seekers walking across the shared border and attacks on against Canada\u2019s protectionist trade policies. \n \n A tweet, then a trade freeze: latest row shows Saudi Arabia is asserting new rules Read more \n \n But this week laid bare perhaps the most blatant shift in the relationship, as the US said it would remain on the sidelines while Saudi officials lashed out at Canada over its call to release jailed civil rights activists. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s up for the government of Saudi Arabia and the Canadians to work this out,\u201d state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said this week. \u201cBoth sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can\u2019t do it for them.\u201d \n \n Canada\u2019s lonely stance was swiftly noticed north of the border. \u201cWe do not have a single friend in the whole entire world,\u201d Rachel Curran, a policy director under former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, lamented on Twitter. \n \n The UK was similarly muted in its response, noted Bob Rae, a former leader of the federal Liberal party. \u201cThe Brits and the Trumpians run for cover and say \u2018we\u2019re friends with both the Saudis and the Canadians,\u2019\u201d Rae wrote on Twitter. \u201cThanks for the support for human rights, guys, and we\u2019ll remember this one for sure.\u201d \n \n The spat appeared to have been sparked last week when Canada\u2019s foreign ministry expressed its concern over the arrest of Saudi civil society and women\u2019s rights activists, in a tweet that echoed concerns previously voiced by the United Nations. \n \n Saudi Arabia swiftly shot back, expelling Canada\u2019s ambassador and suspending new trade and investment with Ottawa, making plans to remove thousands of Saudi students and medical patients from Canada, and suspending the state airline\u2019s flights to and from Canada, among other actions. \n \n Speaking to reporters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia\u2019s foreign minister urged Canada to \u201cfix its big mistake\u201d and warned that the kingdom was considering additional measures against Canada. \n \n Analysts and regional officials said the spat had little to do with Canada, instead characterising Riyadh\u2019s actions as a broader signal to western governments that any criticism of its domestic policies is unacceptable. \n \n Several countries expressed support for Saudi Arabia, including Egypt and Russia. But Canada continued to stand alone, even as state-run media in the kingdom reported the beheading and \u201ccrucifixion\u201d of a man convicted of killing a woman and carrying out other crimes. \n \n Justin Trudeau, Canada\u2019s prime minister, said Canada was continuing to engage diplomatically and politically with Saudi Arabia. \u201cWe have respect for their importance in the world and recognise that they have made progress on a number of important issues,\u201d he told reporters this week. \n \n He insisted, however, that his government would continue to press Saudi Arabia on its human rights record. \u201cWe will, at the same time, continue to speak clearly and firmly on issues of human rights at home and abroad wherever we see the need.\u201d \n \n In this particular dispute, Canada did not need US help, said Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa. \u201cSaudi Arabia-Canada relations are very limited, so there\u2019s not a lot of damage being done to Canada right now,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this should be a source of major anxiety: when a real crisis comes and we are alone, what do we do?\u201d \n \n Saudi critics jab Canada on Twitter and TV as diplomatic feud deepens Read more \n \n The week\u2019s events have added impetus to a conversation that is slowly getting under way in Canada, Juneau said. \u201cWe are starting some serious soul-searching in the sense of what does it mean for Canada to have a US that is much more unilateral, much more dismissive of the rules and the norms and of its leadership role in the international order that it has played for 70 years?\u201d \n \n These changes south of the border have clearly emboldened Saudi Arabia, Juneau argued, describing the kingdom\u2019s recent actions in Yemen, Qatar and Lebanon as a pattern of aggressive, ambitious and reckless behaviour. \n \n He saw no immediate end to the row, particularly as neither side is suffering significant costs in the dispute. Saudi Arabia has shown little inclination in recent years to walk back from its reckless and impulsive behaviour, he said, while Canada\u2019s federal government \u2013 facing an election in 14 months and already under fire for signing off on the sale of more than 900 armoured vehicles to Riyadh \u2013 is loath to be seen adopting any kind of conciliatory posture towards the conservative kingdom. \n \n While some in Canada had been disappointed to see the UK and Europe opt to publicly stay out of the diplomatic spat, Juneau described it as unsurprising. \u201cWhen Saudi Arabia had comparable fights with Sweden and Germany in recent years, did Canada go out of its way to side with Sweden and Germany? No, not at all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe stayed quiet because we had nothing to gain from getting involved. So on the European side, the calculation is the same.\u201d \n \n Canada\u2019s lonely stand for women\u2019s rights in the kingdom did earn the support of some around the world; this week saw the Guardian and the New York Times publish editorials urging Europe and the US to stand with Canada. So did the Washington Post, going one step further by publishing their editorial in Arabic. \n \n Their call was echoed by a handful of prominent voices in the US, including Bernie Sanders. \u201cIt\u2019s entirely legitimate for democratic governments to highlight human rights issues with undemocratic governments,\u201d the US senator wrote on Twitter. \u201cThe US must be clear in condemning repression, especially when done by governments that receive our support.\u201d ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has asked Saudi Arabia to shed light on the arrests and charges facing women human rights activists, saying that the detainees should be granted due process to defend themselves. \n \n FILE PHOTO: European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini arrives for the second day of a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, July 12, 2018. Tatyana Zenkovich/Pool via REUTERS \n \n Saudi Arabia has in recent months detained several women\u2019s rights activists, some of whom had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom\u2019s male guardianship system. \n \n The detentions have triggered a major diplomatic row with Canada after the Canadians demanded the immediate release of the jailed activists. \n \n The European Commission, the EU executive, said it has contacted Saudi Arabia. \n \n \u201cThe EU has been engaging constructively with the Saudi authorities seeking clarification on the circumstances surrounding the arrests of women human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia, notably with regard to the specific accusations brought against them,\u201d spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. \n \n \u201cWe have been emphasizing the relevance of the role of human rights defenders and civil society groups in the process of reform which the Kingdom is pursuing as well as the importance of respecting the rules of due process for all those arrested,\u201d she said. \n \n Earlier on Saturday, Mogherini spoke to Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on the phone, with both sides agreeing to intensify their cooperation in human rights as well as other areas.", "summary": "\u2013 Canada's growing rift with the US has included tense trade talks and tit-for-tat remarks. Now the US is among countries leaving Canucks in the diplomatic cold over their spat with Saudi Arabia, the Guardian reports. \"It's up for the government of Saudi Arabia and the Canadians to work this out,\" says State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert. \"Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can't do it for them.\" America isn't the only country refusing to support Canada after it called for Saudi Arabia to free arrested women's rights activists, and the Saudi government lashed out in a rage: The UK also gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government a muted response. \"The Brits and the Trumpians run for cover and say 'we're friends with both the Saudis and the Canadians,'\" tweeted Bob Rae, former leader of the Liberal Party in Canada. \"Thanks for the support for human rights, guys, and we\u2019ll remember this one for sure.\" As Rachel Curran, a former official under the Stephen Harper government, tweeted: \"We do not have a single friend in the whole entire world.\" Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the European Union is asking Saudi Arabia to explain why activists Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah were arrested and urged the Saudi government to grant them due process. (A Saudi government-linked youth group threatened a 9/11-style attack on Toronto.)"}
{"document": "Deputy Pakistani Taliban leader Wali-ur-Rehman (C) is flanked by militants as he speaks to a group of reporters in Shawal town, which lies between North and South Waziristan region in the northwest bordering Afghanistan, in this July 28, 2011 file photo. \n \n PESHAWAR, Pakistan A U.S. drone strike killed the number two of the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan region on Wednesday, three security officials said, in what would be a major blow in the fight against militancy. \n \n The drone strike killed seven people, Pakistani security officials said, including Taliban deputy commander Wali-ur-Rehman, in the first such attack since a May 11 general election in which the use of the unmanned aircraft was a major issue. \n \n Wali-ur-Rehman had been poised to succeed Hakimullah Mehsud as leader of the Pakistani Taliban, a senior army official based in the South Waziristan region, had said in December. \n \n \"This is a huge blow to militants and a win in the fight against insurgents,\" one security official told Reuters, declining further comment. \n \n The Pakistani Taliban are a separate entity allied to the Afghan Taliban. Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), they have launched devastating attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians. \n \n Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters the group did not have \"confirmed reports\" that Wali-ur-Rehman had been killed. He declined further comment. \n \n Drone casualties are difficult to verify. Foreign journalists must have permission from the military to visit the Pashtun tribal areas along the Afghan border. \n \n Taliban fighters also often seal off the sites of drone strikes immediately so Pakistani journalists cannot see the victims. \n \n \"That the Taliban are remaining silent and neither denying or confirming the news is itself peculiar,\" said Saleem Safi, a Pakistani expert on the Taliban. \"But if this news is true, then the Pakistan army has the U.S. to thank.\" \n \n The security officials and Pashtun tribesmen in the northwestern region said the drone fired two missiles that struck a mud-built house at Chashma village, 3 km (2 miles) east of Miranshah, the region's administrative town. \n \n They said seven people were killed and four wounded. \n \n FOREIGN MINISTRY DENOUNCES DRONES \n \n \"Tribesmen started rescue work an hour after the attack and recovered seven bodies,\" said resident Bashir Dawar. \"The bodies were badly damaged and beyond recognition.\" \n \n The Pakistan government had yet to confirm Wali-ur-Rehman's death. \n \n A U.S. drone killed Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in 2009. There had been several reports that his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed the same way but they turned out to be untrue. \n \n But the Foreign Ministry again denounced drones in general on Wednesday. \n \n \"The government has consistently maintained that the drone strikes are counter-productive, entail loss of innocent civilian lives, have human rights and humanitarian implications and violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law,\" it said. \n \n U.S. President Barack Obama recently indicated he was scaling back the drone strike program, winning cautious approval from Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S. fight on militancy. \n \n North Waziristan is on the Afghan border and has long been a stronghold of militants including Afghan Taliban and their al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban allies. \n \n Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif said this month that drone strikes were a \"challenge\" to Pakistan's sovereignty. \n \n \"We will sit with our American friends and talk to them about this issue,\" he said. \n \n Obama's announcement of scaling back drone strikes was widely welcomed by the people of North Waziristan, where drones armed with missiles have carried out the most strikes against militants over the past seven years, sometimes with heavy civilian casualties. \n \n The strike also coincided with the first session of the newly elected provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the former Northwest Frontier Province. \n \n Former cricketer Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party won most seats in the assembly and denounced the strike, saying Obama had gone back on his word. \n \n (Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Syed Raza Hassan in Islamabad, Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel) ||||| Pakistani intelligence officials say a pair of suspected U.S. missiles fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle has killed four alleged foreign militants near the Afghan border. \n \n They say an American drone fired the missiles Wednesday into a house in Miran Shah, the main town of Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan. \n \n The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. \n \n The tribal region is home to a variety of local and Afghan militant outfits including al-Qaida-linked fighters. \n \n Washington's drone program is extremely unpopular in Pakistan, although the number of strikes has dropped dramatically since the height of the program in 2010. ||||| Story highlights Rehman was wanted by U.S. in connection with 2009 attack that killed CIA employees \n \n Seven killed, one wounded in drone strike, officials say \n \n Rehman was second in command to Hakimullah Mehsud \n \n It's the first drone strike since the Pakistani elections \n \n The Pakistan Taliban's No. 2 leader was killed in a drone strike Wednesday in the country's tribal region, a local tribal official and an intelligence official confirmed to CNN. \n \n He was Wali-Ur Rehman Mehsud -- second in command to Hakimullah Mehsud, the militant group's leader. The Pakistan Taliban's spokesman told CNN he could neither confirm nor deny the information. The sources said Rehman was killed along with his close aide, Fakhar-ul-Islam, and two Uzbek nationals whose identities the sources didn't know. \n \n This is the same strike reported earlier by intelligence officials in Pakistan, who said seven people were killed and one other was injured in the attack at a compound near the town of Miranshah in the North Waziristan district. \n \n Rehman was wanted by the United States on suspicion of being involved in the December 2009 suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA employees at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, according to a publication by the U.S. National Counterrorism Center \n \n The publication described him as the Pakistan Taliban's No. 2 leader and chief military strategist, and said he participated in cross-border attacks in Afghanistan against U.S. and NATO personnel. \n \n The United States has long conducted drone strikes in its fight against suspected Taliban and Pakistani jihadist groups in Pakistan near the Afghan border. This one is the first known hit since Pakistan held general elections on May 11 and since President Barack Obama announced his new counterterrorism policy last week. \n \n JUST WATCHED Pakistan's new PM faces big challenges Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Pakistan's new PM faces big challenges 02:57 \n \n JUST WATCHED Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss 07:53 \n \n JUST WATCHED 2012: History of the Pakistani Taliban Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 2012: History of the Pakistani Taliban 02:32 \n \n The last reported drone strike in Pakistan was in mid-April. \n \n White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday that he couldn't confirm reports of Rehman's death, but he said the militant was wanted for the Khost incident and mentioned his participation in attacks. \"It's important to note who this individual is,\" he said. \n \n Carney read a portion of Obama's counterterrorism speech that laid out standards for taking action. \n \n \"In the Afghan war theater, we must support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of 2014. That means we will continue to take strikes against high value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces. However, by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we have made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes,\" Carney said, reciting the address. \n \n Core al Qaeda is a reference to the terror group along the Afghan-Pakistan border. \n \n Drone strikes have become controversial and unpopular because they have killed civilians, and Pakistan has said it has \"serious concerns\" over the latest attack. \n \n Pakistan, which describes itself as a front-line state in the fight against terrorism, said it has \"consistently maintained that the drone strikes are counterproductive, entail loss of innocent civilian lives, have human rights and humanitarian implications and violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law.\" \n \n When Obama discussed drone strikes last week, he said they must be used with more temperance and caution, but they remain a necessary tool to take on terrorists. \n \n \"It is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars,\" Obama said. \"As commander in chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties.\" \n \n Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani politician who is expected to serve as the next prime minister, has said he plans to address the unrest in his country. \n \n Talks with militants such as the Pakistan Taliban should be taken seriously, he has said. \n \n Taking on militants in Pakistan \n \n The United States, in its fight against terrorism, has been using drones to go after militants it calls high-value targets. \n \n The Long War Journal, a website that tracks, reports and analyzes the U.S. fight against terrorists, said the United States has launched 14 drone strikes so far this year. \n \n \"The number of strikes in Pakistan has decreased since the peak in 2010, when 117 such attacks were recorded. In 2011, 64 strikes were launched in Pakistan, and in 2012 there were 46 strikes,\" the journal said. \n \n The strikes have been confined mostly to North and South Waziristan, the journal said, with 322 of the 339 strikes recorded since 2004 occurring in those two tribal regions. \n \n Obama and other U.S. officials have stressed that al Qaeda's core in Afghanistan and Pakistan is being degraded. In his speech, Obama said al Qaeda in that region is \"on a path to defeat.\" \n \n Asked how many high-value targets like Rehman are left in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, Bill Roggio, the Long War Journal's editor, estimated the number is at least in the dozens, including members of the Pakistani Taliban. \n \n \"Al Qaeda has replaced its top leadership, often using seasoned Pakistani jihadists from the cadre of Pakistani terror groups,\" Roggio said, citing such militant movements as Harakat ul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami. \n \n Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst, said it's hard to say how many high-value targets are left because people keep being added to the list. \n \n He also said many militants remain concentrated in the rugged North Waziristan region, where the army's lack of clearing operations makes it safe for jihadis to operate.", "summary": "\u2013 A suspected US drone strike assassinated the Pakistani Taliban's No. 2 commander today, according to multiple reports sourced to Pakistani intelligence. Officials tell the AP that their informants on the ground saw Waliur Rehman's body firsthand, while others say intercepted Taliban communications confirmed the kill. But a spokesman for the Taliban said the report \"appears to me to be false news; I don't have any such information.\" Rehman was considered the heir apparent to Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. \"This is a huge blow to militants and a win in the fight against insurgents,\" a security official tells Reuters. Earlier, Pakistani officials had condemned the strike, which is the first since President Obama announced that the program was being scaled back\u2014and the first since Pakistan's elections, in which the unpopular attacks were a major issue. Reports vary on how many were killed; the AP and CNN have 4 dead, but a resident tells Reuters that rescue workers have pulled seven bodies from the rubble."}
{"document": "This is the first time I have seen June Steenkamp smile. She is sitting at the far side of a long wooden table overlooking a swimming pool in the shady courtyard of a guesthouse, which has become her second home in Pretoria. \n \n The avenues outside are flush with jacaranda blossoms. Pupils from Pretoria Boys High School, which is just across the road, are trickling through the gates in their old-fashioned uniforms: short-sleeved khaki shirts and ties, matching khaki shorts and tan socks pulled up to their knees. \n \n It was as a pupil there that her daughter\u2019s killer, Oscar Pistorius, first discovered he could run. \n \n June Steenkamp has stayed in this small, discreet guesthouse many times since March, when South Africa\u2019s national hero went on trial\u2026 ||||| REUTERS Oscar Pistorius and his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. File photo: Thembani Makhubele \n \n Johannesburg - Oscar Pistorius and his law-graduate girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp did not have sex, her mother June Steenkamp wrote in her book, the Sunday Times reported. \n \n In \u201cReeva: a Mother's Story\u201d, June Steenkamp wrote that her daughter confided in her that although they spent nights together, they did not have sex because she \u201cwas scared to take the relationship to that level\u201d. \n \n Speaking about the athlete, she wrote: \u201cTo look at him now, he's a pathetic figure. He looks haunted. He's already been punished in a way. \n \n \u201cWhatever is in his head is in his head forever. He will have to live with that.\u201d \n \n Pistorius was sentenced to prison for five years for the culpable homicide of Steenkamp. He shot her through a locked toilet door in his Pretoria home on February 14, 2013, thinking she was an intruder. \n \n Sunday Times reported that June Steenkamp wrote that she did not believe Pistorius's version. \n \n \u201cHe said pulling the trigger was 'an accident'. What? Four times an accident? He said Reeva did not scream, but she would definitely have screamed. I know my daughter as she was very vocal,\u201d she wrote. \n \n \u201cThere is no doubt in our minds that something went horribly wrong, something upset her so terribly that she hid behind a locked door with two mobile phones.\u201d \n \n In the book, June Steenkamp dissects every text, tweet and email in the three month relationship, looking for hidden meaning, according to the report. \n \n Steenkamp, 68, and her husband Barry Steenkamp, 71, will feature in Monday\u2019s edition of UK celebrity magazine Hello. \n \n The British media reported that June Steenkamp believes Pistorius \u201cwould have killed someone sooner or later\u201d and that her daughter\u2019s \u201cbad luck\u201d conspired against her. \n \n In the seven-month trial, Pistorius was cleared of murdering his girlfriend, Reeva, but found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to five years in prison. \n \n In an interview with The Times magazine, June Steenkamp describes Pistorius as: \u201cmoody\u201d, \u201cvolatile\u201d, \u201carrogant\u201d, \u201ccombustible\u201d, as well as \u201ctrigger-happy\u201d, \u201cpossessive\u201d, \u201cgun-toting\u201d, \u201cvague\u201d, \u201cshifty\u201d and \u201cevasive\u201d. \n \n The newspaper said Steenkamp claimed that Pistorius had shot her daughter \u201cin a jealous rage, then finished her off with three more bullets so she \u2018couldn\u2019t tell the world what really happened\u2019.\u201d \n \n She said her daughter\u2019s death haunts her at night \u2013 she regularly wakes up around 3am, the time Reeva died at Pistorius\u2019s home. \n \n \u201cWhy decide to say sorry to me in a televised trial in front of the whole world? I was unmoved by his apology,\u201d she writes. \n \n \u201cI felt if I appeared to be sorry for him at this stage of his trial on the charge of premeditated murder, it would, in the eyes of others, lessen the awfulness of what he had done.\u201d \n \n Meanwhile a snippet and photos have been published on Hello\u2019s website, announcing the magazine had the \u201cworld exclusive interview moments after the trial ended in South Africa\u201d on Tuesday. \n \n June Steenkamp told Hello the court\u2019s decision to send Pistorius to jail \u201cwas the best sentence we could have expected\u201d. \n \n Steenkamp said she \u201cbelieve(s) Oscar expected to go to prison\u201d by the time his seven-month trial concluded. She told the magazine: \u201cIt\u2019s been a terrible, long journey\u201d. \n \n \u201cHe was almost resigned to what was coming. It was obvious in the court from his manner; he was calm and wasn\u2019t performing,\u201d she said. \n \n She said she and her husband were still coming to terms with \u201cthe vision of Reeva suffering this terrible trauma\u201d. \n \n Blood-splattered images of the crime scene were exhibited during the Pistorius trial. \n \n Steenkamp added: \u201cWe\u2019re not looking for vengeance or for him to get hurt; we\u2019re just happy because he\u2019s going to be punished for what he\u2019s done. \n \n \u201cHe may come out early on good behaviour, but by the time he\u2019s served that time, it will have taught him that he can\u2019t go around doing things like that.\u201d \n \n His five-year sentence has been criticised by some as too lenient. \n \n But Reeva\u2019s parents told ITV\u2019s Good Morning Britain they accepted the sentence and \u201cdon\u2019t want revenge\u201d. They said their daughter\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day death last year remained shrouded in mystery, and \u201conly Oscar knows\u201d the truth. \n \n After sentencing, Pistorius was sent to the hospital section of the Kgosi Mampuru prison in Pretoria. He reportedly cried himself to sleep on his first night in jail. \n \n The athlete\u2019s fans meanwhile have written supportive messages on his website. One fan, Noluthando, wrote: \u201cOscar you made us proud in the world by your courage. Please keep strong.\u201d \n \n Another, Carina, wrote: \u201cI feel so sorry for Oscar. He really doesn\u2019t deserve to spend the rest of his life in jail. He\u2019s a great guy\u2026 \u201d \n \n Weekend Argus and Sapa \n \n Related Stories ||||| POOL/REUTERS June (l.) and Barry Steenkamp seen during the sentencing hearing of Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius in October. POOL/REUTERS Pistorius was given a five-year sentence for Steenkamp\u2019s death, but could serve as little as 10 months. Previous Next \n \n Enlarge \n \n Reeva Steenkamp never had sex with Oscar Pistorius and was about to leave him when he gunned her down through a bathroom door, her mother claims. \n \n June Steenkamp told the Sunday Times of London magazine that her daughter \"was scared to take the relationship to that level\" and had avoided getting physical with the Paralympian known as the Blade Runner. \n \n \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t want to sleep with Oscar if she wasn\u2019t sure,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe their relationship was coming to an end. In her heart of hearts, she didn\u2019t think it was making either of them happy.\u201d \n \n In her memoir, \"Reeva: A Mother's Story,\u201d June says the couple had spent several nights together but never had sex. The 68-year-old believes the rocky, three month-old relationship was over and that Reeva planned to leave him Valentine\u2019s Day 2013, the night she was killed. \n \n \"Her clothes were packed. There's no doubt in our minds: she decided to leave Oscar that night,\" she said. \n \n FRENNIE SHIVAMBU/EPA Reeva Steenkamp (l.) with Olympian Oscar Pistorius, who was convicted of culpable homicide for shooting her to death on Valentine\u2019s Day 2013. STR/EPA June Steenkamp's book goes on sale Nov. 6. Previous Next \n \n Enlarge \n \n She added that if Pistorius \u2014 whom she described as \u201cvolatile\u201d, \u201ccombustible\u201d and \u201ctrigger-happy\u201d \u2014 hadn\u2019t killed Reeva, the 27-year-old would have killed someone else \"sooner or later.\" \n \n Reeva, 29, was shot dead by Pistorius, a double amputee who uses prosthetics to walk and run, as she huddled inside a bathroom. The fallen Olympic runner has stood by his claim that he shot four times through the locked door because he thought there was an intruder in his Pretoria home. \n \n Reeva's mother, though, claims that Pistorius, who is serving a five-year sentence for culpable homicide, lied in court and knew he was actually firing at Reeva. \n \n \u201cThere is no doubt in our minds that something went horribly wrong, something upset her so terribly that she hid behind a locked door with two mobile phones,\u201d June writes. \n \n Amazon \u2018Reeva: A Mother's Story.\u2019 \n \n Convicted of culpable homicide last week, Pistorius will be able to seek parole after 10 months behind bars, and then apply to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home. \n \n The marathon eight-month trial drew international attention to South Africa and featured the country\u2019s most famous athlete and a gorgeous young supermodel. \n \n Reeva\u2019s parents, June and Barry Steenkamp, told a newspaper that they they never met Pistorius while the two dated. \n \n June Steenkamp\u2019s book is due out Nov. 6. ||||| Image copyright EPA Image caption Reeva Steenkamp's relationship was Pistorius was \"coming to an end\", her mother says \n \n It was bad luck Reeva Steenkamp met Oscar Pistorius, her mother has said, as the \"volatile\" athlete \"would have killed someone sooner or later\". \n \n Speaking to The Times, June Steenkamp calls Pistorius \"pathetic\", \"moody\", \"gun-toting\" and \"possessive\". \n \n She rejects both his apology and his version of events, but admits: \"He's the only one who knows the truth.\" \n \n Pistorius is serving five years for the culpable homicide of girlfriend Reeva. He could be out in 10 months. \n \n The South African athlete was cleared of murder. \n \n 'About to leave' \n \n June Steenkamp told The Times, which is serialising her book, Reeva: A Mother's Story, which is to be published on 6 November, that Reeva had told her the couple had not yet entered a sexual relationship and had \"nagging doubts about their compatibility\". \n \n She says: \"She had confided to me that she hadn't slept with him. They'd shared a bed, but she was scared to take the relationship to that level. \n \n Media caption Judge Thokozile Masipa hands down the sentence \n \n \"She wouldn't want to sleep with Oscar if she wasn't sure. I believe their relationship was coming to an end. In her heart of hearts, she didn't think it was making either of them happy.\" \n \n Ms Steenkamp, 68, who was not called to testify at the trial, says this may have played a part in what happened on the night of the shooting, Valentine's Day last year. \n \n She rejects his version of events, that there was no row and that he had thought there was an intruder in the toilet cubicle when he fired four shots through the door \"without thinking\". \n \n \"There is no doubt in our minds that something went horribly wrong, something upset her so terribly that she hid behind a locked door with two mobile phones,\" June writes. \n \n Media caption June Steenkamp speaks after the sentencing \n \n Other words she uses to describe Pistorius are \"arrogant\", \"moody\", \"combustible\", \"trigger-happy\", \"vague\", \"evasive\" and \"shifty\". \n \n She believes Reeva, 29, was about to leave Pistorius, 27. \n \n She says: \"Her clothes were packed. There is no doubt in our minds: she had decided to leave Oscar that night.\" \n \n In the excerpt of the book serialised in the paper, Ms Steenkamp refers to Pistorius's apology to them in court. \n \n \"Why decide to say sorry to me in a televised trial in front of the whole world? I was unmoved by his apology. \n \n \"I felt if I appeared to be sorry for him at this stage of his trial on the charge of premeditated murder, it would in the eyes of others lessen the awfulness of what he had done. He was in the box trying to save his own skin.\" \n \n Nevertheless, the parents say they do want to meet Pistorius. \n \n Image copyright EPA Image caption Oscar Pistorius holds the hands of family members as he is led away \n \n Although she says \"I am not entirely sure what I am going to say\", father Barry, 71, says he wants an apology. \n \n \"I would like him to really, truthfully say, although he said it in court, 'I'm sorry.' I would like him just to say it to our faces.\" \n \n Ms Steenkamp also talks about the \"wrenching pain that you get in your heart\" when thinking of her daughter's death. \n \n \"It's always there. The minute your eyes open in the morning, or if you wake up in the middle of the night, there it is.\" \n \n Pistorius, an amputee sprinter, became the first athlete to compete in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. \n \n He is serving his sentence in Pretoria's Kgosi Mampuru II jail. \n \n Pistorius was also given a three-year suspended sentence for firing a gun in a restaurant. \n \n Inside Oscar Pistorius's home \n \n INTERACTIVE 1 2 3 5 4 \u00d7 \n \n \u00d7 Balcony \u00d7 Mr Pistorius said he and Ms Steenkamp had dinner at about 19:00 before going to bed at 21:00. He said he woke in the early hours, spoke briefly to his girlfriend and got up to close the sliding door and curtains. Judge Thokozile Masipa questioned the reliability of several witnesses who said they heard screams and gunshots between about 03:12 and 03:17, saying most had 'got facts wrong'. \n \n \u00d7 Bathroom noise \u00d7 Mr Pistorius said he heard the bathroom window sliding open and believed that an intruder, or intruders, had entered the bathroom through a window which was not fitted with burglar bars. Mr Pistorius said he grabbed his firearm and told Ms Steenkamp, who he thought was still in bed, to call the police. The judge said it made no sense that Ms Steenkamp did not hear him scream 'Get out' or call the police, as she had her mobile phone with her. \n \n \u00d7 Shooting \u00d7 Mr Pistorius could see the bathroom window was open and toilet door closed. He said he did not know whether the intruders were outside on a ladder or in the toilet. He had his firearm in front of him, he heard a movement inside the toilet and thought whoever was inside was coming out to attack him. 'Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door,' he said. The judge said she did not accept that Mr Pistorius fired the gun by accident or before he knew what was happening. She said he had armed himself with a lethal weapon and clearly wanted to use it. The other question, she said, was why he fired not one, but four shots before he ran back to the room to try to find Ms Steenkamp. \n \n \u00d7 Bedroom \u00d7 Mr Pistorius said he went back to the bedroom and noticed that Ms Steenkamp was not there. Mr Pistorius said this was when he realised she could have been in the toilet and rushed back to the bathroom. \n \n \u00d7 Toilet door \u00d7 Mr Pistorius said he screamed for help and went back to the bathroom where he found the toilet was locked. He returned to the bedroom, pulled on his prosthetic legs and turned on the lights before bashing in the toilet door with a cricket bat. When the door panel broke, he found the key and unlocked the door and found Ms Steenkamp slumped on the floor with her head on the toilet bowl. He then carried her downstairs, where he was met by neighbours. \n \n 3D animation of the apartment", "summary": "\u2013 Reeva Steenkamp's mother says the 29-year-old South African model \"was scared to take the relationship to the next level\" with Oscar Pistorius, so she never slept with the man who eventually killed her, the Sunday Times reports via the New York Daily News and the BBC. In the memoir Reeva: a Mother's Story, June Steenkamp says Pistorius and Steenkamp were together for several nights but never went all the way. \"She had confided to me that she hadn't slept with him,\" says June, whose book is being serialized by the Times and is out Nov. 6. \"There's no doubt in our minds that she decided to leave Oscar that night,\" says June. She adds that \"something went went horribly wrong, something upset her so terribly that she hid behind a locked door with two mobile phones,\" the Independent reports. According to June, a jealous, \"trigger-happy\" Pistorius shot her daughter and fired three more bullets so she \"couldn\u2019t tell the world what really happened.\" June goes on to describe the athlete as \"pathetic,\" \"moody,\" \"shifty,\" and \"arrogant.\""}
{"document": "CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court gave jail terms to 43 Americans, Europeans, Egyptians and other Arabs on Tuesday in a case against democracy promotion groups that plunged U.S.-Egyptian ties into their worst crisis in decades. \n \n Friends of Egyptian suspects react as they listen to the judge's verdict at a court room during a case against foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Cairo June 4, 2013. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih \n \n Judge Makram Awad gave five-year sentences in absentia to at least 15 U.S. citizens who left Egypt last year. He sentenced an American who stayed behind to two years in prison and gave the same sentence to a German woman. \n \n U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry harshly criticized the decision, calling it \u201cincompatible with the transition to democracy\u201d and a violation of the government\u2019s commitment to support civil society as it emerges from years of authoritarian rule by close U.S. ally former President Hosni Mubarak. \n \n Beginning in late 2011, Egypt\u2019s crackdown on organizations which included U.S.-based groups linked to America\u2019s two main political parties caused outrage in Washington, which supplies Cairo with $1.3 billion in military aid each year. \n \n The court ordered the closure of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in the case, including the U.S.-based International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Freedom House. \n \n Both NDI and IRI plan to challenge the verdict. \n \n In Washington, the State Department issued a tough statement in Kerry\u2019s name but did not hint at any consequences - such as a cut in U.S. assistance to Egypt - as a result of the verdict. \n \n \u201cThe United States is deeply concerned by the guilty verdicts and sentences ... handed down by an Egyptian court today against 43 NGO representatives in what was a politically-motivated trial,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cThe decision to close these organizations\u2019 offices and seize their assets contradicts the government of Egypt\u2019s commitments to support the role of civil society as a fundamental actor in a democracy,\u201d he added. \n \n \u2018POLITICALLY MOTIVATED\u2019 \n \n IRI said in an emailed statement that the ruling \u201cwas a politically-motivated effort to squash Egypt\u2019s growing civil society, orchestrated through the courts, in part by Mubarak-era hold overs.\u201d \n \n The NDI said separately: \u201cThe Institute will do whatever it can to clear the names of its innocent employees.\u201d \n \n The Egyptian investigation focused on charges that the groups were operating without necessary approvals and had received funds from abroad illegally. Eleven Egyptians who faced lesser charges were handed one-year suspended sentences. \n \n The Americans sentenced in absentia include the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. \n \n At one point Egypt placed travel bans on the suspects, including U.S. citizens who took refuge in the U.S. embassy. They were allowed to leave the country on bail of $330,000 each, money that ultimately came from the U.S. government. \n \n Egypt was run at the time by a military council that assumed power from deposed President Hosni Mubarak. Although the case is a legacy of that era, analysts say it further darkens prospects for an open society after the Islamist-led administration drew up a new NGO law seen as a threat to democracy. \n \n The American who stayed behind is Robert Becker, a former NDI employee. The German sentenced to two years is an employee of the Berlin-based Konrad Adenauer Foundation. \n \n \u201cWe are outraged and very concerned about the court\u2019s harsh decisions against the employees of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Cairo and the order to close the office,\u201d said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. \n \n \u201cA CHILLING EFFECT\u201d ON CIVIL SOCIETY \n \n The government said the NGOs were operating illegally in Egypt and complained that after the anti-Mubarak revolt, the U.S. government had diverted $150 million from its Egypt aid budget to these NGOs, breaking bilateral agreements. \n \n Civil rights campaigners in Egypt saw it as part of a concerted campaign against NGOs waged by remnants of the Mubarak administration to crush the nascent democracy. \n \n \u201cThe verdict is obviously going to have a chilling effect on the climate for civil society in Egypt, but that\u2019s already been happening for some time,\u201d said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Centre, a think-tank based in the Gulf. \n \n The judge handed five-year sentences in absentia to other defendants identified as citizens of Norway, Serbia, Germany and Arab states and one whose nationality was not given. \n \n Despite the furor over the case, the United States released its annual military aid for Egypt in March, 2012, saying U.S. national security required continued military assistance. \n \n The U.S.-based groups were training Egyptians in advocacy, voter education and election monitoring. \n \n Related Coverage Kerry harshly critical of verdict in Egypt NGO case \n \n The Muslim Brotherhood, banned under Mubarak, has come under fire for proposing new regulations that would severely restrict independent groups. Seeking to ease the concerns, President Mohamed Mursi last week submitted a new draft law to parliament. \n \n But Western and Egyptian critics say the draft falls short. \n \n The EU, a major donor to Cairo, said on June 2 it would unnecessarily constrain the work of NGOs in Egypt, while Washington said the bill imposed significant government controls on the activities and funding of civic groups. ||||| An Egyptian court on Tuesday convicted 43 nonprofit workers, including at least 16 Americans, of illegally using foreign funds to foment unrest in the country, sentencing them to up to five years in jail. \n \n Colleagues and family members react to a court verdict convicting 43 nonprofit workers, including at least 16 Americans, of illegally using foreign funds to foment unrest in the country, sentencing them... (Associated Press) \n \n Most of the Americans had left the country. They include Sam LaHood, son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He received a five-year jail term. \n \n Present at Tuesday's hearing was American Robert Becker, who received a two-year sentence. Becker has maintained that his refusal to flee Egypt with fellow Americans who were in the country at the time of the crackdown on nonprofit groups was to show solidarity with his Egyptian colleagues. \n \n The verdict read out by judge Makram Awad also ordered the closure and seizure of the offices and assets in Egypt belonging to U.S. nonprofit groups as well as one German organization for which the defendants worked. These are the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, a center for training journalists and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation. \n \n Of the 43 defendants, 27 received five-year jail terms. Another five received two years and 11 got one year. Defendants tried in absentia typically are convicted and receive the maximum sentence but also get an automatic retrial. All 43 were fined 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($143). \n \n Beside the Americans, eight other foreigners of Serbian, Jordanian, Lebanese, and other nationalities were tried. \n \n The trial began in early 2012 during the nearly 17 months of military rule that followed the ouster in the previous year of U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak. The case led to a period of tension in U.S.-Egyptian relations, with Washington warning that, unless resolved, it could lead to the loss of American aid. \n \n There was no immediate comment from the Obama administration on the verdicts, but a senior U.S. congressman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce, condemned the ruling in a statement and urged Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to allow nonprofit groups to work toward a democratic Egypt. \n \n \"This is another assault on Egyptian civil society. As if these trials were not bad enough, the Egyptian government is pushing a new law targeting NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that will further suffocate civil society,\" said Royce, a Republican from California. \"President Morsi should immediately reverse course and allow for Egyptian domestic and international NGOs to work toward a democratic and secure Egypt.\" \n \n In Berlin, the German foreign minister said his country was outraged by the verdicts and will work for their overturn. \n \n \"The actions of the Egyptian judiciary are troubling. They weaken civil society, which is an important pillar of democracy in the new democratic Egypt,\" the minister, Guido Westerwelle, said in a statement. \"The German political foundations are doing wonderful work in Egypt. They are doing exemplary work during a historical phase for Egypt, laying the foundations for democracy, rule of law, pluralism and intercultural dialogue.\" \n \n The former head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation received a five-year sentence on Tuesday and an employee was jailed for two. \n \n Egypt and the United States have been close allies for more than three decades, with the Egyptian military receiving more than $1 billion in aid annually. The aid is linked to Egypt's adherence to an American-mediated 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Washington's closest Middle East ally. Besides the $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid, Egypt also receives about $250 million in economic aid every year. \n \n Mubarak, the military rulers who followed him, and now Morsi's government have all been at odds with nonprofits over both their activities and their funding. Last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch and 40 Egyptian rights groups said an Egyptian draft law regulating non-governmental organizations would restrict the funding and operation of independent groups. \n \n The contentious bill, proposed by Morsi and shortly to be debated by the country's interim legislature, would allow the state to control nonprofits' activities as well as their domestic and international funding, HRW said. The current form of the bill is a serious regression from earlier versions, it added. \n \n In a joint statement, the 40 Egyptian rights groups accused Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm of seeking to curb the freedom of rights groups through legal restrictions. They said the proposed law potentially gives Egypt's security apparatus the power to suppress rights group, drawing parallels to Egypt's recent past under Mubarak's 29-year rule \n \n They also expressed fears foreign nonprofits would be treated with hostility and that vaguely worded legislation would hinder operations or the issuance of work permits. \n \n A spokesperson for Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign affairs chief, said Morsi's bill contained elements that would constrain the work of nonprofit groups and hinder the European Union's own capacity as a foreign donor to support their work. \n \n \"The draft law has to be in line with international standards and obligations of Egypt,\" the spokesperson said in a statement issued Sunday. \n \n Nonprofit pro-democracy groups have trained thousands of young Egyptians in political activism and organizing, an education that played a key part in the success of the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak. \n \n The crackdown against the nonprofit groups began in late December 2011, when Egyptian security raided offices of 10 pro-democracy and human rights groups. Workers, including the 16 Americans, were then charged with using illegal funds and promoting protests against the then-ruling military. \n \n The groups hotly denied the charges. They insisted their financing is transparent, and all their efforts to register had been stalled by the Egyptian government. \n \n During the trial, the prosecution maintained that, between them, the four U.S. groups and one German organization illegally received about $50 million in funds, most of that in the months that followed Mubarak's ouster in February 2011. It claimed that the groups were engaged in illegal polling, training in political activism and other activity without the knowledge or the approval of authorities. \n \n Their activity, prosecutor Abdullah Yassin told the court last year, amounted to an \"infringement of the sovereignty of the state of Egypt. \n \n __ \n \n Associated Press reporter Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report. ||||| International \n \n 16 Americans Among Nonprofit Workers Convicted In Egypt \n \n Sixteen Americans were among 43 people convicted in Egypt on Tuesday for what the transitional government at the time had said was illegal interference in the nation's affairs. The investigation began in 2011 under military rule. \n \n Those judged guilty all worked for foreign non-governmental organizations, including two U.S. groups that have tried to promote democracy in Egypt. \n \n From Cairo, NPR's Leila Faidel reports that 15 of the Americans were convicted in absentia. They include Sam LaHood, the son of outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The 16th American, Robert Becker, \"refused to leave Egypt in solidarity with the Egyptian employees who faced charges,\" she tells our Newscast Desk. He works for the National Democratic Institute. \n \n Becker has been sentenced to two years in prison. Leila tells us he plans to appeal the conviction. It is not known yet whether he will remain free in the meantime. \n \n As we reported in March 2012, the Americans charged with interference denied the accusations. They also said that another charge \u2014 that they were in the country illegally \u2014 was unfair because the Americans had repeatedly tried to obtain the required clearances but had been ignored by the government. \n \n According to Leila, 27 of the defendants \u2014 including the 15 Americans other than Becker \u2014 have been \"sentenced to five years in absentia.\" Along with Becker, four other defendants have been given two-year prison sentences. Eleven Egyptians, she reports, got \"one-year suspended sentences.\" \n \n All the defendants were fined 1,000 Egyptian pounds each (about $143). Their NGOs will be closed. \n \n The Associated Press notes that:", "summary": "\u2013 If Egypt had its way, the son of one of President Obama's Cabinet members would spend the next five years in prison. Sam LaHood, son of transportation chief Ray LaHood, was among 16 Americans convicted today in an Egyptian court, accused by the government there of trying to foment unrest in their roles with non-governmental organizations, reports Reuters. LaHood and 15 others are back in the US and were convicted in absentia. They all received five-year sentences. The 16th, Robert Becker, stayed behind in solidarity with Egyptians caught up in last year's crackdown on NGOs, and he received a two-year sentence, reports the AP. Becker plans to appeal, and it's not clear whether he will remain free in the interim. In addition to the Americans, the court convicted 27 others of various nationalities. The Americans convicted belonged to both Republican and Democrat groups. \"The government of President Mohammed Morsi basically accused them of trying to undermine that regime by encouraging unrest,\" writes Mark Memmott at NPR."}
{"document": "Every outstanding missing person's case in Australia will be re-examined after a man was charged with the 'horrific' kidnap and attempted murder of two female backpackers, police have revealed. \n \n It comes after pictures emerged of the bedroom of the man suspected of trying to kill the two girls in a remote South Australian national park near Salt Creek on Tuesday night. \n \n The pictures come as the newly set up Taskforce Coorong updated the public on its investigation so far. \n \n Acting Asst Commissioner Douglas Barr told media: \"About 45,000 cases reported in Australia every year, we will be looking at all outstanding missing persons. \n \n \"Every outstanding case will be looked into. These two women have been subject to a horrifying incident.\" \n \n The acting commissioner said that the 'terrifying incident' had shocked the community and he understood there were lots of questions that the police are unable to answer at this time. \n \n \"Speculation is rife in the community and the press, and rightly so. \n \n \"It's prudent, if nothing else, to invest the background of this offender. The man is before the courts with a serious offence and is entitled to the presumption of innocence. \n \n \"His name will remain suppressed at least until committal proceedings are finalised but I don't think its appropriate to detail this person's criminal history,\" Acting Asst Commissioner Barr added. \n \n 7 News revealed yesterday that the suspect was already in police sights as detectives had already raided his southern suburbs home several times in the past year seizing items of interest. \n \n The accused man and his elderly father live in Morphett Vale. Late on Thursday afternoon his family reacted to the arrest. \n \n \u201cThat's horrible, unexpected,\u201d said the accused\u2019s father. \n \n His ex-wife said: \u201cBut he's never put hands on family. At least not on me or the kids you know.\u201d \n \n When residents saw last night's chilling report on 7 News they immediately knew the man police arrested was their neighbour. \n \n \u201cThe age, description, the car, he goes away a lot, when they said it was Morphett Vale\u2026my heart sank,\u201d one woman said. \n \n \u201cIt's just unbelievable really, shock, feeling of sickness\u2026 I did call the police cause I had concerns he was a neighbour and then it obviously unraveled and he was,\u201d another woman said. \n \n \u201cWe don't know if he was watching our kids, we've got no idea, that's what's scary about the whole thing.\u201d \n \n This week SA Police announced the formation of Task Force Coorong to investigate the Salt Creek incident and to find out whether the suspect has been involved in any other crimes. \n \n Acting Superintendent Trent Cox said a dedicated team comprising of 12 investigators and intelligence officers had been created. \n \n \u201cIt is difficult for police to detail some matters at this time given the arrest of a man, and the legal constraints that brings,\u201d Superintendent Cox said. \n \n \u201cHowever, I would like to assure the public that at this time police are not seeking any other suspect in connection with this matter, but are following every avenue of inquiry. \n \n Neighbours claim police have visited the home several times over the past year. \n \n \u201cThere's a lot of cop activity at that house, coming and going, he ran up the alley-way one night, had the dogs chasing him, I've seen evidence being taken with computers and stuff,\u201d a woman said. \n \n They said the man is a loner, cleans his boat and keeps to himself. \n \n \u201cSeems like a normal bloke and then you see that on the news and it's pretty scary, knowing there's kids in the street, it's just out of the blue,\u201d one young man said. \n \n \u201cHe just looked creepy, something about him\u2026 He's been there about 12 months, I know his father, been over there for a BBQ, so it's just disbelief,\u201d a man said. \n \n \u201cI don't like walking past him when he's out the front, he stares, he just doesn't say anything,\u201d one of the women said. \n \n One of the two women rescued from the terrifying alleged abduction ordeal on the isolated South Australian beach has been released from hospital. \n \n The identities of the alleged victims cannot be published for legal reasons, however, 7 News can reveal one is a 23-year-old nurse from Brazil. \n \n The other woman, also believed to be aged in her 20s is believed to be from Germany. She remains in hospital. \n \n Both the girls were travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne with the man charged with kidnapping and attempted murder. \n \n A group of about 12 locals managed to find and rescue the young women after fishermen saw one running from sand dunes, naked, bleeding and crying for help. \n \n They were flown to the Flinders Medical Centre with serious injuries after being taken to the Salt Creek Road House. \n \n One is believed to have been hit in the head with a hammer while another was run over with a vehicle. \n \n Dramatic amateur video showed the moment police arrested the man now accused of inflicting the terrifying ordeal upon the two travellers. \n \n The 59-year-old man has been refused bail and is scheduled to appear in court again in April. \n \n His Facebook page shows him posing with a gun, and documents other trips to Salt Creek. \n \n He operates several Facebook pages and has an online profile with a dating site seeking a new Asian wife, where he says he is \u201crespectful to women and gets along with everyone, well almost.\u201d \n \n The rescue of the backpackers \n \n Four fishermen raised the alarm after spotting one of the female backpackers running from the dunes, begging for help. \n \n One of the fishermen said she did not appear to know what was happening. \n \n \u201cShe ran straight to the car yelling,\u201d Abdul-Karim Mohammed said. \n \n \u201cShe opened the back door, jumped straight in and like, \u2018get me out of here, get me out of here. He\u2019s going to kill us all\u2019. \n \n \u201cShe had some scratches and that on the legs, looked like she\u2019d been pulled around, dragged around and that. \n \n \u201cShe had a bruised eye; maybe would have punched her or something.\u201d \n \n Fearing for the woman\u2019s friend, the fishermen got an S.O.S to the Salt Creek Roadhouse. \n \n Owner Adam Stewart took the call and rushed to help. \n \n \u201cThe young guys were pretty scared so they wanted to get out of there, but we got them to go back in and, with that, they've seen the vehicle and sweet talked him into basically getting in there and rescuing the girl,\u201d Mr Stewart said. \n \n Rescuers then found the second backpacker, barely conscious and unable to speak. \n \n Police would not reveal the backpacker\u2019s injuries but 7 News understands at least one had been tied up. \n \n At one stage they helped each other escape but it was short lived. \n \n \u201cHer and her friend split up, started running different directions,\u201d Mr Mohammed said. \n \n \u201cI think it was to get him, you know what I mean, and she got away. \n \n \u201cLooks like he captured them again and unfortunately she was the one who sustained the serious injuries.\u201d \n \n Mr Stewart said the women \u201cwere in pretty bad shape\u201d. The shock of the scene also affected the rescuers and police officers. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re all pretty rattled, obviously. It\u2019s a heavy event at any level,\u201d Mr Stewart said. \n \n \u201cEven the police were rattled by it at a very high level.\u201d \n \n Crime scene investigation officers spent Wednesday and Thursday scouring the beach and searching the scene. \n \n A campsite was found a kilometre away from where the first woman was found. A fishing knife and a hook were among the items left behind. \n \n It is believed the pair met the man on Tuesday and they were travelling interstate. \n \n Police are now investigating if the man could be involved in any other crimes. \n \n There were a dozen people from the small Salt Creek community involved in the rescue. \n \n Anyone with information that they believe may assist investigators should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 \u2013 you can remain anonymous. ||||| Image copyright 7News Image caption A screen grab shows the moment an Australian man, 59, is arrested on a remote beach south of Adelaide \n \n An Australian man has been charged over the alleged kidnapping and attempted murder of two female backpackers on a beach south of Adelaide. \n \n Reports said the women, believed to be European, were rescued after they managed to escape from their captor and run off in different directions. \n \n One was recaptured, but the other ran screaming from sand dunes towards a group of fishermen, witnesses said. \n \n The man was arrested at Coorong National Park on Tuesday evening. \n \n \"She ran straight to the car yelling. She opened the back door, jumped straight in and like, 'get me out of here, get me out of here. He's going to kill us all',\" fisherman Abdul-Karim Mohammed told 7 News. \n \n He said the trio was travelling together from Adelaide to Melbourne, and had stopped at the small settlement of Salt Creek. \n \n The second woman was found barely conscious and unable to speak, the fishermen said. \n \n Salt Creek Roadhouse owner Adam Stewart said he encouraged the fishermen to return for the second woman after they phoned him for help. \n \n \"Unfortunately, [the women] were in pretty bad shape... We're all pretty rattled, obviously. It's a heavy event at any level. Even the police were rattled by it at a very high level,\" Mr Stewart told 7 News. \n \n Details including the accused man's identity, vehicle and alleged actions during the crimes have been suppressed. \n \n He is expected to face court again in April. ||||| Two female backpackers were allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted by an Australian man in an isolated region of South Australia, who is now facing charges including attempted murder. \n \n The women, who were visiting from overseas, had met their alleged attacker in a rural area more than 100km from Adelaide. The man drove them to a campsite at Salt Creek in Coorong national park, where he allegedly kidnapped, sexually assaulted and attempted to kill the women. \n \n Police were called after one of the women escaped her alleged attacker and found a group of fishermen camping on a nearby beach. One of the fishermen told the Adelaide Advertiser the woman ran towards him, screaming: \u201cHe\u2019s going to kill us all.\u201d \n \n A 59-year-old South Australian man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder and unlawful sexual intercourse with the two women. The man did not apply for bail and was taken into custody on Thursday. \n \n At a media conference on Thursday, South Australian police superintendent James Blandford said the women were found in a \u201cdire\u201d situation. \n \n \u201cGiven the nature of the charges, their situation was obviously very dire and they were somewhat distressed,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the victims was able to run away and came across some people who were fishing in the area,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cThey were able to comfort and secure her and make a call to the police.\u201d \n \n The second woman was later found by rescuers in the sand dunes. The woman had sustained serious injuries. \n \n One of the fishermen, Abdul-Karim Mohammed, said the scene was confronting, with the woman screaming, crying and yelling. \n \n \u201cFirst of all she just started waving,\u201d he told Seven News. \u201cShe looked at us. She didn\u2019t know what was going on. She ran straight to the car yelling. She opened the back door, jumped straight in and like \u2018Get me out of here, get me out of here. He\u2019s going to kill us all.\u2019 \n \n \u201cFirst of all she had no clothes on so we just straight away gave her our jacket. \n \n \u201cShe had some scratches and that on the legs. Look liked she\u2019d been pulled around, dragged around and that.\u201d \n \n Camper Josh Harris saw the woman, who was possibly hit with a hammer, as her rescuers brought her to a roadhouse at Salt Creek. \n \n \u201cAt first I thought it was mud on her face. As she walked, supported by people, blood was all over her,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cThe guys who dropped her off were in shock. She\u2019d said her attacker was going to kill her.\u201d \n \n Harris said the second woman caught up in the attack seemed \u201cokay physically\u201d. \n \n \u201cShe was holding a pillow to her head but was running around saying \u2018where is she? I need to see her. She saved my life\u2019. \n \n \u201cIt was horrific. It was like something from a movie. It was Storm Boy turned into Wolf Creek.\u201d \n \n The women, aged in their 20s, were hospitalised. By Thursday, one had been discharged with the second still under observation in a stable condition after suffering serious injuries. \n \n The attack has shocked locals in the popular tourist destination. \n \n \u201cSomething like that, you wouldn\u2019t expect it to happen on your front door. It\u2019s a beautiful area,\u201d Coorongdunes Holiday Accommodation owner Mandell Tiver said. \n \n A police statement issued on Wednesday said: \u201cAt 6.30pm on Tuesday 9 February, police were called to the Coorong national park after reports of an assault. Two women were transported to the Flinders medical centre with serious injuries. Both remain at the hospital in a stable condition.\u201d \n \n \u201cThe 59-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder and kidnapping.\u201d \n \n \u201cMurray Bridge CIB [Criminal Investigation Branch] are investigating and Major Crime Investigation Branch detectives are assisting.\u201d \n \n The court suppressed the man\u2019s name and police have not revealed the women\u2019s nationalities to protect their identities. \n \n The man will face court again in April. \n \n Police have also established a task force to investigate the attack including whether the man was linked to other crimes. \n \n \n \n \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 Two female backpackers have escaped a living nightmare near Adelaide, Australia. Police say a German and Brazilian, both in their 20s, met a man in a rural area of South Australia who drove them to a remote beach campsite in Coorong National Park on Tuesday, per 7 News and the Guardian. There, police say the man sexually assaulted the women, then tried to kill them. One was hit in the head with a hammer while the other was reportedly run over by a car. Incredibly, both managed to escape and run in different directions, reports the BBC. One was recaptured, but the other found a group of fishermen. \"She ran straight to the car yelling. She opened the back door, jumped straight in and [was] like, 'get me out of here, get me out of here. He's going to kill us all,'\" one man says. \"She had no clothes on so we just straight away gave her our jacket.\" Another witness says she had \"blood all over her.\" A dozen or so locals eventually set out in search of the second woman and found her barely conscious in sand dunes. A 59-year-old South Australian man\u20147 News reports he is of German heritage\u2014was arrested later Tuesday in Coorong National Park and faces charges of kidnapping, unlawful sexual intercourse, and attempted murder. The man cannot be named for legal reasons, but neighbors say police have raided his home several times over the last year, taking items including computers. A photo on Facebook shows him holding a gun, while a fishing knife and hook were found at the campsite. \"He's never put hands on family. At least not on me or the kids,\" his ex-wife says. He's due in court in April. Both victims were admitted to a hospital, where the German backpacker remained in stable condition on Thursday. (A Swedish doctor allegedly held a woman in a bunker.)"}
{"document": "Michelle Obama is Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating Person of 2009. \n \n Almost a year since the Obama family moved to Washington, D.C., the first lady reflected on the transition to the White House. \n \n \"It has been a whirlwind. But it's been amazing,\" she told Walters. \"I mean, if you think about this year, I had to get these two beautiful girls settled into a new city, into a new home, into a new school. We got a dog. I visited eight countries with my husband. I planted a garden. I've started a mentoring program. It has been everything. And now, here we are at our first Christmas in the White House.\" \n \n Play \n \n During her tenure as first lady, Obama has promoted healthy living and taken steps to combat childhood obesity -- creating a vegetable garden on the White House lawn and holding health fairs with exercise stations for kids. \n \n \"I think I've begun to lay the foundation to a conversation about the health of our kids -- particularly when we're looking at statistics that say that one in three kids in this country are obese, and those numbers increase if you're African-American or Hispanic,\" she said. \"So we're going to spend a lot more time on that issue in the years to come.\" \n \n The first African-American first lady is also one of the fittest. Wearing a sleeveless dress in her official White House portrait, Obama's toned arms have become part of her signature style -- and the envy of many. \n \n Obama, who often joins her husband in the White House gym, told Walters that her workout regimen began after the birth of their first daughter, Malia. \n \n Play \n \n \"My personal routine hasn't changed much in the past 11 years,\" she said. \"I really started right after I had Malia, our oldest, and some of that was, you know, in all honesty it was a little sort of revenge because I'm married to a man who has worked out all of his life. And regardless of how busy he is, he finds the time to work out. And there was a point at which I got a little resentful of that.\" \n \n \"[Malia] was still waking up for that four o'clock feeding and I'd get up because I'd be the first one to hear her, and he'd be asleep,\" she added. \"And I thought, 'I'm up, I might as well go to the gym. And if I get to the gym, then he'll have to wake up and do that feeding.' I get a workout in and everyone will be happy. So you know, if there's anything that I can attribute these arms to, it's probably just determination.\" \n \n Play \n \n Michelle Obama on Marriage, Family, Bo \n \n The Obamas who have been married for 17 years have had their share of ups and downs. Michelle Obama told Walters that despite her confidence in her husband's natural ability, at a certain point, the grueling demands of politics bothered her. \n \n \"I had always had this dilemma,\" she said. \"It wasn't that I didn't believe in my husband as a phenomenal leader. I mean, that was always the pull -- because I always thought, 'Well, if I wanted somebody as my state senator, or as my U.S. senator, or as my president, I would want Barack Obama.' And the only reason he wouldn't do it is if I said no.\" \n \n Play \n \n When asked by Walters if the president would have stopped pursuing politics if she really put her foot down, the first lady said, \"He would have.\" \n \n \"I think it's the truth, the fact that he would have not pursued any of this had I really, really put my foot down,\" she said. \"It made it really hard to be the person that would stand in the way of someone else's dreams, and the possibilities of his leadership. And I definitely didn't want to be in that position. I think I made the right call.\" \n \n First Lady's Guilty Pleasures? \n \n Between greeting world leaders and raising tweens, Malia and Sasha, in the national spotlight, Obama's scheduled is packed. But even she has her \"lazy days.\" The first lady said her guilty pleasures are often \"food based,\" or are watching \"really bad TV\" with the family's Portuguese water dog, Bo. \n \n \"I sit with Bo, who usually climbs up on my lap. He thinks he's a lap dog,\" she said. \"He'll cozy up with me, and I'm just clicking through mindless shows. A lot of, you know, shows about food and design, and all that good stuff. And it's just quiet, and I'm not thinking about anything for that second -- not about the kids, not about my husband, not about my schedule. If I get an hour of that during the course of a week, it feels like heaven.\" \n \n Obama gushed about Bo, who instantly became the apple of the family's eye. \n \n \"Bo is my baby, he's our son. He's wonderful. He's growing,\" she said. \"It's like I'm a mother. You ask about my kid, I'm gone.\" \n \n But the reality of life at the White House has not yet set in for the first lady, who said she sometimes walks through the grand, historic rooms and has to pinch herself. \n \n \"There are moments when -- especially at night when it's quiet or you're driving up to the White House at night and the white lights are shining on \u2026 this beautiful home and you pull up to it, and somebody opens the door and says, 'Welcome home' -- those are the times when you think, 'Really? Wow. OK, here we go,'\" she said \n \n Barack Obama was dubbed Walters' Most Fascinating Person of 2008. \n \n Click here to see photos of this year's Most Fascinating! ||||| Ball Bustin' Barbara Walters Won't Take Any Lip on The O'Reilly Factor \n \n Barbara Walters was kind of tough on Bill O\u2019Reilly on Wednesday evening when she went on The Factor to promote her \u201c10 Most Fascinating People\u201d special. \u201cWhat are you watching, Nickelodeon?\u201d she said before calling O\u2019Reilly \u201cold fashioned \u2014 my god!\u201d She also rolled her eyes and shouted O\u2019Reilly down when he challenged her decisions to include Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert (\u201cthis gay guy\u201d) on her list. Then Barbara took it below the belt and accused O\u2019Reilly of being jealous of his colleague, Glenn Beck, also on the list. O'Reilly laughed it off awkwardly. \n \n \n \n Barbara Walters Tells Bill O'Reilly: You're Jealous Of Glenn Beck [HuffPo]", "summary": "\u2013 Barack Obama, Barbara Walters\u2019 most fascinating person of 2008, was succeeded this year by\u2026his wife, Michelle. Walters named the first lady her top pick during last night\u2019s ABC special, which also included interviews with the rest of the top 10. Obama discussed the \u201camazing whirlwind\u201d of life in the White House, the importance of her healthy kids campaign, her guilty pleasures (\u201creally bad TV\u201d), and\u2014of course\u2014how she keeps up those toned arms. The rest of the 10 were Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Glenn Beck, Michael Jackson's children, Jenny Sanford, Kate Gosselin, Sarah Palin, Brett Favre, and Tyler Perry. Bill O\u2019Reilly, who interviewed Walters yesterday, did not agree with some of her choices, leading Walters to criticize him\u2014and accuse him of being both homophobic and jealous of Glenn Beck, New York reports. Watch their spat, as well as a few of Walters\u2019 other interviews, above."}
{"document": "\u201cWe are still doing an investigation.\u201d \n \n \u2014 President Obama, Sept. 25, 2012 \n \n In any kind of confused overseas event, initial reports are often wrong. But the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed, including the ambassador, is a case study of how an administration can carefully keep the focus as long as possible on one storyline \u2014 and then turn on a dime when it is no longer tenable. \n \n For political reasons, it certainly was in the White House\u2019s interests to not portray the attack as a terrorist incident, especially one that took place on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead the administration kept the focus on what was ultimately a red herring \u2014 anger in the Arab world over anti-Muslim video posted on You Tube. With key phrases and message discipline, the administration was able to conflate an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Egypt \u2014 which apparently was prompted by the video \u2014 with the deadly assault in Benghazi. \n \n Officials were also able to dismiss pointed questions by referring to an ongoing investigation. \n \n Ultimately, when the head of the National Counterterrorism Center was asked pointblank on Capitol Hill whether it was a an act of terror \u2014 and he agreed \u2014 the administration talking points began to shift. (Tough news reporting \u2014 as well as statements by Libya\u2019s president \u2014 also played a role.) Yet President Obama himself resisted using the \u201ct\u201d word, even as late as Tuesday, while keeping the focus on the video in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. \n \n On Wednesday, however, White House spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged also that Obama himself believes the attack was terrorism \u2014 and so more than two weeks after the attack the Rubicon finally was crossed. \n \n As a reader service, we have compiled a comprehensive timeline of administration statements, showing the evolution in talking points, with key phrases highlighted in bold. Many readers sent suggestions for this timeline, for which we are deeply grateful. \n \n We will leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions on whether this is merely the result of the fog of war and diplomacy \u2014 or a deliberate effort to steer the storyline away from more politically damaging questions. After all, in a competitive election, two weeks is a lifetime. \n \n Initially, \u2018an attack\u2019 \u2014 and focus on a video \n \n \u201cYesterday, our U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked. Heavily armed militants assaulted the compound and set fire to our buildings. American and Libyan security personnel battled the attackers together. Four Americans were killed. They included Sean Smith, a Foreign Service information management officer, and our Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. We are still making next of kin notifications for the other two individuals.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, State Department Treaty room, Sept. 12 \n \n \u201cThe United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. We're working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats. I've also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world. And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people. \n \n \u201cSince our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts\u2026No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.\u201d \n \n \u2014 President Obama, Rose Garden statement, Sept. 12 \n \n (Note: we added this statement to the timeline after Josh Gerstein of Politico asserted that the phrasing \u201cacts of terror\u201d showed Obama acknowledged \u201cterrorism\u201d was behind the attack. From our many years of covering diplomacy we would say there is a world of difference, but readers can draw their own conclusions.) \n \n \u201cFrankly, we are not in a position to speak any further to the perpetrators of this attack. It was clearly a complex attack. We\u2019re going to have to do a full investigation.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Unnamed senior administration official, briefing reporters in a conference call, Sept. 12 \n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s important to note with regards to that protest that there are protests taking place in different countries across the world that are responding to the movie that has circulated on the Internet. As Secretary Clinton said today, the United States government had nothing to do with this movie. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. America has a history of religious tolerance and respect for religious beliefs that goes back to our nation\u2019s founding. We are stronger because we are the home to people of all religions, including millions of Muslims, and we reject the denigration of religion. We also believe that there is no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence.\u201d \n \n \u2014 White House spokesman Jay Carney, news briefing, Sept. 13 \n \n \u201cThis has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We\u2019ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We\u2019ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over n awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Clinton, transfer of remains ceremony, Sept. 14 \n \n \u201cI have seen that report, and the story is absolutely wrong. We were not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent. That report is false.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Carney, news briefing, Sept. 14 \n \n \u201cBased on the best information we have to date ... it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo, where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.... We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Susan E. Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d Sept. 16 \n \n \u201cWe had a substantial security presence with our personnel and the consulate in Benghazi. Tragically, two of the four Americans who were killed were there providing security. That was their function. And indeed, there were many other colleagues who were doing the same with them.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Rice, on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Sept. 16 \n \n (Note: the U.S. post was not a consulate and its precise role is still a mystery.) \n \n \u201cThe way these perpetrators acted and moved, and their choosing the specific date for this so-called demonstration, this leaves us with no doubt that this was preplanned, predetermined.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf, president of Libya\u2019s General National Congress, Sept. 16 \n \n QUESTION: \u201cSimply on the basis of what Ambassador Rice has publicly disclosed, does the United States Government regard what happened in Benghazi as an act of terror?\u201d \n \n SPOKESWOMAN VICTORIA NULAND: \u201cAgain, I\u2019m not going to put labels on this until we have a complete investigation, okay?\u201d \n \n QUESTION: \u201cYou don\u2019t \u2014 so you don\u2019t regard it as an act of terrorism?\u201d \n \n NULAND: \u201cI don\u2019t think we know enough. I don\u2019t think we know enough. And we\u2019re going to continue to assess. She gave our preliminary assessment. We\u2019re going to have a full investigation now, and then we\u2019ll be in a better position to put labels on things, okay?\u201d \n \n \u2014 exchange at State Department briefing, Sept. 17 \n \n \u201cWell, you\u2019re conveniently conflating two things, which is the anniversary of 9/11 and the incidents that took place, which are under investigation and the cause and motivation behind them will be decided by that investigation.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Carney, news briefing, Sept. 17 \n \n Suddenly, a shift to a \u2018terrorist attack\u2019 \n \n \u201cI would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy\u2026.The best information we have now, the facts that we have now indicate that this was an opportunistic attack on our embassy. The attack began and evolved and escalated over several hours at our embassy \u2014 our diplomatic post in Benghazi. It evolved and escalated over several hours. \n \n \u201cIt appears that individuals who were certainly well-armed seized on the opportunity presented as the events unfolded that evening and into the \u2014 into the morning hours of September 12th. We do know that a number of militants in the area, as I mentioned, are well-armed and maintain those arms. What we don't have at this point is specific intelligence that there was a significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack. \n \n \u201cWe are focused on who was responsible for this attack. At this point, what I would say is that a number of different elements appear to have been involved in the attack, including individuals connected to militant groups that are prevalent in eastern Libya, particularly in the Benghazi area, as well. We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda's affiliates; in particular, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Mathew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, testimony before Congress, Sept. 19, after being asked a direct question. \n \n CNN reports on Sept. 19 that Ambassador Christopher Stevens had been worried by the security threats in Benghazi. CNN later acknowledged the information came from Steven\u2019s journal. \n \n \u201cIt is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Our embassy was attacked violently, and the result was four deaths of American officials. So, again, that's self- evident. \n \n \u201cHe also made clear that at this point, based on the information he has \u2014 and he is briefing the Hill on the most up-to-date intelligence \u2014 we have no information at this point that suggests that this was a significantly preplanned attack, but this was the result of opportunism, taking advantage of and exploiting what was happening as a result of reaction to the video that was found to be offensive.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Carney, news briefing, Sept. 20 \n \n CBS News reports there never was anti-American protest. \n \n \u201cWitnesses tell CBS News that there was never an anti-American protest outside of the consulate. Instead they say it came under planned attack. That is in direct contradiction to the administration\u2019s account.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Margaret Brennan CBS News correspondent, CBS News report aired Sept. 20 \n \n But Obama resists saying the \u2018t\u2019 word\u2026 \n \n OBAMA: \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen over the last week, week and a half, is something that actually we've seen in the past, where there is an offensive video or cartoon directed at the prophet Muhammad. And this is obviously something that then is used as an excuse by some to carry out inexcusable violent acts directed at Westerners or Americans. \n \n \u201cAnd my number-one priority is always to keep our diplomats safe and to keep our embassies safe. And so when the initial events happened in Cairo and all across the region, we worked with Secretary Clinton to redouble our security and to send a message to the leaders of these countries, essentially saying, although we had nothing to do with the video, we find it offensive, it's not representative of America's views, how we treat each other with respect when it comes to their religious beliefs, but we will not tolerate violence.\u201d \n \n QUESTION: \u201cWe have reports that the White House said today that the attacks in Libya were a terrorist attack. Do you have information indicating that it was Iran, or al-Qaeda was behind organizing the protests?\u201d \n \n OBAMA: \u201cWell, we're still doing an investigation, and there are going to be different circumstances in different countries. And so I don\u2019t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.\u201d \n \n \u2014 President Obama, Univision Town Hall, Sept. 20 \n \n \n \n \u201cWhat happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and we will not rest until we have tracked down and brought to justice the terrorists who murdered four Americans.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Clinton, statement at a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Sept. 21, 2012 \n \n \u201cAs we all know, the United States lost a great ambassador and the Libyan people lost a true friend when Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the terrorist assault on our consulate in Benghazi.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Clinton, meeting with Libyan President Magariaf , Sept. 24 \n \n QUESTION: \u201cI heard Hillary Clinton say it was an act of terrorism. Is it? What do you say?\u201d \n \n OBAMA: \u201cWe are still doing an investigation. There is no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn\u2019t just a mob action. Now, we don\u2019t have all the information yet so we are still gathering.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Obama, on ABC\u2019s \u201cThe View,\u201d Sept. 25 \n \n \u201cThat is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Obama, speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Sept. 25 \n \n \u201cIt was a preplanned act of terrorism directed against American citizens.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Magariaf, on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show, Sept. 26 \n \n \u201cFor some time, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other groups have launched attacks and kidnappings from northern Mali into neighboring countries. Now, with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions. And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions underway in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Clinton, at the United Nations, Sept. 26 \n \n QUESTION: \u201cIs there any reason why the President did not \u2014 he was asked point-blank in The View interview, is this a terrorist attack, yes or no? Is there any reason why he didn\u2019t say yes?\u201d \n \n CARNEY: \u201cHe answered the question that he was asked, and there's no reason that he chose the words he did beyond trying to provide a full explanation of his views and his assessment that we need to await further information that the investigation will uncover. But it is certainly the case that it is our view as an administration, the President\u2019s view, that it was a terrorist attack.\u201d \n \n \u2014 Carney, news briefing, Sept. 26 \n \n (About our rating scale) \n \n Check out our candidate Pinocchio Tracker \n \n Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook . \n \n Track each presidential candidate's campaign ads \n \n Read our biggest Pinocchios ||||| U.S. intelligence officials knew within 24 hours of the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that it was a terrorist attack and suspected Al Qaeda-tied elements were involved, sources told Fox News -- though it took the administration a week to acknowledge it. \n \n The account sharply conflicts with claims on the Sunday after the attack by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice that the administration believed the strike was a \"spontaneous\" event triggered by protests in Egypt over an anti-Islam film. \n \n Intelligence sources said that the Obama administration internally labeled the attack terrorism from the first day in order to unlock and mobilize certain resources to respond, and that officials were looking for one specific suspect. The sources said the intelligence community knew by Sept. 12 that the militant Ansar al-Shariah and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were likely behind the strike. \n \n Further, an official said, \"No one ... believed that the mortars, indirect and direct fire, and the RPGs were just the work of a mob -- no one.\" \n \n Yet a congressional source told Fox News that CIA Director David Petraeus, during a briefing with members of the House Intelligence Committee three days after the attack, espoused the view that Benghazi was an out-of-control demonstration prompted by the YouTube video. According to the source, this was \"shocking\" to some members who were present and saw the same intelligence pointing toward a terrorist attack. \n \n In addition, sources confirm that FBI agents have not yet arrived in Benghazi in the aftermath of the attack. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault. \n \n The claims that officials initially classified the attack as terrorism is sure to raise serious questions among lawmakers who from the beginning have challenged the narrative the administration put out in the week following the strike. A few Republican lawmakers have gone so far as to suggest the administration withheld key facts about the assault for political reasons. \n \n \"I think we should have answers right away. ... I think they're reluctant to tell us what this event really was probably because it's an election year. But the American people deserve to know answers about what happened at our embassy in Libya,\" Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., told Fox News. \n \n One intelligence official clarified to Fox News that there was not a \"definitive\" lead on who might have been responsible for the Libya attacks in the immediate aftermath, though officials had an idea of the suspects. \n \n \"It's inaccurate to suggest that within the first 24 hours there was a definitive calling card and home address for the perpetrators of the Benghazi attack. Potential suspects and data points emerge early on, but it still takes time to be certain who is responsible,\" the official said. \n \n Curiously, Obama referred to \"acts of terror\" in his first public remarks about the attack. But from there, administration officials went on to blame the anti-Islam film. \n \n Rice was the most explicit in that explanation, insisting on a slew of Sunday shows that the attack was not pre-planned and was tied to the film. \n \n Obama still has not publicly and specifically described the Benghazi attack as terrorism. \n \n But top administration officials have gradually walked back Rice's version of events. \n \n Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly suggested Wednesday to foreign leaders visiting the United Nations summit in New York that the Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa was involved. \n \n \"Now with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions,\" Clinton told the group, according to The New York Times. \"And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi.\" \n \n She was referring to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. \n \n Clinton earlier this week called the attack terrorism, two weeks after the fact. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also said that Obama now believes it is terrorism as well. \n \n Fox News' Bret Baier and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report. ||||| Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda\u2013affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers. Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya. \n \n Nonetheless, it took until late last week for the White House and the administration to formally acknowledge that the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack. On Sunday, Obama adviser Robert Gibbs explained the evolving narrative as a function of new information coming in quickly on the attacks. \"We learned more information every single day about what happened,\u201d Gibbs said on Fox News. \u201cNobody wants to get to the bottom of this faster than we do.\u201d \n \n The intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast did so anonymously because they weren\u2019t authorized to speak to the press. They said U.S. intelligence agencies developed leads on four of the participants of the attacks within 24 hours of the fire fight that took place mainly at an annex near the Benghazi consulate. For one of those individuals, the U.S. agencies were able to find his location after his use of social media. \u201cWe had two kinds of intelligence on one guy,\u201d this official said. \u201cWe believe we had enough to target him.\u201d \n \n Another U.S. intelligence official said, \u201cThere was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address. There are camps of people and a wide variety of things we could do.\u201d \n \n A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment for the story. But another U.S. intelligence official said, \u201cI can\u2019t get into specific numbers but soon after the attack we had a pretty good bead on some individuals involved in the attack.\u201d \n \n It\u2019s unclear whether any of these suspected attackers have been targeted or arrested, and intelligence experts caution that these are still early days in a complex investigation. \n \n The question of what the White House knew, and when they knew it, will be of keen interest to members of Congress in the election year. Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally briefed House and Senate members on the attack. Those briefings however failed to satisfy many members, particularly Republicans. \u201cThat is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time,\u201d Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, was quoted as saying. \n \n The Daily Beast reported last week that the U.S. intelligence community was studying an intercept between a Libyan politician and a member of the so-called February 17 militia, Libyans charged with providing security for the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. More intelligence has come in that shows members of Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda\u2013affiliated group operating in and around Benghazi, were attempting to coerce, threaten, cajole, and bribe members of the militia protecting the consulate.", "summary": "\u2013 Hillary Clinton appeared to draw a line from al-Qaeda to the attack on the US consulate in Libya yesterday, further complicating the administration's somewhat muddled account of events. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and \"other violent extremists\" are trying to \"undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi,\" Clinton said during a high-level UN meeting, the New York Times reports. The administration has resisted calling the consulate attack \"terrorism,\" drawing criticism from the right. (The Washington Post has a full timeline of the administration response here.) But sources tell Fox News that US intelligence knew within 24 hours that al-Qaeda affiliates were behind the attack. The Daily Beast had a similar report yesterday, indicating officials could even pinpoint who was responsible and where they were. \"There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours,\" one official said. \"These guys have a return address.\""}
{"document": "FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2015 file photo filmmaker Roman Polanski tells reporters he can \u201cbreath with relief\u201d after a Polish judge ruled that the law forbids his extradition to the U.S., where in 1977... (Associated Press) \n \n FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2015 file photo filmmaker Roman Polanski tells reporters he can \u201cbreath with relief\u201d after a Polish judge ruled that the law forbids his extradition to the U.S., where in 1977... (Associated Press) \n \n WARSAW, Poland (AP) \u2014 Poland will not extradite Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski to the U.S. in an almost 40-year-old case after prosecutors declined to challenge a court ruling against it. \n \n Prosecutors in Krakow, who had sought the extradition on behalf of the U.S., said Friday they found the court's refusal of extradition to be \"right\" and said they found no grounds to appeal it. \n \n Polanski's lawyer, Jan Olszewski, told The Associated Press that Polanski's reaction was of \"great relief\" and of \"satisfaction\" that the irregularities in the U.S. procedure have been exposed. Polanski spoke to his lawyer over the phone from Paris, where he lives with his family. \n \n The decision by the prosecutors closes the case in Poland and means Polanski, 82, is free to reside and work in Poland, where he grew up and studied filmmaking, and where he is preparing to make a new movie. Preparations for the movie were stalled by the extradition request that the U.S. made last year. \n \n The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles. In a deal with the judge, he served more than a month in prison, but then fled the U.S. fearing the judge would have him imprisoned for much longer. The U.S. has been seeking to bring Polanski back and put him before a court. \n \n A judge in Krakow ruled last month that Polanski's extradition is inadmissible, arguing that the U.S. trial was not fair and that Polanski would not face a fair trial there. \n \n The Krakow prosecutors said in a statement they agreed with the court's reasoning. \n \n Among the irregularities, the court and the prosecutors named violation of Polanski's right to defense, \"unethical\" discussions between the judge and only one side of the case, informal instructions to the judges, intentional destruction of some of the documents in the case and loss of some others and excessive sensitivity of the judges to criticism in the media. \n \n ___ \n \n This story has been corrected to show that Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse, not statutory rape. ||||| Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski looks on as he attends a news conference in Krakow, Poland, October 30, 2015. REUTERS/Mateusz Skwarczek/Agencja Gazeta \n \n KRAKOW, Poland (Reuters) - A Polish court\u2019s decision to deny the extradition of film-maker Roman Polanski to the United States over a 1977 child sex conviction became legally binding on Friday after an appellate prosecutor\u2019s office said it found no justification to appeal it. \n \n The case of the Oscar-winning director, now 82, who holds Polish and French citizenship, has been an international cause celebre nearly four decades after the crime, with some demanding harsh punishment and others urging the case be let go. \n \n \u201cSpeaking for Polanski, I can say that we feel a great relief that this case has ended,\u201d Jan Olszewski, one of Polanski\u2019s lawyers said. \u201cAnd this means that it will be possible for Polanski to start making a planned film in Poland.\u201d \n \n The appellate prosecutor\u2019s office in the city of Krakow said in a statement on Friday that its analysis of the evidence collected in the case showed the earlier court decision on denying extradition had been correct. \n \n This means Poland\u2019s decision not to extradite Polanski has become legally binding and cannot be appealed again. \n \n The United States had requested Polanski\u2019s extradition from Poland after he made a high-profile appearance in Warsaw in 2014. The filmmaker lives in Paris but he also has an apartment in Krakow, southern Poland. \n \n Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to having sex with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles. \n \n The film director served 42 days in jail after a plea bargain. He fled the United States the following year to Britain and then to France, believing the judge hearing his case could overrule the deal and put him in jail for years. \n \n Samantha Geimer, the victim in the case, has long made clear she believes Polanski\u2019s long exile has been punishment enough.", "summary": "\u2013 Polish prosecutors have closed the Roman Polanski case, meaning the filmmaker can live and work in the country where he grew up and have no fear of extradition to the US. Prosecutors said Friday that an October verdict rejecting extradition for a 1977 statutory rape case was \"right\" and there is no reason to appeal, the AP reports. \"I can say that we feel a great relief that this case has ended,\" one of Polanski's lawyers tells Reuters. \"And this means that it will be possible for Polanski to start making a planned film in Poland.\" Polanski, 82, spends most of his time in France, which doesn't allows its citizens to be extradited. (Polanski's victim, who says his long exile from the US is punishment enough, has released a book with a cover photo by Polanski.)"}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Republican presidential candidate former Florida governor Jeb Bush launched his \"Jeb Can Fix It\" tour on Nov. 2 in Tampa, Fla. The launch coincides with the release of an e-book that reveals a more personal side to the 2016 candidate. (Reuters) \n \n If you\u2019ve ever wondered what Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush would look like in denim overalls, workman boots and a hard hat, look no further. As of Monday, the Internet has got you covered. \n \n The former Florida governor was in Tampa at the start of this week to launch an attempt at breathing life back into his campaign. As The Washington Post\u2019s Sean Sullivan reported, \u201cSpeaking in a bayside garden club under a banner declaring \u2018Jeb Can Fix It,\u2019 Bush delivered an optimistic speech meant to emphasize the leadership credentials he burnished as governor of Florida.\u201d \n \n On the tails of a lifeless debate performance, the \u201cJeb Can Fix It\u201d tour aims to reinvigorate the image of a candidate who has become a symbol of insider, establishment politics in an election cycle that\u2019s favoring outsiders in the GOP primary field. In late October, the onetime front-runner instituted pay cuts, slashed his budget and reduced the size of his staff. \n \n \u201cAfter seven years of incompetence, corruption and gridlock in Washington, we need a president who can fix it,\u201d Bush told the crowd in Florida. \u201cI can fix it.\u201d \n \n To his credit, the new slogan has really taken off online \u2014 just presumably not in the way he had hoped. \n \n [Down in the polls, Jeb Bush launches a comeback attempt] \n \n The hashtag #JebCanFixIt was trending on Twitter and Facebook on Monday, with social media users putting their creative juices to use in spoofing a catchphrase that many by now have concluded was ill-advised, at least where Internet traction is concerned. Bush and his earnest new slogan have inspired droll comparisons to car repairmen, plumbers and even marriage counselors. \n \n The most popular meme appears to be a play on the slogan\u2019s echoes of the theme song for \u201cBob the Builder,\u201d a popular British children\u2019s animated series starring the titular jovial, round-faced building contractor. The show\u2019s signature refrain involves Bob asking, \u201cCan we fix it?\u201d to which the other characters chime, \u201cYes we can!\u201d (And no, the line doesn\u2019t quite resonate in the same way that it did when it was uttered by a different presidential candidate in 2008.) \n \n Netizens really ran with this one. \n \n Jeb! The Builder\u2122! Can he fix it? Jeb! The Builder\u2122! Yes, he can!! pic.twitter.com/5iLunmzCdl \u2014 mike mulloy (@fakemikemulloy) November 2, 2015 \n \n It's 3:00am in 2027. A pipe bursts in an ad on TV. The homeowner is distraught. A plumber van shows up. The graphic reads: Jeb can fix it. \u2014 Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) November 2, 2015 \n \n Here are some elaborate Photoshop efforts from a Donald Trump supporter, followed by a jab from Trump himself: \n \n Jeb's new slogan \u2013 \"Jeb can fix it\". I never thought of Jeb as a crook! Stupid message, the word \"fix\" is not a good one to use in politics! \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2015 \n \n Some of the jokes strayed into more serious territory, like this reference to Florida\u2019s role in determining the 2000 presidential election results. \n \n Jeb Can Fix It actually refers to the 2000 election in Florida. \u2014 John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) November 2, 2015 \n \n All of this is reminiscent of the responses to Bush\u2019s campaign logo, which was similarly lampooned. Many commenters mocked the candidate for his use of a bright red exclamation mark, while others couldn\u2019t help but point out that it reminded them of the rock band \u201cPanic! at the Disco.\u201d \n \n Of course, Bush isn\u2019t the only 2016 presidential candidate whose attempts at messaging and outreach have been derailed by the social media masses. \n \n In August, some were taken aback when Democratic presidential hopeful and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton tweeted, \u201cHow does your student loan debt make you feel? Tell us in 3 emojis or less.\u201d This sparked a slew of spoofs, including \u201cHow does finally handing over your server to federal investigators make you feel? Tell us in 3 emojis or less,\u201d and \u201cHow does losing to Bernie Sanders in the polls feel? Feel free to use as many emojis as it takes.\u201d \n \n Clinton survived that particular snafu, but with many already believing that his campaign is floundering, Bush may need all the tools he has to fix this one. \n \n More from Morning Mix \n \n Feminist Germaine Greer still pummelled for \u2018misogynistic views toward transwomen\u2019 \n \n \u2018I\u2019m still there \u2014 in my dreams,\u2019 said Thomas Blatt, survivor of daring escape from Nazi death camp \n \n Activision to buy maker of \u2018Candy Crush\u2019 for $5.9 billion ||||| In an effort to jumpstart what many view as a failing campaign, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is launching a new tour in his home state of Florida. Today, he\u2019ll hit three Florida cities (Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville) before heading to South Carolina tomorrow and New Hampshire on Wednesday. \n \n It\u2019s only the morning of day one of the new \u201cJeb Can Fix It\u201d campaign, and already, it\u2019s looking unlikely that it will help Mr. Bush gain support. In a only a few hours, the campaign has become a viral Internet joke. \n \n The hashtag #JebCanFixIt began trending this morning, but the tweets aren\u2019t expressing support. They\u2019re mostly memes, jokes about Mr. Bush as a plumber and mechanic as well as links to the Bob the Builder theme song. There\u2019s quite a bit about election rigging as well. \n \n Here are just a few of the many, many \u201cJeb Can Fix It\u201d jokes: \n \n It's 3:00am in 2027. A pipe bursts in an ad on TV. The homeowner is distraught. A plumber van shows up. The graphic reads: Jeb can fix it. \u2014 Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) November 2, 2015 \n \n Jeb Can Fix It actually refers to the 2000 election in Florida. \u2014 John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) November 2, 2015 \n \n \"Jeb Can Fix It\" ~ uh huh\u2026this picture comes to mind: pic.twitter.com/nbViixJQBC \u2014 John Gort (@JohnGort) October 29, 2015 \n \n \"Jeb can fix it\" is a statement you would hear from Jim-Bob, just before he tells you it's $1200 to fix your transmission? \u2014 Brenden Dilley (@Hublife) November 2, 2015 \n \n \"Jeb Can Fix It\" sounds like a home improvement show starring a mentally challenged carpenter from rural Alabama. \u2014 Comedian Sean Kent (@seankent) November 2, 2015 \n \n BREAKING from the first \"Jeb Can Fix It\" campaign event pic.twitter.com/r2m6J090W4 \u2014 Oliver Willis (@owillis) November 2, 2015 \n \n Everyone is excited that \"Jeb Can Fix It\" \u2013 but what do you think he can actually fix? \u2014 Jeff Dwoskin (@bigmacher) November 2, 2015 \n \n \u201cJeb can fix it!\u201d Where have I heard that before? Oh yes \u2026 https://t.co/WWs3nBr7mD \u2014 David Frum (@davidfrum) November 1, 2015 \n \n Jeb Can Fix It by firing the person who convinced him that Jeb Can Fix It was a good idea for a campaign slogan. \u2014 Mark Campbell (@MrWordsWorth) November 2, 2015 \n \n If you can see Jeb's new slogan \"Jeb Can Fix It!\" and not think of this Disney character, you are not me. pic.twitter.com/7Hh4rsrg9w \u2014 Will McAvoy (@WillMcAvoyACN) November 2, 2015 \n \n One may think it\u2019s a stretch to say this could end Mr. Bush\u2019s run, but these aren\u2019t positive memes akin to Drake\u2019s viral \u201cHotline Bling\u201d success. They\u2019re memes indicating that the message he\u2019s running on is not being taken seriously and that his candidacy is a joke. After a lackluster performance in the latest GOP debate and consistently pulling in low poll numbers, it\u2019s generally agreed upon that he\u2019s hanging on by a thread, and struggling even to do that. Salon called the campaign a \u201cHail Mary,\u201d and if the quick influx of jokes and memes is an indicator of anything, it\u2019s that the defense is blitzing and Mr. Bush might be sacked before he gets to execute the pass. And even if he gets it off, it\u2019s basically already been intercepted. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 Jeb Bush's new slogan has really taken off, but not in the way he might've hoped. Despite recent cuts to his campaign budget and staff, Bush appeared at a Florida event on Monday promising to set the country on the right track. \"After seven years of incompetence, corruption, and gridlock in Washington, we need a president who can fix it. I can fix it,\" Bush said, standing in front of a banner reading, \"Jeb can fix it.\" The event was meant to turn a new leaf for Bush, who's fallen to fifth in the GOP pack after poor debate performances. But rather than casting Bush in a presidential light, social media users are comparing him to car repairmen, marriage counselors, and even Bob the Builder under the hashtag #JebCanFixIt, per the Washington Post. One Twitter user jokes that if Bush quits the GOP race, he'll get his own HGTV show called Jeb Can Fix It, while another suggests his slogan refers to Florida's role in deciding the 2000 presidential election results. Donald Trump also threw some shade: \"I never thought of Jeb as a crook! Stupid message, the word 'fix' is not a good one to use in politics!\" he tweeted. Gawker points out Bush's slogan is ill-advised for another, more obscure reason: It's similar to Jim'll Fix It\u2014the once-popular British children's show hosted by Jimmy Savile, who was later accused of sexually abusing more than 450 people, including children. The Observer goes as far as to say the slogan \"could end Mr. Bush's run\" since the online digs show his message \"is not being taken seriously and that his candidacy is a joke.\""}
{"document": "Clutch, gas, buzz, shift, clutch, gas, buzz, shift. \n \n More on Motortrend.com: 2016 Ford Mustang GT First Test Review \n \n Repeat as necessary. \n \n This week, Ford let me test the first-ever haptic shifter knob on a Shelby GT500 . The elegantly simple device vibrates every time the car\u2019s engine hits 3000 rpm, reminding the driver it's time to change gears. \n \n Really, it\u2019s a more modern dash-mounted shift light some cars have to tell a driver they are holding a gear too long. The vibration is clearly noticeable, even on the GT500 , and feels about the equivalent of being blown up on Call of Duty. \n \n But this particular device also uses an LED screen on the top of the shift knob to tell you what gear the car has engaged. \n \n Made from printed plastic, an LED screen, and the vibrating motor stolen from an Xbox 360 controller, the high-tech shifter handle was created by Zach Nelson, a Ford mechanical engineer who has been working on the company\u2019s new Open XC program. Made from printed plastic, an LED screen, and the vibrating motor stolen from an Xbox 360 controller, the high-tech shifter handle was created by Zach Nelson, a Ford mechanical engineer who has been working on the company\u2019s new Open XC program. \n \n Open XC allows developers to connect to Ford cars and trucks through the car\u2019s diagnostic port and read real-time data about the car via a Bluetooth connection. \n \n Once the device, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes, is connected to the port, Nelson could read dozens of data points on a Bluetooth-enabled touch pad. \n \n \u201cI only needed three data points for this device, the car\u2019s engine speed, vehicle speed and what gear it is in,\u201d he said. \n \n But lots more information is available. If Nelson wanted to, he could make the shifter knob change colors to match the LCD interior lighting, which on the Mustang can be one of five colors. The shifter knob can also be set to provide guidance on how to drive more efficiently or how to extract maximum performance. \n \n I, however, could not tell which mode we were in during my short drive, since I was simply trying to get the revs high enough to make the device buzz again. It worked flawlessly. \n \n \u201cThis could be used to help drivers keep their eyes on the road and might even help teach some people to drive a stick,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cThis could be used to help drivers keep their eyes on the road and might even help teach some people to drive a stick,\u201d Nelson said. \n \n Indeed. But more importantly, the shifter knob demonstrates how agile the new program Ford created is and how the open-source philosophy creates a new kind of collaboration for an automaker. \n \n Whereas in the past a device like this may have cost millions and taken years to build, Nelson began developing this shifter handle in earnest three months ago. \n \n \u201cThere is really this great group engagement,\u201d Nelson said, \u201cwhere you can see what people are doing and work together.\u201d \n \n Ford has not said whether the vibrating shifter knob will ever go into production but the plans to make them will be available on OpenXC's site. \n \n \u201cBased on the nature of open source tools, our goal is to provide innovation such as the haptic shift knob to the open source community,\u201d said Craig Daitch, a Ford spokesman. \n \n Open-source programs are nothing new to the rest of the world. Computer programmers and software developers have a long tradition of sharing information and creating platforms where crowdsourcing and testing make a program better. \n \n Automakers, however, have traditionally held all of this information very close to their vests, relying on either in-house talent or contractors to create new technology. Now, nearly anyone can contribute. \n \n What Ford has done is give developers easy access to a lot of the information cars create so they can find interesting things to do with the info. It\u2019s worth noting the device does not control the vehicle, but rather allows access to that information. It\u2019s the difference between knowing the gas pedal is pushed 19 percent down and being able to push the gas pedal down 19 percent. \n \n Thousands of developers have already joined the OpenXC program, which began in September 2011, Daitch said. Other current projects include a backup camera that uses a simple web cam; a night-vision camera that taps into the car\u2019s infrared collision cameras; a Bluetooth head-up display; and a retro gauge that can display vehicle data drivers normally can\u2019t see. \n \n Nelson said other automakers could use the system created by Ford to apply to their vehicles as well. \n \n \u201cJust change the code so it can read that carmaker\u2019s data,\u201d Nelson said, \u201cand let more people see what they can come up with.\u201d ||||| Manual transmissions are better. Period. End of story. Yes, yes, we know. Sequential and dual-clutch transmissions change gears faster than any mortal possibly can, which is why even Porsche \u2014 Porsche \u2014 requires paddles instead of a proper lever in its flagship model. But unless your name is Sebastian Vettel or Sebastian Loeb, driving isn\u2019t about putting down the fastest time. It\u2019s about having the most fun. And on that score, flicking a lever always beats squeezing a paddle. \n \n Of course, properly shifting a car is a skill, one increasingly being lost as automatics and \u2014 gasp! \u2014 CVTs become the norm. Which is why we\u2019re stoked to hear an engineer at Ford has made it easier than ever for n00bs to learn how to properly row their own gears. \n \n Zach Nelson, a junior engineer at Ford, ripped the haptic feedback motor out of an Xbox 360 controller and put it inside a custom shifter he printed on a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. He installed an Arduino controller and connected an Android tablet with a mini-USB port and a Bluetooth receiver, then tapped the Mustang\u2019s on-board diagnostic system using Ford\u2019s open source OpenXC software platform. \n \n That gave Nelson reams of real-time data to play with, including engine speed (RPM, for you non-car guys) and accelerator position. Using that information, the shift knob can be programmed to vibrate as the engine approaches redline (good for performance runs) or its most efficient shift point (for better fuel economy). It can even be programmed to tell an absolute beginner when to shift, in case the howl of a 5.0 approaching 7,000 RPM isn\u2019t a big enough clue. \n \n \u201cThe vibrating knob can be installed onto the stock shift lever, and I\u2019ve tested it on several vehicles including Mustang and Focus ST,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cI decided to have a little fun with it and installed an LED display on top that shows the gear position.\u201d \n \n Ford\u2019s release of OpenXC is one of the first in the industry and could be a boon for aftermarket companies to develop new, innovative apps that tap into the vehicle\u2019s system for information, while not allowing modifications to the core software, keeping things safe and secure. \n \n And if you want to build it yourself, all you need is some cash, some code, and a trip to Staples. ||||| The phrase \"car modification\" bring to mind \n \n images of grease-stained burly persons clad in oil-spotted coveralls, toiling away at the aluminum and steel heart of some piece of American muscle. Those who coax more out of a vehicle are seen as artisans. Their canvas is an engine block. Their studio, a garage.Zac Nelson doesn't quite fit that stereotype. He may be the son of an ironworker who grew up in a home full of engines in various states of assembly, but now, as a research engineer at Ford, Nelson works in a pristine fluorescent-white office, wears neatly-pressed slacks and shirts, and manipulates lines of code instead of valve timing. While Nelson spent his early years at MIT fabricating and welding the chassis for a Forumla SAE car, his senior project focused on software\u0097designing algorithms and microcontrollers for an adjustable headrest.\"I'm pretty familiar with the metallurgy and mechanics of materials, but the electrical side of engineering is a new frontier for me,\" says Nelson, who graduated from MIT this past September.In this respect, Nelson is part of a new class of automotive mechanics that seek to improve the automobile with data sets and text editors instead of wrenches and milling machines. \"Look around any high school. For every person who modifies an engine there are about five to ten people who are doing complex coding on a laptop,\" says K. Venkatesh Prasad, group and senior technical leader of vehicle design and infotronics within Ford's Research and Innovation department.In his first major project for Ford, Nelson zeroed in on the shift knob. \"Historically speaking, [the shift knob] has just been a piece of plastic,\" he tells PopMech. \"Maybe there's some metal weights in it for feel and performance, but other than that there's no electronics\u0097it's not really considered a smart device.\"Using a 3D printer, two vibration motors scavenged from an Xbox 360 control, and the Ford-developed OpenXC platform\u0097software that can translate signals generated by a car's controller area network (CAN) into usable programming code, much like an API for autos\u0097Nelson created a shift knob that vibrates at the ideal moment to change gears. And unlike the aftermarket shift lights commonly found in racing cockpits, Nelson's \"haptic shift knob\" isn't tied to a static RPM. Connected to the shifter is tablet running an Android app that constantly compares engine speed and accelerator position to the car's torque curve. Hit the gas hard and the knob will wait until later in the RPM range to signal a gear change. Go easy and it'll find a shift point that's more economical. In a way, while Nelson's is tinkering with the car, he's also altering driver behavior.Released to the public at the Consumer Electronics Show this past January, OpenXC is Ford's way of luring Silicon Valley into the automotive sphere. \"There's a lot of people who can write apps,\" says Prasad, who left a research position at the Menlo Park, Calif.-based RICOH Innovations for Ford in 1996. \"What OpenXC does is open up cars to people who want to do pure software work.\"Fittingly, Prasad has Silicon Valley-sized ambitions for the software platform. One example he gives: an app that aggregates wiper blade usage pulled from OpenXC to provide accurate localized weather reports that even the National Weather Service cannot rival. \"The fact that you have a wiper blade that's turned on is really valuable information, especially if you can aggregate a four or five of those data points a mile or so up the road,\" he says.The catch is getting those four or five data points. While a user can download the OpenXC software and tinker with the API for free, harnessing the power of your car's data (and in Prasad's example, the data of other cars) requires a $110 vehicle interface (VI), a piece of hardware that reads CAN signals and translates them into values you can plug into a program. Even more restrictive is the VI's firmware, which is only compatible with Ford's CAN (CANbus signals differ from manufacturer to manufacturer).According to Prasad, other manufacturers haven't joined forces with Ford on OpenXC, despite it's open-source nature. He cooly encourages them to. \"Everyone is welcome, and it only gets stronger when other manufacturers get involved,\" he says. \"I can't speak on their behalf, but it's up to them. They're more than welcome to take a look.\"Nelson's haptic shifter is a good example of what can be accomplished by exploiting vehicle data, but the only projects currently listed on the OpenXC website are from Ford employees or interns. It remains to be seen what will arise organically from OpenXC. \"The future is the future,\" Prasad says. \"So who knows.\"", "summary": "\u2013 A young engineer at Ford is on a mission to demystify the manual transmission\u2014and his tools include a 3D printer, a tablet computer, and an Xbox 360 controller. Zach Nelson printed out a shift knob and popped the Xbox's vibrating mechanism inside. Using Ford's open-source software and a tablet, he was able to gather information on a Mustang's engine speed, accelerator position, and more, Wired reports. That made it possible to program the shifter to vibrate at helpful moments\u2014identifying, for instance, the moment when shifting will ensure top fuel efficiency. So what do the experts think of all this? At MotorTrend, Scott Burgess calls the design \"elegantly simple,\" and he applauds Ford's open-source software, called OpenXC. \"The open-source philosophy creates a new kind of collaboration for an automaker,\" he writes. Nelson was able to make the gadget in about three months, and the design will be available online. Indeed, as Popular Mechanics puts it, \"code monkeys\u2014not grease monkeys\u2014are the future of car modification.\" Click for one carjacker who could have really used Nelson's invention."}
{"document": "An undated graphic shows the tunnel that may lead to a royal tombs discovered underneath the Quetzalcoatl temple in the ancient city of Teotihuacan in this October 29, 2014 National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) handout picture. \n \n Stone figurines are seen in a tunnel that may lead to a royal tombs discovered at the ancient city of Teotihuacan, in this May 22, 2014 National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) handout picture made available to Reuters October 29, 2014. \n \n Stone figurines are seen in a tunnel that may lead to a royal tombs discovered at the ancient city of Teotihuacan, in this November 19, 2013 National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) handout picture made available to Reuters October 29, 2014. \n \n MEXICO CITY A sacred tunnel discovered in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan is filled with thousands of ritual objects and may lead to royal tombs, the lead Mexican archaeologist on the project said on Wednesday. \n \n The entrance to the 1,800-year-old tunnel was first discovered in 2003, and its contents came to light thanks to excavations by remote-control robots and then human researchers, archeologist Sergio Gomez told reporters. \n \n The site is located about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Mexico City. The ruins have long been shrouded in mystery because its inhabitants did not leave behind written records. \n \n The artifacts found inside the tunnel, located below the Temple of the Plumed Serpent, include finely carved stone sculptures, jewelry and shells. \n \n An estimated 50,000 objects, 4,000 made of wood as well as scores of obsidian blades and arrow heads, provide clues into how the city's priests and rulers conceived the underworld. \n \n \"Due to the magnitude of the offerings that we've found, it can't be in any other place,\" said Gomez, who works for Mexico's national anthropology and history institute, referring to the possibility of finding royal tombs. \n \n \"We've been able to confirm all of the hypotheses we've made from the beginning,\" he added, saying ongoing excavations could yield more major discoveries next year. \n \n One of Mexico's most-visited ancient sites, Teotihuacan is home to massive pyramids, temples and elite residences including many adorned with colorful murals. \n \n The city reached its peak between 100 B.C. and 650 B.C. with a population as large as 200,000, growing rich from a wide-ranging trade in obsidian that in pre-Colombian times was used to make knives and other weapons. \n \n The city had long been abandoned by the time the Aztecs came to power in the Valley of Mexico in the 14th century, yet it continued to play an important role as a destination for religious pilgrimages. \n \n In Nahuatl, the Aztec language still spoken in many parts of Mexico, Teotihuacan means \"abode of the gods.\" \n \n (Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Simon Gardner and Cynthia Osterman) ||||| Some 50,000 relics have been discovered in Mexico in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexican archaeologists say. \n \n The city, located about 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Mexico City, dominated central Mexico in pre-Columbian times. \n \n Image copyright AFP \n \n The relics found include jewellery, seeds, animal bones and pottery like these human figurines. \n \n Image copyright AFP \n \n The objects were found inside a sacred tunnel that was sealed about 1,800 years ago. \n \n Image copyright Reuters \n \n The entrance of the tunnel was discovered in 2003 and its contents came to light after the archaeologists worked meticulously for nine years. \n \n Image copyright AFP \n \n The researchers dug out mountains of dirt and rocks, using remote-control robots, and found zoomorphic vessels like this. \n \n Image copyright AFP \n \n The artefacts, like these sea shells, were unearthed from about 18 metres (60 feet) below the Temple of the Plumed Serpent, the third largest pyramid at Teotihuacan. \n \n Image copyright AP \n \n At the end of the tunnel, the archaeologists also discovered offerings just before three chambers, suggesting that the remains of city's ruling elite could be buried there. \n \n Image copyright EPA \n \n Such a discovery could help shine light on the leadership structure of Teotihuacan, including whether rule was hereditary. \n \n The ancient city is the largest pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Americas, but its ruins have long been shrouded in mystery because its inhabitants did not leave behind written records. ||||| MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 A yearslong exploration of a tunnel sealed almost 2,000 years ago at the ancient city of Teotihuacan yielded thousands of relics and the discovery of three chambers that could hold more important finds, Mexican archaeologists said Wednesday. \n \n This May 22, 2014 photo released by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) shows sculptures unearthed at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico. Mexican archaeologists have... (Associated Press) \n \n This May 22, 2014 photo released by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), shows sculptures and shells unearthed by investigators at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico.... (Associated Press) \n \n This Nov. 19, 2013 photo released by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), shows sculptures unearthed by investigators at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico. Mexican... (Associated Press) \n \n This Aug. 6, 2014 photo released by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) shows a sculpture unearthed at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico. Mexican archaeologists... (Associated Press) \n \n This Oct. 2, 2014 photo released by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) shows shells unearthed by investigators at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico. Mexican archaeologists... (Associated Press) \n \n Project leader Sergio Gomez said researchers recently reached the end of the 340-foot (103-meter) tunnel after meticulously working their way down its length, collecting relics from seeds to pottery to animal bones. \n \n A large offering found near the entrance to the chambers, some 59 feet (18 meters) below the Temple of the Plumed Serpent, suggests they could be the tombs of the city's elite. \n \n \"Because this is one of the most sacred places in all Teotihuacan, we believe that it could have been used for the rulers to ... acquire divine endowment allowing them to rule on the surface,\" Gomez said. \n \n Unlike at other pre-Columbian ruins in Mexico, archaeologists have never found any remains believed to belong to Teotihuacan's rulers. Such a discovery could help shine light on the leadership structure of the city, including whether rule was hereditary. \n \n \"We have not lost hope of finding that, and if they are there, they must be from someone very, very important,\" Gomez said. \n \n So far Gomez's team has excavated only about 2 feet (60 centimeters) into the chambers. A full exploration will take at least another year. \n \n Initial studies by the National Institute of Anthropology and History show the tunnel functioned until around A.D. 250, when it was closed off. \n \n Teotihuacan long dominated central Mexico and had its apex between 100 B.C. and A.D. 750. It is believed to have been home to more than 100,000 people, but was abandoned before the rise of the Aztecs in the 14th century. \n \n Today it is an important archaeological site on the outskirts of Mexico City and a major tourist draw known for its broad avenues and massive pyramids.", "summary": "\u2013 After almost a decade of painstaking work, researchers have unearthed an amazing 50,000 relics from a tunnel in the ancient city of Teotihuacan\u2014and they believe the biggest prizes still await. The tunnel below the site around 30 miles away from Mexico City was discovered in 2003 after having been sealed for around 1,800 years, and remote-controlled robots explored it before human archaeologists got to work, reports Reuters. Among the artifacts uncovered: obsidian blades, seeds, shells, carved stone, and jewelry. A large offering found below the \"Temple of the Plumed Serpent\" has led researchers to believe that three chambers, which have yet to be excavated and sit just beyond the items, could be the tombs of the city's mysterious rulers. \"Because this is one of the most sacred places in all Teotihuacan, we believe that it could have been used for the rulers to ... acquire divine endowment allowing them to rule on the surface,\" the project leader tells the AP. No written records of the inhabitants of the once-dominant city\u2014whose name means \"abode of the gods \" in the Aztec language\u2014exist, and no remains of its rulers have ever been found, leaving its leadership structure unknown. Remains could indicate, for example, if rule was hereditary, notes the BBC. To date, the team has excavated about 2 feet into the chambers; getting all the way through is expected to take a minimum of a year. (Earlier in the excavation, archaeologists found hundreds of strange metal orbs.)"}
{"document": "These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| Clooney Joins Forces with Civil Rights Group: \"No Two Sides to Bigotry and Hate\" \n \n The actor's eponymous Foundation for Justice is partnering with the nonprofit as he and his wife have given the organization a $1 million grant. \n \n The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is partnering with the Clooney Foundation for Justice to combat hate in the wake of the deadly violence at a white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia. \n \n \"Amal and I wanted to add our voice (and financial assistance) to the ongoing fight for equality,\" George Clooney said. \"There are no two sides to bigotry and hate.\u201d \n \n George and Amal Clooney on Tuesday gave the SPLC a $1 million grant from the Clooney Foundation for Justice. \n \n One person was killed and many others injured while protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. Shortly thereafter, President Trump said there were many sides to what happened at the event and that there were good people on both sides. His comments were almost universally condemned. \n \n The Clooney Foundation for Justice, co-founded by George and Amal, was established in 2016 to advance justice in communities around the world. \n \n \"We are proud to support the Southern Poverty Law Center in its efforts to prevent violent extremism in the United States,\" the husband and wife said in a statement. \"What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate.\" \n \n The SPLC nonprofit organization monitors the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists. \n \n \u201cLike George and Amal Clooney, we were shocked by the size, ugliness, and ferocity of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville,\u201d said SPLC President Richard Cohen in a statement. \u201cIt was a reflection of just how much Trump\u2019s incendiary campaign and presidency have energized the radical right. We are deeply grateful to the Clooney Foundation for standing with us at this critical moment in our country\u2019s fight against hate.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 George and Amal Clooney's Clooney Foundation for Justice has given a $1 million grant to the Southern Poverty Law Center to combat hate groups in the US, the Los Angeles Times reports. \"What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate,\" the Clooneys said in a statement. The couple also included a subtle dig at President Trump. \"There are no two sides to bigotry and hate,\" the Hollywood Reporter quotes George Clooney as saying. The SPLC is a nonprofit that tracks domestic hate groups and extremists."}
{"document": "A number of seriously ill patients remain in the seized hospital in Simferopol, reports say \n \n Armed men - said to be Russian troops and local militias - have seized a military hospital in Crimea, as Moscow tightens its grip on Ukraine's region. \n \n The attackers marched into the hospital in the regional capital Simferopol, threatening staff and some 30 patients. \n \n Pro-Russian troops are also blockading Ukrainian troops across Crimea. \n \n The latest moves come ahead of Sunday's secession referendum in the autonomous region. Kiev and the Western nations describe the vote as illegal. \n \n In other developments on Monday: \n \n Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow will send its \"counter-proposals\" to Washington to try to resolve the Ukraine crisis; the US earlier proposed to set up a contact group, renew direct Kiev-Moscow talks and also urged Russia to pull its troops in Crimea back to their bases \n \n In a phone call, US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping urge Russia to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity \n \n Russia's former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent a decade behind bars, tells students in Kiev that Russia has severely violated international law by deploying troops in Crimea \n \n 'New directors' \n \n Up to 30 men in military uniforms - some with truncheons - broke into the hospital, where Ukrainian soldiers and veterans were being treated. Some of the patients are reported to be seriously ill. \n \n Armed men continue to blockade Ukrainian troops at their bases in Crimea \n \n Crimea's pro-Russian authorities are urging local residents to \"stop fascism\" from Ukraine in the referendum - a claim firmly denied by Kiev \n \n The hospital director said he was forced onto a bus and kept there for half-an-hour. \n \n The attackers also herded staff into a reception to apparently meet \"the new directors\", Ukraine's Interfax-Ukraina news agency reports. \n \n Separately, pro-Russian troops tried to capture a military transport base in Bahkchysarai, a town between Simferopol and Sevastopol. \n \n The gunmen fired warning shots into the air, but Ukrainian soldiers repelled the attack. The negotiations are reportedly still continuing. \n \n Crisis timeline 21 November 2013: President Viktor Yanukovych abandons deal on closer ties with EU in favour of closer co-operation with Russia \n \n President Viktor Yanukovych abandons deal on closer ties with EU in favour of closer co-operation with Russia December 2013: Pro-EU protesters occupy Kiev city hall and Independence Square \n \n Pro-EU protesters occupy Kiev city hall and Independence Square 20 February 2014: At least 88 people killed in 48 hours of bloodshed in Kiev \n \n At least 88 people killed in 48 hours of bloodshed in Kiev 21 February: President Yanukovych signs compromise deal with opposition leaders \n \n President Yanukovych signs compromise deal with opposition leaders 22 February: President Yanukovych flees Kiev. Parliament votes to remove him and sets elections for 25 May \n \n President Yanukovych flees Kiev. Parliament votes to remove him and sets elections for 25 May 27-28 February: Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in Crimean capital Simferopol \n \n Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in Crimean capital Simferopol 1 March: Russian parliament approves President Vladimir Putin's request to use Russian forces in Ukraine \n \n Russian parliament approves President Vladimir Putin's request to use Russian forces in Ukraine 6 March: Crimea's parliament asks to join Russia and sets referendum for 16 March Law and order breakdown in Crimea Is Russian intervention legal? \n \n Step-by-step, and meeting very little resistance, the pro-Russian troops are dismantling Ukraine's ability to resist in Crimea, reports the BBC's Christian Fraser, who is in the region. \n \n Moscow has officially denied that its troops are taking part in the blockades, describing armed men with no insignia as Crimea's \"self-defence\" forces. \n \n The government in Kiev - as well as the US and EU - accuse Russia of invading Ukraine, in violation of international law. \n \n 'Shameful silence' \n \n Earlier on Monday, the Russian foreign ministry condemned \"lawlessness\" in eastern Ukraine, blaming far-right militants for \"conniving\" with the Kiev authorities. \n \n In a statement, the ministry said the \"well-equipped\" gunmen opened fire on \"peaceful protesters\" in the eastern city of Kharkiv on 8 March. \n \n The city has recently witnessed mass rival rallies, some of which were violent. \n \n However, local Kharkiv police say they are treating the alleged shooting as a minor incident, according to Reuters. \n \n The Russian statement also said the seven Russian journalists had been detained by police in Dnipropetrovsk, also in the east, who accused them of being interested only in \"separate provocative stories\". \n \n \"The Ukrainian authorities, in violation of all existing bilateral treaties, are not letting Russian citizens into the territory of Ukraine,\" the statement added. \n \n And it also voiced Moscow's surprise over \"the shameful silence of our Western partners, human rights groups and foreign media\". \n \n Ukraine has in the past firmly denied similar Russian allegations, instead accusing Moscow of distorting facts to justify its continuing military presence in Crimea. \n \n Kiev points out that monitors of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe have recently been prevented by pro-Russian militia groups from entering Crimea and a number of journalists have been beaten up by militias in the autonomous region. \n \n Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted he has the right to protect Russian interests and the rights of ethnic Russians there. \n \n On Sunday, he also defended the moves by Crimea's authorities to stage the referendum on 16 March. Mr Putin said \"the steps taken by Crimea's legitimate authorities are based on international law\". \n \n However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told him in a phone call that she considered the vote illegal. \n \n Both EU leaders and the US have warned Moscow they would slap even tougher sanctions if Russian troops remained in Crimea. \n \n Unrest in Ukraine erupted in November after former President Viktor Yanukovych's last-minute rejection of a landmark EU deal in favour of a bailout from Russia. \n \n Mr Yanukovych was ousted last month, and a new government has been voted in by the Ukrainian parliament. ||||| SEVASTOPOL/KIEV (Reuters) - A pro-Russian force opened fire in seizing a Ukrainian military base in Crimea on Monday and NATO announced reconnaissance flights along its eastern frontiers as confrontation around the Black Sea peninsula showed no sign of easing. \n \n Ukrainian activists trying to cross into Crimea to show solidarity with opponents of last week\u2019s Russian military takeover there said they were halted by men in uniforms of the now outlawed riot police. One of these fired at close range, hitting a man in the chest, apparently with rubber bullets. \n \n With diplomacy at a standstill, Russia said the United States had spurned an invitation to hold new talks on resolving the crisis, the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War - though Washington later said a meeting of foreign ministers was possible this week, if Moscow shows it is ready to \u201cengage\u201d. \n \n The U.S.-led NATO defence alliance said AWACS early warning aircraft, once designed to counter feared Soviet nuclear missile strikes, will start reconnaissance flights on Tuesday over Poland and Romania to monitor the situation in Ukraine, flying from bases in Germany and Britain. \n \n British Prime Minister David Cameron told Germany\u2019s Bild newspaper, however, that Western powers were not considering military action and wanted a diplomatic solution. European Union governments are considering sanctions against Russia. \n \n Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, who said he would address the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, blamed the crisis on Russia and accused Moscow of undermining the global security system by taking control of Crimea. \n \n Ukraine\u2019s new justice authorities issued warrants for the arrest of Crimea\u2019s pro-Russia leaders on Monday, six days before a referendum they have called to join the region to Russia. \n \n Russian forces have in little more than a week taken over military installations across Crimea, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Russian territory until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine in 1954. \n \n Pro-Russian separatists have taken control of the regional parliament, declared Crimea part of the Russian Federation and announced the referendum for Sunday to confirm this. \n \n President Vladimir Putin says Moscow is acting to protect the rights of ethnic Russians, who make up a majority of Crimea\u2019s population, after Ukraine\u2019s president Viktor Yanukovich was ousted last month in what Russia calls a coup. \n \n BASE TAKEOVER \n \n On Monday, a Ukrainian defence official said a Russian-led military force of about a dozen men fired in the air as they took control of a Ukrainian naval base near the town of Bakhchisaray, though no one was hurt. \n \n The force was accompanied by the base\u2019s Ukrainian commander. He persuaded a number of his men to join the Russian forces while allowing others who refused to leave, the Ukrainian official, Vladislav Seleznyov wrote on Facebook. The Russian force later drove off with nine Ukrainian vehicles. \n \n Yarik Alexandrov, one of the Ukrainian naval personnel who refused to pledge allegiance to Moscow, told Reuters near the base that he and his comrades at first refused to surrender: \u201cThen they started shooting round our feet and we surrendered,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat could we do? We had no weapons.\u201d \n \n Similar small confrontations have taken place at other Ukrainian bases around Crimea, though shooting has been rare and there has so far been no bloodshed. Russia denies its troops are involved - a stance ridiculed in Kiev and the West. \n \n In a sign of the peninsula\u2019s growing isolation from the Ukrainian mainland, armed men prevented a convoy of cars from a Ukrainian activist group crossing into Crimea. \n \n The group was part of the Maidan movement behind the protests which forced Yanukovich to flee to Russia. Ukrainian television showed men in the uniform of the Berkut riot police, banned by the new authorities for its role in shooting dozens of demonstrators in Kiev last month, blocking the road south. \n \n One was shown firing twice, hitting a man in the chest. His injuries appeared minor, suggesting the use of rubber bullets. \n \n In other armed action, Russian forces took over a military hospital and a missile unit. Reuters correspondents also saw a big Russian convoy on the move just outside the port city of Sevastopol near a Ukrainian air defence base. \n \n It comprised more than 100 vehicles, including around 20 armoured personnel carriers, plus mobile artillery. \n \n CHANCE OF TALKS SPURNED \n \n Putin says Russia is not controlling events in Crimea but denials of Russian involvement are rejected by the United States as the two former Cold War enemies wage a geopolitical battle over the future of Crimea and Ukraine. \n \n Soldiers, believed to be Russian, ride on military armoured personnel carriers on a road near the Crimean port city of Sevastopol March 10, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner \n \n Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin that Russia\u2019s position on Ukraine remained at odds with the West, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had declined an invitation to visit Russia on Monday for further talks. \n \n \u201cIt is all being formulated as if there was a conflict between Russia and Ukraine ... and our partners suggested using the situation created by a coup as a starting point,\u201d Lavrov told Putin during talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. \n \n He did not say why Kerry had postponed the talks. \n \n The State Department said Kerry told Lavrov on Saturday that Washington wanted Moscow to cease its drive to annex Crimea and end \u201cprovocative steps\u201d. In a statement, it added: \u201cKerry made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov that he would welcome further discussions focused on how to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine if and when we see concrete evidence that Russia is prepared to engage on these proposals.\u201d \n \n In Kiev, Yatseniuk said he would address the United Nations Security Council during a debate on Ukraine. He is also due to hold talks with the U.S. government which will show Washington\u2019s support of the new Ukrainian leadership. \n \n \u201cRussia\u2019s policy is aimed at undermining the basis of the global security system and revising the outcome of World War Two,\u201d Interfax quoted Yatseniuk as telling reporters. \n \n Western powers have rallied behind Ukraine\u2019s new leaders and on Monday the World Bank said it planned to provide up to $3 billion this year to see Kiev through an economic crisis. \n \n Ukraine\u2019s crisis was triggered in November by Yanukovich\u2019s refusal, under Russian pressure, to sign deals on closer political and trade ties with the European Union. \n \n Although three months of protests against Yanukovich were mostly peaceful, at least 80 demonstrators were killed in clashes after police used force against them, some by sniper fire. \n \n Yanukovich fled Ukraine before a peace deal with the opposition was implemented, and a new national unity government was installed. He is wanted for mass murder in Ukraine and is being sheltered by Russia. \n \n WEST DOES NOT RECOGNISE REFERENDUM \n \n Western countries have denounced the Russian intervention in Crimea and say the borders of Ukraine, a country of 46 million, should remain unchanged. They have said they will not accept the outcome of Sunday\u2019s vote. \n \n Slideshow (15 Images) \n \n \u201cThe United States is not prepared to recognise any result of the so-called referendum taking place in six days\u2019 time,\u201d U.S. ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said in Kiev. \u201cWe are committed to Crimea\u2019s status as part of Ukraine. The crisis needs to be solved diplomatically, not militarily.\u201d \n \n In the latest military movements, in Sevastopol, where Russia has its Black Sea Fleet base, Russian forces disarmed servicemen at a Ukrainian army missile base, Seleznyov said. \n \n He told Fifth Channel television that about 200 soldiers aboard 14 trucks moved on the building at about 1.30 a.m and threatened to storm it if the Ukrainian soldiers failed to give up their weapons. \n \n In the eastern city of Luhansk, Ukraine\u2019s security services said they were investigating the takeover on Sunday of the main administrative building. The region\u2019s top official was held captive in a room where he was made to write a letter saying he had resigned but later said he was still performing his duties. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mark Lowen went to meet one family fleeing the lawlessness of Crimea \n \n Nato is to deploy reconnaissance planes in Poland and Romania to monitor the Ukrainian crisis. \n \n It gave the go-ahead for the flights on Monday, a Nato spokesman said. \n \n \"All Awacs [Airborne Warning and Control System] reconnaissance flights will take place solely over alliance territory,\" the official said. \n \n It comes as Russia cements its control of Ukraine's Crimea ahead of Sunday's referendum to join Russia. Ukraine and the West say this is illegal. \n \n Analysis The Awacs have some capacity to monitor vehicles on the ground but their chief mission will be reassurance. The flights will be mounted from bases in Germany and the United Kingdom. An Alliance spokesman described the decision as \"an appropriate and responsible action in line with Nato's decision to intensify our ongoing assessment of the implications of this crisis for Alliance security\". The US has already sought to reassure its allies in Europe by adding six additional F-15 aircraft to the Nato air policing mission over the Baltic Republics and it is also despatching 12 F-16 fighters for a training exercise in Poland. \n \n In the latest move on Monday, armed men - said to be Russian troops and local militias - seized a military hospital in Crimea. \n \n The attackers marched into the hospital in the regional capital Simferopol, threatening staff and some 30 patients. \n \n Pro-Russian troops are also blockading Ukrainian troops across Crimea, which is an autonomous region. \n \n Moscow has officially denied that its troops are taking part in the blockades, describing the armed men with no insignia as Crimea's \"self-defence\" forces. \n \n The government in Kiev - as well as the US and EU - accuse Russia of invading Ukraine, in violation of international law. \n \n 'Enhance awareness' \n \n Nato said the surveillance flights would \"enhance the alliance's situational awareness\". \n \n Fact box: Awacs Image copyright MOD Airborne warning and control systems, or Awacs, are one of Nato's most sophisticated command and control aircraft \n \n Plane is a modified Boeing 707/320B airliner \n \n Contains a radar system that can detect, identify and track enemy aircraft, and direct fighters to meet them, from the ground up into the stratosphere \n \n Flight crew of four plus mission crew of 13-19 \n \n Also used by the US, Britain and France Flying with the E-3D AWACS crew Fact file: E-3 Sentry AWACS \n \n Last week, the organisation said it was reviewing all co-operation with Russia and stepping up its engagement with the government in Kiev. \n \n Nato's announcement on Monday came hours after men in military uniforms broke into the Simferopol hospital, where Ukrainian soldiers and veterans were being treated. Some of the patients were reported to be seriously ill. \n \n The hospital director said he was forced onto a bus and kept there for half-an-hour. \n \n The attackers also herded staff into a reception to apparently meet \"the new directors\", Ukraine's Interfax-Ukraina news agency reports. \n \n Separately, pro-Russian troops tried to capture a military transport base in Bahkchysarai, a town between Simferopol and the city of Sevastopol. \n \n The gunmen fired warning shots into the air, but Ukrainian soldiers repelled the attack. \n \n Step-by-step, and meeting very little resistance, the pro-Russian troops are dismantling Ukraine's ability to resist in Crimea, says the BBC's Christian Fraser, who is in the region. \n \n Cossacks in Russia Image copyright Getty Images Trace their origin from the steppes areas in the modern-day Ukraine and Russia \n \n Describe themselves as \"free men\" and famous for rebellious spirit \n \n Have formed \"military communities\" for centuries \n \n Russian Cossacks took part in many tsarist military campaigns \n \n Gradually settled in border buffer zones as Russian empire expanded \n \n Many fought against Bolsheviks after 1917 revolution and fell out of favour in Soviet era \n \n Since fall of USSR, have taken active part in post-Soviet conflicts, including Crimea crisis \n \n Seen as defenders of conservative traditions \n \n Famous for whips and colourful clothing \n \n On Sunday, tens of thousands of people in Ukraine held rival pro-unity and pro-Russian rallies. \n \n Moscow supporters beat up their opponents in Sevastopol. Some of the attackers were Russian Cossacks with whips. \n \n Pro-Russian activists also seized regional offices in the eastern city of Luhansk, forcing the governor to resign. \n \n Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier defended Crimea's decision to stage a referendum on 16 March. Mr Putin said \"the steps taken by Crimea's legitimate authorities are based on international law\". \n \n However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told him in a phone call that she considered the vote illegal. \n \n Both EU leaders and the US have warned Moscow they would slap even tougher sanctions if Russian troops remained in Crimea. \n \n Unrest in Ukraine erupted in November after former President Viktor Yanukovych's last-minute rejection of a landmark EU deal in favour of a bailout from Russia. \n \n Mr Yanukovych was ousted last month, and a new government has been voted in by the Ukrainian parliament which Russia says was a \"coup\".", "summary": "\u2013 As many as 30 armed men said to be Russian soldiers today seized control of a military hospital in Crimea, threatening staff and 30 patients in the regional capital of Simferopol. The men broke into the hospital, which treats soldiers and veterans, some of whom are said to be seriously ill, and brought the staff into a room to meet \"the new directors.\" The hospital director says he was forced onto a bus and held there for 30 minutes, the BBC reports. Meanwhile, about 10 unidentified armed men fired into the air as they attempted to take control of a Ukrainian naval post in Crimea, Reuters reports. The BBC says these were also pro-Russian troops, but that Ukrainian soldiers drove them back. Pro-Russia troops have blockaded Ukrainian troops and taken over military installations elsewhere in Crimea. Crimea votes Sunday whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, in a referendum Kiev and Western nations say is illegal. NATO agreed today to deploy jets to monitor the Ukrainian borders."}
{"document": "So when my kids Gabe & Alayna started memorizing some verses from James last fall I wanted to make it easier for them. Wha lah the book of James all in memes, ...verse by verse... \n \n Today's Verse Rehearse Verse Dates are out of Joshua 1:8 & 1:9... A tribute to Joshua Davidson, (pictured on cover) who memorized the entire book of James. Get the full-color paperback edition with 100 bible verse memes here - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1976846366 \n \n Get the ebook free at https://www.patreon.com/posts/verse-memes-of-6-15886131 \n \n Like products like this? I'm asking you to be a Surge Up Patreon supporter at SurgeUp.com ||||| Nothing fires up a crowd like cloture. \n \n Rick Santorum, the man who has improbably become a contender in Tuesday\u2019s Iowa caucuses, was making his closing argument to a sea of TV cameras here on Monday when he swerved into a thicket of Senate trivia. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m not disagreeing with the 17th Amendment,\u201d the former senator from Pennsylvania proclaimed to journalists (and a few locals) at a coffee shop here. But, he went on, that obscure 1913 provision that established the direct election of senators had the side effect of creating \u201csomething called cloture.\u201d \n \n All was quiet in the coffee shop. At the senator\u2019s side, a child played with his Game Boy. \n \n It\u2019s not clear why Santorum thought his final pitch to Iowa voters should include a mention of century-old legislative procedure. More clear from the Polk City appearance \u2014 and a subsequent one up the road in Perry, Iowa \u2014 is that he won\u2019t last long as a top-tier presidential candidate if he doesn\u2019t improve his game. \n \n The \u201cSantorum surge\u201d in recent days has little to do with the candidate himself and everything to do with the fact that he is the last man standing after voters discarded all the rest. There\u2019s little time left to scrutinize Santorum before the Iowa vote \u2014 and in his case, that\u2019s an exceedingly lucky thing. Given more time in the spotlight, he would reveal himself as a hard-edged Dan Quayle. \n \n In Perry, Santorum gave his opinion that President Obama was more of a divisive figure than Richard Nixon, keeper of the enemies list: \u201cI suspect President Nixon, although I don\u2019t know, would talk and work with people and wouldn\u2019t go out and demonize them as this president has done.\u201d Santorum doesn\u2019t know it, but that doesn\u2019t stop him from asserting it. \n \n At the same stop, he played loose with the facts when contrasting Ronald Reagan\u2019s vacation schedule with Obama\u2019s. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s true, but somebody told me this,\u201d he began, \u201cthat Ronald Reagan never left the White House at Christmas, and the reason was he wanted all the staff to be able to spend that time at home.\u201d \n \n A check of the record would have revealed to Santorum that in 1988, Reagan was in Los Angeles during Christmas, and that he spent the week after nearly every Christmas (and more than a year of his presidency) in Santa Barbara, Calif. \n \n I\u2019ve covered Santorum on and off since his first run for Congress, in 1990, when I was a rookie reporter in Pittsburgh. Months ago, I predicted there would be such a Santorum surge in Iowa. But if and when he receives serious scrutiny, the surge will surely subside. \n \n On Monday, for example, he claimed that he is the only candidate who \u201chas proof that, with a conservative record, they were able to attract independents and Democrats.\u201d And that is why Pennsylvania voters unceremoniously tossed him from office in 2006 by a nearly 18-point margin? A n Iowan reminded him of this. \n \n \u201cGreat question,\u201d the candidate replied, blaming his GOP congressional colleagues and President George W. Bush\u2019s unpopularity. \n \n Talking about Obama\u2019s health-care legislation, he pledged that \u201cI simply won\u2019t enforce the law.\u201d But discussing immigration policy minutes later, he said that \u201cwe need to enforce the law.\u201d \n \n If the surge sustains him past Iowa, he will have difficulty explaining such things as his pledge to make abortion restrictions his first order of business (never mind that nonsense about jobs) or the treason accusation he hurled at Obama on Monday: In foreign conflicts, he said, \u201che\u2019s sided with our enemies on almost every single one.\u201d \n \n Scrutiny would also expose Santorum\u2019s attachment to Washington process. His closing argument to Iowa voters moved from his cloture talk to mention of the Senate Appropriations Committee, earmarks, the House Judiciary Committee, the Syrian Accountability Act and a long discourse on Honduras. He grew particularly impassioned when telling his uncomprehending listeners that \u201cwe can take the 9th Circuit and divide it into two circuits.\u201d \n \n Santorum is clearly enjoying his surge, boasting that, while other campaigns had an \u201cairplane, bus, cars, etcetera,\u201d he simply had \u201cChuck\u2019s truck\u201d \u2014 a Dodge pickup. Now there is a shiny campaign bus with his name on it. \n \n At Santorum\u2019s first stop, in Polk City, the coffee shop\u2019s maximum occupancy was listed as 49, but at least 200 filled the room and 100 more spilled into the street. In the media throng were journalists from Japan, Russia, France, Britain, Italy and Australia. \u201cThey weren\u2019t here last week,\u201d a pleased Santorum told the crowd. \n \n Enjoy it, Senator. They won\u2019t be here for long. ||||| Add a location to your Tweets \n \n When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| From Left: Jim Wilson/The New York Times; Josh Haner/The New York Times; Jim Wilson/The New York Times; Jim Wilson/The New York Times \n \n It\u2019s just that in Iowa, he happens to like a smart, sleeveless V-neck number. \n \n Crewnecks, with their neck-hugging collars, aren\u2019t suitable for stuffy rooms crammed with voters who have little respect for personal space. Cardigans? Not his thing. \n \n Mr. Santorum prefers the sweater vest, that sensible, traditional choice of grandfathers and college football coaches. He owns them in navy blue, gray and tan, which he sported here on Monday for a voter meet-and-greet. Sensing they were seeing a political fashion statement in the making, members of his staff recently ordered vests embroidered with the Santorum campaign logo. \n \n The vests have inspired their own Twitter feed \u2014 @FearRicksVest \u2014 and a Web site, FearRicksVest.com, which redirects to a pro-Santorum Facebook page. There is also a music video, \u201cSleeves Slow Me Down,\u201d on YouTube. The clip is loaded with catchy slogans like \u201cRick is getting ready to inVEST in you.\u201d \n \n Mr. Santorum\u2019s rivals are biased toward sleeves. Mitt Romney likes his crisply pressed oxford shirts, often under a blazer. Ron Paul is partial to suits, albeit ill-fitting ones. And Michele Bachmann, who has said her fashion icons are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Audrey Hepburn, is almost always carefully turned out, so much so that she once prohibited photographers from taking her picture when she was wearing cargo pants. \n \n In an interview here on Monday, Mr. Santorum insisted that he was not anti-sleeve. He harbors no bigotry toward extra fabric, whether it\u2019s cotton, cashmere or wool. \n \n He said the vests started gaining notice after a forum in Des Moines a few weeks ago with Mike Huckabee. Most of the other candidates were in suits. Mr. Santorum chose a sweater vest and unwittingly made a fashion statement. \n \n After that, he said, \u201cIt sort of took on a life of its own. So I started wearing more and more. My staff bought me a bunch more.\u201d \n \n He buys most of them from JoS. A. Bank. But he\u2019s been known to splurge on a vest at Brooks Brothers. \n \n On Twitter, the sweater has adopted its own persona and first-person voice, as in \u201cFear me ... and ... hear me! I\u2019m ready to relocate to the White House,\u201d and \u201c@RickSantorum at 16% among Iowa R\u2019s! Take off that sweater vest, Rick, it\u2019s gettin hot in herre!\u201d \n \n He even fielded questions about the vests from Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio talk show host. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s a trend?\u201d she asked. \n \n He started to explain, saying, \u201cOne of the things I get all the time ...\u201d \n \n Ms. Ingraham interrupted. \u201cGeek?\u201d she joked. ||||| (Photo Credit: AP) \n \n We thought Rick Santorum\u2019s sweater vests were just a regular old-fashion statement. Turns out, they\u2019re so much more. Santorum explained to Laura Ingraham on Monday that he likes to wear the sleeveless numbers because they make him look \u201ca little older.\u201d \n \n Said Ingraham, \u201cWhen I think of sweaters I think of Jimmy Carter, I think of Lamar Alexander, so all I\u2019m saying Rick, with how you and I are so aligned on social issues and world view, but I\u2019ve got to take issue with you on the sweater vest.\u201d \n \n \u201cIs it geek chic? What is it?\u201d Ingraham pressed. \n \n The 2012 candidate explained that saying yes to the vests has a lot to do with looking more like an elder statesman. Santorum, 53, pointed out that a man in Iowa guessed he was 32. \n \n \u201cYou\u2019ve never been in the sun. \u2026 It\u2019s awful how lucky you are,\u201d said Ingraham and Santorum explained, \u201cI\u2019m thinking the sweater vest makes me look a little older and that might be a good thing.\u201d \n \n Read more about: Rick Santorum", "summary": "\u2013 As Rick Santorum surges in the Iowa polls, his collection of sweater vests is also winning popularity. Santorum has taken to wearing the sleeveless V-necks while campaigning in Iowa; the sartorial choice apparently first garnered attention at a Des Moines forum a few weeks ago during which most other candidates wore suits. \"It sort of took on a life of its own\" after that, he explains. \"So I started wearing more and more. My staff bought me a bunch more.\" They even, the New York Times notes, had vests embroidered with his campaign logo. The vests have a Twitter feed, Facebook page, and music video (watch at left). Why does he wear them? In order to look older, he told Laura Ingraham yesterday, according to Politico. Pointing out that he, at age 53, was mistaken for 32 while in Iowa, Santorum said, \"I\u2019m thinking the sweater vest makes me look a little older and that might be a good thing.\" But it's not all light news for Santorum today: Dana Milbank wrote a particularly scathing piece on the candidate for the Washington Post, pointing out a number of Santorum's errors and inconsistencies. Predicts Milbank, \"He won\u2019t last long as a top-tier presidential candidate if he doesn\u2019t improve his game.\" Click to read Milbank's piece."}
{"document": "This article is over 5 months old \n \n Pigments found in 1.1bn-year-old rocks beneath the Sahara desert shed light on \u2018major puzzle\u2019 about early life \n \n Scientists have discovered what they say are the world\u2019s oldest colours \u2013 and they are bright pink. \n \n The pigments were discovered after researchers crushed 1.1bn-year-old rocks found in a marine shale deposit, beneath the Sahara desert, in the Taoudeni basin in Mauritania, west Africa. \n \n \u201cOf course you might say that everything has some colour,\u201d said the senior lead researcher, Associate Prof Jochen Brocks from the Australian National University. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve found is the oldest biological colour.\u201d \n \n 3,000-year-old sculpture leaves researchers scratching their heads Read more \n \n Brocks compared it to finding a 100m-year-old T rex bone. \u201cIt would also have a colour, it would be grey, or brown, but it would tell you nothing about what kind of skin colour a T rex had,\u201d he said. \n \n \u201cIf you would now find preserved, fossilised skin of a T rex, so that skin still has the original colour of a T rex, say it\u2019s blue or green, that would be amazing. That\u2019s in principle what we\u2019ve discovered \u2026 only 10 times older than the typical T rex. \n \n \u201cAnd the molecules we\u2019ve found were not from a large creature but microscopic organisms because animals didn\u2019t exist at that time. That\u2019s the amazing thing.\u201d \n \n The colours were discovered by a Phd student, Nur Gueneli, who had crushed the rocks to a powder. She then extracted and analysed molecules of ancient organisms from the substance. \n \n Gueneli said the pigments were more than half a billion years older than previous discoveries. \n \n \u201cThe bright pink pigments are the molecular fossils of chlorophyll that were produced by ancient photosynthetic organisms inhabiting an ancient ocean that has long since vanished,\u201d she said in a statement. \n \n The research, supported by Geoscience Australia, was led by ANU and conducted with scientists from the US and Japan. \n \n \n \n The rocks were sent to ANU from an oil company that was looking for oil underneath the rocks and sand of the Sahara desert about 10 years ago, Brocks said. \n \n \u201cThey drilled a hole several hundreds metres deep and they hit a deep, black, oily shale,\u201d he said. \u201cIt turned out to be 1.1bn years old, which is absolutely incredible.\u201d \n \n Brocks said when Gueneli, who is his student, had discovered the colours, he initially was in a state of disbelief. \n \n \u201cI remember I heard this screaming in the lab,\u201d he said. \u201cShe came running into my office and said, \u2018look at this,\u2019 and she had this bright pink stuff. \n \n \u201cIt turned out to be real pigment, 1.1bn years old.\u201d \n \n Brocks added that the discovery was \u201cnot just the coolness of having old, pink stuff\u201d, but also helped to solve a \u201cvery major puzzle about life\u201d \u2013 why large, complex creatures appeared so late in the Earth\u2019s history. \n \n While the Earth is about 4.6bn years old, Brocks said, animal-like creatures and other larger things like seaweed only emerged about 600m years ago. \n \n When the researchers had analysed the structure of the pink molecule, they were able to find what had produced them \u2013 tiny cyanobacteria. \n \n Carved idol from the Urals shatters expert views on birth of ritual art Read more \n \n \u201cThey had been at the bottom of the food chain,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the modern ocean we have algae at the bottom of the food chain. Microscopic algae are still very small but they are still 1,000 times bigger than cyanobacteria. \n \n \u201cAnd you need these larger particles as a food source for larger creatures to evolve. Looking at our molecules it became clear \u2026 there was no food source for larger creatures. It solves a very old question.\u201d \n \n Asked how he felt when he realised they had discovered the world\u2019s oldest colours, Brocks said: \u201cMy first thought was just \u2018wow\u2019. I was just awestruck that these molecules can survive for such a long time. \n \n \u201cWhat I didn\u2019t know was that these molecules could also solve a big scientific question.\u201d ||||| About 10 years ago, an oil company dug up a marine shale deposit in the Taoudeni basin of the Sahara Desert. When scientists at the Australian National University dated the black, sedimentary rocks, the shale was shown to be over 1.1 billion years old \u2014 a striking discovery in itself. But within the rocks, they discovered something far rarer, and shockingly bright, within the black stone: Earth\u2019s oldest biological colors found to date. \n \n Crushing the rocks into a powder released bright pink pigments, the remnants of ancient fossils trapped in the shale. In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team writes these colors are 600 million years older than previous pigment discoveries. ANU researcher Nur Gueneli, Ph.D., explained in an accompanying statement that these pink pigments are the \u201cmolecular fossils of chlorophyll that were produced by ancient photosynthetic organisms inhabiting an ancient ocean that has long since vanished.\u201d \n \n These pigmented, molecular fossils are technically known as porphyrins, a class of compounds that also include heme, which makes blood red. Co-author Amy Marilyn McKenna, Ph.D., explains to Inverse that these are \u201cvery unique molecules that have to be painstakingly assigned manually from the background oil signature, so if you are not careful, you would miss them.\u201d At over half a billion years old, the new porphyrins, says the self-described \u201cporphyrin junkie,\u201d are the oldest porphyrins ever found. \n \n The ancient pigments confirm that billions of years ago, the ocean was dominated by tiny cyanobacteria, which are characterized by the ability to obtain their energy through photosynthesis, which requires chlorophyll. While we usually associate chlorophyll with green organisms, different subtypes of chlorophyll can have different colors; the type that these ancient bacteria carried ranged from blood red to deep purple but looked hot pink when the powdered fossils were diluted. \n \n The preeminence of cyanobacteria in the oceans helps explain why bigger animals didn\u2019t exist a billion years ago. The emergence of large organisms, the scientists explain, is dependent on whether there is a supply of food available \u2014 and cyanobacteria didn\u2019t make for good meals. Cyanobacteria also tended to create low-oxygen zones in the water (as they do today), which made it difficult for other forms of life to thrive. \n \n Original Keeping a Steak Frozen Gives An Ideal Cook \n \n Dr. Gueneli running the samples at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. \n \n \u201cAlthough the shales contained eukaryotic microfossils, a lack of detected sterane fossil molecules that would indicate eukaryotic contribution to biomass suggests that algae may have played a minimal or insignificant role in the oceans around a billion years ago,\u201d says McKenna. \u201cThese results suggest that a lack of large primary producers in the mid-Proterozoic oceans, along with low oxygen levels, may have hampered the development of animal life.\u201d \n \n Algae, a much richer food source than cyanobacteria, began to spread through the oceans 650 million years ago, and the cyanobacterial oceans subsequently vanished. That allowed for life to evolve, consequently filling the planet with much more than just hot pink hues. ||||| The oceans of Earth\u2019s middle age, 1.8\u20130.8 billion years ago, were devoid of animal-like life. According to one hypothesis, the emergence of large, active organisms was restrained by the limited supply of large food particles such as algae. Through the discovery of molecular fossils of the photopigment chlorophyll in 1.1-billion-year-old marine sedimentary rocks, we were able to quantify the abundance of different phototrophs. The nitrogen isotopic values of the fossil pigments showed that the oceans were dominated by cyanobacteria, while larger planktonic algae were scarce. This supports the hypothesis that small cells at the base of the food chain limited the flow of energy to higher trophic levels, potentially retarding the emergence of large and complex life. \n \n The average cell size of marine phytoplankton is critical for the flow of energy and nutrients from the base of the food web to higher trophic levels. Thus, the evolutionary succession of primary producers through Earth\u2019s history is important for our understanding of the radiation of modern protists \u223c800 million years ago and the emergence of eumetazoan animals \u223c200 million years later. Currently, it is difficult to establish connections between primary production and the proliferation of large and complex organisms because the mid-Proterozoic (\u223c1,800\u2013800 million years ago) rock record is nearly devoid of recognizable phytoplankton fossils. We report the discovery of intact porphyrins, the molecular fossils of chlorophylls, from 1,100-million-year-old marine black shales of the Taoudeni Basin (Mauritania), 600 million years older than previous findings. The porphyrin nitrogen isotopes (\u03b4 15 N por = 5.6\u201310.2\u2030) are heavier than in younger sedimentary sequences, and the isotopic offset between sedimentary bulk nitrogen and porphyrins (\u03b5 por = \u22125.1 to \u22120.5\u2030) points to cyanobacteria as dominant primary producers. Based on fossil carotenoids, anoxygenic green (Chlorobiacea) and purple sulfur bacteria (Chromatiaceae) also contributed to photosynthate. The low \u03b5 por values, in combination with a lack of diagnostic eukaryotic steranes in the time interval of 1,600\u20131,000 million years ago, demonstrate that algae played an insignificant role in mid-Proterozoic oceans. The paucity of algae and the small cell size of bacterial phytoplankton may have curtailed the flow of energy to higher trophic levels, potentially contributing to a diminished evolutionary pace toward complex eukaryotic ecosystems and large and active organisms. \n \n The succession of primary producers in the oceans shaped marine ecology through Earth\u2019s history (1). Primary producers form the base of the food web. Their cell size, elemental stoichiometry, and cell density influence the flow of energy and nutrients to higher trophic levels (2), presumably setting limits for ecosystem complexity. The composition of phytoplankton communities in Earth\u2019s early oceans, including anoxygenic and oxygenic phototrophic bacteria and eukaryotic algae, may thus have set the pace for the emergence and radiation of different groups of filter feeders, grazers, and predators, including the proliferation of modern protists \u223c800 Ma and the appearance of eumetazoan animals some 200 My later (1) (Fig. 1B). \n \n Temporal history of biomarker and fossil data. (A) Ratio of eukaryotic steranes over bacterial hopanes through time (details and references see text). Green circles, late Cryogenian to present data, including C 27 to C 29 steranes (cholestanes, ergostanes, and stigmastanes); red circles, Tonian to early Cryogenian steranes with a \u223c100% cholestane predominance; and unfilled black circles, mid-Proterozoic biomarker assemblages, where hopanes are present but steranes are below detection limits. (B) First occurrences or radiations of organism groups and biomarkers (for data sources, see text). C, Cenozoic; Cr, Cryogenian; Ed, Ediacaran; M, Mesozoic; Neoprot., Neoproterozoic; P, Paleozoic; Tn, Tonian. \n \n Based on the fossil record, chlorophyll c (Chl c) algae, including dinoflagellates, coccolithophorids, and diatoms, were the major energy and carbon source in the oceans of the past \u223c250 My (Fig. 1B). By contrast, Paleozoic (541\u2013251 Ma) and Ediacaran (635\u2013541 Ma) oceans were presumably dominated by primary endosymbiotic algae (Archaeplastida), encompassing the red (Rhodophyta) and green algae (Chlorophyta) (1). Deeper yet in time, reconstructing the succession of primary producers becomes challenging. Phytoplankton without a preservable cuticle or skeleton are rarely preserved in the body fossil record, and there are no uncontentious fossils of planktonic bacteria or algae in the pre-Ediacaran (3). However, biomarkers, the molecular fossils of biological lipids, can provide complementary information about primary producers. For example, hydrocarbon fossils of carotenoid pigments extracted from sedimentary rocks have been used to detect phototrophic green (Chlorobiaceae) and purple sulfur bacteria (PSB) (Chromatiaceae) in 1,640-My-old marine ecosystems (4, 5), while the concentration of eukaryotic steranes, relative to bacterial hopanes, may provide basic information about the ecological relevance of Precambrian algae (6). The relative abundance as well as diversity of steranes dramatically increased in the brief interlude between the Sturtian and Marinoan snowball Earth glaciations of 659\u2013645 Ma, heralding the rise of planktonic algae as important primary producers in the oceans (Fig. 1A). Steranes in the time interval 645 to \u223c500 Ma have a strong predominance of stigmastane (a structure with 29 carbon atoms, C 29 ), revealing Chlorophyta, a division of green algae, as dominant primary producers from the late Cryogenian to early Paleozoic (Fig. 1) (7, 8). \n \n Preceding the Cryogenian rise of planktonic algae, the oldest clearly indigenous eukaryotic steranes appear in the geological record \u223c900\u2013800 Ma, albeit in low concentrations relative to bacterial biomarkers (7, 8). These Tonian (1,000\u2013720 Ma) steranes display a primordial distribution with a nearly 100% predominance of cholestane (C 27 , red circles in Fig. 1A), which may be related to the activity of rhodophytes (9) or heterotrophic eukaryotes (8). \n \n Going yet further back in time into the mid-Proterozoic (1,800\u2013800 Ma), evidence for algae becomes scarce. Based on molecular clocks, the last common ancestor of all algae originated broadly between 1,900 and 1,400 Ma (10, 11), predating the oldest unambiguous fossil of a eukaryotic phototroph, the \u223c1,050 Ma (12) benthic red alga Bangiomorpha (13) (Fig. 1B). However, clearly indigenous biomarkers for algae have not yet been found in sedimentary rocks >900 Ma despite preservation of bacterial hopanes (Fig. 1). Whether this lack of steranes is caused by preferential degradation of algal organic matter (14) or reflects genuine paucity of eukaryotic phototrophs, remains unresolved. \n \n Here, we present an approach to gauge the activity of bacterial and eukaryotic primary producers in the Precambrian. Based on Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS), we identify geoporphyrins in 1,100-My-old black shales. Porphyrins are the molecular fossils of (bacterio)chlorophylls. Their nitrogen isotopic composition can provide quantitative information about dominant phototrophs in past ecosystems (15). Some groups of phototrophs possess a characteristic offset (\u03b5 por ) between the nitrogen isotopic composition of the whole cell and chlorophylls, independent of the nitrogen source (15), and under suitable conditions this isotopic offset is largely unaffected by degradation processes in the water column and bottom sediments (16). Therefore, the nitrogen isotopic composition of porphyrins in sediments and sedimentary rocks may preserve information about primary producers present in an ancient environment, largely independent of physical and chemical conditions such as food source and diagenesis. \n \n Eleven black shales studied for their molecular content ( Table 1 and SI Appendix, Table S1 ) come from the En Nesoar and Touirist formations of the 1,100 Ma El Mre\u00efti Group ( 17 ) deposited on an epicratonic platform of the Taoudeni Basin on the West African Craton ( 18 ). The black shales, with a carbon content of up to 32%, accumulated beneath anoxic ferruginous and occasionally sulfidic waters ( 19 ) during maximal flooding of the craton in a quiet subwave base environment possibly protected by offshore stromatolite reefs ( 18 ). The black shales contain micrometer-thin laminae of organic matter and pyritized filamentous sheaths that are interpreted as benthic microbial communities, presumably of heterotrophic and/or chemosynthetic microorganisms thriving beneath anoxic waters ( 19 ), and irregularly shaped, discrete or bedding-parallel accumulations of organic particles typical of planktonic debris ( SI Appendix, SI Geology and Samples ). \n \n For the richest sample (#13), it was possible to measure the carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions of six isolated and purified Ni-porphyrins ( SI Appendix, Fig. S3G ). Based on molecular masses for isolated compounds determined by HPLC\u2013atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI)\u2013MS, purified porphyrins correspond to C 28 to C 31 Etio and C 30 and C 32 DPEP structures ( Table 2 ). Measured C/N ratios of the purified porphyrins (C/N = 12.7\u201322.1) were higher than predicted stoichiometries (C/N = 7.0\u20138.0; Table 2 ), which suggests that isolates still contained other nonporphyrin compounds that were carried over across multiple steps of chromatographic purification ( SI Appendix, Fig. S4 ). However, the APCI mass spectra of the isolated fractions ( SI Appendix, Fig. S3 A\u2013F ) all show relatively clean molecular ions diagnostic for individual Ni-porphyrins and only minor foreign masses. This indicates that the contaminants are poorly ionized by APCI and likely represent hydrocarbons. The presence of nonporphyrinic nitrogen-containing compounds is unlikely in these fractions due to their higher polarity relative to porphyrins and absence of significant signals in the APCI mass spectra (see SI Appendix, SI Methods for a detailed discussion about avoidance of artifacts and contaminants). The \u03b4 15 N por values measured for six porphyrins ranged between 5.6\u2030 and 10.2\u2030, with corresponding values of \u03b5 por between \u22120.5 and \u22125.1\u2030 ( Table 2 ). \n \n Identification of Ni- and VO-porphyrins by FT-ICR MS. (A) Isoabundance-contoured plots of double-bond equivalents (DBEs) versus carbon number for the N 4 58 Ni class (08-EOM and 13-Ni) and the N 4 O 1 V 1 class (13-VO). (B) DBE distributions for Ni- and VO-porphyrins in samples 08-EOM, 13-VO, and 13-Ni. Normalized abundances are reported for each sample. Note that M +o and [M + H] + ions can be distinguished by their integer versus half-integer calculated DBE values. \n \n Geoporphyrins were identified using reversed-phase HPLC-UV/Vis and atmospheric pressure photoionization coupled to FT-ICR MS at 9.4 tesla. Based on HPLC coinjection with porphyrin standards and comparison with reference material ( 24 , 25 ) ( SI Appendix, Fig. S2 ), the most abundant porphyrins are nickel Etio porphyrins ( 1 ), C 30 to C 32 deoxophylloerythroetioporphyrins (DPEP, 2a\u2013f ), C 31 and C 32 butano ( 3a-b ), and C 34 diDPEP ( 4a ) porphyrins, as well as tentatively identified vanadyl (VO) C 30 -C 32 DPEP ( 2a,b,f ) (structure numbers are defined in Fig. 3 ). FT-ICR MS isoabundance-contoured plots confirm C 29 to C 32 DPEP ( 2 ) and C 29 to C 31 Etio ( 1 ) as the most abundant Ni-porphyrins, and C 32 DPEP and C 30 Etio as the highest concentrated VO-porphyrin ( Fig. 4 ). Also identified were Ni- and VO-based di-DPEP ( 4 , 5 , and/or 6 ), rhodo-Etio ( 7 ), and rhodo-DPEP ( 8 ) ( 26 ). Each of these compound classes occurs as homologous series across a wide carbon number distribution with more than 40 carbon atoms ( Fig. 4A ) due to side-chain length variation off core structural motifs. Although these side-chain elongated porphyrins may include bacteriochlorophyll (BChl)-derived structures ( 27 ), sample limitation prevented characterization of precise alkyl side-chain configurations ( SI Appendix, SI Additional Details on Biomarker Identification and Interpretation ). \n \n All El Mre\u00efti Group shales yielded pentacyclic terpanes, including \u03b1\u03b2-hopanes with 27\u201335 carbon atoms as well as gammacerane ( Fig. 2A ). A complete series of C 31 to C 36 2\u03b1-methylhopanes was also present in low concentrations. The 2\u03b1-methylhopane index, defined as the abundance of C 31 2\u03b1-methylhopane relative to C 30 \u03b1\u03b2-hopane, was low, ranging between 0.35 and 0.77%. Although hopanes were well above detection limits, C 26 to C 30 steranes were not detected in any sample ( Table 1 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1 ), consistent with a previous study on Atar Group shales that also failed to detect steranes ( 23 ). Based on determination of detection limits, the maximum level of steranes that may be present beneath the noise is extremely low. The ratio of maximum hypothetical C 27 steranes relative to C 27\u201335 hopanes (S/H max ) falls into the range of 0.0002\u20130.0014 (average, 0.00065; n = 11; Table 1 ). The El Mre\u00efti Group shales were also devoid of the saturated carotenoid derivatives lycopane, \u03b2-carotane and \u03b3-carotane. However, two of the most dominant biomarker classes in the aromatic hydrocarbon fraction were C 13 to C 27 2,3,6-trimethyl aryl isoprenoids (2,3,6-AI) and C 13 to C 30 2,3,4-trimethyl aryl isoprenoids (2,3,4-AI) ( Fig. 2B ), the degradation products of aromatic carotenoids. \n \n Potential contaminants introduced in the laboratory were monitored using comprehensive accumulatory system blanks, and compounds that may have permeated into rock samples were quantified and eliminated by comparing the concentration of individual hydrocarbons in the exterior and interior portions of the rock ( 20 \u21d3 \u2013 22 ). All compounds reported here are demonstrably indigenous ( SI Appendix, SI Syngeneity Assessment ). \n \n Discussion \n \n Bulk Nitrogen Isotopes. The bulk-rock nitrogen isotopic composition (\u03b415N bulk ) of the En Nesoar and Touirist Formation shales falls into the narrow range of 4.2\u20136.1\u2030 (n = 11, average = 5.1\u2030, Table 1) and is slightly higher than those of the Mesoproterozoic Belt Basin (\u22121.1\u20135.2\u2030) (28). Although \u03b415N bulk of organic-rich shales, such as those studied here with total organic carbon (TOC) between 2.1 and 31.7%, commonly closely reflect the nitrogen isotopic composition of primary bulk organic matter (29), two factors must be considered before interpreting the data: first, the contribution of inorganic nitrogen to \u03b415N bulk values, and second, isotopic fractionation effects associated with diagenesis and heterotrophic reworking of photosynthate. Although inorganic nitrogen sources are usually negligible in organic matter-rich samples (16), the El Mre\u00efti Group shales may contain up to 0.1% inorganic nitrogen (see intercept on N bulk axis in SI Appendix, Fig. S5) (30). However, it is plausible that the conversion of smectite to illite during burial diagenesis of the clay-rich samples yielded substitution of potassium by ammonium (e.g., ref. 31). As the ammonium would have largely derived from the decomposition of organic matter, and as the substitution process is not coupled to major isotopic fractionation (32), \u03b415N bulk probably largely reflects the nitrogen isotopic composition of the organic matter. This is further confirmed by the absence of a correlation between TOC and \u03b415N bulk . Secondary processes in the water column or bottom sediment may alter the original N-isotopic composition of the primary organic matter. In modern environments, aerobic heterotrophic reworking of primary organic matter in marine regions with low organic carbon flux and high oxygen exposure times increases \u03b415N bulk by +3 to +5\u2030 (33). However, \u03b415N bulk values of high TOC sediments do not have such positive isotopic offsets and faithfully record the N-isotopic composition of primary producers (29). Conversely, in anaerobic waters, \u03b415N bulk may decrease by 3\u2030 under laboratory conditions, and a depletion of 1.2\u2030 has been observed in anoxic sediments of Lake Lugano (34). However, in two large modern anoxic marine basins, the Black Sea and the Cariaco Trench, no negative N-isotopic offsets were observed (35, 36). Moreover, a study of Black Sea sediments found that the isotopic difference between \u03b415N bulk and \u03b415N por faithfully records \u03b5 por of phytoplankton (16). Thus, \u03b415N bulk of modern organic-rich shales likely reflect \u03b415N of contemporaneous phytoplankton. Our data extend the record of \u03b5 por , the offset between \u03b415N bulk and \u03b415N por , by nearly 1 Gy. Problems associated with the extrapolation of nitrogen isotopic information over such immense periods of time, into an eon with potentially different degradation processes, are discussed in detail in SI Appendix, SI Taphonomic Biases. However, even taking possible nonuniformitarian processes into account, it is likely that \u03b5 por of highly organic-rich Proterozoic shales, such as those studied here, reflect the nitrogen isotopic composition of primary biomass. Moreover, even large alterations of \u03b415N bulk in the range of \u22123\u2030 to +10\u2030 would not impact our conclusions. \n \n Porphyrin Nitrogen Isotopes (\u03b415N por ). The measured \u03b415N values of porphyrins (\u03b415N por ) range between +5.6\u2030 and +10.2\u2030 and are at the isotopically heavy end of data observed in modern and Phanerozoic (541 Ga to present) aquatic systems (Fig. 5). Geoporphyrins are believed to reflect the nitrogen isotopic composition of the precursor chlorophylls (\u03b415N Chl ). For example, the isotopic offset between total organic matter and porphyrins remains largely constant during burial (16), and demetallation and metal-complex formation during chlorophyll diagenesis have commonly very little effect on nitrogen isotopic fractionation (37). Thus, the isotopic composition of the Mesoproterozoic geoporphyrins likely represent \u03b415N of the precursor (bacterio)chlorophylls (SI Appendix, SI Taphonomic Biases). Fig. 5. \u03b415N values of chlorophylls and porphyrin derivatives from Touirist Formation sample 13-Ni (pink stars), the water column and sediments of various modern water bodies, and Phanerozoic sediments. Lakes, freshwater lakes (compiled from refs. 37, 48, 52, and 75). BPhe, bacteriopheophytin; Phe, pheophytin; PPhe, pyropheophytin. \n \n Hydrocarbon Biomarker Evidence for Primary Producers. Carotenoid derivatives of the 2,3,4- and 2,3,6-AI series are present in all El Mre\u00efti Group shales (Fig. 2B). 2,3,4-AI may be derived from the biological carotenoid derivatives okenane, renieratane, and renierapurpurane, which are all diagnostic for PSB of the family Chromatiaceae (4). The 2,3,6-AI series is most commonly derived from aromatic carotenoids with the cholorobactane, isorenieratane, and/or \u03b2-isorenieratane skeletons found in green sulfur bacteria (GSB) (Chlorobiaceae). As 2,3,4- and 2,3,6-AI are abundant in all Taoudeni bitumens, PSB and GSB probably played an important ecological role. While both families produce BChl a (54), some PSB also produce BChl b (55) and GSB additionally synthesize BChl c, d, or e (SI Appendix, Table S2). These BChls would all have contributed to the porphyrin pool of the extracts. However, their impact remains uncertain because \u03b5 por is unknown for GSB, and only a single value is available from a lacustrine PSB species (\u03b5 por = +5.8\u2030) (11). The ratio of eukaryotic steranes over bacterial hopanes (S/H) is a first-order estimate for the relative contribution of eukaryotic to bacterial biomass to sediments. Although hopanes were abundant in the black shales of the El Mre\u00efti Group, steranes remained beneath detection limits. Quantification of background noise shows that steranes, if present, fall below S/H = 0.0002\u20130.0014 (Table 1), which is one to two orders of magnitude lower than the Tonian average (1,000\u2013720 Ma; S/H = 0.06 \u00b1 0.10), and two to four orders of magnitude lower than typical Ediacaran to Phanerozoic values (635 Ma to present; average S/H = 0.75 \u00b1 1.1) (Fig. 1A) (8). Most molecular clocks estimate the origin of the last common ancestor of all extant eukaryotes (LECA) >1,400 Ma (e.g., ref. 10). LECA possessed all enzymes required to biosynthesize most modern common sterols (56). Thus, the absence of steranes in 1,100 Ma El Mre\u00efti Group shales must be related to preferential heterotrophic degradation of sterols or to an ecological insignificance (or absence) of crown group eukaryotes, particularly eukaryotic algae, during deposition of the black shales. According to the \u201cmat-seal\u201d hypothesis, biomarkers from planktonic algae are generally underrepresented in pre-Ediacaran bitumens due to strong heterotrophic reworking of algal debris on the surface of oxygen-producing, shallow-water microbial mats (14). However, this mechanism cannot apply to the black shales of the Touirist Formation, which formed during maximum flooding of the West African Craton beneath relatively deep, anoxic waters (19). Alternatively, sterols may have suffered severe recycling as planktonic algal debris sank slowly through the water column (14). However, the preservation of cyanobacterial porphyrins also excludes this mechanism. Senescent picoplanktonic cyanobacterial cells sink considerably slower than larger algal cells (57), causing preferential degradation of cyanobacterial over algal porphyrins, a process observed in the modern Black Sea (16). Such preferential degradation of slower sinking bacterial biomass would have elevated, not attenuated, the sterane/hopane ratio. Most importantly, however, porphyrins are degradation sensitive, and their mere existence demonstrates that photosynthetic organic matter suffered little degradation during deposition of the El Mre\u00efti Group shales. Therefore, the lack of detectable steranes is not likely related to severe and selective degradation of algal biomass, but presumably reflects primary paucity of sterol-producing eukaryotes (for further discussion, see SI Appendix, SI Taphonomic Biases). ||||| Earth's oldest biological colour discovered in rocks beneath Sahara Desert \n \n Updated \n \n The discovery of the world's oldest biological colour could help explain why it took 4 billion years for animal life to form on Earth. \n \n International research led by the Australian National University (ANU) has resulted in the discovery of a 1.1-billion-year-old colour \u2014 the oldest in geological record. \n \n It is more than 500 million years older than previous pigment discoveries and was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. \n \n The molecular fossils were originally green, but range from blood red to deep purple in their concentrated form, and are bright pink when diluted. \n \n They were extracted from rocks that were discovered buried deep beneath the Sahara Desert in Africa and were taken from marine black shales of the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania. \n \n The rocks were crushed in powder before extracting molecules from them with organic solvents to produce oil. \n \n The oil they found was pink. \n \n How can this be the world's oldest colour? \n \n Everything has a colour and colours go back to the beginning of time. \n \n What these researchers have found is the oldest physical colour \u2014 a biological pigment. It is a molecule that had a biological colour more than a billion years ago and still has one today.\\ \n \n One of the researchers said it was like finding dinosaur fossils that still kept the colour of the animal. \n \n \"Imagine you would find fossilised dinosaur skin that after 100 million years was still iridescent green or blue,\" Jochen Brocks, an earth scientist at ANU, said. \n \n \"Then you really would have a colour and that's what we found \u2014 only that the molecules that we found are 10 times older than a T-Rex would have been.\" \n \n How did this affect evolution? \n \n Earth is 4.543 billion years old, but complex life forms did not form on the planet until 600 million years ago. \n \n So why did it take 4 billion years for larger organisms to appear? \n \n At first, scientists thought it had to do with a lack of oxygen, but it turns out that may not be the case. \n \n \"The pigments that we found tell us a different story \u2014 they tell us that we are probably lacking food,\" Associate Professor Brocks said. \n \n Analysis of the pigments confirmed that tiny cyanobacteria used to dominate the base of the food chains in the oceans. \n \n \"These pink pigments, their exact structure and composition tells us there was an efficient energy food source missing at the base of the food web,\" he said. \n \n The limited supply of larger food particles is likely the reason it took so long for larger creatures to emerge. \n \n But when the ocean disappeared around 650 million years ago, algae, which is a much richer food source for bigger organisms, was able to spread faster. \n \n \"[It provided] the burst of energy needed for the evolution of complex ecosystems, where large animals, including humans, could thrive on Earth,\" he said. \n \n Topics: earth-sciences, science-and-technology, australia, canberra-2600, act \n \n First posted", "summary": "\u2013 Billion-year-old rocks pulled from deep below the Sahara Desert have revealed the earliest colored molecules found on Earth. They aren't black, brown, or even green. Instead, think pink. Nur Gueneli of Australian National University was examining molecules from crushed rocks discovered a decade ago by an oil company drilling into a marine shale deposit beneath Mauritania's Taoudeni Basin when she extracted a pink pigment. \"I heard this screaming in the lab,\" then Gueneli came running with \"this bright pink stuff,\" fellow researcher Jochen Brocks tells the Guardian. \"It turned out to be real pigment, 1.1 billion years old.\" At least 500 million years older than other biological colors discovered, the pigment came from molecular fossils of chlorophyll, produced by tiny cyanobacteria that lived in ancient oceans, per a release. Imagine finding \"fossilized dinosaur skin that after 100 million years was still iridescent green or blue,\" says Brocks, whose research was published in PNAS, per ABC Australia. \"That's what we found\" except the molecules \"are 10 times older than a T-Rex would have been.\" Chlorophyll is generally associated with green organisms, but different subtypes carry different colors, explains Inverse. In this case, the bacteria range from blood red to deep purple, and appear pink when diluted with water. \"The cyanobacterial oceans started to vanish about 650 million years ago, when algae (much bigger than cyanobacteria) began to rapidly spread to provide the burst of energy needed for the evolution of complex ecosystems, where large animals, including humans, could thrive on Earth,\" says Brocks. (This is the first new blue in 200 years.)"}
{"document": "NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Shares of Tribune Media are surging before the opening bell on reports that 21st Century Fox and Blackstone may make a joint takeover bid for the Chicago TV station operator. \n \n The bid would apparently be an attempt to keep Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which is also rumored to be pursuing Tribune, from snatching up Tribune's stakes in Food Network, WGN cable network and some local TV stations. Blackstone, a private equity firm, is said to be putting cash toward the offer, while Fox would contribute some of its stations, according to the reports. \n \n Tribune and 21st Century Fox Inc. both declined to comment Monday. Blackstone didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. \n \n Shares of Tribune Media Co. jumped $1.94, or 5.3 percent, to $38.50 before the market opened. ||||| Tribune Media Co. , which is in the midst of a merger with Sinclair, said Thursday it had net income of $141.2 million, or $1.60 a share, in the first quarter, after a loss of $85.6 million, or 99 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted per-share earnings came to 51 cents, ahead of the 11 cents FactSet consensus. revenue rose to $443.6 million from $439.9 million, below the FactSet consensus of $457 million. Chief Executive Peter Kern said growth in re-transmission and carriage fee revenues offset headwinds in advertising and the company's limited exposure to Olympics and Super Bowl advertising. \"While we expect to generate the majority of our political advertising revenue in the second half of the year, the momentum of political spending we saw in the first quarter is very encouraging,\" he said. Shares were not yet active premarket, but are down 10% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 12%. \n \n by Ciara Linnane ||||| 21st Century Fox Inc., the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, is teaming with Blackstone Group LP to make an offer to acquire TV-station owner Tribune Media Co., rivaling a planned bid by Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., people familiar with the situation said. \n \n The all-cash bid would be funded by Blackstone while Fox would contribute its TV stations to the joint venture that would acquire Tribune, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The two sides are in talks about a deal ahead of a deadline this week for final bids. No agreement has been reached and talks may still fall apart. \n \n Fox has been approached in recent weeks about backing an alternative to a takeover by Sinclair, which has been looking to acquire Chicago-based Tribune for a price said to be in the high-$30s a share. \n \n Shares of Tribune rose as much as 9 percent to $39.86 in New York, the biggest intraday advance in two months. Sinclair fell as much as 1.3 percent, while Fox slipped 0.4 percent. \n \n A combination of Tribune and Sinclair, two of the country\u2019s biggest TV station owners, would give Sinclair a stronger negotiating hand with Fox about how to split fees from cable providers. Yet Fox has a say in Tribune\u2019s destiny because it has to consent to the transfer of the company\u2019s affiliate agreements to a new owner, people familiar with the situation said previously. \n \n Fox Said Approached to Thwart Possible Tribune-Sinclair Deal \n \n Sinclair has been looking to finalize a deal by the time Tribune reports first-quarter earnings, which it\u2019s slated to do during the week of May 8. Tribune Media has a market capitalization of about $3.2 billion. \n \n Mergers of TV-station owners like Sinclair, Tribune and Fox was made easier last month when the FCC restored a rule that allows TV station groups to count just half of their coverage area for UHF (Ultra High Frequency) stations to comply with a 39 percent nationwide cap set by Congress. \n \n The FCC\u2019s vote reversed a 2016 decision by the agency during the Obama administration. New Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, criticized the earlier action because it effectively tightened ownership limits without considering whether to raise the national cap. \n \n The issue is a relic of days when UHF stations -- broadcasting on channels 14 and higher -- used signals that didn\u2019t reach as far as stations assigned lower-numbered channels. That disappeared with the switch to digital TV in 2009. \n \n Tribune said April 20 that the action was \u201ca welcome step towards creating a more level playing field for all local broadcasters in their relationships with television networks, satellite operators, cable providers, and streaming video services.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 One of the nation's largest television broadcasting companies may have competing suitors: Today's media scuttlebutt centers around Tribune Media and its 42 TV stations. Reports say Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox and the private equity firm Blackstone are readying a bid for the company, with Blackstone ponying up cash and Fox kicking some of its own stations into the joint venture. The AP reports the bid would apparently be an attempt to keep Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is also rumored to be pursuing Tribune, from snatching up Tribune's stakes in Food Network, WGN cable network, and the local stations. Bloomberg reports Sinclair had been looking at offering something in the neighborhood of the high-$30s per share. Sinclair has 173 local television stations in 81 markets, and CNN Money notes that if its bid is successful it would be in violation of current FCC rules in that it would reach more than 40% of the US television market. But Variety sets the stage: Sinclair's move is \"part of another wave of broadcast TV station mergers expected now that the FCC is on a course to loosen ownership restrictions.\" It also calls Fox's rumored move an \"offensive\" one, as if Sinclair were to be successful, its control over Fox affiliates would swell to 28%. Tribune shares were up 9% to nearly $40 at the open."}
{"document": "'I didn't know I was having a baby until I was about to give birth': Size six student, 22, found out she was 38 WEEKS pregnant on trip of a lifetime - then had baby boy Mason two weeks later \n \n Kate Hudson, 22, was on the trip of a lifetime to Europe with her girlfriends \n \n She saw a doctor after feeling ill and was told she was 33 weeks pregnant, despite not showing any symptoms \n \n The size 6 uni student flew back to Australia the next day and was then told her baby was actually overdue \n \n She had to be induced and gave birth to baby Mason only ten days after first being given the news \n \n Kate Hudson, 22, was in Europe on the trip of a lifetime. \n \n She was mid-way through a journalism degree, and had worked hard as a retail assistant for two years to save enough money to head off on a grand adventure with girlfriends. \n \n Kate was enjoying the high life of a tourist- exercising, jumping off cliffs, riding bikes, drinking alcohol and eating anything she wanted. She travelled through London, Paris, Croatia, Prague and Barcelona. \n \n Seven weeks into her trip, she started noticing that her body was acting differently. She took a pregnancy test, and she was shocked to discover it was positive. \n \n Scroll down for video \n \n Kate Hudson, 22, had no idea she was 36 weeks pregnant when this photo was taken on her holiday in Europe \n \n 'I had absolutely no real clear symptoms. I was still getting regular periods. I wasn\u2019t nauseous, no morning sickness, little weight gain, so it seemed silly to think I would be pregnant,' Kate said \n \n Travelling alone and in Barcelona, Kate immediately called her boyfriend of 18 months, Aaron, in a fluster. \n \n 'I immediately rang and told Aaron, and although he was shocked, he was supportive and said that we could work around it, and if not, that we'd have months to prepare for having a baby,' Kate told Daily Mail Australia. \n \n He calmed her down and told her to head to a doctor to double check. \n \n While she was reasonably anxious, Kate comforted herself with the thought that if by some small chance she was pregnant, she couldn't be more than a month or two along. \n \n 'I had absolutely no real clear symptoms. I was still getting regular periods. I wasn\u2019t nauseous, no morning sickness, little weight gain, so it seemed silly to think I would be pregnant,' Kate told The Young Mummy. \n \n The doctor had some different news to share with her. Not only was Kate definitely pregnant, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and well into her third trimester. \n \n 'I totally freaked out. I thought she said 13 weeks \u2013 not 33!' Kate said. \n \n 'I rang mum and she was so shocked. We could get over the fact that I was pregnant, but the fact I was told that I was 33 weeks was so hard to comprehend.' \n \n 'No way was I ready to have a baby. I\u2019m only 22. No job, and no money. And no time to prepare.' \n \n 'It was so hard being away from Aaron and we really struggled being away from each other.' \n \n By this time, she was in Prague. Dealing with doctors in a foreign country all alone, she knew she had to get home. \n \n This was easier said than done, as airlines require a certificate of permission for women travelling when they are in their third trimester. The obstetrician she visited in Prague said that she would have to give birth to the baby in Europe. \n \n However Kate, a size 6 even at 33 weeks and showing no sign of a baby bump, decided to risk it and fly home the very next day. \n \n 'The baby was coming and coming fast, so I just had to prepare and get back home,' Kate said. \n \n 'When I called my mum, she said that's it, we're getting you home.' \n \n It was on that flight home that Kate felt the baby kick inside her for the first time, and realised that the situation she was in was very real. \n \n The proud father: Kate's partner Aaron with their newborn son Mason \n \n Mason was born at 6.5 pounds after a four hour labour, which Kate said was easier than she'd anticipated \n \n Baby Mason lying on the stomach of his dad Aaron, a carpenter from Melbourne \n \n When Kate arrived back in Australia, her mum took her for a further examination to find out details she wasn't given overseas. \n \n It was at this appointment that Kate was given even more shocking news. She wasn't 33 weeks pregnant, but 38 weeks, almost full term. \n \n 'I was scared because I didn\u2019t know if the baby was healthy,' Kate said. \n \n 'I was also scared about the future. Being a mum is daunting. I had no money since I had just came back from overseas. Where will we live, how will we pay for stuff? I didn\u2019t know all too much about babies.' \n \n Kate was told by the doctor that she had a tilted-back uterus, which explained why she didn't look like she was pregnant. \n \n She was still shocked that she had experienced no symptoms, and couldn't understand how it had happened to her. \n \n 'Any belly I had I thought was just a food baby from all the eating I\u2019d done in Europe over two months.' \n \n 'I had thought about kids, and Aaron and I had spoken about it, but we we\u2019re thinking it would be in a few years time\u2026 another 3-5 years time.' \n \n Kate said she and Aaron were reluctant to tell people about being pregnant, scared that they would be criticised for not picking up on the pregnancy sooner. \n \n 'I had thought about kids, and Aaron and I had spoken about it, but we we\u2019re thinking it would be in a few years time\u2026 another 3-5 years time,' Kate said \n \n 'When he came out it was surreal, and that skin on skin contact is exactly like everyone says. It's then that you realise that you've made this beautiful human being,' Kate said \n \n However, Kate said that people were overwhelmingly supportive and excited, though everyone was shocked. \n \n 'I was scared to post on social media about him because I didn\u2019t want to be judged,' she said. \n \n 'In the back of my mind I was scared of how people were going to react. I thought they'd be like, oh Kate, you were in Europe two seconds ago.' \n \n Kate said she was concerned people might think that she was trying to hide that she was pregnant. \n \n 'It was overwhelming trying to explain it to people, and I still haven't told the full story to everyone because it's such a long process. \n \n 'People just couldn't believe it, it's a pretty interesting story.' \n \n Kate's friends and family all pitched in and helped her and Aaron buy all the essentials, making sure they had all the material necessities to look after their baby- who they found out during a scan was a boy. \n \n 'That's when we started getting excited, ' she said. \n \n There was still one more surprise in store for Kate. When she had further testing the doctors gave her the news that she wasn't 38 weeks pregnant- Kate's baby was actually overdue and had to be induced immediately. \n \n Little Mason arrived after a relatively straightforward birth, weighing 6.5 pounds, which Kate said was easier than she had been expecting. \n \n 'He slipped out in the end,' she laughed. \n \n 'When he came out it was surreal, and that skin on skin contact is exactly like everyone says. It's then that you realise that you've made this beautiful human being.' \n \n 'Mason\u2019s here and I\u2019m going to try to be the best parent I can be for him,' Kate said \n \n 'It's an amazing feeling knowing that you can create someone so perfect. We're definitely happy and wouldn't change it for the world, knowing what we do now,' Kate said \n \n 'Aaron and I looked at each other, we were amazed. Even after two weeks we were still quite shocked and getting used to the fact were parents.' \n \n The 22-year-old went from being an independent young woman travelling the globe, to a first-time mum in only a week and a half, which she still finds hard to process. \n \n 'I'm so very lucky to have the support of my friends and family. It's been a huge adjustment to realise that I have a child, but Mason is such a good and calm baby.' \n \n Kate and her partner Aaron are now living with Kate's parents and have started thinking about what the future will hold for their family. \n \n 'Thinking about the future is scary,' said Kate. \n \n 'I need to figure out what's best. Should I work or go to back to university? We want to move out and need to be thinking about money.' \n \n Kate said that she is now having to consider things she never anticipated having to think about, even six months ago. \n \n 'At 22 you wouldn't think you\u2019d be going off to buy a house, or thinking about what school districts are the best,' \n \n 'We've had to start thinking about what to expect in years to come instead of thinking in the short term.' \n \n The young mum said that she is learning to just roll with her new role and to make the most of her life with Mason. \n \n 'I have a beautiful healthy baby boy, my relationship with Aaron is stronger than ever, although it\u2019s more work than it\u2019s ever been, trying to find \u2018us time\u2019, so I can\u2019t complain too much,' Kate told The Young Mummy. \n \n Mason is growing well, and is now rolling on his stomach and loves giggling, said Kate. \n \n 'I\u2019ve just gotta\u2019 roll with it and make the most of it.' \n \n It's been a long, but surprisingly quick journey to motherhood for Kate, who said that people are still shocked when she tells them the story. \n \n 'Even now when I tell people they are like \u2018how?' \n \n For now, Kate said she is loving being a mother to her 'little miracle' Mason, and while she is still coming to terms with her new life, she is determined to be there for him no matter what. \n \n 'Mason\u2019s here and I\u2019m going to try to be the best parent I can be for him.' \n \n Kate said that she is so happy with the way her life has turned out, even though it was unexpected. ||||| As you eagerly imagine your baby, no doubt you picture your little one snuggled up in your womb, sucking his thumb or resting his chin against his hand. But if you\u2019re among the 20 percent of women who has a tilted or retroverted uterus, you need to slightly adjust that picture so your baby is reclining backwards. \n \n What does it mean when you have a tilted uterus? \n \n Before becoming pregnant and in the early weeks of pregnancy, your uterus sits between two bones: your sacrum (the large bone in the middle of your pelvis, at the base of your spine) and the pubic symphysis (a pelvic joint located above your vulva). Most uteruses develop leaning forwards towards your navel. But if you have a retroverted uterus, also known as a tilted or retroflexed uterus, it has naturally grown with a backwards tilt towards your spine. \n \n This condition is not an abnormality or a medical problem \u2014 physicians simply refer to it as a \u201cnormal anatomical variance\u201d (it\u2019s comparable to having a second toe that\u2019s longer than your first). Many women who have a tilted uterus aren\u2019t even aware of it, and it has no impact on the health of your baby. \n \n Can I get pregnant if I have a tilted uterus? \n \n A tilted uterus has absolutely no impact on your ability to conceive or how fast you'll get pregnant. In fact, very few anatomical characteristics would impact your ability to become pregnant (those issues could include scar tissue in your uterus, which can be the result of a previous pelvic infection, or scar tissue around your fallopian tubes). \n \n What are the symptoms of a tilted uterus? \n \n You won\u2019t notice any symptoms of a tilted uterus before you get pregnant. However there are few symptoms you may observe in the first trimester of pregnancy: \n \n Back pain. It\u2019s possible that it can cause more back pain, though that\u2019s a common symptom in every pregnancy. \n \n It\u2019s possible that it can cause more back pain, though that\u2019s a common symptom in every pregnancy. Difficulty emptying your bladder. Some doctors say that in very rare cases, if your growing uterus is tilted very far backwards during pregnancy it could push against your bladder, making it difficult to empty. You may find relief by taking a tip from your uterus: lean backwards when you\u2019re peeing, which can shift your uterus off your bladder and relieve any pressure. (If you\u2019re still extremely uncomfortable or have a very hard time going, your practitioner may be able to manipulate your uterus manually to make it easier for you to go.) \n \n Some doctors say that in very rare cases, if your growing uterus is tilted very far backwards during pregnancy it could push against your bladder, making it difficult to empty. You may find relief by taking a tip from your uterus: lean backwards when you\u2019re peeing, which can shift your uterus off your bladder and relieve any pressure. (If you\u2019re still extremely uncomfortable or have a very hard time going, your practitioner may be able to manipulate your uterus manually to make it easier for you to go.) A harder time locating your baby. There\u2019s a small chance your doctor may have trouble finding your baby with a transabdominal ultrasound, the type where the wand is moved over your abdomen. This simply means your little one is a bit farther away from those trying to get a peek at him \u2014 but it\u2019s not a problem. Instead, your doctor may use a transvaginal ultrasound (inserting an ultrasound wand through the upper part of your vagina) to get a better look. \n \n The good news: Any negative impact of a tilted uterus will go away by the second trimester of pregnancy without you doing a thing. As your baby grows in the first trimester, your uterus expands in the pelvic cavity \u2014 but by 12 weeks to 13 weeks, your uterus pops up out of your pelvis and into your abdomen to accommodate your growing baby. At this point, a retroverted uterus nearly always rights itself upwards. \n \n Are there any risk factors during pregnancy? \n \n If you find you\u2019re having trouble emptying your bladder in the first trimester, you can be at risk for a urinary tract infection (UTI), since the urine pools in one place and becomes an easy target for bacteria. So watch out for other UTI symptoms, including pain or a burning feeling while urinating, or pressure or pain low in your stomach \u2014 and make sure to let your doctor know so she treat you with pregnancy-safe antibiotics. \n \n How will my tilted uterus affect my birth? \n \n While some women wonder if having a tilted uterus can cause childbirth complications or result in a C-section, it's highly unlikely: After the first trimester, your uterus will have grown so large that it won't be tilted one way or another. In very rare circumstances, a tilted uterus may cause back labor, difficulty during delivery or an incarcerated uterus (when your uterus becomes trapped in your pelvis instead of popping up into your abdomen as it grows) \u2014 however the chances of any of these issues occurring is extremely small. \n \n What happens to my uterus after I give birth? \n \n After you give birth, the position your uterus settles into will depend on several factors, including how much your ligaments have stretched during pregnancy or how much weight you gained (added weight puts pressure on your uterus and can affect its postpartum position). But even if your uterus returns to its retroverted position, it will most likely have no impact on you or your future pregnancies. \n \n MORE ON PREGNANCY AND SYMPTOMS ||||| \u201cI totally freaked out. I thought she said 13 weeks \u2013 not 33! No way was I ready to have a baby. I\u2019m only 22. No job, and no money. And no time to prepare. I was so scared for how Aaron would react. He was so supportive, but with me being in Prague and him in Melbourne it was so hard. We needed to comfort each other. He sort of freaked out thinking \u2018how will I support you both?\u2019 but to everyone else he put on a brave face. We just had to roll with it. The baby was coming and coming fast, so I just had to prepare and get back home. I didn\u2019t have time to process it until the flight home, where I basically cried for the 22 hours\u201d \u2013 Kate. \n \n \n \n Except it was after that flight, and visiting the Royal Women\u2019s hospital for scans, Kate & Aaron found out that their baby was in fact 38 weeks along. This baby was coming very fast. \n \n Kate Hudson was your average 22 year old. She had completed two years of university where she studied media (where I originally met her) and then deferred when the travel bug set in. She then worked for two years in retail in order to scrape together enough money to take off to Europe \u2013 what a dream! Her boyfriend of 18 months \u2013 Aaron \u2013 worked as a carpenter and was staying in Melbourne as Kate took off with girlfriends. \n \n Kate departed with not a care in the world. Despite knowing she would have zero money on her return and in need of a job \u2013 who cares when you\u2019re about to have the trip of a lifetime? When you\u2019re young and you\u2019ve worked so hard? That\u2019s what you\u2019re supposed to do in your early 20\u2019s isn\u2019t it? London, Paris, Prague, Croatia \u2026 the list was endless and Kate was going to tick them all off. \n \n And tick them off she did. Little did she know, her son was also ticking them off with her. \n \n Now anyone who has been pregnant or understands the strict guidelines you\u2019re given once you find out you\u2019re with child will have a million questions for Kate, just like I did. \n \n Did you not put on weight? \n \n But you\u2019re SO tiny? \n \n Didn\u2019t you feel sick? \n \n Didn\u2019t your period stop? \n \n But you were drinking alcohol? And eating all the wrong food? \n \n Hadn\u2019t you felt a kick? \n \n WHERE was your bump? \n \n How were you allowed to fly home? \n \n The list is endless, and to be honest, I don\u2019t think Kate even has the answers to all of them. It \u2013 understandably \u2013 has been a complete whirlwind past few months where one minute she\u2019s sipping on cocktails on the other side of the world, and 2 weeks later she\u2019s a mother changing nappies? It\u2019s just so hard to comprehend how such a young girl \u2013 let alone anyone \u2013 could possibly cope with the transition. I\u2019ve always said that I don\u2019t think you are EVER ready to have a baby, no matter how much you prepare. And in Kate\u2019s situation, having less than a couple of weeks to prepare \u2013 it\u2019s just too hard to fathom for me. Yet, upon meeting Kate for a coffee just the other day, she is a complete natural and seems so at peace with what has happened to her life. \n \n \u201cI had absolutely no real clear symptoms. I was still getting regular periods. I wasn\u2019t nauseous, no morning sickness, little weight gain, so it seemed silly to think I would be pregnant. All I had leading up to it was constipation, and I went from a C-cup to a D-cup.\u201d \n \n \u201cI was still on the pill up until June and since I was going overseas and not seeing my boyfriend for 2 months (so no sex) I thought it would be a good idea to give my body a rest. So in June when I didn\u2019t bleed, I thought \u201cthat\u2019s ok, I\u2019ve just got off the pill, it\u2019s my body is adjusting.\u201d \n \n \u201cThen in July I didn\u2019t get it either. I was in Barcelona on my own and that\u2019s when I started to get a little scared, since I hadn\u2019t seen my boyfriend (slept with) in 7 weeks, I thought I could be more than 7 weeks pregnant. So I freaked myself out. Didn\u2019t help being alone half way across the world. I bought a pregnancy test and took it in San Sebasti\u00e1n. Positive. I immediately rang and told Aaron, and although he was shocked, he was supportive thinking we\u2019d still have options. I wasn\u2019t showing at all and had no symptoms, so we assumed it would be early days. It took me a week to book in to an obstertritians since I was on the go travelling, and it was then in Prague that the doctor told me I was 33 weeks pregnant. \n \n Kate spoke to me of her initial reaction. The sense of shock I felt upon finding out that I was pregnant was a nice whack in the face for me, yet I cannot possibly imagine being half way across the world, on my own, and being told I am in my third trimester in a foreign country. \n \n \u201cI totally freaked out! I rang mum and she was so shocked. We could get over the fact that I was pregnant, but the fact I was told that I was 33 weeks was so hard to comprehend.\u201d \n \n One of the first things that came to my mind when hearing the story was knowing that Kate had to travel internationally so late into her pregnancy, and it was a huge fear of hers as she sat in the doctor\u2019s office in Prague. Airlines need a letter of approval from your Doc if you are to fly that late into your pregnancy, and when finding out that the doctor had in fact declined this and instructed Kate not to fly home to Australia, the thought of giving birth to her baby in Europe was petrifying. Again, as I\u2019m writing this, my heart is beating as I try to imagine sitting in that doctor\u2019s being told this. What a ridiculously huge reality to have to face alone. \n \n Kate made the decision \u2013 as I think most of us would in that situation \u2013 to fly home the next day. Hey, she wasn\u2019t showing any sign of a baby bump let alone an 8.5month sized bump so why wouldn\u2019t she flee home to her family and boyfriend? There was no possible way the flight staff would know, and the fact that a man sitting near her on the plane tried to get a little too chatty with her indicates that there was absolutely no sign that she was expecting in the coming weeks. After crying for what she says was the entire 22-hour flight home, she did gain one positive from the trip \u2013 it was on the plane she first felt her baby kick. It was then she said that it really sunk in\u2026she had a baby inside of her. \n \n As the story continues, so does the shocking news. Upon arriving home and having scans at the Royal Women\u2019s, Kate was told the baby was in fact 38 weeks along. She was going to be a mother even sooner than she thought. \n \n \u201cI was scared because I didn\u2019t know if the baby was healthy. Obviously having not known for so long, I was exercising heaps, jumping off cliffs, riding bikes, drinking alcohol and eating anything & everything. The baby\u2019s health was both mine and Aaron\u2019s main concern.\u201d \n \n \u201cI was also scared about the future. Being a mum is daunting. I had no money since I had just came back from overseas. Where will we live, how will we pay for stuff? I didn\u2019t know all too much about babies.\u201d \n \n \u201cI had thought about kids, and Aaron and I had spoken about it, but we we\u2019re thinking it would be in a few years time\u2026 another 3-5 years time.\u201d \n \n Both Kate & Aaron told family & their closest friends straight away. Imagine that phonecall off one of your best friends? \u201cHey, I\u2019m pregnant! They baby is due in 10 days!\u201d You can imagine how many what the fuck?\u2018s they both got. \n \n They waited until all testing was complete on the Tuesday before announcing it to the world on the following Sunday. Kate said most people thought that they were joking. It wasn\u2019t until she had the baby that Thursday that people had to believe them \u2013 little Mason was the proof! \n \n \u201cPeople just couldn\u2019t believe it. I would tell them the story, then they would understand, but still it\u2019s a pretty unbelievable story especially for someone my size.\u201d \n \n \u201cI was scared to post on social media about him because I didn\u2019t want to be judged. Everyone had such happy and supportive responses, but in the back of my mind I was really concerned with how I would be perceived. Mostly because I was young and the first of my friends to have a kid.\u201d \n \n \u201cEven now when I tell people they are like \u2018how?? but you had no symptoms??'\u201d \n \n Doctor\u2019s told Kate she had a tilted-back uterus and that the baby was sitting high up in her diaphragm, therefore making it hard to tell that she was pregnant. Now I can vouch for Kate & how tiny she is, and knowing that I myself showed a baby bump at a very early 10 weeks pregnant, it really is unbelievable. \n \n \u201cAny belly I had I thought was just a food baby from all the eating I\u2019d done in Europe over two months.\u201d \n \n Kate ended up having to be induced at the Women\u2019s as although original testing had shown her baby to be healthy with correct size organs and a good blood flow, her placenta decreased over her three visits that week meaning bub wasn\u2019t getting enough nutrients. Oh, and you guessed it! The re-testing also confirmed that Kate wasn\u2019t 38 weeks, she was now OVERDUE and therefore needed to get the baby out asap. \n \n After having gel put in at 3.15pm, Mason arrived at 9.53pm in what Kate describes as a \u201cmuch easier labour than expected.\u201d Hey, somethings gotta give considering what she\u2019d been through! \n \n On life now, Kate is understandably still majorly adjusting to her new role as mum. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get my head around it, even now he\u2019s 8 weeks old. I wake up in the morning and sometimes forget that I have a baby. It\u2019s a huge change and very overwhelming. I didn\u2019t have the 8 or so months to prepare, so everything has been test and go.\u201d \n \n \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know if I\u2019m doing it right or wrong. But he\u2019s a happy baby and gaining weight, so I must be doing something right.\u201d \n \n Like previously mentioned, after sitting with Kate the other day \u2013 I\u2019d say she\u2019s a natural. She was glowing and didn\u2019t wipe the smile off of her face as she kept looking down at her beautiful boy. As I sat \u2013 often speechless \u2013 listening to her story, I continually asked how she coped, as having known I was pregnant since 5 weeks I still took the entire 9 months (and still to this day) to come to terms with what I was going through. \n \n \u201cI have a beautiful healthy baby boy, my relationship with Aaron is stronger than ever (although it\u2019s more work than it\u2019s ever been, trying to find \u2018us time\u2019) so I can\u2019t complain too much. I\u2019ve just gotta\u2019 roll with it and make the most of it. Mason\u2019s here and I\u2019m going to try to be the best parent I can be for him. Am I scared for the future? Yes.\u201d \n \n Kate \u2013 you should be so very proud of yourself. Being a mother is the hardest job in the world, and you\u2019ve had to take that role on with no choice in the matter. Not once did I hear you complain about it though \u2013 you\u2019ve chosen to see Mason as the true blessing & miracle he is. You\u2019re attitude towards what has happened to you is a true reflection of your character and those traits will make you a wonderful mother to Mason, now and in the future. Both you and Aaron are admirable in more ways than one. Thank-you for letting me share your story. ||||| Melbourne woman gives birth only a few days after finding out she was pregnant \n \n A MELBOURNE woman thought she was growing a \u201cfood baby\u201d during her dream European adventure. \n \n But Kate Hudson, 22, was pregnant. \n \n And within days, the media student went from seeing the sights of Prague to giving birth at the Royal Women\u2019s Hospital back home in Melbourne. \n \n \u201cI had absolutely no clear symptoms. I was still getting regular periods,\u201d Ms Hudson said. \n \n \u201cI wasn\u2019t nauseous, no morning sickness, little weight gain, so it seemed silly to think I would be pregnant.\u201d \n \n Ms Hudson toldThe Young Mummy she didn\u2019t even have a bump. \n \n \u201cAny belly I had I thought was just a food baby from all the eating I\u2019d done in Europe over two months,\u201d she said. \n \n Seven weeks after leaving her boyfriend, she felt strange in the beachside Spanish city of San Sebastian, and took a pregnancy test that turned out to be positive. \n \n She continued travelling, thinking the pregnancy was new, but then an obstetrician in Prague told her she was 33 weeks along. \n \n \u201cI was scared because I didn\u2019t know if the baby was healthy,\u201d Ms Hudson said. \n \n \u201cObviously having not known for so long, I was exercising heaps, jumping off cliffs, riding bikes, drinking alcohol and eating anything and everything.\u201d \n \n She quickly boarded a flight for Melbourne in late August and \u201cbasically cried for the 22 hours\u201d, while she felt her baby kick for the first time. \n \n But there was another surprise when she got home \u2014 Ms Hudson was actually 38 weeks along. \n \n \u201cPeople just couldn\u2019t believe it. I would tell them the story, then they would understand, but still it\u2019s a pretty unbelievable story especially for someone my size,\u201d she told The Young Mummy. \n \n Within days, she had given birth to her son Mason. \n \n Doctors told her she had a tilted uterus, which meant the pregnancy was not obvious. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get my head around it, even now he\u2019s eight weeks old,\u201d Ms Hudson said. \n \n \u201cI wake up in the morning and sometimes forget that I have a baby. It\u2019s a huge change and very overwhelming. I didn\u2019t have the eight or so months to prepare.\u201d \n \n \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know if I\u2019m doing it right or wrong. But he\u2019s a happy baby and gaining weight, so I must be doing something right.\u201d \n \n \u201cI have a beautiful healthy baby boy ... So I can\u2019t complain too much. I\u2019ve just gotta roll with it and make the most of it.\u201d \n \n tom.minear@news.com.au", "summary": "\u2013 Kate Hudson, 22, had been traveling through Europe for a while, so it didn't seem strange that she'd gained a little weight. \"Any belly I had I thought was just a food baby from all the eating I\u2019d done in Europe over two months,\" the Australian woman says. But in Spain, she felt a little odd and took a pregnancy test; it came back positive, the Herald Sun reports. She figured she must have recently gotten pregnant and traveled on, but she then found out from an obstetrician in Prague in late August that she was 33 weeks along. She quickly returned home to Melbourne, only to find she was actually 38 weeks along (or possibly more, as re-testing indicated she was overdue). Days later, she had a healthy baby boy, Mason\u2014which was a relief, considering the circumstances. \"Obviously, having not known for so long, I was exercising heaps, jumping off cliffs, riding bikes, drinking alcohol, and eating anything and everything,\" she says. \"I had absolutely no real clear symptoms,\" Hudson tells The Young Mummy blog. \"I was still getting regular periods. I wasn't nauseous, no morning sickness, little weight gain.\" (She was still a size 6 when she flew home, the Daily Mail reports.) It wasn't until just after she started her trip\u2014since her boyfriend wasn't coming along, she went off birth control while overseas\u2014that she stopped getting her period and started to suspect they'd gotten pregnant just before she left. Even after getting the positive pregnancy test, \"I wasn't showing at all and had no symptoms,\" she says. In fact, it wasn't until her flight home that she felt her baby kick for the first time. So how is this possible? Doctors told Hudson she had a tilted uterus and Mason was sitting high in her diaphragm, so it wasn't obvious that she was expecting. As WhatToExpect.com explains, a tilted or \"retroverted\" uterus leans backward toward your spine instead of forward toward your navel, and it can also sometimes mean that \"your doctor may have trouble finding your baby with a transabdominal ultrasound\" because the baby's \"a bit farther away from those trying to get a peek at him.\" (This woman had even less time\u2014mere hours\u2014to prepare for giving birth.)"}
{"document": "is putting money where is mouth is \u2014 literally. \n \n Following his impressive 5-medal run at this year\u2019s London Olympics, the 28-year-old is attempting to trademark his personal catchphrase, \u201cJeah!\u201d The American swimmer has already filed the copyright documents for the word \u2014 which he says means something \u201cgood\u201d \u2014 to be used on a plethora of branded merchandised including workout DVDs, t-shirts and hats, his rep confirms to Celebuzz. \n \n However, Lochte is not the only celeb to have tried to copyright his own catchphrase. \n \n Fellow athletes such as Bengals wide receiver Terrell Owens and former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan have all successfully trademarked their signature saying. \n \n In fact, copyrighting catchphrases has even spread to Hollywood: Celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe trademarked \u201cI die\u201d \u2014 which is commonly used on her reality show The Rachel Zoe Project \u2014 while The Apprentice\u2019s Donald Trump famously tried (but failed) to trademark his show\u2019s closer, \u201cYou\u2019re Fired.\u201d \n \n Just four months after the birth of their baby daughter, hip-hop couple Beyonce and Jay-Z even filed documents to trademark their newborn\u2019s name, Blue Ivy, for future use. \n \n Who else is trying to copyright their own words? Launch the gallery \u2014 above \u2014 to find out. ||||| Ryan Lochte Jeah! Copyright Battle Looming with Compton Rapper \n \n Ryan Lochte -- Jeah! Copyright Battle Looming with Compton Rapper \n \n EXCLUSIVE \n \n U.S. Olympic heromight have an unexpected speed bump on his way to trademarking the phrase \"Jeah!\" in the form of 90s rap star MC Eiht, who claims the phrase was his long before it was Lochte's.Eiht tells TMZ he coined the phrase back in 1988 and is insulted to hear Lochte is trying to claim it as his own now. Eiht tells us, \"Why try and trademark something his ass didn\u2019t even create? I am mad that he isn\u2019t giving me proper recognition for taking my saying. He is just disrespectful.\"The Compton's Most Wanted rapper tells TMZ he's not so much concerned about the money as he is the \"respect and the truth.\"Eiht says he plans on sending a cease and desist letter urging Lochte to stop using his phrase.Lochte's manager tells us, \"Ryan has been using JEAH for years,\" adding, \"This is the first I have heard of this claim by MC Eiht.\" ||||| More Ryan Lochte news! In addition to becoming an actor, Ryan has just filed the paperwork to trademark his annoying catchphrase, \u201cJeah!\u201d which he says means something \u201cgood.\u201d According to an interview he did a few years back, he appropriated the word from the rapper Young Jeezy, who said \u201cChea!\u201d \n \n According to TMZ, the Olympian plans to brand every product imaginable, from swimsuits to water bottles, with his catchphrase. In fact, he\u2019s already selling some of these items on his website. Who knows, maybe there are \u201cJeah!\u201d grills in his future. If his trademark gets approved, he\u2019s gonna make bank. Because everyone wants \u201cJeah!\u201d branded merchandise, right? That Lochte\u2019s one smart cookie. Click on through to see some more catchphrases that celebs trademarked \u2026 or at least attempted to. [TMZ] [Photo: WENN] \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 Ryan Lochte is trying to trademark his catchphrase, \"Jeah!\"\u2014but he may have some problems, because TMZ reports that '90s rapper MC Eiht claims he's been using the word since 1988, and plans to send the Olympic swimmer a cease and desist letter. Maybe Lochte can get some advice from these 17 other celebrities, all of whom at least attempted to snag trademarks. From Celebuzz and The Frisky: Beyonce and Jay-Z: They want to trademark \"Blue Ivy Carter NYC\" so they can sell a line of baby products bearing their daughter's name. How sweet. Paris Hilton: Upset when Hallmark used her catchphrase \"That's hot!\" in a greeting card, Hilton was able to get it trademarked. Then she got tired of it and tried using \"That's huge!\", but for some reason that one never quite caught on. Charlie Sheen: He tried to trademark all 22 of his catchphrases, including, of course, \"Duh, winning.\" Jeremy Lin: The NBA star tried to trademark \"Linsanity,\" but three entrepreneurs had already applied for the same thing. Donald Trump: He was turned down from trademarking \"You're fired!\" because it sounded too much like a board game called \"You're Hired.\" Click for the full list from The Frisky, which includes a current battle over the phrase \"Yuuup!\" Or check out Celebuzz's list, which includes a bunch of sports figures and even more Jersey Shore stars."}
{"document": "NASA says it's the second-most watched clock in the world, behind the Big Ben clock in London. It's the Kennedy Space Center countdown clock, familiar in hundreds of launch pictures, and on Monday, it was removed. \n \n Images: Best spots to see KSC rocket launches On a clear day and especially at night, rocket launches from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center can be seen from hundreds of miles away in the Central Florida area. Those looking for something more up-close can go to these areas of the Space Coast that offer public access. More \n \n Watch this report \n \n The clock first made its appearance in the heady days of Apollo, for Apollo 12 in November 1969. It was there for all six other moon launches and all 135 space shuttle launches. \n \n Central Floridians watched the clock through a lot of suspenseful moments and a lot of weather delays. \n \n \"To keep it going, or [use] parts which we have to make ourselves, is just not practical,\" said George Diller, NASA public information specialist. \n \n The clock has 336 light bulbs. You could call Bruce Hodge the clock-master. Hodge has changed every last one of those bulbs multiple times. \n \n \"Run through the numbers; make sure they all work,\" he said. \"Do that for every launch.\" \n \n Hodge supervised the removal of the old countdown clock. He's kept it running for 40 of its 45 years. \n \n Also see: Leon County deputy shot, killed in house fire ambush north of Tallahassee \n \n A new clock, looking just like the old one but with fancy graphics and electronics will be in place for next week's big Orion test launch. \n \n The old icon is on its way to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. \n \n Related: Best spots to see KSC rocket launches ||||| NASA retires iconic KSC countdown clock Posted: Monday, November 24, 2014 5:22 PM EST Updated: Monday, January 19, 2015 5:22 PM EST \n \n It outlasted decades of American spacecraft, from Apollo to Skylab to the space shuttle. But now, the historic countdown clock at Kennedy Space Center is itself headed for retirement. \n \n For 40 years, the clock has been a silent witness to history -- well, almost silent. Up close, you could hear the quaint whirs and clunks of the analog 1960s technology hidden behind its faded blue facade. \n \n Those digital-style numbers were actually made up of dozens of 40-watt incandescent bulbs. The clock's internal systems required fans to cool the motors through all those hot Florida days, while the frequent summertime lightning storms also took a toll on the clock's circuits. \n \n Throw in the inescapable corrosion from all that salty sea air, and the clock -- as iconic as it was -- just became too much to keep up. \n \n \"The clock is old. It's taken a lot of maintenance to keep it going,\" NASA spokesman George Diller explained. \"It was getting to be very labor-intensive and we're not able to continue to maintain it for every launch.\" \n \n The clock dates back to Apollo 12 in 1969. Along with the flagpole next to it, it's part of the Complex 39 Press Site, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. But even when the clock wasn't ticking, time was marching on. \n \n Kennedy Space Center and nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are filled with historic items that played crucial roles in the space race before being abandoned or scrapped. It's par for the course at a working spaceport. \n \n Launch Complex 39 -- where the Apollo moon missions and space shuttle flights left the earth -- is being rebuilt for giant new rockets, both public and private. And the hangars that used to house the shuttles are being refitted for new spacecraft, like the Air Force's robotic mini-shuttle and Boeing's manned capsule. \n \n When America's next generation of spacecraft blasts off in December, NASA officials hope a new clock will be in place for the countdown. The agency is adding a modern video display board -- similar to what you'd see at a stadium -- that can do more than just tick. \n \n But Diller said the agency is mindful of not disrupting that classic last-few-seconds-of-the-countdown view too much. \n \n \"At a distance, you'll be hard-pressed to see the difference,\" he insisted. \n \n The old clock, meanwhile, won't go completely dark. Workers hauled it away in three sections Monday but the plan is to refurbish it and move it down the road to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, where space shuttle Atlantis now lives as a museum piece. \n \n Best-case scenario, according to Diller, would be for the clock to eventually be hooked back up to the space center's timing circuits, allowing it to continue to count down for launches from its new location. \n \n If all goes well, the giant numbers that counted down for missions to the moon decades ago may -- one day -- count down the seconds towards a mission to Mars. ||||| The clock first made its appearance in the heady days of Apollo, for Apollo 12 in November 1969. (Source: WESH/CNN) \n \n KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL (WESH/CNN) - A piece of space history was retired on Tuesday. \n \n NASA is sending the Apollo countdown clock to the space museum. \n \n Bruce Hodge, the clockmaster, supervised the removal of the old countdown clock that he's kept running for 40 of its 45 years. \n \n The clock first made its appearance in the heady days of Apollo, for Apollo 12 in November 1969. It was there for all six other moon launches and all 135 space shuttle launches. People watched that clock through a lot of suspenseful moments and a lot of weather delays. \n \n \"To keep it going, or parts which we have to make ourselves is just not practical,\" said George Diller, NASA Public Information Specialist) \n \n The numerals are made of old fashioned 40-watt light bulbs similar to the kind once used in refrigerators. There are 336 of those bulbs. \n \n Hodge changed every last one of those bulbs multiple times, \"run through the numbers, make sure they all work short of the countdown. Do that for every launch. Make sure they all work.\" \n \n A new clock, looking just like the old one but with fancy graphics and electronics, will be in place for next week's big Orion test launch. The old icon is on its way to the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex. \n \n Copyright 2014 WESH via CNN. All rights reserved.", "summary": "\u2013 After London's Big Ben, NASA says its Kennedy Space Center countdown clock was the world's most watched. Not anymore: It was taken down yesterday, WESH reports. The clock, with 336 40-watt light bulbs, has been around since November 1969, when it ticked away the seconds until the launch of Apollo 12, WCSC reports. But all those hundreds of bulbs have to be changed from time to time, and the clock requires checking before \"every launch,\" says the man who has been in charge of the device for all but five of its 45 years. Its motors are kept cool with fans, its electronics have weathered storms, and it was corroded by salty air, MyFox Tampa Bay reports. These days, \"to keep it going, or (use) parts which we have to make ourselves, is just not practical,\" a NASA rep says. Fortunately, the replacement version looks the same as its predecessor, just with modernized electronics. The old clock will make its new home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, WESH notes, while the new one will be ready for an Orion launch next week."}
{"document": "April 23, 2014 11:47 PM \n \n GREELEY, Colo. (CBS4) \u2013 A school in Greeley is asking parents to be more vigilant after a 10-year-old boy admitted to selling marijuana to other students on the playground and another student came to school with a marijuana edible candy bar. \n \n Both incidents happened in one week. \n \n School officials are now asking parents to pay attention to where they are keeping their recreational marijuana after the fourth graders brought the items to Monfort Elementary School in Greeley. \n \n John Gates, director of safety for Weld County School District 6, said there were four students involved \u2014 three boys and a girl. The students were all 10. \n \n Gates said the students faced tough discipline but not suspension or expulsion but would not provide specific details on their punishment. \n \n One boy admitted to taking a small bite of the candy bar but he didn\u2019t get sick, and a medical exam showed he didn\u2019t suffer any harmful side effects. \n \n Gates said the boys told them they got the pot from home. That marijuana appears to have been legally purchased by adults. The grandparents in two families apparently made the purchases. No charges are expected to be filed. \n \n On Monday a student who was not involved told school officials about the pot selling on the playground and the next day a student tried to trade an edible for some of the student\u2019s marijuana. \n \n \u201cIt was the simple fact that we had adults that didn\u2019t secure their marijuana,\u201d Gates said of the grandparents, urging adults to take care with the drug. \u201cThat sure is concerning because this would have never happened had the marijuana not been so accessible to two 10-year-old boys.\u201d \n \n Monfort Elementary School principal Jennifer Sheldon sent home a letter to parents on Tuesday stating that even though it\u2019s easier for adults to get marijuana, children potentially have greater access. \n \n A portion of that letter reads: \u201cWe urge all parents, grandparents and anyone who cares for children to treat marijuana as you would prescription drugs, alcohol or even firearms. This drug is potentially lethal to children, and should always be kept under lock and key, away from young people.\u201d \n \n More Marijuana Legalization Stories \n \n Police Cite 7 Denver Pot Shop Employees For Underage Sales \n \n South Dakota Tribe To Open Nation\u2019s 1st Marijuana Resort \n \n DeGette Once Again To Try To Declassify Marijuana At Federal Level \n \n Pot Products Recalled, Pot Shop Fires Employee For Unapproved Pesticides \n \n Advocacy Group: Commercialization Of Legal Pot Has Led To \u2018Epidemic\u2019 For Colorado Kids \n \n 2 Denver Pot Businesses Recalling Products With Pesticide Residues \n \n Democratic Presidential Hopeful Visits Marijuana Regulators \n \n Democratic Presidential Hopeful Vows Marijuana Change \n \n Police Release Images Of Pot Shop Burglar \n \n Colorado Marijuana Holiday Saves Shoppers, Growers Big Bucks ||||| It's Legal to Sell Pot in Colorado, But Not If You're in 4th Grade \n \n DENVER - Two Colorado fourth graders were busted for selling marijuana at their elementary school, prompting officials today to urge adults to keep their weed locked away from kids. \n \n School officials said a 10-year-old fourth grade boy brought a small quantity of leafy marijuana to Monfort Elementary School in Greeley, Colorado, on Monday. \n \n \"He sold it to three other fourth graders on the school playground, which resulted in a profit to the young man of $11,\" John Gates, director of safety and security for the Greeley-Evans School District, told ABC News. \n \n The next day, Gates said one of the three young buyers brought a marijuana edible to school and gave it to the boy who sold the pot on Monday. That boy took a bite, but did not suffer any ill effects, Gates said. \n \n Both boys apparently got the weed from relatives, according to Gates. \n \n \"Both of these kids took the marijuana without the consent of their grandparents,\" said Gates. \n \n Gates said the four students involved will be suspended for a \"significant\" number of days, but declined to say exactly how long the punishment would be. Initially police were called, but officials have determined the incident will not he handled as a criminal matter, he said. \n \n \"We hope to send a good message here without ruining anybody's lives. The message we really want to get out here to the adults is, 'for crying out loud, secure it,'\" Gates said. \n \n Adults 21 and older have been able to buy recreational marijuana legally in Colorado since Jan. 1. \n \n In a letter sent home to parents, Monfort Elementary School Principal Jennifer Sheldon said no student was injured. \n \n \"We know that many adults have greater access to marijuana since the change in the drug's legal status in Colorado,\" Sheldon wrote. \"We urge all parents, grandparents and anyone who cares for children to treat marijuana as you would prescription drugs, alcohol or even firearms. This drug is potentially lethal to children, and should always be kept under lock and key, away from young people.\" \n \n The side effects of edible marijuana - which can be far more potent than smoking a joint - have been raising new concerns after two recent deaths in Colorado. In one, a 19-year old college student died when he jumped off a hotel balcony after eating a marijuana-laced cookie. In the second, Richard Kirk, 47, was charged with shooting and killing his wife while she called 9-1-1, telling police her husband had consumed pot-infused candy. \n \n Colorado's legislature is currently considering new safety regulations for marijuana edibles, including bills requiring stronger warning labels and lowering the amount of THC permitted in food. \n \n The Associated Press contributed to this report", "summary": "\u2013 A pair of enterprising fourth-graders in Colorado got caught dealing marijuana pilfered from home at their elementary school, reports ABC News. Officials at the school in Greeley originally got police involved, but they've decided to handle it internally with suspensions and with a message to grown-ups: \"For crying out loud, secure it,\" asks the school district's security chief. Authorities say one boy stole (legally bought) marijuana from his grandparents and sold it to three young buyers at his school, netting himself $11 in the process. The next day, one of those buyers brought in a marijuana candy bar and tried to swap it for some of the leafy stuff, reports CBS Local. \"It was the simple fact that we had adults that didn\u2019t secure their marijuana,\" says the school official. \"That sure is concerning because this would have never happened had the marijuana not been so accessible to two 10-year-old boys.\" The two other buyers, also 10, face suspensions, too."}
{"document": "WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court has turned away appeals from the National Rifle Association which complained about resistance by governments and judges to the high court's recent seminal rulings declaring that Americans have a constitutional right to own a gun. \n \n The justices on Monday let stand rulings that upheld a federal law that prevents young adults ages 18-20 from purchasing a handgun or ammunition from a licensed federal firearms dealer and a Texas regulation that prohibits most 18-to-20 year olds from carrying a handgun outside the home. \n \n The NRA said the laws make it difficult, if not impossible, for young adults to exercise their Second Amendment rights. \n \n The court did not comment in denying the appeals. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court will not block Virginia from retrying an accused drug dealer, whose earlier capital murder conviction was set aside because of misconduct by prosecutors. \n \n The justices on Monday rejected an appeal by Justin Wolfe, who said the prosecutors' misdeeds were so serious that they precluded a fair second trial. \n \n A federal judge agreed with Wolfe and had ordered his immediate release, but the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., said the new trial could be held fairly. \n \n Wolfe was sent to death row in 2002 for a drug-related murder, but his original conviction and sentence were overturned. ||||| A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington December 3, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst \n \n WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to wade into the politically volatile issue of gun control by leaving intact three court rulings rejecting challenges to federal and state laws. \n \n The court\u2019s decision not to hear the cases represented a loss for gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, which was behind two of the challenges. \n \n The first case involved a challenge by the NRA to a Texas law that prevents 18-20 year olds from carrying handguns in public. It also raised the broader question of whether there is a broad right under the Second Amendment to bear arms in public. \n \n The second NRA case was a challenge to several federal laws and regulations, dating back to 1968, that make it illegal for firearms dealers to sell guns or ammunition to anyone under 21. \n \n The third case was on the narrow question of whether consumers have the legal right to challenge laws that regulate the sale of firearms. The challenge to a federal law that restricts the interstate transport of guns, and a related Virginia law, were filed by several District of Columbia residents who wished to obtain guns via neighboring Virginia. \n \n The court has yet to decide whether there is a right to carry guns in public, a question left unanswered in its two most recent gun-related decisions. \n \n In the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case, the court held that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed an individual right to bear arms. Two years later in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the court held that the earlier ruling applied to the states. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Obama administration is squaring off at the Supreme Court with industry groups and Republican-led states over a small but important program aimed at limiting power-plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming. \n \n FILE - This Oct. 15, 2013, file photo shows the Supreme Court in Washington the day the court's justices said they would be reviewing whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its... (Associated Press) \n \n The justices are hearing arguments Monday in a challenge to a regulation that forces companies that want to expand industrial facilities or build new ones that would increase overall pollution to evaluate ways to reduce the carbon they release. Carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas. \n \n The case comes to the court as President Barack Obama is stepping up his use of executive authority to act on environmental and other matters when Congress doesn't, or won't. Opponents of the Environmental Protection Agency's program at issue call it a power grab of historic proportions. \n \n Republicans have objected strenuously to the administration's decision to push ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass climate legislation, and after the administration of President George W. Bush resisted such steps. Both sides agree that it would have been better to deal with climate change through legislation. \n \n In 2012, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA was \"unambiguously correct\" in using existing federal law to address global warming. \n \n Monday's case, for which the court has expanded argument time to 90 minutes from the usual 60, stems from the high court's 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which said the agency has the authority under the Clean Air Act to limit emissions of greenhouse gases from vehicles. \n \n Two years later, with Obama in office, the EPA concluded that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases endangered human health and welfare. The administration used that finding to extend its regulatory reach beyond automobiles and develop national standards for large stationary sources. Of those, electric plants are the largest source of emissions. \n \n The administration has proposed first-time national standards for new power plants and expects to propose regulations for existing plants this summer. It will then move on to other large stationary sources such as factories. \n \n In the meantime, the only way EPA can compel companies to address global warming pollution is through a permitting program that requires them to analyze the best available technologies to reduce carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas. \n \n The utility industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 13 states led by Texas are asking the court to rule that the EPA overstepped its authority by trying to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the permitting program. \n \n The EPA's actions \"represent one of the boldest seizures of legislative authority by an executive agency in history,\" Peter Keisler, representing the American Chemistry Council among two dozen manufacturing and industry groups that want the court to throw out the rule, said in court papers. \n \n In addition to environmental groups, New York, California, Illinois and a dozen other states are supporting the administration, along with the American Thoracic Society, which filed a brief detailing the health costs of climate change. \n \n Also in support of the regulation is Calpine Corp., which operates natural gas and geothermal power plants around the nation. Calpine said it has gone through the permitting program six times and found it \"neither overly burdensome nor unworkable.\" \n \n Looking at the same program, the Chamber of Commerce said it \"may be the costliest, most intrusive regulatory program the nation has yet seen.\" \n \n ___ \n \n Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shermancourt ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court will not disturb the criminal conviction of a New York man whose underground poker game ran afoul of a federal anti-gambling law. \n \n The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from Lawrence DiCristina, who said his twice-a-week games of Texas Hold 'em should not be covered by the federal Illegal Gambling Businesses Act. DiCristina said the law targets games of chance, like lotteries, slot machines and dice, but not poker, which is a game of skill. \n \n Bridge and Scrabble players weighed in on DiCristina's behalf, worrying they could be targeted under a federal appeals court's expansive interpretation of the law. \n \n At least three justices, Elena Kagan, Antonin Scalia and Sonia Sotomayor, like to play poker.", "summary": "\u2013 In a blow to the NRA, the Supreme Court has opted not to hear a trio of cases challenging federal and state gun laws. Two involved NRA-backed challenges to laws limiting gun rights for people under 21, Reuters reports. One of those was a Texas law banning 18- to 20-year-olds from publicly carrying guns; the other addressed decades-old laws against gun sales to those under 21. A third case involved consumers' ability to challenge gun-sale laws. The high court didn't offer comment on its rejection of the cases, the AP notes. In other court news: Justices rejected an alleged drug lord's appeal against a Virginia retrial for capital murder. Justin Wolfe's initial conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. Nor will justices hear an appeal by a man who was convicted under federal gambling laws. Lawrence DiCristina of New York says the laws cover only games of chance, whereas the game his underground group plays\u2014poker\u2014is about skill. So what is the court hearing? Arguments are taking place today over an Obama administration rule on pollution. The EPA requires companies developing pollution-boosting industrial sites to assess their carbon output. The Chamber of Commerce, which is challenging the measure along with some GOP-run states, says it \"may be the costliest, most intrusive regulatory program the nation has yet seen.\" Several other states, as well as environmental groups, are backing the White House."}
{"document": "Heeding a sudden furor, John Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said in a Sunday afternoon statement to POLITICO that airport screening procedures \u201cwill be adapted as conditions warrant,\u201d in an effort to make them \u201cas minimally invasive as possible, while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve.\u201d \n \n TSA's new flexibility comes as the government gears up for a flood of travel over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Administration officials say any changes are more likely to be in the implementation of the security procedures than in the security measures themselves. \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset VIDEO: TSA chief on rules VIDEO: Echo Chamber POLITICO 44 \n \n Pistole\u2019s statement to POLITICO modified his vow a few hours earlier on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d that the procedures were \"not going to change.\" Both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said over the weekend that the administration was continually looking for ways to refine the screening to make it less intrusive and frustrating. \n \n Here is the full text of the statement from Pistole, a former deputy director of the FBI: \n \n \"We welcome feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible, while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve. We are constantly evaluating and adapting our security measures, and as we have said from the beginning, we are seeking to strike the right balance between privacy and security. \n \n \u201cIn all such security programs, especially those that are applied nationwide, there is a continual process of refinement and adjustment to ensure that best practices are applied and that feedback and comment from the traveling public is taken into account. This has always been viewed as an evolving program that will be adapted as conditions warrant, and we greatly appreciate the cooperation and understanding of the American people. \n \n \u201cWe cannot forget that less than one year ago a suicide bomber with explosives in his underwear tried to bring down a plane over Detroit. The terrorists allegedly behind the thwarted cargo attempt last month are out there bragging about how they will strike again. \n \n \u201cWe all wish we lived in a world where security procedures at airports weren't necessary, but that just isn't the case.\" ||||| Washington (CNN) -- Enhanced security pat-downs that have been vilified by travelers as legal groping are here to stay, at least for now, the federal official in charge of transportation security told CNN on Sunday. \n \n John Pistole, the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said he understood public discomfort over having a stranger touch the buttocks, breasts and genitals in trying to find possible hidden explosives, but he called the extra screening necessary. \n \n \"We're not changing the policies, because of... the risks that have been identified,\" Pistole said on CNN's \"State of the Union.\" \"We know through intelligence that there are determined people, terrorists who are trying to kill not only Americans but innocent people around the world.\" \n \n Travelers who set off metal detectors at airport security are asked to undergo extra screening. If they refuse to go through an enhanced visual device that shows the body through clothing, they are required to submit to the thorough pat-down in order to fly. \n \n Incidents such as last December's failed bombing of a U.S.-bound flight by a man with explosives in his underwear and the recent detection of explosives in air cargo packages from Yemen prompted the enhanced screening. \n \n But the more thorough pat-down process has generated alarm and anger, with some travelers complaining they were given little warning of the procedure and that they felt violated by the touching of private parts. \n \n Critics, including conservative Republicans who generally oppose government regulation, say the enhanced screening is a knee-jerk and excessive reaction. \n \n \"I don't think the roll-out was good and the application is even worse,\" Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, said Sunday on \"State of the Union.\" \"This does need to be refined. But he's saying it's the only tool and I believe that's wrong.\" \n \n Democrats also acknowledged the difficulty of the issue. Asked if she would submit to an enhanced pat-down, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the CBS program \"Face the Nation\": \"Not if I could avoid it. No, I mean, who would?\" \n \n On the same program, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking House Democrat, said, \"I don't think any of us would want to undergo that,\" but added that \"most people understand that we've got to keep airplanes safe.\" \n \n Clinton called for continuing study of the security situation to come up with the proper balance between protecting the public from terrorists and avoiding excessive screening. \n \n \"If there is a way to limit the number of people who are going to be put through surveillance, that's something that I'm sure can be considered,\" she said. \n \n Pistole also spoke of seeking a balance between safety and public comfort. \n \n \"I think it is situational, frankly,\" he said on CNN. \"So for you, you may say, 'I want this level of security because I want to know that everybody else on that plane has been screened thoroughly.' Somebody else may say, 'Well, I would rather manage some risk and say I don't want that thorough of screening, so I would rather take a higher risk.' \" \n \n For the TSA, he said, \"it comes down to how do we give the highest level of confidence to everybody on that flight that everybody else has been properly screened, including you and me?\" \n \n Pistole noted that few passengers face the enhanced pat-down -- only those who trigger an initial safety alarm in the metal detector or document-screening, and then refuse to go through the advanced visual screening. \n \n \"The advanced imaging technology is designed to detect non-metallics,\" Pistole said. \"So you just have to make sure you take everything out of your pockets. So if there's no alarm, there's no pat-down.\" \n \n He also complained of \"horror stories\" about the enhanced pat-down that he said are \"frankly inaccurate, either misinformation or whatever.\" \n \n At the same time, Pistole acknowledged that travelers received little warning of the enhanced screening procedures, and therefore those who faced the more thorough pat-down were likely caught by surprise. \n \n \"That's my responsibility, because I did not advertise this, if you will, and say we are going to do this new type of pat-down, because I did not want to provide a blueprint or a road map to the terrorists to say, 'here's our new security procedure, so here's all you have to do to,' \" Pistole said. \n \n Mica and other conservatives call for easing the use of enhanced screening for travelers who clearly pose no security risk. Mica cited Israel's use of passenger profiling based on travel history, age and other factors to determine more likely security risks. \n \n Pistole, however, said the United States doesn't use the same kind of profiling, and he also noted that travelers who trigger a security question in Israel also undergo a rigorous pat-down. \n \n \"That is top-notch security,\" Pistole said. \"The question is, do we profile here in the U.S.? No, we don't. So how then do we use intelligence that informs the decisions and judgements? And given what we saw from last night in terms of this new Web publication that describes in detail how the cargo bombs were done, how the design concealed, and how they are using technology to disguise and defeat the screening mechanisms we have in place; look, it's a difficult question.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Enhanced pat-down policies are \u201cnot changing\u201d due to \u201cthe risks that have been identified,\u201d the TSA chief told CNN yesterday\u2014before quickly amending his words in a statement to Politico. Airport security screenings \u201cwill be adapted as conditions warrant,\u201d John Pistole wrote, making them \u201cas minimally invasive as possible, while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve.\u201d \"We know through intelligence that there are determined people, terrorists who are trying to kill not only Americans but innocent people around the world,\" he had said earlier on CNN. As for why the more intense pat-downs were sprung on the traveling public without much warning, \"I did not want to provide a blueprint or a road map to the terrorists to say, 'Here's our new security procedure, so here's all you have to do.'\" (Click here for the latest pat-down outrage.)"}
{"document": "Plans for a Christian theme park in Northern Kentucky featuring a 510-foot-long replica of Noah's Ark are likely to sink unless the project raises millions of dollars from investors in the coming weeks. \n \n The Courier-Journal reports that the project, undertaken by the Christian non-profit Answers in Genesis, has sold unrated municipal bonds worth $26.5 million, but needs to sell another $29 million by Feb. 6 to avoid triggering redemption of what's already been sold. \n \n \"We still need those Ark supporters who weren't able to purchase the Ark bonds at closing to prayerfully consider participating in a secondary bond delivery at the level they had indicated to us,\" Answers in Genesis President Ken Ham wrote in an email to supporters on Thursday, according to the newspaper. \n \n \"The associated complications and struggles have been beyond our control,\" Ham wrote, citing impediments such as atheists registering for the offering and disrupting it, according to the newspaper. \n \n The $150 million project has been plagued by delays since it was unveiled in 2011. It was originally slated for completion this spring, when $37 million worth of tax breaks offered by the state are set to expire. Now, with construction still not started on Ark Encounter, the earliest it could be finished is 2016, AIG says. \n \n The Courier-Journal writes: \n \n \n \n \"The project has drawn comparisons to tourist attractions from Alabama to Nebraska that have defaulted, and comes with the added risk of legal challenges because its religious theme may violate the Constitution. The Washington-based group Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it is monitoring the project.\" \"Industrial-development bonds are considered the riskiest municipal debt because they account for the largest proportion of defaults in the $3.7 trillion municipal market. Williamstown issued the bonds without a rating, making the prospect of repayment even less clear.\" \"The first phase is estimated to cost $73 million, offering documents show. About $14 million had been raised before the bond sale, which was supposed to make up the difference.\" \n \n \n \n In 2007, Answers in Genesis opened the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, which offers museum-goers a so-called \"young Earth creationist\" perspective, teaching that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old with exhibits that depict humans and dinosaurs living together. Attendance at the museum reached more than 400,000 in its first year, but has steadily declined since then. \n \n ||||| A Kentucky theme park to be built around a full-scale replica of Noah\u2019s Ark may sink unless investors purchase about $29 million in unrated municipal bonds by Feb. 6. \n \n The northern Kentucky city of Williamstown in December issued taxable debt for affiliates of Answers in Genesis, a Christian nonprofit, data compiled by Bloomberg show. \n \n Even though $26.5 million of securities have been sold, the project needs to sell at least $55 million in total to avoid triggering a redemption of all the bonds, Ken Ham, the nonprofit\u2019s president, said in an e-mail to supporters yesterday. Without the proceeds, construction funding will fall short, he said. \n \n \u201cWe still need those Ark supporters who weren\u2019t able to purchase the Ark bonds at closing to prayerfully consider participating in a secondary bond delivery at the level they had indicated to us,\u201d Ham said. \u201cWill you please step out in faith with us?\u201d \n \n Proceeds are intended to help build a 510-foot (155.4-meter, or 300 cubit) wooden ship, the centerpiece of a planned biblical theme park called Ark Encounter. The project has drawn comparisons to tourist attractions from Alabama to Nebraska that have defaulted, and comes with the added risk of legal challenges because its religious theme may violate the Constitution. The Washington-based group Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it is monitoring the project. \n \n Atheist Disruptions \n \n Industrial-development bonds are considered the riskiest municipal debt because they account for the largest proportion of defaults in the $3.7 trillion municipal market. Williamstown issued the bonds without a rating, making the prospect of repayment even less clear. \n \n The first phase is estimated to cost $73 million, offering documents show. About $14 million had been raised before the bond sale, which was supposed to make up the difference. \n \n Instead, Ark Encounter has had no institutional investors buy its bonds, Ham said. \n \n \u201cThe associated complications and struggles have been beyond our control,\u201d said Ham, who cited impediments such as atheists registering for the offering and disrupting it. \u201cI urge you to please prayerfully consider the options and help us get this bond offering completed.\u201d \n \n The documents cite at least 39 risks to buyers, including that Answers in Genesis has no obligation to back the debt. Bondholders\u2019 sole revenue stream would come from money spent by visitors. \n \n February Deadline \n \n The debt can be obtained in the form of a physical certificate from Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank, the bond trustee, or through an individual retirement account at a company that will accept such a certificate, according to the e-mail. The IRA deadline is two days earlier, Feb. 4. \n \n Construction is supposed to begin in March, with Ark Encounter slated to open in April 2016. It would be built on about 200 acres, with 800 acres reserved for ventures such as hotels and restaurants, offering documents show. \n \n Dan Blank and Zach Logan at Ross Sinclaire & Associates, the underwriter, didn\u2019t immediately respond to voicemails seeking comment. Joe Boone, vice president of advancement at Answers in Genesis, didn\u2019t return calls to his office and mobile phone. \n \n To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Chappatta in New York at bchappatta1@bloomberg.net \n \n To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net", "summary": "\u2013 A Noah's Ark theme park set to break ground in Kentucky in March could soon be crushed\u2014not by a mountain of water, but by a lack of investor interest, Bloomberg reports. Building a full-scale ark replica at the biblical Ark Encounter park\u2014set to open in April 2016\u2014is no cheap feat, and though $26.5 million in unrated municipal bonds have been sold, investors need to buy up $29 million more by next month or the project will sink. And with numerous risks\u2014the nonprofit behind the park is not required to pay back the debt, for instance\u2014recruiting buyers has been a tough job. \"We still need those Ark supporters who weren't able to purchase the Ark bonds at closing to prayerfully consider participating in a secondary bond delivery at the level they had indicated to us,\" said the president of the Christian group, Answers in Genesis, adding, \"The associated complications and struggles have been beyond our control.\" WBAA notes that the bond issue isn't its first struggle: Delays have dogged the project, which was originally supposed to be up and running in early 2014 (which would allow it to access $37 million in tax incentives); current estimates have that opening date now set at 2016."}
{"document": "\n \n Now-ousted Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe kisses his wife, Grace Mugabe, during the country\u2019s Independence Day celebrations in Harare on April 18. (Getty Images) \n \n Panashe Chigumadzi is an essayist and novelist who was born in Zimbabwe and is based in South Africa. \n \n As former president Robert Mugabe and his second wife, Grace Mugabe, prepare to make their exit from Zimbabwe\u2019s State House, Zimbabweans have hankered for \u201cAmai\u201d (Mother) Sally, his late first wife, who is fondly remembered as a \u201cvery sensitive and intelligent woman\u201d who may have been a \u201c\u201crestraining influence\u201d on her husband. \n \n On the day of the military intervention earlier this month, the veteran South Africa-based Zimbabwean journalist Peter Ndoro tweeted the following: \n \n \u201cAs developments continue to unfold in #Zimbabwe #RobertMugabe might be looking back and wondering if \u2026 his rule wasn\u2019t a tale of two wives. One that died too soon and the other that ended up being his Achilles heel. #ThisFlag #SaveZim\u201d \n \n With almost 2,000 retweets, it is the kind of misogynist narrative that has found an easy resonance in many quarters of a country that has been ruled by the heavy hand of a patriarchal nationalist tradition for nearly four decades. Across the many rallies and marches in Zimbabwe, many people sang \u201cHatidi kutongwa nehure\u201d [We do not want to be ruled by a whore]. Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association Chairman Chris Mutsvangwa described Grace Mugabe as \u201cclinically mad,\u201d and Temba Mliswa, a member of parliament from the ruling Zanu-PF party, has claimed that \u201cRobert Mugabe\u2019s legacy has been destroyed by his wife. He\u2019s old, he\u2019s aging, and they\u2019ve taken advantage of him.\u201d \n \n As Mugabe\u2019s party rebrands itself, it is using a simplistic narrative that absolves both Mugabe and Zanu-PF of their political blunders, sweeping all that went wrong into a Grace Mugabe-sized hole. \n \n Is it really \u201ca tale of two wives\u201d? Let\u2019s start with \u201cAmai\u201d Sally Mugabe and whether she was a \u201crestraining force\u201d on her husband. Having met Mugabe at a teacher training college in her native Ghana, Sally Mugabe, nee Hayfron, married Mugabe in 1961. She became increasingly involved in nationalist political trenches in the \u201960s, leading campaigns for the release of Zimbabwean political prisoners, including her husband, while in exile in London. Once her husband was released, she campaigned for the safety and well-being of refugees of the Second Chimurenga (liberation war) while in Mozambique. In 1980, she joined her husband, Zimbabwe\u2019s first black prime minister, at the helm of the country and officially became first lady seven years later, when he assumed the presidency. By 1989, she was elected secretary general of the Zanu-PF Women\u2019s League. Outside of politics, Sally continued to be popular for her involvement in welfare programs through organizations such as the Zimbabwe Child Survival Movement and Zimbabwe Women\u2019s Co-operative. \n \n A popular leader at home and abroad at the time, Mugabe was meanwhile consolidating and centralizing his post-independence power through constitutional and forceful means. In 1984, Zanu-PF\u2019s congress gave Mugabe extensive powers to appoint the executive members of the party and passed constitutional amendments that created the executive presidency. Most importantly the early \u201980s, Sally was by his side during the \u201cGukurahundi\u201d (Shona for \u201cthe first rains, which wash away the chaff before the spring rains\u201d), the genocide of more than 20,000 Ndebele people. The violent campaign was aimed at quelling the threat of political dissidents; incoming President Emmerson Mnangagwa was a key figure in the massacres. \n \n As Sally Mugabe became increasingly ill with kidney failure in the late \u201980s, Robert Mugabe began his affair with Grace Ntombizodwa Marufu, a young married mother and a typist in the president\u2019s office at the time. In 1992, Sally Mugabe died in Harare at the age of 60. As Zimbabwean academic Alex Magaisa points out, for Mugabe, the loss of Sally represented a loss of a close companion and, importantly, a peer. Mugabe married Grace in a spectacular ceremony four years later. \n \n Compared with Sally, who was loved for her apparent sense of modesty and public work, Grace Mugabe became increasingly unpopular for her lavish lifestyle in the midst the economic fallout of the 2000s. She largely stayed out of politics. This changed by 2014, when she began her foray into politics through her election as president of Zanu-PF\u2019s Women\u2019s League. Though unpopular, Grace Mugabe continued to consolidate power through the support of the \u201cG40 faction,\u201d made up mostly of a younger generation of Zanu-PF members who did not participate in the Second Chimurenga. \n \n Invoking the fist often associated with her husband, Grace Mugabe included in her acceptance speech for the Zanu-PF post threats to those who opposed her: \u201cI might have a small fist, but when it comes to fighting I will put stones inside to enlarge it, or even put on gloves to make it bigger. Do not doubt my capabilities.\u201d Grace Mugabe\u2019s unpopularity has only kept pace with the kind of hostile language she has increasingly used in her fiery speeches, rhetoric she clearly learned from the man who mentored her over the years. \n \n If we were to hazard that it was \u201ca tale of two Mugabes\u201d instead of \u201ctwo wives,\u201d that still would be misleading. As Percy Zvomuya points out, Mugabe has been fairly consistent, famously stating in 1976 that \u201cOur votes must go together with our guns. After all, any vote we shall have shall have been the product of the gun. The gun which produces the vote should remain its security officer, its guarantor. The people\u2019s votes and the people\u2019s guns are always inseparable twins.\u201d \n \n However popular or unpopular Mugabe may have been with general populace, the real guarantor of his power has always been the gun, as represented by the military and the war veterans. Over the past 37 years, the relationship between Mugabe and his \u201cguns\u201d has not been entirely smooth, but the relationship has largely remained intact as he gave in to their various demands and safeguarded their interests. In turn, he has relied on their force to guard him against dissent from organized labor and civic groups. What has been Mugabe\u2019s undoing over the past few years is that at the height of popular dissent with his rule, he increasingly undermined the interests of his \u201cguns\u201d in favor of Grace Mugabe\u2019s G40 faction. The final straw was to remove his longtime ally (and now successor) Mnangagwa. \n \n Grace Mugabe is no saint. But she has also done nothing without Robert Mugabe\u2019s endorsement (and indeed that of many others in the party). The political fallout cannot be put down to an aging leader\u2019s being led astray by an overbearing or too ambitious wife. Given the evidence of Mugabe\u2019s career trajectory, the extent to which first ladies Grace or \u201cAmai\u201d Sally could have restrained their husband is unclear, but even more importantly, it is neither here nor there. \n \n The common denominator in both marriages has been Robert Mugabe, a man who has more than proved himself a skilled and shrewd politician. It was his political mistake to undermine the \u201cguns\u201d that guaranteed his power for so long. It is at best simplistic and at worst misogynistic to hold Sally or Grace Mugabe accountable for their husband\u2019s political missteps. ||||| \n \n Now-ousted Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe kisses his wife, Grace Mugabe, during the country\u2019s Independence Day celebrations in Harare on April 18. (Getty Images) \n \n Panashe Chigumadzi is an essayist and novelist who was born in Zimbabwe and is based in South Africa. \n \n As former president Robert Mugabe and his second wife, Grace Mugabe, prepare to make their exit from Zimbabwe\u2019s State House, Zimbabweans have hankered for \u201cAmai\u201d (Mother) Sally, his late first wife, who is fondly remembered as a \u201cvery sensitive and intelligent woman\u201d who may have been a \u201c\u201crestraining influence\u201d on her husband. \n \n On the day of the military intervention earlier this month, the veteran South Africa-based Zimbabwean journalist Peter Ndoro tweeted the following: \n \n \u201cAs developments continue to unfold in #Zimbabwe #RobertMugabe might be looking back and wondering if \u2026 his rule wasn\u2019t a tale of two wives. One that died too soon and the other that ended up being his Achilles heel. #ThisFlag #SaveZim\u201d \n \n With almost 2,000 retweets, it is the kind of misogynist narrative that has found an easy resonance in many quarters of a country that has been ruled by the heavy hand of a patriarchal nationalist tradition for nearly four decades. Across the many rallies and marches in Zimbabwe, many people sang \u201cHatidi kutongwa nehure\u201d [We do not want to be ruled by a whore]. Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association Chairman Chris Mutsvangwa described Grace Mugabe as \u201cclinically mad,\u201d and Temba Mliswa, a member of parliament from the ruling Zanu-PF party, has claimed that \u201cRobert Mugabe\u2019s legacy has been destroyed by his wife. He\u2019s old, he\u2019s aging, and they\u2019ve taken advantage of him.\u201d \n \n As Mugabe\u2019s party rebrands itself, it is using a simplistic narrative that absolves both Mugabe and Zanu-PF of their political blunders, sweeping all that went wrong into a Grace Mugabe-sized hole. \n \n Is it really \u201ca tale of two wives\u201d? Let\u2019s start with \u201cAmai\u201d Sally Mugabe and whether she was a \u201crestraining force\u201d on her husband. Having met Mugabe at a teacher training college in her native Ghana, Sally Mugabe, nee Hayfron, married Mugabe in 1961. She became increasingly involved in nationalist political trenches in the \u201960s, leading campaigns for the release of Zimbabwean political prisoners, including her husband, while in exile in London. Once her husband was released, she campaigned for the safety and well-being of refugees of the Second Chimurenga (liberation war) while in Mozambique. In 1980, she joined her husband, Zimbabwe\u2019s first black prime minister, at the helm of the country and officially became first lady seven years later, when he assumed the presidency. By 1989, she was elected secretary general of the Zanu-PF Women\u2019s League. Outside of politics, Sally continued to be popular for her involvement in welfare programs through organizations such as the Zimbabwe Child Survival Movement and Zimbabwe Women\u2019s Co-operative. \n \n A popular leader at home and abroad at the time, Mugabe was meanwhile consolidating and centralizing his post-independence power through constitutional and forceful means. In 1984, Zanu-PF\u2019s congress gave Mugabe extensive powers to appoint the executive members of the party and passed constitutional amendments that created the executive presidency. Most importantly the early \u201980s, Sally was by his side during the \u201cGukurahundi\u201d (Shona for \u201cthe first rains, which wash away the chaff before the spring rains\u201d), the genocide of more than 20,000 Ndebele people. The violent campaign was aimed at quelling the threat of political dissidents; incoming President Emmerson Mnangagwa was a key figure in the massacres. \n \n As Sally Mugabe became increasingly ill with kidney failure in the late \u201980s, Robert Mugabe began his affair with Grace Ntombizodwa Marufu, a young married mother and a typist in the president\u2019s office at the time. In 1992, Sally Mugabe died in Harare at the age of 60. As Zimbabwean academic Alex Magaisa points out, for Mugabe, the loss of Sally represented a loss of a close companion and, importantly, a peer. Mugabe married Grace in a spectacular ceremony four years later. \n \n Compared with Sally, who was loved for her apparent sense of modesty and public work, Grace Mugabe became increasingly unpopular for her lavish lifestyle in the midst the economic fallout of the 2000s. She largely stayed out of politics. This changed by 2014, when she began her foray into politics through her election as president of Zanu-PF\u2019s Women\u2019s League. Though unpopular, Grace Mugabe continued to consolidate power through the support of the \u201cG40 faction,\u201d made up mostly of a younger generation of Zanu-PF members who did not participate in the Second Chimurenga. \n \n Invoking the fist often associated with her husband, Grace Mugabe included in her acceptance speech for the Zanu-PF post threats to those who opposed her: \u201cI might have a small fist, but when it comes to fighting I will put stones inside to enlarge it, or even put on gloves to make it bigger. Do not doubt my capabilities.\u201d Grace Mugabe\u2019s unpopularity has only kept pace with the kind of hostile language she has increasingly used in her fiery speeches, rhetoric she clearly learned from the man who mentored her over the years. \n \n If we were to hazard that it was \u201ca tale of two Mugabes\u201d instead of \u201ctwo wives,\u201d that still would be misleading. As Percy Zvomuya points out, Mugabe has been fairly consistent, famously stating in 1976 that \u201cOur votes must go together with our guns. After all, any vote we shall have shall have been the product of the gun. The gun which produces the vote should remain its security officer, its guarantor. The people\u2019s votes and the people\u2019s guns are always inseparable twins.\u201d \n \n However popular or unpopular Mugabe may have been with general populace, the real guarantor of his power has always been the gun, as represented by the military and the war veterans. Over the past 37 years, the relationship between Mugabe and his \u201cguns\u201d has not been entirely smooth, but the relationship has largely remained intact as he gave in to their various demands and safeguarded their interests. In turn, he has relied on their force to guard him against dissent from organized labor and civic groups. What has been Mugabe\u2019s undoing over the past few years is that at the height of popular dissent with his rule, he increasingly undermined the interests of his \u201cguns\u201d in favor of Grace Mugabe\u2019s G40 faction. The final straw was to remove his longtime ally (and now successor) Mnangagwa. \n \n Grace Mugabe is no saint. But she has also done nothing without Robert Mugabe\u2019s endorsement (and indeed that of many others in the party). The political fallout cannot be put down to an aging leader\u2019s being led astray by an overbearing or too ambitious wife. Given the evidence of Mugabe\u2019s career trajectory, the extent to which first ladies Grace or \u201cAmai\u201d Sally could have restrained their husband is unclear, but even more importantly, it is neither here nor there. \n \n The common denominator in both marriages has been Robert Mugabe, a man who has more than proved himself a skilled and shrewd politician. It was his political mistake to undermine the \u201cguns\u201d that guaranteed his power for so long. It is at best simplistic and at worst misogynistic to hold Sally or Grace Mugabe accountable for their husband\u2019s political missteps.", "summary": "\u2013 A common narrative has emerged in the wake of Robert Mugabe's ouster in Zimbabwe: His undoing can be blamed on wife Grace's greedy grab for power. Actually, this narrative is being cast as a \"tale of two wives,\" writes Zimbabwe-born novelist Panashe Chigumadzi in a Washington Post op-ed. The idea is that if Mugabe's first wife, Sally, hadn't died in 1992, she would have kept Robert Mugabe's abuses in check. Instead, the narrative goes, Sally was replaced by Grace, who has been manipulating the now 93-year-old Mugabe for decades toward her own ends. It's a convenient tale for Mugabe's own Zanu-PF party as it seeks to rebrand itself while \"sweeping all that went wrong into a Grace Mugabe-sized hole.\" For one thing, the idea that Sally would have restrained her husband is a stretch. She was by his side, after all, during some horrible abuses in the 1980s, writes Chigumadzi. As for Grace, she is clearly \"no saint. But she has also done nothing without Robert Mugabe\u2019s endorsement (and indeed that of many others in the party).\" If she went too far in trying to solidify herself as her husband's successor, that's more on him than her. No, the one true villain in Zimbabwe's tale is Robert Mugabe, who ruled by the gun and was ultimately ousted by it. To say otherwise \"is at best simplistic and at worst misogynistic,\" writes Chigumadzi. Click for the full column."}
{"document": "OAKLAND -- Sex. Suicide. Murder? A sex scandal involving Oakland police officers and a young woman who touts her law enforcement liaisons on Facebook has all the makings of a TV thriller, full of twists and turns. \n \n Three officers were placed on paid leave this week, months after Officer Brendan O'Brien committed suicide and left a note spilling the details -- including names. \n \n Adding to the intrigue, O'Brien's wife, 29-year-old Irma Huerta Lopez, also committed suicide, on June 16, 2014, by shooting herself in the head with her husband's gun. \n \n Lopez's death was briefly investigated as suspicious but then ruled a suicide, according to the Alameda County coroner. Not that it convinced her sister or her family, who blamed O'Brien. \n \n Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf speaks during a press conference at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, May 13, 2016. To the left is Oakland police Lt. Roland Holmgren, and to the right are Oakland police Chief Sean Whent and City Administrator Sabrina Landreth. An internal investigation has been launched and three Oakland police officers were placed on paid leave due to allegations of sexual misconduct. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group) ( JANE TYSKA ) \n \n \"I always knew it,\" Paulina Huerta said Friday. \"It was not possible for my sister to kill herself. But we didn't have proof.\" \n \n Top city officials on Friday confirmed the gun that killed Huerta Lopez was fired twice -- one bullet hit the floor, the other struck her head -- and both O'Brien and his wife tested positive for gunshot residue on their hands. According to the coroner's report, the two had argued the night of the suicide, before he left the home and returned to find her dead. \n \n Although police Chief Sean Whent and Lt. Roland Holmgren of the homicide unit said it is not uncommon for both of those things to happen, the city announced Friday that the Alameda County District Attorney's Office has been called in to review both suicide investigations and the ongoing sexual misconduct investigation. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Whent said the investigations into the deaths were thorough, and evidence supports the suicide rulings in the case of O'Brien and his wife. \n \n Mayor Libby Schaaf called for the district attorney investigations and said no DA employees who used to work for the police department will be a part of it. \n \n \"We as Oaklanders can expect to hold officers to the highest standards of conduct -- again, both while they wear a uniform and when they do not. And that is a standard that we intend to enforce in the city of Oakland,\" Schaaf said Friday, clearly angry. \n \n Oakland police Chief Sean Whent, right, listens as Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf speaks during a press conference at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, May 13, 2016. An internal investigation has been launched and three Oakland police officers were placed on paid leave due to allegations of sexual misconduct. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group) ( JANE TYSKA ) \n \n Whent and Schaaf declined to discuss the sexual misconduct investigation. The exact allegations have not been released. \n \n But a source said O'Brien in his suicide note confessed to exchanging messages with a young woman who goes by the name Celeste Guap but did not have sexual contact with her. In the note, O'Brien named the officers, including one sergeant, involved in the alleged sexual misconduct with Guap, who is the daughter of a Oakland police dispatcher. The police investigation will look at whether Guap was under age during some of the encounters with officers. \n \n Attempts to reach the woman at the center of the scandal through a relative were not successful, but she has been posting about the allegations on Facebook, the same place sources said she has met multiple officers. \n \n Brendon O'Brien is part of a group photo at the 166th Basic Academy graduation at the Scottish Rite Temple in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, March 22, 2013. (Laura A. Oda/Staff) ( Laura A. Oda ) \n \n This week, she wrote, \"the only officer I ever messed with underage is sadly gone now, so I don't know why this is still being brought up.\" In another of her posts in late April, there was a picture of an Oakland patrol car parked at gas station with a message: \"took me back to Richmond in style #saucy.\" \n \n Sources and a coroner's report said O'Brien's life went into a downward spiral after his wife's death. A U.S. Marine who served in Afghanistan, O'Brien was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and was distraught over his wife's suicide before shooting himself, according to the report. He admitted in the suicide note that was drinking heavily and suffered from lingering suspicion that he might be involved in his wife's death, despite being cleared, a source said. \n \n \"O'Brien did not have a history of suicide attempts, but according to the note of intent he left at the scene, he was suicidal and a series of events regarding his wife and work prompted him to commit suicide,\" the coroner's report said. \n \n Calls and messages to the O'Brien family were not returned. \n \n U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, who oversees the department's court-mandated reforms stemming from the 1999 Riders police-brutality scandal, issued an order in March saying there were \"irregularities\" and \"violations\" of procedure in the handling of the sex allegations by police. The judge wrote that it raises concerns about the department's \"commitment to accountability and sustainability.\" \n \n Schaaf has asked the department to report to the DA's office each time an officer is suspected of criminal misconduct. Whent, citing recent arrests of two officers while off-duty, said the department will review misconduct cases in recent years to look for patterns and see if leaders can prevent future cases. \n \n \"We want to ensure that all of our employees are of the highest moral character and conduct themselves professionally, not only while they're on duty but off duty as well,\" the chief said. \n \n Staff writer Katrina Cameron contributed to this report. David DeBolt covers Oakland. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt. ||||| click to enlarge Deceased Oakland Police Officer Brendan O'Brien outside Oracle Arena. \n \n click to enlarge Facebook. \n \n Celeste Guap's Tuesday Facebook post. \n \n On Monday, the Oakland Police Department placed three of its officers on leave while investigating them for alleged sexual relations with an underage girl, the daughter of an Oakland Police Department dispatcher.But the Express has learned that the investigation also involves a potential homicide, one committed by a Oakland cop, according to interviews and records.Sources inside the department say that the allegations of sexual misconduct stem from the suicide of Oakland Police Officer Brendan O\u2019Brien in September of last year.O\u2019Brien\u2019s wife, Irma Huerta Lopez, died June 16, 2014. Her death was ruled a suicide, but was briefly classified by homicide detectives as a potential criminal investigation.Her family believes that O\u2019Brien shot her. \u201cHe killed her,\" Paulina Huerta, Irma\u2019s sister, said in an interview today. Huerta said the police ignored her family. \"Nobody\u2019s listening.\"Huerta Lopez\u2019s coroner\u2019s report \u2014 which was released for the first time earlier today after the Express requested it \u2014 called her death suspicious. The coroner\u2019s report on O\u2019Brien\u2019s suicide also noted that his wife\u2019s death the year before was suspicious. And Alameda County sheriff\u2019s department investigator Solomon Unubun wrote that \u201cO\u2019Brien\u2019s wife committed suicide in the same apartment on 6/16/14 and her family thought her death was suspicious.\u201dPolice sources say various OPD officers failed to report the allegations of sexual misconduct, and OPD internal-affairs investigators may have failed to thoroughly look into both the sex crime allegations and also the suspicious death of Huerta Lopez. An investigation of sexual misconduct was opened only after O\u2019Brien\u2019s death.According to several sources inside the police department, the sexual misconduct was ongoing in 2014, involving several police officers and a possibly underage girl named Celeste Guap. O\u2019Brien reportedly had a relationship with Guap. Guap was previously identified in television news reports that aired Thursday.It\u2019s unclear when OPD officers and supervisors first learned of the sexual misconduct, but an internal affairs investigation was not opened into the sex crime allegations until after September 25, 2015, the date that O\u2019Brien shot and killed himself in his apartment.Police sources say O\u2019Brien, a 30-year-old who joined OPD in 2013, left a suicide note that included information about the alleged sex crimes. On Tuesday, Guap wrote on her Facebook profile timeline that \u201cthe only officer I messed with underage is sadly gone now, so I don\u2019t know why this is still being brought up.\u201dO\u2019Brien was previously investigated by homicide detectives after his wife was found dead of a gunshot wound in his apartment. At the time, O\u2019Brien was living in a four-unit building on Greenridge Drive in the Oakland hills, a property owned by Oakland police veteran Eric Karsseboom. Other cops lived in the building.According to a coroner\u2019s report, Huerta Lopez died of a gunshot wound to the head. Two bullets had been fired from the gun, and one lodged in the wall in the apartment. The gun \u2014 O\u2019Brien\u2019s off-duty Glock 45 caliber pistol \u2014 and two casings were found near her feet. An Oakland police detective told a sheriff\u2019s department investigator that an upstairs neighbor heard a loud thud around the time she was shot.\u201cWhy were there two shots if she killed herself?\u201d asked her sister Huerta, who did not know O\u2019Brien was dead until informed by Express reporters today.A sheriff\u2019s department detective covered Huerta Lopez\u2019s hands with paper bags and ordered an OPD crime scene technician to gather evidence to test for gunshot residue, which would indicate she fired the pistol that killed her. It\u2019s unclear if OPD conducted the gunshot residue test.Huerta Lopez\u2019s coroner\u2019s report, however, noted that there was no visible gunshot residue on her hands. There is no mention of whether O\u2019Brien\u2019s hands were ever swabbed or tested for traces of gunshot residue in the report.According to Huerta Lopez\u2019s coroner\u2019s report, O\u2019Brien and his wife had been shopping earlier in the evening. They returned home, but got into an argument. O\u2019Brien told responding officers that he had last seen his wife alive fifteen minutes prior to going to a local gas station near the residence, and that, when he returned to his apartment at 10:52 p.m., he \u201cfound his wife unresponsive on the bed\u201d with a gunshot wound to the head.Oakland police officers who arrived at O\u2019Brien\u2019s apartment initially treated Huerta Lopez\u2019s death as suspicious. They took him to a police station, where he was interviewed for a potential criminal investigation.Huerta Lopez\u2019s autopsy report stated that the gunshot wound that killed her was in the right side of her head, and that \u201cthe basic direction [of the shot] is towards the left of the body, down towards the feet at a 5-degree angle and toward the back of the body at a 10-degree angle.\u201dHuerta Lopez\u2019s sister told the Express she believes that O\u2019Brien killed her sister, and that members of the Oakland police department did not conduct a thorough investigation into her sister\u2019s death.According to Huerta, O\u2019Brien and her sister met online and dated very briefly. They broke up, got back together in January 2014, and then married. But the marriage was rocky, with frequent arguments, Huerta said.The sister explained that OPD never released Huerta Lopez\u2019s property, including her cell phone that she was carrying the night she died at O\u2019Brien\u2019s apartment.She also said the Sheriff-Coroner never provided her family with a copy of her sister\u2019s autopsy report, despite requests. According to Huerta, OPD officers showed her family a surveillance photograph of O\u2019Brien at a gas station on the night of Huerta Lopez's death, which the officers said proved O\u2019Brien was not present when she allegedly shot herself. Huerta said the police officers\u2019 appeared to be downplaying the possibility of a homicide.Although Huerta Lopez\u2019s death was investigated by Sergeants Caesar Basa and Randy Brandwood, O\u2019Brien was cleared of suspicion after her death was ruled a suicide. He was allowed to return to his duties patrolling a high-crime beat in deep East Oakland. On December 2, 2014, a sheriff\u2019s detective reviewed OPD\u2019s case file and determined that Huerta Lopez\u2019s death was a suicide.According to sources who viewed his suicide note, O\u2019Brien claimed he had been struggling with post-traumatic-stress disorder from his time as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Reserve Corps, as well as the strain of being under suspicion from OPD, Huerta Lopez\u2019s family and his own relatives. He wrote that he had been drinking heavily, both off-duty and while in uniform and on patrol.These sex allegations, and the possibly botched internal-affairs and criminal investigations, only became public after US District Judge Thelton Henderson issued an unprecedented order on March 23. The judge cited \u201cirregularities\u201d and \u201cviolations\u201d of procedures by Oakland police detectives in charge of the sexual-misconduct inquiry, and he called into question the department\u2019s commitment to accountability and reform.Henderson directed court-appointed independent monitor Robert Warshaw to take over the sexual-misconduct case from OPD to ensure it was properly conducted.Henderson\u2019s order did not detail the alleged sexual misconduct. A KRON 4 story that aired on Monday unearthed those allegations.\u201cThere is no question that there are credibility issues with the internal-affairs investigations here,\u201d said Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris about Henderson\u2019s court order. \u201cTo the extent these allegations are true this could impact the length of the NSA.\u201dFollowing a string of officer suicides three years ago, there was pressure for OPD to increase mental health services, including counseling and mental health therapy, for officers. It is unclear what sort of assistance or outreach was made to O\u2019Brien after the death of his wife.The Oakland Police Department did not respond to a request for comment for this report. ||||| OAKLAND (CBS SF) \u2014 An angry Mayor Libby Schaaf on Friday night promised to hold Oakland police officers accountable in the wake of an underage sex scandal involving multiple members of the department. \n \n As KPIX 5 reported Thursday, internal affairs and criminal investigations are underway focusing on several Oakland police officers who allegedly had sex with an underage girl. \n \n Sources said the internal affairs investigation centers around a young woman who calls herself Celeste Guap, who was underage at the time. She recently began revealing details of her relationships with officers on her Facebook page. \n \n Schaaf, along with Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent spoke Oakland police headquarters on the scandal. \n \n \u201cWe value and respect the public\u2019s right to know what is going on with this investigation, as well as how our officers conduct themselves both off and on duty\u201d said Schaaf. \n \n Schaaf also said that residents should be able to expect officers to be held to the highest standards. In addition to the internal investigation, Schaaf said that as of Friday, the Alameda County District Attorney is conducting an \u201cindependent and parallel investigation.\u201d \n \n Whent admitted that there had been \u201can unfortunate series of off-duty incidents\u201d for Oakland police officers. \n \n \u201cWe want to ensure that our employees are of the highest moral character,\u201d said Whent. \n \n \u201cGoing forward, we are committed to putting additional safeguards in place to avoid any questions about the standards with which we hold our employees to,\u201d said Schaaf. \n \n The scandal started to unfold in the fall of 2015 when officers walked into an Oakland apartment and found fellow Officer Brendan O\u2019Brien dead. \n \n There, they found the suicide note. \n \n A source close to the investigation said O\u2019Brien wrote he had sent inappropriate texts with a woman and that \u2014 even though he claimed he never slept with her \u2014 the woman was blackmailing him and had caused trouble with his wife. \n \n Sources say he named Guap as the woman, but he also used her given name, Jasmine. \n \n Guap posted on Facebook that the only officer she messed with while underage is sadly gone and that she had \u201charmless friendships\u201d within the police department. \n \n But sources say that O\u2019Brien\u2019s suicide note also named three fellow officers, including a sergeant that O\u2019Brien said did have sex with her. \n \n A federal court monitor is investigating multiple officers and their relationship with Guap, who sources say have admitted to lying during an initial internal affairs investigation. \n \n One of those officers admitted to knowing she was underage at the time. \n \n Guap\u2019s mother works with the police officers as a dispatcher with the Oakland Police Department. \n \n In addition to the internal investigation, there is an ongoing criminal investigation happening in connection with the activities of the officers. \n \n PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OFFICE OF MAYOR LIBBY SCHAAF (Released May 13, 2016):", "summary": "\u2013 A scandal involving alleged underage sex, suicide, and possible murder is exploding within the Oakland Police Department. The San Jose Mercury News reports it all started when Irma Huerta Lopez killed herself with a gun belonging to her husband, officer Brendan O'Brien, in 2014. Huerta Lopez's family believes O'Brien, who was suffering from PTSD and drinking heavily, killed her. The coroner's office found her death suspicious, but it was ultimately ruled a suicide, according to the East Bay Express. Then last September, O'Brien killed himself. In a suicide note, he reportedly admitted to exchanging inappropriate messages with the underage daughter of a police dispatcher, which damaged his marriage, CBS SF Bay Area reports. He also named three other officers involved with the woman, including a sergeant he claimed had sex with her. An internal investigation into the note's allegations\u2014what the police chief calls \"an unfortunate series of off-duty incidents\"\u2014went nowhere. But in March, a judge ordered a new investigation over \"irregularities.\" Sources tell CBS multiple officers admitted to lying during that first investigation. And the woman, no longer underage, has recently been posting details of the alleged affairs on Facebook under the name Celeste Guap. \"The only officer I ever messed with underage is sadly gone now, so I don't know why this is still being brought up,\" the Mercury News quotes a post from Wednesday as saying. Three officers were put on leave this week in connection with the alleged sexual misconduct. And Oakland's mayor called for the district attorney's office to open its own investigation into the alleged misconduct, as well as both O'Brien's and Huerta Lopez's suicides."}
{"document": "Despite its title, \"Elysium\" is no promised land. \n \n Expectations were high that the film starring Matt Damon would carry the flag for thoughtful, big-budget films that care about more than profits. But it has ended up as something of a disappointment, an epic that has gone over to the dark side without realizing it. \n \n That anticipation came courtesy of \"District 9\" \u2014 the 2009 science fiction film by Neill Blomkamp, \"Elysium's\" South African writer-director \u2014 which came out of nowhere to be nominated for four Oscars, including best picture and adapted screenplay. \n \n PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments \n \n \"District 9\" succeeded in part because of the strength of its unexpected core idea: that aliens coming to Earth were not necessarily a dominant species but instead were rounded up and segregated in their own parts of town the way blacks had been in South Africa. \n \n \"Elysium\" makes a similar attempt to graft socio-political concerns onto a sci-fi framework, but the idea is less electric here and the combining of genre and theme not as adroitly done. \n \n Initially, however, things do seem promising in \"Elysium,\" in large part because of how its subject matter is compellingly visualized on screen (Philip Ivey is the production designer). \n \n PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times \n \n The year is 2154, and Earth, thanks to the destructive effects of pollution, overpopulation and related ills, is in horrific shape. Blighted, devastated slums cover the planet, and they are home to the poorest people (a Mexico City garbage dump stands in for Los Angeles). \n \n Anyone of wealth and status now lives on Elysium, a circular space station whose shape is reminiscent of the much smaller one in Stanley Kubrick's \"2001.\" The air is pure, robots do the work, and everywhere there are healing machines that cure what ails you. Think of a flesh-and-blood version of the disparities in Disney's \"Wall-E\" and you'll get the general idea. \n \n Making the best of things on the planet is Max, played by a bulked-up, head-shaved, tattooed Damon. Max is a former car thief, once a legend in his Los Angeles neighborhood, who is working on a factory assembly line hoping to better his lot and maybe even get to Elysium someday. \n \n PHOTOS: Summer Sneaks 2013 \n \n Clearly, social inequality is very much on Blomkamp's mind, and when you add in illegal, clandestine space flights from Earth to Elysium by people desperate for medical attention, it's clear that hot-button issues like illegal immigration and universal access to healthcare are on the table as well. \n \n This is all well and good, but, paradoxically, once the actual plot of \"Elysium\" kicks in, these issues fade from the film's consciousness and the traditional, less involving tropes of good-guy-versus-bad-guy action take center stage. Although the pulp energy that Blomkamp brings to this material makes it consistently watchable, the film doesn't feel as singular as we would have hoped. \n \n Max, given a hard time by the humorless droids who police Earth, has to go to the local hospital where he gets reacquainted with nurse Frey (Alice Braga), his childhood soul mate from, no kidding, the orphanage where they both grew up. \n \n Back at the plant where Max works, things get worse. Our hero is put in a dangerous situation and ends up with a lethal dose of radiation that will kill him in five days. His only hope is to somehow get to Elysium and make use of one of those miraculous cure-all machines. \n \n PHOTOS: Billion-dollar movie club \n \n Not averse to helping Max are his neighborhood pal Julio (Mexico's Diego Luna) and Spider (Brazil's Wagner Moura), who runs illegal shuttles to Elysium. But the price is steep: Max, fortified by an exoskeleton that gives him added strength, will have to capture one of Elysium's top dogs, evil plutocrat John Carlyle (William Fichtner) and download information from the man's brain, a situation riskier than anyone imagines. And more pedestrian. \n \n For one thing, the villains in \"Elysium\" are very conventional. Aside from Carlyle, Jodie Foster \u2014 displaying excellent French and a stern visage \u2014 is one-dimensional as the Armani-clad Dragon Lady villainess determined to protect Elysium no matter the cost. Kruger, her thuggish enforcer (\"District 9\" star Sharlto Copley) is even more of a clich\u00e9. \n \n Countering all this is Damon, who is a big plus as always, instinctively humanizing thankless roles like Max and making them look easy. \n \n But once Max faces off with Kruger and his gang, as they inevitably must, all thoughts of anything besides hand-to-hand combat fade into insignificance. The plot gets unnecessarily confusing, and violent images, including a particularly grotesque blown-away face, push everything else away. \"Elysium\" may think it is about issues, but at times like these, that's very hard to see. \n \n kenneth.turan@latimes.com \n \n 'Elysium' \n \n MPAA Rating: R, for strong bloody violence and language throughout \n \n Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes \n \n In general release \n \n \n \n ||||| Jodie Foster plays Secretary of Defense Delacourt, protector of Elysium, a refuge in space for the rich and elite, from Earth's undesirables. \n \n Jodie Foster plays Secretary of Defense Delacourt, protector of Elysium, a refuge in space for the rich and elite, from Earth's undesirables. \n \n If his directing career ever dries up (not likely), Neill Blomkamp could make a killing in the merchandise biz: Dystopia R Us, featuring rusted toaster ovens, custom graffitied bathroom fixtures, tattered T-shirts, and temporary tattoos. \n \n In Elysium, Blomkamp's rabble-rousing sci-fi allegory, Earth is a wasteland. It's the mid-22d century, and the whole world is the Third World: shantytown sprawl; high-rise ruins; a planet that is, we're told, \"diseased, polluted, and vastly overpopulated.\" \n \n It's as if the squalid precincts of Johannesburg depicted in the South African filmmaker's 2009 debut, District 9, had spread everywhere. Blomkamp, handed a bigger budget and a big movie star to go with it - Matt Damon, shaven-headed and angry - paints a canvas of epic decay. \n \n Among the slew of recent futuristic hell-in-a-handbasket spectacles, Elysium takes the cake. \n \n And while the teeming and miserable masses eke it out on terra firma, orbiting up there in the sky is the giant, gleaming hubcap known as Elysium, where the elite live in elegant McMansions, swim in endless-horizon pools, partake of gourmet feasts, and, of course, speak French. This is the ultimate gated community: Wealthy expats from Earth stroll their sumptuous grounds and strike their supermodel poses, and if a shuttle ship crammed with illegals breaches the perimeter, Secretary of Defense Delacourt (a suitably officious Jodie Foster) orders it blasted beyond what's left of the ozone layer. \n \n And if, by chance, a band of dirty immigrants makes it onto Elysium's surface, deportation is immediate. An army of droids makes sure of that. \n \n There's nothing subtle about Blomkamp's message in Elysium, which finds our hero, Damon's Max, outfitted with an \"exo-suit\" that turns him into the combat equal of the droids. He's got a hard drive screwed to the back of his skull, and he's got five days to make it from Earth to Elysium. Thanks to a mishap at work - he's on the assembly line at a droid plant, and he's been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation - that's all the time he has. \n \n Unless, that is, he can get himself onto one of those Elysium medical bays: They look like tanning pods and can re-atomize your body, curing you of cancer, warts, and bad breath. No one is sick on Elysium. \n \n There are plot complications: Frey (Alice Braga), a hospital nurse Max has known since they were children, has a child of her own, a daughter with leukemia. And Secretary Delacourt has Kruger (Sharlto Copley, District 9's Afrikaner eviction officer), a madman enforcer with a posse of mercenaries, chasing Max down. Delacourt has a plan, too, in cahoots with snooty industrialist John Carlyle (William Fichtner), to usurp the presidency. A program that would reboot Elysium's computer systems - a coup d'etat in cybercode - is the movie's MacGuffin. \n \n Thumping and thrilling, Elysium takes its Haves vs. Have Nots parable seriously. There's not much in the way of comic diversion here, although Blomkamp pokes fun at the weary indifference of government bureaucrats by turning them into funhouse automatons - literally. \n \n Yes, the inevitable climactic square off between Max and Kruger slips into the Hollywood generic - haven't we just seen all this head-bashing, hanging-from-catwalks, mixed-martial-arts mayhem in The Wolverine and Iron Man 3? But as summer movie sci-fi extravaganzas go, Elysium is easily the best thing out there right now. \n \n And the bleakest, too. \n \n Elysium *** (Out of four stars) \n \n Directed by Neill Blomkamp. With Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copely, Alice Braga, and Diego Luna. Distributed by Sony Pictures. \n \n Running time: 1 hour, 49 mins. \n \n Parent's guide: R (intense action, violence, profanity, adult themes) \n \n Playing at: area theaters \n \n Contact Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @Steven_Rea. Read his blog, \"On Movies Online,\" at www.inquirer.com/onmovies.", "summary": "\u2013 Much like in real life, Matt Damon's character in the sci-fi thriller Elysium isn't too fond of government bureaucrats. Set in royally screwed-up Los Angeles (home to the masses) and an idyllic space station in the clouds (home to the rich) circa 2154, this flick from Neill Blomkamp (District 9) has both the compelling themes and action-packed fight scenes to make it a summer blockbuster. So is it one? Critics are split. The action sequences, complete with \"futuristic CGI flying machines\" are impressive, but it's \"Blomkamp's critique of a society riven by class and racial differences\" that sets it apart, Soren Anderson writes for the Seattle Times. \"Few mainstream moviemakers have painted as sprawling and densely detailed a portrait of humanity in extremis as Blomkamp does here.\" But at the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan's high hopes were dashed. \"Elysium is no promised land.\" Though Matt Damon is great as always and the visuals are equally as impressive, \"the film doesn't feel as singular as we would have hoped.\" District 9 did a much better job of connecting genre (sci-fi) and theme (\"socio-political concerns\"). Even with the talented Damon along for the ride, Dana Stephens at Slate writes Elysium \"does a little, sometimes shockingly little, with a lot ... Blomkamp proceeds to spend the last two-thirds of his film crashing spaceships into lawns, or staging high-tech fistfights. It\u2019s a waste of a perfectly good dystopia.\" But over at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Steven Rea sees things differently. \"Among the slew of recent futuristic hell-in-a-hand-basket spectacles, Elysium takes the cake.\" Sure, it can be a little generic at times\u2014\"haven't we just seen all this head-bashing, hanging-from-catwalks, mixed-martial-arts mayhem in The Wolverine and Iron Man 3?\u2014but \"as summer movie sci-fi extravaganzas go, Elysium is easily the best thing out there right now.\""}
{"document": "The peculiarly timed tweet is a plea for attention from a highly talented, unique artist \u2013 and just the craziest thing he could think of at the time \n \n Maybe Kanye West was feeling left out. Cam Newton, Donald Trump and Beyonc\u00e9 are squeezing him out of the public consciousness one news cycle at a time. Even the things he\u2019s done that have merited attention from the media in the past month have been rather mundane, considering his reputation for behaving like a puppy that just ate a bowl of candy corn laced with PCP. \u201cOh, Kanye says he\u2019s releasing some more shoes no one can afford.\u201d Snore. \u201cDid you hear Kanye changed the name of his album? No, again.\u201d Boring. \u201cKanye got into a Twitter fight with Wiz Khalifa over Amber Rose!\u201d I\u2019m listening \u2026 \u201cYeah, it\u2019s over already. They made up.\u201d Oh. \n \n So, with this peculiarly timed tweet that read \u201cBILL COSBY INNOCENT!!!!!!!!!!\u201d (I hope I got the number of exclamation points correct) we all have to pay attention again. Well, I guess we don\u2019t have to, but we will anyway. I mean, I get paid to do this, so I have to. That\u2019s right \u2013 I\u2019m getting paid right now. Every minute I type about Kanye West is billable. I\u2019m so glad I majored in blogging in college. \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest \u2018BILL COSBY INNOCENT!!!!!!!!!!\u2019 Photograph: Twitter \n \n But what does this all mean? Nothing, obviously. It\u2019s a plea for attention from a highly talented, unique artist. It\u2019s not like Kanye has some sort of evidence we aren\u2019t aware of or knows a guy who knows a guy who can offer Cosby 37 alibis over the course of decades. It\u2019s just the craziest thing he could think of at the time. After all, someone already beat him to a \u201cthe Earth is flat\u201d tweet. He can\u2019t tell us all he likes a finger in his bum. Again, someone beat him to it. Muslims should be prevented from entering the country? Taken. We should bomb Denmark? Swiped. A fluke monster lives inside our toilets? That was an episode of The X-Files. \n \n I have a sneaking suspicion Kanye West has a box full of note cards, and on those note cards there are transgressive statements written on them. Proclaiming Bill Cosby is innocent of raping 37 women is probably just one of them. I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s going to get off easily with this one. After all, if there\u2019s one thing women don\u2019t like (and women are, as you know, half the population of the planet) it\u2019s Bill Cosby. \n \n Opinion vs facts: why do celebrities so often get it wrong? Read more \n \n For obvious reasons. I just hope that during his retraction, he offers some convoluted, nonsensical explanation for why he said what he said. Maybe \u201cBILL COSBY INNOCENT!!!!!!!!!!\u201d is the name of his new record? That\u2019d be a hell of a concept album. Maybe his iPhone autocorrected \u201cIS A MONSTER\u201d to \u201cINNOCENT\u201d and he just hit send too fast. Or he might just actually believe what he said and has some intricate conspiracy theory that will make us all feel crazier than we already do. Whatever form his mea culpa takes, it\u2019s bound to keep him firmly ensconced in the media crosshairs for the next couple weeks. The question I have is this: What must Kanye West say to remain in the news cycle long enough to get through the release of his album? I\u2019ll leave you with a few guesses: \n \n \u201cEATING HUMAN FLESH GIVES YOU SUPERPOWERS!!!!!!!!!!\u201d \n \n \u201cTHE BIG BANG THEORY IS FILMED INSIDE A TURKISH PRISON!!!!!!!!!!\u201d \n \n \u201cGIRL SCOUT COOKIES CONTAIN TRACE AMOUNTS OF COCAINE!!!!!!!!!!\u201d \n \n \u201cTHE GOVERNMENT OWNS THE PATENT FOR CLEAN-BURNING FUEL AND FLYING CARS AND HAS BEEN KEEPING THE TECHNOLOGY FROM THE PUBLIC FOR DECADES BECAUSE IT WOULD CRIPPLE THE OIL INDUSTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!\u201d (This one would probably have to wait until Twitter switches to a 10,000 character limit) \n \n \u201cLOOK WHO\u2019S TALKING TOO IS BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\u201d \n \n \u201cKID ROCK DESERVES YOUR RESPECT!!!!!!!!!!!!\u201d ||||| Kanye West Get Off Cosby's Back ... He's NO Rapist! \n \n Kanye West: Get Off Bill Cosby's Back ... He's NO Rapist! \n \n Breaking News \n \n Kanye West thinks Bill Cosby is getting railroaded ... if Kanye's Twitter feed can be trusted, that is. \n \n Honestly, Kanye's been on one over the last few hours -- ranting about a bunch of things, but he just topped them all with ... \"BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!\" \n \n It's unclear if 'Ye's been hacked, or if he's just getting stuff off his chest. \n \n What is 100% clear is his album drops on Thursday -- which makes this the perfect time to get as much attention as possible. \n \n We're sure Cosby is not complaining. ||||| Without sacrificing our journalistic objectivity or making direct claims as to whether Bill Cosby sexually assaulted the dozens of women who have accused him of such over the past few decades, we can safely report that it was extremely stupid of Kanye West to tweet the following: \n \n @kanyewest/Twitter \n \n A new album title? Maybe! But at this stage of West\u2019s meltdown over the creative process and allegedly getting his booty fingered, survey says\u2026 he\u2019s done. \n \n (Sorry, this embed was not found.) \n \n Kanye: BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!!!! Me: pic.twitter.com/XaPaeQ0H25 \u2014 Drew Schnoebelen (@Dschnoeb) February 9, 2016 \n \n \u201cActually I didn\u2019t even see the Kanye thing. I was too concerned with the Supreme Court order on carbon emissions.\u201d pic.twitter.com/oPYVCEILMd \u2014 Mike Tunison (@xmasape) February 10, 2016 \n \n Huge week, and really a huge year, for finding out the terrible the things famous people believe. \u2014 David Roth (@david_j_roth) February 10, 2016 \n \n (Sorry, this embed was not found.) \n \n i wish i could refute this, but the argument is too strong pic.twitter.com/91gJwew5KR \u2014 Solipsist Snake (@alex_navarro) February 10, 2016 \n \n So much for Kanye 2020 \u2014 Zoe Camp (@jzcamp) February 10, 2016 \n \n (Sorry, this embed was not found.) \n \n (Sorry, this embed was not found.) \n \n Live footage of Kanye\u2019s @ mentions pic.twitter.com/H38Kj011lT \u2014 Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) February 9, 2016 \n \n (Sorry, this embed was not found.) \n \n (Sorry, this embed was not found.) \n \n Man, why did we ever follow this dude? Should\u2019ve listened to 50 Cent. \n \n I just looked at kanye page what the fuck kind a spaced out tweets are those. fuck that I aint never looking at that shit again \u2014 50cent (@50cent) August 28, 2010 \n \n Photo via Jason Persse/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)", "summary": "\u2013 Kanye West weighed in on the Bill Cosby sex case on Tuesday in his usual understated manner. \"BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!!!!\" tweeted the star, with no further explanation. Observers weren't entirely sure what to make of the declaration, though many suspect that Kanye is saying outrageous things to keep his name in the news before his new album comes out on Thursday, TMZ reports. It certainly got a reaction; the Daily Dot rounds up the 16 best responses to the tweet. The tweet appears to be \"a plea for attention from a highly talented, unique artist,\" writes Dave Schilling at the Guardian. It's not as if Kanye has new evidence or \"knows a guy who knows a guy who can offer Cosby 37 alibis over the course of decades,\" he writes. \"It's just the craziest thing he could think of at the time.\" (That new album has had at least four different titles.)"}
{"document": "HAGERSTOWN, Md. (WJLA) -- A 9-year old boy in Hagerstown, Maryland was allegedly handcuffed and beaten near death for taking a piece of birthday cake. \n \n Continue reading \n \n Where child abuse is alleged to have happened in Hagerstown (Photo: WJLA/ Brad Bell) \n \n Officers with the Hagerstown Police Department were called to a home in the 500 block of Lynne Haven Drive on Tuesday for a report of possible child abuse. \n \n Upon arriving on scene, officers found a 9-year-old \"unresponsive and not breathing.\" \n \n In court Thursday afternoon, the prosecutor said the little boy is not expected to live. \n \n The boy was transported to the Emergency Department of Meritus Medical Center where he was immediately admitted in critical condition with head trauma and pulmonary contusions. \n \n The boy suffered multiple bruises and contusions on his face, ears, neck, spinal column, abdomen and buttocks, some of which were in \u201cvarying stages of healing,\u201d according to charging documents, indicating past abuse. \n \n Police say 31-year-old Robert Leroy Wilson, the boyfriend of the child's mother, was watching the 9-year-old at the time of the incident along with her brother. Wilson has been charged with first-and-second-degree assault, child abuse with severe physical injury and reckless endangerment. He was scheduled for a 1 p.m. bond review Thursday. \n \n The mother, according to police, said Wilson apologized for hitting the boy in the stomach for stealing a piece of birthday cake. \n \n The woman's brother told police that Wilson was upset with the boy for stealing the cake and handcuffed the 9-year-old in his bedroom in order to teach him not to steal. Wilson reportedly tripped and shoved the boy onto the ground while asking him questions, according to the brother. \n \n Further police investigation revealed that an ambulance was previously requested at the same residence for a report of a child having difficult breathing. When EMS arrived, a woman approached them and said they were no longer needed. \n \n The woman, later identified as the boy\u2019s mother, told EMS that she had just arrived from work and her son was just \u201ccongested\u201d and declined to allow EMS to check on the boy. ||||| Close Get email notifications on Don Aines daily! \n \n Your notification has been saved. \n \n There was a problem saving your notification. \n \n Whenever Don Aines posts new content, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox with a link. \n \n Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. ||||| HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) \u2014 Hagerstown police say a 9-year-old boy is in critical condition after he was handcuffed and beaten for eating a piece of birthday cake without permission. \n \n The boyfriend of the mother, 30-year-old Robert Wilson, was being held on $1 million bail after a hearing Thursday. He's charged with offenses including first-degree assault and child abuse. \n \n The Herald-Mail reports that a public defender represented Wilson at the hearing. The attorney didn't immediately return a telephone call from The Associated Press. Wilson's arrest was first reported by Washington television station WJLA. \n \n The boy is at Children's Memorial Hospital in Washington. \n \n The mother's brother told police that the boy was handcuffed Tuesday as punishment for stealing the cake and was hit after the handcuffs were removed. The alleged incident occurred at home.", "summary": "\u2013 A young boy in Hagerstown, Md., was beaten almost to death for taking\u2014or, as family members put it, \"stealing\"\u2014a piece of birthday cake without permission, police say. Prosecutors say the 9-year-old was handcuffed and severely beaten by his mother's boyfriend, 30-year-old Robert Leroy Wilson, and is not expected to survive, the Herald-Mail reports. According to police, another adult in the home called 911 after the boy was beaten unconscious on Tuesday afternoon but when paramedics arrived, the boy's mother told them he was just \"congested.\" She didn't let them see the boy, but they were called back hours later when he stopped breathing, WJLA reports. The boy was hospitalized in critical condition with head trauma and pulmonary contusions, according to charging documents, and was found to have bruises and contusions on his face, ears, neck, spinal column, abdomen, and buttocks. Some of these were in \"varying stages of healing,\" the documents state, which WJLA notes indicates past abuse. He has not regained consciousness and prosecutors say he will have permanent injuries if he survives, per the Herald-Mail. Wilson faces charges including first-degree assault and child abuse and bail was set at $1 million after a hearing yesterday, the AP reports."}
{"document": "Kinston, North Carolina, is a \u201cgreat small town\u201d according to 16-year-old Chris Suggs. It has been that way as long as he can remember. \n \n Interested in Young and Gifted? Add Young and Gifted as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Young and Gifted news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest \n \n \u201cEverybody knows everybody. Everybody loves and supports each other,\u201d he said. \n \n But in 2014, the city was on edge. A spree of gun violence played out on the streets, at times involving local youth. Organized gang activity was a major factor and residents were afraid of getting caught in the crossfire. \n \n Tired of the seemingly relentless shootings, Suggs wanted to figure out how to curb the violence. \n \n We Are Family Foundation, 2016 \n \n \u201cSince young people are affected by these issues, we also need to be at the table when it comes to developing solutions,\u201d Suggs said. That\u2019s when he came up with the idea of starting Kinston Teens. \u201cI've always been passionate about my community and trying to make a difference. So when it came to trying to start an organization focused around those things it was really easy for me.\u201d \n \n In Oct. 2014, Suggs held a press conference at the local library and invited community officials, young people and the school administrators to hear a clear message: Kinston youth has a voice, too. \n \n \u201cImmediately young people started getting on board and adults started supporting us,\u201d said Suggs. \u201cWe started making the news and to make a difference.\u201d \n \n From street cleaning to creating mentor programs and a youth leadership summit, Kinston Teens is focusing on short-term goals with immediate visible impact while planting the seeds for Kinston\u2019s younger generation to be inspired and reach their potential. \n \n Jason Kurtis/ABC News \n \n Since it began, the organization has had more than 1,000 youths participate and get involved in the Kinston community. \n \n \u201cOne thing I've learned is that a lot of people don't volunteer because they've really never been asked to,\u201d said Suggs. \u201cBut once I ask them, that lights a spark in their head and they want to join the movement.\u201d \n \n Suggs has also developed strong relationships with Kinston leaders and the Kinston Police Department. \n \n \u201cChris came to us as a young boy. He wasn't even a teenager then. But he had unbelievable outside-thinking strategies. As a police chief, you want that connection with the youth.\u201d said Chief Greg Thompson. \n \n Jason Kurtis/ABC News \n \n \u201cOne lesson that I have learned working with Chris,\u201d said Kinston Mayor BJ Murphy, \u201cis that in most communities the young people probably aren't getting heard. And it's taught me not to discount the youth in this community.\u201d \n \n ABC News' Jason Kurtis, Ben Brown and Angel Canales contributed to this report. \n \n For more stories from our \"Young and Gifted\" series, tap the bell icon on this story in ABC News\u2019 phone app. Download ABC News for iPhone here or ABC News for Android here. ||||| A Kinston teen will now be helping on a state level when it comes to fighting crime. \n \n Chris Suggs --the founder of Kinston Teens -- was appointed Wednesday by Governor Pat McCrory to the Governor's Crime Commission. \n \n The 16-year-old Suggs is now the youngest member on the board. \n \n He hopes to make a positive impact on his hometown of Kinston as well as on the board itself. \n \n Suggs says, \"Many people are aware of some of the crime issues here in Kinston so by me serving on this board and learning about different opportunities and grants and I'm learning new skills and strategies we can possibly implement here in Kinston will be just wonderful and I hope to be able to provide a really unique young person's standpoint and I'm most excited about that, a different perspective on the board and offering some fresh ideas. \n \n The Crime Commission advises the governor on things relating to crime, law enforcement and justice, and grants for organizations. \n \n Kinston Teens says it's mission \"Is to serve and improve the Kinston community by promoting youth community service, leadership, and civic engagement; forming and strengthening relationships between our city\u2019s youth and our local government, schools, and other established institutions; and providing young people with the educational tools and resources needed to succeed in their schools, communities and beyond.\" \n \n ||||| Copyright by WNCT - All rights reserved \n \n KINSTON, NC (WNCT)- Kinston High School student Christopher J. Suggs, founder and president of the youth leadership group Kinston Teens, has been recognized as a 2016 Global Teen Leader by the Three Dot Dash initiative. \n \n Three Dot Dash is an initiative of the We Are Family Foundation that recognizes and supports 25-35 young people each year who are making positive contributions to their community and the world. \n \n Suggs is a sophomore at Kinston High School, where he is dual-enrolled in online courses offered through Lenoir Community College. He is an officer of the school's student government association and a member of several student clubs. He also serves as a member of the Lenoir 2020 Committee, the N.C. Center for Safer Schools Student Advisory Committee and several community boards and civic groups. \n \n Earlier this year, Chris was recognized as \"one of 15 superkids who are going to change the world\" by TheRoot.com. \n \n \"Chris is an outstanding young man and an excellent representative not only for Kinston High School but for the entire Kinston community,\" Kinston High principal Tina Letchworth said. \"We are so proud of all that Chris and his organization has accomplished, and we're thrilled that his leadership is being recognized on a global level.\" \n \n \"This global recognition will be very beneficial to Kinston Teens and the entire Kinston community,\" Suggs said. \n \n In March, he will attend the all-expense paid \"Just Peace Summit\" in New York City focused on leadership building, learning skills to communicate \"his story\" on global platforms and promoting peace and conflict resolution. \n \n Following the summit, Suggs will be provided with a mentor and a stipend to assist in growing Kinston Teens over the next year. \n \n For more information about Chris Suggs and this recognition, visit http://www.chrisjsuggs.com and http://www.threedotdash.org", "summary": "\u2013 As gun violence spirals out of control in one American city, a 16-year-old a few states away is doing his best to make a difference in his small town. ABC News reports that Kinston, North Carolina, was plagued by a rash of gun violence in 2014, largely involving gangs. Chris Suggs didn't like what was happening to the town he loved, so he decided to do something about it. The teen called a press conference at the library in October 2014 and announced the formation of Kinston Teens. \u201cSince young people are affected by these issues, we also need to be at the table when it comes to developing solutions,\u201d Chris says. Since its founding, more than 1,000 young people have participated in the mentoring programs, street cleanings, and more held by Kinston Teens. \u201cOne thing I've learned is that a lot of people don't volunteer because they've really never been asked to,\u201d Chris says. Last December, Chris received a national award given to teen leaders, WNCT reports. And on Wednesday, he was appointed to North Carolina's Crime Commission, according to WITN. As the youngest member of the commission, which advises Gov. Pat McCrory on issues of crime and law enforcement, Chris says he hopes to bring \"some fresh ideas\" while learning a few things he can take back to Kinston. Kinston's mayor tells ABC Chris has \"taught me not to discount the youth in this community.\u201d"}
{"document": "CLOSE 2-year-old Eden Carlson's road to recovery has defied the odds and is possibly the first medical case of its kind. USA TODAY \n \n Eden Carlson's parents were told she wouldn't ever walk or talk again. Thanks to oxygen and hyperbaric therapies, she's doing both. (Photo: Eden Carlson Miracles, YouTube) \n \n A 2-year-old from Arkansas who nearly drowned in her family's swimming pool is on the mend thanks to a type of oxygen therapy. \n \n In February 2016, Eden Carlson broke through her baby gate and headed into the family pool. Her mother, who believed the child was safe playing with older siblings, was in the shower, WDSU News reports. Eden was found after struggling in cold water for at least 10 minutes, without a heartbeat, the station reports. She was not expected to survive, but she did. \n \n Eden was left with severe brain damage. She couldn't speak or walk. Her parents were told she would never talk, walk, eat on her own or react to her surroundings. They couldn't accept that, and looked at other options. \n \n Fifty-five days after Eden's near drowning, Paul Harch of Hyperbaric Medicine at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine started hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Oxygen administered at sea-level pressure filled Eden's nose for 45 minutes, twice a day. Eden started hyperbaric oxygen therapy about a month later, breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber, five days a week. The treatment isn't new, but it is experimental and not approved by the FDA. \n \n In May, the miraculous happened: Eden laughed. She moved her arms, hands and eyes. She could speak. Today, she's able to climb up stairs on a play set by herself. The new responses happened gradually, but to much surprise. \n \n Her brain damage started to reverse \u2014 what could be a first in medical history. \n \n \u201cThe startling regrowth of tissue in this case occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration,\u201d Harch said in a statement. \n \n Eden's mom, Kristal Carlson, says the treatments saved her daughter, and could help others suffering from brain injuries. \n \n \"She\u2019s getting so much better all the time,\" Carlson told USA TODAY. \"In a couple of years, it\u2019s going to be like she never had an accident.\" \n \n Harch and Edward Fogarty, at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, documented her progress in a report published in Medical Gas Research. \n \n To learn more about Eden's journey, visit Eden's Miracles on Facebook. \n \n Related: \n \n Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets \n \n Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2uNcbIc ||||| In what is believed to be a world first, scientists have reversed brain damage in a toddler that drowned in a swimming pool. Using oxygen therapy, scientists were able to restore her ability to walk and talk just months after the accident, in which she spent 15 minutes submerged in a swimming pool and two hours where her heart did not beat on its own. \n \n The accident took place in February 2016. Two-year-old Eden Carlson had managed to get through a baby gate and fall into the family swimming pool and was in the 5 degree Celsius water for up to 15 minutes before being discovered. \n \n Read more: First Double-Hand Transplant Allows Child to Eat, Dress and Write \n \n After being resuscitated and treated in hospital for just over a month, she was unresponsive to all stimuli. She was immobile and constantly squirmed and shook her head. MRI scans showed deep injury to the brain\u2019s gray matter, as well as loss of white and gray matter. \n \n In a bid to reverse the brain damage, researchers at the LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine and the University of North Dakota School of Medicine began treating her with two types of oxygen therapy. \n \n This includes normobaric oxygen therapy, where levels of oxygen given are the same as at sea level, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), where they are given pure oxygen at pressures higher than that of the atmosphere within a special chamber. \n \n Fifty five days after the drowning accident, doctors started giving Eden normobaric oxygen for 45 minutes twice per day. This appeared to make her more alert and awake, and she stopped squirming. She started laughing more and was able to move her arms and hands, and grasp with her left. Scientists also noted eye-tracking movements and some speech. \n \n Read more: A New Theory on Cancer\u2014What We Know About How It Starts Could All Be Wrong \n \n After 78 days, Eden began HBOT therapy, with 45 minute sessions five days per week for four weeks. After 10 sessions, her mother said she was almost back to normal other than motor function. After 39 sessions\u2014coupled with physical therapy\u2014Eden was able to walk and her speech had returned to normal. Her cognitive abilities had improved and motor function was almost restored to pre-drowning levels. \n \n An MRI scan a month after the 40th HBOT session showed almost complete reversal of the brain damage initially recorded. Researchers believe the oxygen therapy, coupled with Eden having the developing brain of a child, had activated genes that promote cell survival and reduce inflammation\u2014allowing the brain to recover. The case report is published in the journal Medical Gas Research. \n \n Paul Harch, who treated Eden, said in a statement: \u201cThe startling regrowth of tissue in this case occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration. Although it\u2019s impossible to conclude from this single case if the sequential application of normobaric oxygen then HBOT would be more effective than HBOT alone, in the absence of HBOT therapy, short duration, repetitive normobaric oxygen therapy may be an option until HBOT is available.\" \n \n Concluding, the researchers say that to their knowledge, this is the first reported case of gray matter loss and white matter atrophy (types of brain damage) reversal with any therapy and that treatment with oxygen should be considered in similar cases. \u201cSuch low-risk medical treatment may have a profound effect on recovery of function in similar patients who are neurologically devastated by drowning.\" \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 When a 2-year-old girl in Arkansas managed to make her way through a baby gate and fall into the family swimming pool, she was submerged in 41-degree water for as many as 15 minutes before she was found. Having technically drowned and suffered a heart attack, Eden Carlson was resuscitated after the February 2016 accident but completely unresponsive to stimuli for a month. Now, in what appears to be a world first, per Newsweek, researchers at the LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine and the University of North Dakota School of Medicine report in Medical Gas Research that they have managed to reverse much of her white and gray matter brain damage using two types of non-invasive oxygen therapy. \"The startling regrowth of tissue ... occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration,\" says Paul Harch, who treated her, in an LSU release. MRI showed deep gray matter injury and both gray and white matter loss, and Eden was unresponsive, couldn't walk or talk, and constantly squirmed. Since researchers started giving her normobaric oxygen therapy (sea-level amounts of oxygen) and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (pure oxygen at higher pressure) for 45 minutes twice a day, she stopped squirming, appeared more alert, began to laugh, and can now talk, climb stairs, and play, reports USA Today. An MRI after her 40th HBOT session showed \"near-complete reversal of cortical and white matter atrophy.\" \"She\u2019s getting so much better all the time,\" her mother says. (Drowning doesn't always involve dying.)"}
{"document": "The ink wasn\u2019t even dry on Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise\u2019s divorce agreement before she\u2019d registered with a local NYC Catholic Church as their newest parishioner. Now that she\u2019s free of the Church of Scientology, Katie can worship where she pleases! There are other activities Katie is free to do now that Cruise, David Miscavige, the ghost of L. Ron Hubbard, and the threat of disconnection don\u2019t have their hooks in her any longer. See a smiling Holmes enjoying herself in our newly created Katie Fancy & Freed meme in the slideshow above\u2026 ||||| Who did Katie Holmes turn to for advice before filing to divorce Tom Cruise? \n \n None other than Victoria Beckham, if you believe British tabloid Now. \n \n \"Victoria's been a real tower of strength,\" an unnamed source told the magazine. \"She and Victoria have been talking a lot.\" \n \n Though the report seems like a stretch, Cruise and Holmes were first in line to welcome the Beckhams to Los Angeles when David joined the Los Angeles Galaxy back in 2007, throwing a star-studded party in the Brits' honor. Still, the friendship has seemingly cooled off since then. \n \n Meanwhile, Us Weekly is reporting that Holmes has sought out support from another famous source, and someone familiar with the ins and outs of divorcing Cruise -- Nicole Kidman. \n \n The jury is still out on whether either of these reports are true, but Holmes certainly wouldn't be the first celeb to lean on a famous friend during divorce. Click through the trivia slideshow below to test your knowledge of famous, divorce-withstanding friendships -- from the real-life \"Friends\" who have taken on breakups together, to the long-time friend who stood beside Kidman on the red carpet when she divorced Tom. ||||| How much does it cost to be Suri Cruise? What might Tom Cruise's child support payments look like? \n \n \u2014Emmy TZK, via the inbox \n \n Well, hold on to your lower jaws, kids, because I'm about to whip out numbers so huge that you just might end up gawping for weeks in disbelief. \n \n It's not cheap to be Suri Cruise. How not-cheap? We're talking six figures a month not-cheap, and here's why: ||||| Katie Holmes has friends in high places \u2014 and that includes Nicole Kidman. \n \n As Holmes, 33, struggled and secretly plotted to end her marriage to Tom Cruise, she found a pillar of support in her husband's second ex-wife, who divorced the actor in 2001. \n \n PHOTOS: Tom and Nicole's marriage \n \n \"They've spoken over the last few weeks,\" a confidante tells the new Us Weekly of Holmes and Kidman, 45. \"Nicole has been supportive, saying she's been through it too and to hang in there.\" (One way Holmes may have made those secret calls to Kidman? The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Romantics actress used a disposable cell phone provided by a pal to plot her divorce without the detection of Cruise and his team.) \n \n It's not a brand-new friendship either, the confidante says, telling Us that the women have been speaking since Holmes' 2006 marriage to Cruise, 50. Kidman shares kids Isabella, 19, and Connor, 17, with Cruise, although much has been made of her estrangement from their kids. \n \n PHOTOS: Tom and Katie, the way they were \n \n \"She has been a private friend not many people know about,\" the source continues. \n \n As Holmes reached the breaking point in her marriage to Cruise \u2014 and with mounting fears about daughter Suri \u2014 she reached out again to Kidman for advice. \"Nicole offered her support and help,\" the insider adds. \n \n VIDEO: Katie's first week of freedom \n \n Find out much more about Holmes and Kidman's secret friendship and all the details on the biggest divorce of the year in the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands Friday! \n \n Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! \n \n Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! ||||| So I know people don't really do the whole \"team\" thing anymore (as in Team Jolie/Team Aniston), but since we haven't really come up with a comparably catchy fan-identifying term yet: Just to be clear, I am 100% Team Holmes. Obviously. But as crazy and scary and scary and scary and scary as I find Tom Cruise to be, I'm still not sure how I feel about the latest TomKat divorce rumor. See, \"sources\" say that Katie Holmes is considering changing Suri's middle name to \"Cruise\" and her last name to \"Holmes.\" Not only that -- \"sources\" also say that Katie hates the name \"Suri\" and has been calling her daughter \"Scout\" (after the To Kill a Mockingbird character, of course). \n \n Look, I get it. I don't blame Holmes for wanting to wash that man right out of her hair in every way possible. But Suri is already dealing with enough change. Does she really need a new legal moniker? \n \n Again, this is of course JUST A RUMOR. Katie Holmes probably isn't planning any sort of name change whatsoever for her 5-year-old daughter. But just supposin' she maybe IS contemplating switching the order of Suri's middle and surnames ... well, Suri is very young yet. Like most kids of divorced parents, she'll probably spend her entire adolescence and young adulthood going back and forth between parents, siding first with one, then the other, over and over again. First mom's version of the story will ring true, then she'll re-connect with dad and give mom the cold shoulder, then she'll feel guilty and stop talking to dad ... if your parents were divorced, you know the drill. \n \n If Katie changes Suri's name now, she's setting her kid up for years of flipping and flopping and getting her driver's license changed and making people switch her contact info in their phones and it's just gonna suck. She'll be like Suri Cougar Mellencamp/The Artist Formerly Known as Cruise-Holmes! Or something. \n \n Do you think Katie Holmes should change Suri's last name?", "summary": "\u2013 As Katie Holmes was secretively preparing to divorce Tom Cruise, she turned to none other than one of his ex-wives for \"support and help,\" a source says. Katie and Nicole Kidman have \"spoken over the last few weeks,\" the source tells Us. \"Nicole has been supportive, saying she's been through it too and to hang in there.\" Apparently the two have been \"private friends\" ever since Holmes married Cruise and became stepmother to Kidman's children, the source notes. (Another interesting apparent source of moral support for Katie: Victoria Beckham, fellow Scientologist and good friend to Tom.) As for Suri, if you were wondering where Cruise's rumored $40 million settlement is going, an expert tells E! that he estimates the 6-year-old's upkeep could cost $80,000 to $100,000 per month (think nannies, schooling, security, and of course, clothes). A rumored additional expense? A name change Katie is considering to Suri Cruise Holmes. Can't get enough of the TomKat divorce? Click to see seven places Katie can visit now that she's free of Scientology."}
{"document": "Kate Middleton marked another milestone in her new life as a royal today, delivering her first public address as the Duchess of Cambridge. \n \n Middleton, 30, spoke at the opening of The Treehouse, a hospice run by East Anglia\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospices in Ipswich, England. The hospice is one of the carefully selected group of charitable organizations that Middleton said in January she would be contributing her time to as a patron. \n \n In her brief, nearly three-minute speech, Middleton called the work of the hospice \u201cinspirational\u201d and a \u201cshining example.\u201d \n \n She also apologized for the absence of her husband, Prince William. \n \n \u201cI am only sorry that William can\u2019t be here today; he would love it here,\u201d she said. \u201cA view of his \u2013 that I share \u2013 is that through teamwork, so much can be achieved. What you have all achieved here is extraordinary.\u201d \n \n Middleton is stepping out in a series of solo appearances while William is deployed on a six-week Royal Air Force deployment in the Falkland Islands. \n \n She made her first solo military appearance over the weekend at an event with the Irish Guards on St. Patrick\u2019s Day. The event made headlines after one guard passed out while the Duchess was handing out shamrocks. \n \n Middleton jumped on the field last week with members of the British Olympic women\u2019s field hockey team during a surprise visit to the site of this summer\u2019s London Olympics, for which Middleton and William have been named ambassadors. The duchess marked another major milestone March 1 by making her first solo appearance with the queen, stepping out for tea to mark the monarch\u2019s 60 years on the throne. \n \n While at the hospice, Middleton also met with children receiving care and their families, toured the center\u2019s facilities and planted a tree in the grounds. \n \n As is the case with everything Middleton does, the reviews of her speech focused as much on her fashion as what she had to say. \n \n The duchess wore a blue dress by one of her favored retailers, Reiss, accessorized by a thick black belt, black heels and a matching clutch. \n \n British fashion watchers were quick to note that the dress is the same one her mother, Carole Middleton, wore to the Royal Ascot horsing event nearly two years ago. \n \n In addition to the hospice, Middleton is also a patron of an addiction charity, the National Portrait Gallery and the Scout Association, the British equivalent of the Girl Scouts. \n \n The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| Kate Middleton Wears Mom's Blue Dress For Her First Speech! \n \n Like mother, like daughter. \n \n \n \n When Kate Middleton arrived at the East Anglia Children's Hospice (EACH) at the Treehouse center in Ipswich on Monday morning for her first ever public address, royal fashion fans were shocked at the Duchess' fashion choice. See more photos of Kate Middleton giving her first speech as a royal. \n \n VIDEO: Watch Kate Middleton's first public speech \n \n \n \n The 30-year-old's cobalt blue Reiss dress (from the label's 2008 collection) came straight from her mother's closet, and Kate even styled it the same way: with black pumps, a thick belt and matching clutch. \n \n PHOTOS: Kate's most stunning looks \n \n \n \n Carole Middleton wore the look to Ascot back in 2010, pairing the outfit with a feathered fascinator. \n \n Credit: RETNA \n \n It's not the first time the Duchess has recycled an ensemble. The white Reiss dress she wore in her official engagement portrait made an appearance on Canada Day and she often swaps clothing with her sister Pippa.", "summary": "\u2013 Members of the adoring public who didn't get quite enough of Kate Middleton's perfectly British voice while watching her exchange vows with Prince William had a chance for another fix today: The Duchess of Cambridge gave her first public address as royalty, speaking at the opening of a children's hospice in England. Middleton, a patron of the hospice, called it \"inspirational\" and apologized that her husband, who is deployed, could not be in attendance, ABC News reports. (Us points out that Middleton apparently wore her mom's dress for the occasion.)"}
{"document": "Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump tried to end the special counsel probe in December, marking the second known attempt to do so, The New York Times reported Tuesday. \n \n The Times report on Tuesday evening came as CNN reported that Trump is considering firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein , who has oversight of the Mueller probe, following a federal raid on Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. \n \n In December, angered by reports of subpoenas for information on his business with Deutsche Bank, Trump told advisers he wanted the investigation to be shut down, according to the Times' report. \n \n The Times report, based on interviews with eight sources, said the President backed down after Mueller's office told Trump's lawyers and advisers that reports about the subpoenas were inaccurate. \n \n The report outlines the second time Trump is known to have moved to quash the probe, and follows previous reporting that the President moved to fire Mueller last June, which a source said White House counsel Donald McGahn refused. Trump denied the story at the time. \n \n Read More ||||| Over the next couple of days, Mr. Trump pestered Mr. McGahn about the firing, but Mr. McGahn would not tell Mr. Rosenstein. The badgering by the president got so bad that Mr. McGahn wrote a resignation letter and was prepared to quit. It was only after Mr. McGahn made it known to senior White House officials that he was going to resign that Mr. Trump backed down. \n \n The articles that provoked Mr. Trump\u2019s anger in December \u2014 which were published by Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters \u2014 said one of Mr. Mueller\u2019s subpoenas had targeted Mr. Trump\u2019s and his family\u2019s banking records at Deutsche Bank. Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers, who have studied Mr. Trump\u2019s bank accounts, did not believe the articles were accurate because Mr. Trump did not have his money there. \n \n The lawyers were also able to learn that federal prosecutors in a different inquiry had issued a subpoena for entities connected to the family business of Mr. Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The news outlets later clarified the articles, saying that the subpoena to Deutsche Bank pertained to people affiliated with Mr. Trump, who was satisfied with the explanation and dropped his push to fire Mr. Mueller. \n \n The White House did not respond to an email seeking comment. \n \n Acutely conscious of the threat Mr. Mueller\u2019s investigation poses, Mr. Trump has openly discussed ways to shut it down. Each time, he has been convinced by his lawyers and advisers that taking the step would only exacerbate his problems. In some cases, they have explained to Mr. Trump how anything that causes him to lose support from congressional Republicans could further imperil his presidency. \n \n But Mr. Trump\u2019s statements to his advisers have been significant enough to attract attention from Mr. Mueller himself. Mr. Mueller\u2019s investigators have interviewed current and former White House officials and have requested documents to understand whether these efforts show evidence the president is trying to obstruct the Justice Department\u2019s investigation, according to two people briefed on the matter. \n \n Mr. Trump\u2019s frustrations have tended to flare up in response to developments in the news, especially accounts of appearances of witnesses, whom Mr. Trump feels were unfairly and aggressively approached by investigators. They include his former communications director, Hope Hicks, and his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. \n \n The venting has usually been dismissed by his advisers, many of whom insist they have come to see the statements less as direct orders than as simply how the president talks, and that he often does not follow up on his outbursts. \n \n One former adviser said that people had become conditioned to wait until Mr. Trump had raised an issue at least three times before acting on it. The president\u2019s diatribes about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Mr. Rosenstein and the existence of the special counsel have, for most of the White House aides, become a dependable part of the fabric of life working for this president. ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpStone: 'I\u2019ve never had any discussion' with Trump about a pardon White House: Trump will move forward on wall 'with or without' Dems Pelosi after Stone indictment: 'What does Putin have on the president'? MORE\u2019s showdown with Robert Mueller Robert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE headed toward a crisis point on Tuesday, with the White House saying Trump has legal authority to fire the special counsel. \n \n Republicans unnerved by the president\u2019s anger in public and private sought to talk him down, fearing a \u201cSaturday night massacre\u201d-style series of firings harking back to the Nixon era was growing more likely. \n \n GOP lawmakers fear presidential firings of Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsWe can end the shutdown with billion \u2014 Trump and Democrats already agree on border security Nadler sends Whitaker questions on possible contacts with Trump over Mueller probe Graham angers Dems by digging into Clinton, Obama controversies MORE or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Rod Jay RosensteinBarr\u2019s first task as AG: Look at former FBI leaders\u2019 conduct 5 myths about William Barr William Barr's only 'flaw' is that he was nominated by Trump MORE would cause chaos in Washington and dim Republican hopes of holding their congressional majorities. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Lawyer alleges migrant kids behind held in unlicensed facilities | Poll shows 46 percent haven't heard of 'Medicare for all' | Lawmakers set up dueling drug pricing hearings As it applies to veterans, it is time for pay-go to go Proposed drug importation bill would expose Americans to counterfeit meds MORE (R-Iowa) declared in a CNN interview Tuesday that \u201cit would be suicide for the president to fire him.\u201d \n \n \u201cI have made my views public, and I hope he\u2019s listening to those of us who say it would be a mistake,\u201d said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn John CornynGeorge Conway: GOP senators bear responsibility for shutdown because they took 'idiot' Trump seriously GOP senator reportedly slams McConnell over shutdown: \u2018This is your fault\u2019 Dems strengthen hand in shutdown fight MORE (Texas). \n \n Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellOn The Money: Trump agrees to end shutdown without wall funding | Senate quickly clears short-term funding measure | House to vote tonight | Federal workers could get back pay within days | Dems take victory lap Shutdown ends without funding for Trump\u2019s border wall Senate expected to pass bill to end shutdown on Friday MORE (R-Ky.) insisted legislation to protect Mueller was unnecessary because cooler heads would prevail. \n \n \u201cI haven\u2019t seen a clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed because I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen, and that remains my view,\u201d McConnell told reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s still my view that Mueller should be allowed to finish his job. I think that\u2019s the view of most people in Congress.\u201d \n \n Trump\u2019s fury at the FBI\u2019s raid on Monday on Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer, has triggered the latest crisis surrounding the Mueller probe. \n \n Federal prosecutors were reportedly seeking information on payments made to two women, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who both claim to have had affairs with Trump years ago. \n \n The personal nature of the probe has clearly angered the president, who decried an unfair witch hunt of his presidency in a Tuesday morning tweet. \n \n \u201cAttorney\u2013client privilege is dead!\u201d Trump tweeted. \u201cA TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!\u201d \n \n The president also canceled a planned weekend trip to two South American nations. \n \n Allies of Trump were egging him on, saying they would understand if he took the step of firing officials at the Department of Justice \u2014 a decision some Republicans have said could spark a constitutional crisis. \n \n \u201cI understand the president\u2019s frustration with the hypocrisy playing out at the Department of Justice,\u201d freshman Rep. Matt Gaetz Matthew (Matt) GaetzHouse passes bill expressing support for NATO Maduro starts new term in Venezuela facing US sanctions, lack of legitimacy abroad Rick Scott threw party at Florida governor\u2019s mansion after DeSantis and family had moved in: report MORE (R-Fla.) told Fox News. \u201cFrankly, it would be warranted if we made changes at the very top of the Department of Justice.\u201d \n \n \u201cI think there is a sufficient basis to fire Rosenstein in particular, and likely the attorney general for not doing his job,\u201d he added. \n \n That suggestion shocked other Republicans. \n \n \u201cIf the president were to fire the deputy attorney general, that would be an extraordinary crisis and a real problem, and I just don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to do it,\u201d said Sen. Susan Collins Susan Margaret CollinsShutdown ends without funding for Trump\u2019s border wall Senate expected to pass bill to end shutdown on Friday GOP Sen. Collins: I'm not sure Trump understands living 'paycheck to paycheck' MORE (R-Maine). \n \n GOP lawmakers couldn\u2019t escape questions about Trump, Cohen, Mueller and Rosenstein from reporters at the Capitol \u2014 even on a day when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot ZuckerbergHillicon Valley: Roger Stone indicted in Mueller probe | Zuckerberg defends Facebook's data practices | Irish data regulators probing Twitter | Zinke vows to make his crypto company 'great again' Zuckerberg defends Facebook data practices in op-ed On The Money: Shutdown Day 33 | Fight over State of the Union | Pelosi tells Trump no speech on Tuesday | Trump teases 'alternative' address | Trump adviser warns shutdown could hurt growth | Mulvaney seeks list of vulnerable programs MORE was testifying on Capitol Hill for the first time. \n \n Pushback from fellow Republicans against firing Mueller has grown stronger since the beginning of the year, when Trump\u2019s allies mostly shrugged off speculation that the president would somehow cut short the special counsel investigation, dismissing it as an unlikely prospect. \n \n While most Republicans maintain they don\u2019t think Trump will quash the probe, they\u2019re less confident than before. \n \n And statements from the White House podium on Tuesday from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders only added to their fears. \n \n Sanders announced that Trump \u201ccertainly believes that he has the power\u201d to end Mueller\u2019s investigation. The comments suggest the White House may be looking for legal arguments to back a decision to fire Mueller. \n \n Legal experts say Trump does not have the power to fire Mueller directly. Under Justice Department regulations, that authority falls to the agency official in charge of the investigation \u2014 in this case Rosenstein. \n \n It is easy to see why a Trump decision to fire Mueller would make Republicans queasy. \n \n A Quinnipiac University poll conducted this month found that 69 percent of American voters oppose Trump firing Mueller while only 13 percent support it. More than half of the Republicans polled, 55 percent, said Trump shouldn\u2019t interfere. \n \n Republicans are worried about a wave election this fall that could cost them their House majority. There are also fears about the Senate, though the fact that Democrats are defending many more seats in the upper chamber gives Republicans more confidence about holding it. \n \n Still, many GOP senators fear firing Mueller would pose new risks to their majority. \n \n Trump also has reason to fear a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate, which would unleash investigations of his administration. \n \n Amid uncertainty over what Trump will do next, some Republicans are pushing for legislation to protect Mueller, although that path doesn\u2019t yet have much support in the party. \n \n Sens. Thom Tillis Thomas (Thom) Roland TillisShutdown deal may be in hand; Trump to make remarks Dems strengthen hand in shutdown fight White House immigration agenda hurts Senate Republicans in 2020 MORE (R-N.C.) and Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamHouse votes to reopen government, sending bill to Trump Shutdown ends without funding for Trump\u2019s border wall The Hill's Morning Report \u2014 McConnell tells Pence shutdown must end MORE (R-S.C.) have sponsored bipartisan bills to protect the special counsel. \n \n The Tillis measure would empower judges to reinstate Mueller if a court found his firing to be improper. Tillis on Tuesday called for a vote on the measure. \n \n Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerLou Dobbs slams Trump's move to end shutdown: 'Illegal immigrants are surely pleased\u2019 A law enforcement solution to security on the Southern border Senators pitch three-week stopgap bill to resolve shutdown fight MORE (N.Y.) tried to ramp up pressure on Republicans Tuesday by defending the integrity of Mueller\u2019s work and calling for Senate floor action. \n \n \u2013 Jordain Carney contributed", "summary": "\u2013 President Trump tried to fire Robert Mueller in December, which is the second known time the president has attempted to get rid of the special counsel, according to the New York Times. which cites interviews with eight White House officials and other people close to Trump. The sources say Trump demanded the firing because he was enraged by media reports that Mueller had crossed his \"red line\" and subpoenaed Deutsche Bank seeking records on the financial dealings of the Trump family. The insiders say that Trump backed down after lawyers contacted Mueller's team and determined that the reports were what the president would describe as \"FAKE NEWS.\" The Times reported earlier this year that the chief White House lawyer refused Trump's order to fire Mueller last June. The Times report heightened worries that Trump will fire Mueller out of anger at Monday's raid on the offices of Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer. After the raid\u2014the result of an investigation Mueller passed to the Manhattan US attorney\u2014Trump said it was a \"disgrace\" and told reporters he hadn't made up his mind yet about firing Mueller, CNN reports. Republicans, who fear firing Mueller could cause chaos, have been trying to talk him down, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say he doesn't see a need to pass legislation to protect him from being removed, the Hill reports. \"I don't think that\u2019s going to happen, and that remains my view,\" McConnell said Tuesday. \"It's still my view that Mueller should be allowed to finish his job. I think that's the view of most people in Congress.\""}
{"document": "As they attempt to sound distressed over Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s murder, Western governments are understandably being less than candid about their records of facilitating Saudi violence at home and regionally. \n \n French President Emmanuel Macron has been among the worst culprits, recently claiming that it was false to say Saudi Arabia is a major client of the French arms industry. Macron's defence minister, however, told lawmakers those arms sales were crucial for French jobs. \n \n France is the world\u2019s third-largest weapons dealer, with exports rising considerably during the past decade. Saudi Arabia was its second-largest customer in that period. \n \n With his background in banking, Macron can surely calculate that there is big money involved: Saudi Arabia bought more than \u20ac11 billion ($12bn) in French arms between 2008 and 2017. \n \n Audacious spin \n \n Since becoming president last year, Macron has acted as something of an image consultant to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. When the crown prince visited Paris in April, Macron hosted a dinner for him and Saad Hariri, Lebanon's prime minister. Photos were circulated of the three admiring Delacroix\u2019s masterpiece Liberty Leading the People. All the tension caused by the Saudis holding Hariri hostage several months earlier was magicked away. \n \n Macron pledged full support for Saudi Arabia\u2019s \u201csecurity\u201d as it warded off ballistic missiles fired from Yemen. It was audacious spin. Saudi Arabia is the chief aggressor in Yemen; its military offensive has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis to such an extent that the UN is warning a famine may be imminent. Yet, Macron has cast Saudi authorities as blameless victims. \n \n Assurances from Paris that the weapons have only been used for defensive purposes along the Saudi-Yemeni border have been contradicted by the arms industry \n \n European Union law stipulates that weapons may not be sold abroad if there is a \"clear risk\" they will be used in conflicts. France is not respecting its obligations. The Saudi air strikes on Yemen began in 2015. Last year, the Saudis ordered more than \u20ac1 billion ($1.1bn) worth of weapons from France, according to Le Monde. \n \n Assurances from Paris that the weapons have only been used for defensive purposes along the Saudi-Yemeni border have been contradicted by the arms industry. \n \n One French firm, Nexter, has bragged about how the region\u2019s armies were strongly impressed by the performance of its tanks in Yemen. Flying tankers made by Airbus have been used to refuel the F-15s that are vital to the Saudi war effort, and France has provided training to Saudi military pilots within the past year. \n \n Oil supplies \n \n Following Khashoggi\u2019s murder, numerous corporations withdrew from the Future Investment Initiative, a Riyadh conference. Total, the French energy giant, nonetheless insisted on participating. It is not hard to work out why: Saudi Arabia is a top supplier of oil to France. \n \n Total has been active in Saudi Arabia for decades and has lately been eyeing opportunities in its petrol station market. The \"reformers\" of Riyadh are now allowing women to drive. Under different circumstances, Total might very well be presenting its new investments as a contribution towards gender equality. \n \n \n \n \n \n People attend the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on 24 October 2018 (AFP) \n \n Earlier this year, Macron said that France and Saudi Arabia shared a determination to \"fight actively against all forms of terrorism\". If Macron really holds that rosy view, he should read a recent paper from Institut Montaigne, a think-tank with documented connections to his political \"movement\" En Marche. \n \n Saudi Arabia, that paper notes, has been exporting the extremist religious ideology since the 1960s through \"theoretically autonomous institutions\" that are actually at the heart of the state. As well as seeking to have a monopoly on Islam, the Saudis display an \"expansionist fervour\" that has been \u201csupported by funding from the oil industry\u201d. \n \n Eroding civil liberties \n \n Scholar Gilbert Achcar has called Saudi Arabia \"the least democratic, most misogynist, most fundamentalist country on the planet\". \n \n Rather than holding Saudi authorities responsible for promoting extremism, France has entered into lucrative arms and oil deals with them. France has simultaneously eroded civil liberties at home. Dissent has been severely curtailed through a far-reaching \"counter-terrorism\" bill. French Muslims have been treated as a suspect people. Intentionally or otherwise, state policy encourages bigotry. \n \n READ MORE \u25ba How Jamal Khashoggi's murder could reshape the Middle East order \n \n A few months before he became president, Macron described colonisation as a \u201ccrime against humanity\u201d. More recently, he acknowledged that France practised torture in Algeria. \n \n Macron made his admission due to persistent campaigning by the widow of Maurice Audin, a political activist killed by French forces in Algeria 61 years ago. France\u2019s meddling in the Middle East stretches back much further. Through the 1916 Sykes-Picot accord, Britain and France in effect carved up the region between them. The imperial powers of that epoch chose a network of strongmen to run affairs in their interests. \n \n Lip service has subsequently been paid to the idea of self-determination. Yet the philosophy - for want of a better word - behind Sykes-Picot still pervades in the foreign ministries of London and Paris. Power, cash and influence trump almost everything else. \n \n More interventionism \n \n Expecting Macron to bring any kind of progressive change would be naive. The programme on which he fought the 2017 election indicated that he wished to be even more interventionist in the Middle East than his predecessors. \n \n About half of all French arms exports are destined for the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is not the only state to have used French weapons in its attacks on Yemen: up to 80 French tanks sold to the United Arab Emirates - part of a Saudi-led military coalition - have been deployed during that war. \n \n France\u2019s conduct in the Middle East proves it is more than happy to facilitate violence \n \n Egypt, meanwhile, bought more than \u20ac4 billion ($4.5bn) in French weapons from 2012 to 2017. Some of the Egyptian troops who committed the August 2013 massacre against protesters in Cairo fired from armoured vehicles supplied by France. \n \n Macron apparently does not want to mark the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending the First World War with a military parade. His decision may disappoint US President Donald Trump, according to The Telegraph. It does not mean that Macron has come out as a pacifist: France\u2019s conduct in the Middle East proves it is more than happy to facilitate violence. \n \n - David Cronin is a journalist and activist living in Brussels. His book Balfour's Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel is published by Pluto Press. He is also the author of Europe's Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation (Pluto, 2011) and Corporate Europe: How Big Business Sets Policies on Food, Climate and War (Pluto, 2013). \n \n The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. \n \n Photo: French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Paris on 10 April 2018 (AFP) \n \n This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition. ||||| Uploaded on Nov 30, 2018 \n \n The Saudi crown prince and the French president have an informal conversation on the sidelines of the summit, standing close together and apparently unaware their conversation is being recorded. It is unclear what the subject of the snatched and only partly audible conversation is, but it sounds like Macron replies to the crown prince\u2019s assurances: 'I do worry. I am worried ... I told you.' Macron then says something inaudible, to which the Saudi leader says: 'It\u2019s OK. I can deal with it.' The Khashoggi murder and the threat of mass starvation in Yemen have cast a heavy shadow over the crown prince\u2019s attendance at the meeting of the world\u2019s 20 biggest economies ||||| The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, suspected of ordering the murder of the dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi and accused of war crimes in the Yemen conflict, has told the French president, Emmanuel Macron, \u201cDon\u2019t worry\u201d at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. \n \n The two leaders were having an informal conversation on the sidelines of the summit, standing close together and apparently unaware their conversation was being recorded. The subject of the snatched conversation was not immediately clear but a French presidential aide said afterwards that the Khashoggi murder and the Yemen conflict were the two key topics of the short exchange. \n \n According to a Guardian analysis of their only partly audible conversation, Macron replies to the crown prince\u2019s assurances: \u201cI do worry. I am worried \u2026 I told you.\u201d \n \n G20 summit: can world leaders find unity \u2013 or is it simply showboating? Read more \n \n \u201cYes, you told me,\u201d the prince says. \u201cThank you very much.\u201d \n \n \u201cYou never listen to me,\u201d Macron says. \n \n \u201cNo, I listen, of course,\u201d replied Prince Mohammed, smiling broadly after apparently becoming aware of a television camera. \n \n \u201cBecause I told you. It was more important for you,\u201d Macron says, and gives a tight smile, before turning away from the camera to speak further to the prince. \n \n Macron then says something inaudible, to which the Saudi leader says: \u201cIt\u2019s OK. I can deal with it.\u201d \n \n After another indecipherable segment of conversation, Macron says: \u201cI am a man of my word.\u201d \n \n The \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace said the two leaders had a five-minute exchange on the sidelines of the summit in which Macron conveyed a \u201cvery firm\u201d message to the prince over the killing and the need to find a political solution for the situation in Yemen. \n \n Play Video 0:24 Putin and Saudi crown prince high-five at G20 summit \u2013 video \n \n The Saudi prince\u2019s decision to attend the G20 summit in Buenos Aires represented a calculated risk, as it was unclear whether the other leaders would condemn him. Many of his closest aides and security staff were involved in Khashoggi\u2019s murder on 2 October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and the CIA has reportedly assessed that the prince gave the order for the execution. \n \n The results of the 33-year-old Saudi leader\u2019s gambit were mixed at the start of the two-day summit. Macron and the UK\u2019s prime minister, Theresa May, agreed to meet him. May insisted she had strong words to convey about the Khashoggi murder and the need for a full accounting of Riyadh\u2019s alleged involvement. \n \n During a group photo marking the start of the summit, the prince stood at the far edge of the group, largely ignored and left alone as soon as it was over. But a few minutes later, Vladimir Putin greeted the Saudi prince warmly, giving him a high five as they sat down together at the large ring-shaped table for the first group session. \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mohammed bin Salman, top centre, stands apart as Theresa May passes by in front. Photograph: Ricardo Mazal\u00e1n/AP \n \n Putin also came to the Argentinian capital fighting pariah status after an incident in the Azov Sea on Sunday in which Russian vessels rammed a Ukrainian tugboat and opened fire on two small Ukrainian navy cutters it was accompanying. \n \n Russian forces seized the vessels and their crew and Moscow\u2019s refusal to return them was the reason Donald Trump offered for his decision to cancel a bilateral meeting with Putin, which had been planned for Friday morning. \n \n As Russian actions in the Sea of Azov had been known for days, there was speculation in Washington that the real reason for the change of mind was the court appearance of Trump\u2019s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, on Thursday in which he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the extent and duration of negotiations with the Kremlin about a possible Trump hotel in Moscow, continuing up to July 2016, at the height of the presidential election campaign. \n \n Trump, whose campaign is being investigated for its alleged links to the Kremlin, had denied any business dealings in Russia. \n \n On Friday, Russian media reported that Trump and Putin would meet informally at the fringes of the full G20 summit, but a White House official said no such \u201cpull aside\u201d had been scheduled. \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump, right, looks at Vladimir Putin at the G20 leaders\u2019 summit. Photograph: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images \n \n There was similar uncertainty over whether Trump would meet the Saudi crown prince, whom the president has supported in the face of US intelligence findings of his alleged culpability in the Khashoggi murder. The administration also suffered a significant rebuke from the Senate, which ignored the urging of top Trump officials and refused to shelve a debate on whether to cut US military support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. \n \n The Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiyah reported that the crown prince and Trump had held a \u201cfriendly meeting\u201d on the sidelines of the summit, but the White House said the encounter only amounted to an exchange of pleasantries, similar to the US president\u2019s greeting with every other leader. \n \n Before arriving in Buenos Aires, Trump had declared himself willing to meet the crown prince, while his national security adviser, John Bolton, ruled it out, saying there was no room in the president\u2019s schedule. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, met his Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, separately in a meeting that a statement said was focused on planned Yemen peace talks next week, \u201cas well as the importance of making progress on the investigation into Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s death\u201d. \n \n On leaving the meeting, the Saudi foreign minister described it as \u201cvery productive\u201d, saying they have discussed \u201cchallenges in the region and the bilateral relationship and ways of moving it forward\u201d. Asked if they had also discussed Khashoggi, he did not reply. \n \n Trump began the day by attending a signing ceremony for a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, the USMCA, to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). . \n \n \u201cJust signed one of the most important, and largest, Trade Deals in US and World History,\u201d Trump announced in a tweet. \u201cThe United States, Mexico and Canada worked so well together in crafting this great document. The terrible NAFTA will soon be gone. The USMCA will be fantastic for all!\u201d \n \n Experts say the USMCA is a slightly tweaked and updated version of Nafta, which Trump has persistently pilloried. In his own remarks the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, repeatedly referred to the deal as \u201cthe new Nafta\u201d, a formulation he must have known would annoy the prickly US president. \n \n Play Video 0:31 Trump walks off leaving Mauricio Macri standing alone at G20 \u2013 video \n \n The leaders began the summit without Germany\u2019s chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose plane had broken down on the way to Argentina and who was making her way to Buenos Aires on commercial flights, leaving May the only female leader at the meeting. \n \n As the proceedings began, it was unclear whether the participants would be able to agree on a final statement as the US had objected to some of the draft language on free trade and the need for multilateralism. The statement had not been settled by Friday afternoon, according to diplomats at the summit. \n \n Referring to some of the difficulties in finding even the most basic common language, the European council president, Donald Tusk, told journalists: \u201cAs this is a difficult moment for international cooperation, I would like to appeal to the leaders to use this summit, including their bilateral and informal exchanges, to seriously discuss real issues such as trade wars, the tragic situation in Syria and Yemen and the Russian aggression in Ukraine.\u201d \n \n \u201cI see no reason why the G20 leaders shouldn\u2019t have a meaningful discussion about solving these problems. Especially because all the instruments lie in their hands,\u201d Tusk said. \u201cThe only condition is goodwill.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 French President Emmanuel Macron chatted privately Friday with Saudi Arabia's controversial crown prince on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, but some intriguing snippets were caught by microphones. (Watch the video.) The Guardian provides some highlights as Macron appears to be trying to advise and/or warn Mohammed bin Salman, while the prince seeks to reassure him that he's got a handle on things: Macron: \u201cI do worry. I am worried \u2026 I told you.\u201d Prince: \u201cYes, you told me. Thank you very much.\u201d Macron: \u201cYou never listen to me.\" Prince: \u201cNo, I listen, of course.\" Macron: \"Because I told you. It was more important for you.\" Prince: \u201cIt\u2019s OK. I can deal with it.\u201d So what are they talking about? A spokesman for Macron said later that the two primarily discussed allegations of Saudi war crimes in Yemen and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A critical analysis at Middle East Eye before the summit began noted that Saudi Arabia is an important buyer of French weapons and finds that Macron \"has acted as something of an image consultant\" to the prince over the last year. (The prince had an enthusiastic greeting for Vladimir Putin.)"}
{"document": "6 years ago \n \n (CNN) \u2013 No one has emerged spotless from the debt-ceiling debate, according to a survey conducted in the aftermath of the agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling. \n \n A CBS News/New York Times poll released Thursday revealed that eight in 10 Americans say they disapprove of how Congress is handling its job \u2013 the highest number in the poll's history since 1977. \n \n \n \n A CNN/ORC International poll released Tuesday echoes the nation's displeasure with congressional leaders. Eighty-four percent of the nation disapproved of the way Congress is handling its job in the poll; only 14 percent approved. \n \n But the country is split over how the president is handling his responsibilities in the White House. Forty-eight percent said they approve of how President Barack Obama is handling his job and 47 percent disapprove in the CBS News/New York Times survey. \n \n When it comes to the debt-ceiling negotiations, 66 percent said they disapprove of how Democrats handled the talks and more \u2013 72 percent \u2013 said they disapprove of the way Republicans negotiated to broker the deal. \n \n The nation may be split over how it views the president's role in debt negotiations \u2013 almost half both approve and disapprove of how he handled the talks \u2013 but it's clear most agree that all of the players were more interested in gaining an upper hand. \n \n Eight in 10 believe the debt disagreement was mostly about gaining political advantage while a minority \u2013 14 percent \u2013 say it was about doing what's best for the country. \n \n While no one walked away from the debt debate unscathed, opinions of the GOP took a slightly bigger hit. Half say Republicans in Congress compromised \"too little\" during negotiations, compared with Democrats: roughly one-third say they compromised the right amount or too little and 26 percent say they compromised too much. \n \n Republicans are also more to blame for the budget standoff in the survey \u2013 47 to 29 percent \u2013 over the president and Democrats in Congress. \n \n The poll indicates that it's difficult for everyone to be pleased with the debt-ceiling deal. The country is split with the outcome since 46 percent approve of the agreement and 45 percent disapprove. \n \n Looking to the future, congressional members may be spending some time at home smoothing ruffled feathers: 75 percent of the country feels that most members of Congress do not deserve to be re-elected and 15 percent say they do. ||||| CBS \n \n CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto. \n \n Americans have looked disapprovingly at their representatives in Congress for decades. But it's never been this bad. \n \n In the wake of the hard-fought debt limit debate, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds that 82 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job - the highest disapproval rating since polling began in 1977. Just 14 percent approve of Congress' performance. \n \n The uptick in frustration comes after Congress narrowly avoided an economic catastrophe of its own making by failing to hammer out a deal to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit until the deadline for action. And neither side was happy with the outcome: Conservatives said the final deal, which is projected to cut around $2.5 trillion over ten years from a projected $24 trillion debt, didn't go far enough; liberals complained that the initial deficit reduction came entirely in the form of spending cuts, not revenue increases as Democrats initially demanded. \n \n Meanwhile, the stock market has plummeted in the wake of the deal, dropping more than 500 points Thursday. \n \n The survey, taken on August 2nd and 3rd - immediately after the deal was reached - found Americans more frustrated with congressional Republicans than their Democratic counterparts when it came to the negotiations. \n \n That's not to say congressional Democrats have much to crow about. Sixty-six percent of Americans disapprove of their handling of the debt ceiling debate; just 28 percent approve. \n \n But Republicans fare worse: Seventy-two percent of Americans disapprove of their performance during the debt ceiling debate, while just 21 percent approve. \n \n And Republicans get most of the blame for the standoff. Forty-seven percent blame Republicans in Congress, while 29 percent blame President Obama and congressional Democrats; 20 percent say both are to blame. \n \n A majority of Americans - 52 percent - says Republicans in Congress compromised too little in the debate. Fewer - 34 percent - say Democrats, including President Obama, compromised too little. Republicans were more likely to think members of their party compromised too little (34 percent) than to say they compromised too much (26 percent). \n \n By contrast, Democrats were more likely to think members of their party compromised too much (41 percent) rather than too little (20 percent). Overall, 26 percent say Democrats compromised too much in the negotiations; just 15 percent say the same of Republicans \n \n CBS \n \n Americans overwhelmingly say the debate was more about politics than policy. Just 14 percent said the debt ceiling disagreement was mostly about doing what was best for the country; 82 percent said it was about gaining political advantage. Large majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents agree the debate was grounded in political considerations. \n \n Americans see Mr. Obama more positively than members of Congress when it comes to handling the debt ceiling debate, though Americans are split. Forty-six percent approve of his handling of the situation, while 47 percent disapprove. Forty-nine percent say he showed strong leadership in the debate, while 48 percent say he did not. \n \n Overall, Mr. Obama's approval rating stands at 48 percent, largely unchanged from CBS News findings throughout the year. Forty-seven percent disapprove of his performance. \n \n As for House Speaker John Boehner, perhaps the most prominent Republican in Congress? His disapproval rating has risen from 40 percent in April to 57 percent in the new survey. Thirty percent approve of his performance on the job. \n \n Dissatisfaction, Anger toward Washington \n \n Eighty-four percent of Americans are either dissatisfied (56 percent) or angry (28 percent) with Washington, a record high in CBS News/New York Times polling. Only 14 percent are satisfied with Washington, and just one percent is enthusiastic. \n \n On the question of whether or not most members of Congress deserve to be reelected, three in four Americans say no. Two in three say they are pessimistic about Congress' ability to deal with issues in the wake of the debt ceiling debate. \n \n Asked to survey the economy, 86 percent characterized it negatively - the highest number in two years. Only 12 percent characterized the economy positively. Asked who they trust more to guide the economy, 47 percent say Mr. Obama, while 33 percent say congressional Republicans. Fourteen percent say neither. \n \n In regard to whether creating jobs or cutting government spending should be a higher priority, Americans overwhelmingly pointed to jobs. Sixty-two percent said creating jobs should be the higher priority for the nation, including majorities of Democrats and independents and 42 percent of Republicans; just 29 percent said America should prioritize cutting spending. \n \n More from the poll: \n \n Americans divided on debt limit deal \n \n Read the full poll (PDF) ||||| The debate over raising the debt ceiling , which brought the nation to the brink of default, has sent disapproval of Congress to its highest level on record and left most Americans saying that creating jobs should now take priority over cutting spending, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. \n \n A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job \u2014 the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995. \n \n More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world. \n \n Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found. \n \n The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations. \n \n The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved. \n \n The public\u2019s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April. \n \n \u201cI\u2019m real disappointed in Congress,\u201d Ron Raggio, 54, a florist from Vicksburg, Miss., said in a follow-up interview. \u201cThey can\u2019t sit down and agree about what\u2019s best for America. It\u2019s all politics.\u201d \n \n There were signs that the repeated Republican calls for more spending cuts were resonating with the public: 44 percent of those polled said the cuts in the debt-ceiling agreement did not go far enough, 29 percent said they were about right and only 15 percent said they went too far. More than a quarter of the Democrats polled said that the cuts in the agreement did not go far enough. \n \n But by a ratio of more than two to one, Americans said that creating jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts. \n \n Though Republicans prevented tax increases from being included in the debt-ceiling deal, half of those polled said the agreement should have included increased tax revenue, while 44 percent said it should have relied on cuts alone. That issue is likely to be revisited soon: Congress is preparing to appoint a special committee to recommend ways to reduce the deficit. Sixty-three percent of those polled said that they supported raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year, as Mr. Obama has sought to do \u2014 including majorities of Democrats (80 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans (52 percent). \n \n The poll found that Mr. Obama was emerging from the crisis less bruised than the Republicans in Congress. \n \n The president\u2019s overall job approval rating remained relatively stable, with 48 percent approving of the way he handles his job as president and 47 percent disapproving \u2014 down from the bump up he received in the spring after the killing of Osama bin Laden, but in line with how he has been viewed for nearly a year. By contrast, Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, saw his disapproval rating shoot up 16 points since April: 57 percent of those polled now disapprove of the way he is handling his job, while only 30 percent approve. \n \n Americans said that they trusted Mr. Obama to make the right decisions about the economy more than the Republicans in Congress, by 47 percent to 33 percent. They were evenly divided on the question of whether he showed \u201cstrong qualities of leadership\u201d during the negotiations, with 49 percent saying he did and 48 percent saying he did not. And they were still more likely to blame President George W. Bush for the bulk of the nation\u2019s deficit: 44 percent said that the deficit was mostly caused by the Bush administration, 15 percent said it was mostly caused by the Obama administration and 15 percent blamed Congress. \n \n The growing fears about the economy \u2014 amid a sinking stock market and warnings that the nation risks sliding back into recession \u2014 were reflected in the nationwide telephone poll, which was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday with 960 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. \n \n The number of Americans who rated the economy \u201cvery bad\u201d was the highest it had been in a year. But there was uncertainty about whether the debt-ceiling deal would help or hurt the economy: nearly half said it would have no effect, while 24 percent said it would make the economy worse and 22 percent said it would improve it. \n \n Americans were evenly divided on the parameters of the debt-ceiling deal, in which Congress agreed to allow the federal government to borrow the money needed to pay its current obligations and avoid default on the condition that it reduce the deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. Over all, 46 percent of those polled approved of the deal, while 45 percent disapproved of it. \n \n Most of those polled said that the spending cuts included either did not go far enough or were about right. But with the nation\u2019s unemployment rate at a stubborn 9.2 percent, 62 percent of those polled said that creating jobs should be the priority. \n \n \u201cCutting spending is important, but getting people back to work is more important,\u201d said Diane Sherrell, 56, a Republican from Erwin, N.C. \u201cIf people are working, they are more productive. There is less crime, there is less depression, there is less divorce. There are less hospital and medical bills. If you put people back to work, you are cutting spending.\u201d \n \n Stanley Oland, 62, a Republican from Kalispell, Mont., said that the government needed new jobs to generate the economic activity and the revenue it requires. \n \n \u201cThat revenue supports the basic foundation for the economy, creates more jobs and stimulates the economy,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless you have working people you don\u2019t have revenue from taxes. If you cut spending, jobs will be eliminated and you won\u2019t get any revenue. Every dollar spent creates jobs.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 The debt ceiling mess has pushed Congress' already dismal approval ratings into the abyss, according to the latest New York Times/CBS poll. Some 82% of Americans don't approve of the way Congress is doing its job, the lowest rating since the Times started asking the question in 1977. CNN's poll gave lawmakers even lower grades, with just 14% of respondents approving of how Congress is handling its responsibilities. More than 80% said the debt debate was more about scoring political points than doing what's best for America. The public isn't impressed with either party, but the GOP fares worse in the Times poll, with 72% of those surveyed disapproving of congressional Republicans' performance versus 66% down on the Democrats. Poll respondents were more evenly split on President Obama's performance in the debt talks, with 47% disapproving and 46% approving of how he handled the situation. Only a fifth of Americans now view the Tea Party movement positively, the poll found, and more than two-thirds say creating jobs should be a higher priority than cutting spending."}
{"document": "By Barbara Starr \n \n An Iranian fighter jet targeted an unarmed U.S. Predator drone over the Persian Gulf this week, the Pentagon says. \n \n It was the latest Iranian move aimed at thwarting American military airborne intelligence efforts in the region. \n \n Defense Department spokesman George Little said on Thursday the unmanned MQ-1 drone was conducting routine classified surveillance over international waters on Tuesday when approached by an Iranian F-4. \n \n The two aircraft came within 16 miles of each other. \n \n \n \n The American drone was escorted by two U.S. military aircraft, which remained over international waters, Little said, adding that the Iranian jet departed after a verbal warning. \n \n No shots were fired. However, Obama administration officials told CNN that the United States is concerned with Iranian intentions in incidents like this and whether such episodes could unintentionally trigger hostilities. \n \n In December 2011, a highly sensitive U.S. Sentinel drone gathering intelligence on Iran's nuclear program for the CIA was captured by Iran after it crashed. In November, an Iranian warplane fired on a Predator over the Gulf. \n \n After the November incident, the United States told Tehran that it would continue surveillance flights over international waters \"consistent with longstanding practice,\" Little said. \n \n \"We also communicated that we reserve the right to protect our military assets as well as our forces and will continue to do so going forward,\" he said. \n \n The use of U.S. drones so close to Iran remains a highly sensitive issue for American military intelligence. \n \n The aircraft are capable of using sensors to gather information about Iranian military movements. ||||| WASHINGTON\u2014A U.S. drone conducting surveillance was approached by an Iranian fighter jet earlier this week, only to be warned off by American aircraft providing a security escort, Pentagon officials said Thursday. \n \n When the American fighter planes escorting the drone approached the Iranian plane, it broke off its pursuit of the drone, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said. The Iranian plane never got closer than 16 miles from the drone, the Pentagon said. \n \n However, when the U.S. fighters spotted the Iranian plane, they closed to within two miles of the approaching craft. U.S. officials wouldn't specify what kind of American planes were involved or precisely where the incident took place. \n \n Officials said earlier Thursday that one of the U.S. planes fired a flare to ward off the Iranian fighter, but later said no flare had been fired. \n \n The encounter came as the latest incident between the U.S. and Iran as tensions ratchet up. Last November a pair of Iranian fighter planes fired on a drone conducting surveillance of Iran, but missed. \n \n After that incident, Mr. Little said in his statement, the U.S. told Iran it would conduct surveillance flights in international airspace and that it would protect its assets. \n \n \"The United States communicated to the Iranians that we will continue to conduct surveillance flights over international waters consistent with long-standing practice and our commitment to the security of the region,\" Mr. Little said. \n \n Corrections & Amplifications \n \n The Pentagon said on Thursday that a U.S. fighter fired a flare to ward off an approaching Iranian jet, but Pentagon officials later updated that statement to say no flare had been fired. \n \n Write to Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com", "summary": "\u2013 US and Iranian fighter pilots have had another close encounter. The Pentagon says an Iranian jet began following an unmanned surveillance drone in international airspace earlier this week, reports the Wall Street Journal. It didn't break off pursuit until two US jets approached within two miles of the Iranian craft and warned it away. CNN says the incident took place over Oman. Last November, Iran jets fired at a US drone and missed, and in 2011, Iran captured a US spy drone that crashed."}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Mr. Ayers has signaled to multiple major Republican donors that Mr. Pence wants to be ready. \n \n Mr. Obst denied that he and Mr. Ayers had made any private insinuations and called suggestions that the vice president was positioning himself for 2020 \u201cbeyond ridiculous.\u201d \n \n For his part, Mr. Pence is methodically establishing his own identity and bestowing personal touches on people who could pay dividends in the future. He not only spoke in June at one of the most important yearly events for Iowa Republicans, Senator Joni Ernst\u2019s pig roast, but he also held a separate, more intimate gathering for donors afterward. \n \n When he arrived in Des Moines on Air Force Two, Mr. Pence was greeted by an Iowan who had complained about his experience with the Affordable Care Act \u2014 and who happened to be a member of the state Republican central committee. \n \n The vice president has also turned his residence at the Naval Observatory into a hub for relationship building. In June, he opened the mansion to social conservative activists like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and representatives of the billionaire kingmakers Charles G. and David H. Koch. \n \n At large gatherings for contributors, Mr. Pence keeps a chair free at each table so he can work his way around the room. At smaller events for some of the party\u2019s biggest donors, he lays on the charm. Last month, Mr. Pence hosted the Kentucky coal barons Kelly and Joe Craft, along with the University of Kentucky men\u2019s basketball coach, John Calipari, for a dinner a few hours after Ms. Craft appeared before the Senate for her hearing as nominee to become ambassador to Canada. \n \n Other Republicans eyeing the White House have taken note. \n \n \u201cThey see him moving around, having big donors at the house for dinner,\u201d said Charles R. Black Jr., a veteran of Republican presidential politics. \u201cAnd they\u2019ve got to try to keep up.\u201d \n \n Mr. Cotton, for example, is planning a two-day, $5,000-per-person fund-raiser in New York next month, ostensibly for Senate Republicans (and his own eventual re-election campaign). The gathering will include a dinner and a series of events at the Harvard Club, featuring figures well known in hawkish foreign policy circles such as Stephen Hadley, Mr. Bush\u2019s national security adviser. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 President Trump may be away from the White House for a while, but he's not taking a vacation from Twitter. He unleashed several tweets Monday morning on everything from a defense of his base to a personal attack on Sen. Richard Blumenthal. \"The Trump base is far bigger & stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling),\" he wrote, citing recent rallies in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Iowa. \"The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs, Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change!\" he added. Trump's statements come after a weekend report by the New York Times that several big-name Republicans, including VP Mike Pence, were beginning to consider 2020 runs of their own because Trump's support was showing cracks. (Pence rejected the report.) As for Blumenthal, Trump wrote that the Connecticut Democrat \"told stories about his Vietnam battles and conquests, how brave he was, and it was all a lie. He cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion?\" (It's a reference to this.) The president also reiterated that he's not on vacation as the White House undergoes renovation and is \"working hard from New Jersey.\""}
{"document": "Anchorwoman Christine Chubbuck of WXLT in Sarasota, Fla., as photographed by a co-worker in 1974, less than two weeks before she killed herself on television. (Photo: John Cloud, AP) \n \n It's one of the most shocking moments in TV history that virtually no one has ever seen. \n \n In the midst of an afternoon broadcast on July 15, 1974, reporter Christine Chubbuck informed viewers that \"in keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in 'blood and guts' ... you are going to see another first: Attempted suicide.\" The Sarasota, Fla., newswoman pulled a gun from under the WXLT anchor desk and shot herself in the head, dying hours later at age 29. \n \n Since then, the footage has been seemingly impossible to find. It doesn't exist online, and the only known tape has been in the possession of the former TV station owner's widow, Mollie Nelson, who told Vulture she gave it to a law firm for safekeeping after her late husband refused to release it. The irony that Chubbuck wanted her death to be seen, yet it's now lost, is part of what intrigued Robert Greene, writer/director of Kate Plays Christine (now playing in Columbus, Ohio, and Lake Worth, Fla.; expands to 10 additional cities throughout fall).The quasi-documentary follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she goes through the exercise of preparing to play the late journalist, conducting interviews and doing research around Sarasota. \n \n \"A lot of people have that vague sense of 'I thought I knew about it,' since it reverberated through pop culture,\" says Greene, noting how Chubbuck supposedly inspired the 1976 black comedy Network, in which a character vows to kill himself on air. Instead, her suicide has become something of an Internet urban legend, inspiring clickbait lists of \"most shocking deaths\" and conspiracy theories that she may have never died at all. \n \n That the footage has been kept under wraps for so long is not something \"that'd exist today,\" Greene says. \"It comes from another era where, for good or bad, it was more swept away. People didn't necessarily think they should see that type of thing. We live in an era today where we think we have a right to see everything.\" \n \n In 'Christine,' Rebecca Hall plays the real-life Christine Chubbuck, a reporter for a small Sarasota, Fla., TV station who committed suicide on-air. (Photo: The Orchard) \n \n But for actress Rebecca Hall, Chubbuck's life is just as fascinating as her death. Hall plays the troubled reporter in a new drama, Christine (in theaters Friday in New York, Oct. 21 in Los Angeles; expands nationwide throughout fall), which explores how her severe depression and frustrations at work may have contributed to her demise. Chubbuck repeatedly clashed with her dismissive boss (Tracy Letts) over his desire to sensationalize the news to goose ratings. \n \n \"Her story is a harbinger of a lot of things we have trouble talking about,\" Hall says. \"We're still having discussions about how we judge a woman in the workplace, the likability factor and different standards\" that men are held to. \n \n Chubbuck struggled with mental health issues and suicidal thoughts long before they entered the national conversation, which is part of what makes her story relatable for many. \n \n \"We all know what it's like to feel stymied at work, to get depressed and feel unloved,\" Hall says. \"The film asks you to notice that (with the culmination of) those things \u2014 plus arbitrary circumstances of time and place, gender and brain chemistry \u2014 we might all go over the edge. ... I related to knowing what it feels like to feel thwarted by life and that you're not going to get over it, but I do, because I have the tools and she didn't.\" \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2e0Xa9s ||||| The late Christine Chubbuck. \n \n A few months back, we published an article that centered around a curious and tragic figure in the history of American broadcasting: Christine Chubbuck, an on-air correspondent for a news station in Sarasota, Florida, who in 1974 shot herself on live television. In an odd coincidence, there were two movies about Chubbuck at Sundance this year, and we explored the ongoing search for footage of her death. It had long been unclear if such a tape exists, despite years of searching by the so-called \u201cdeath hags\u201d on Findadeath.com. \n \n Yesterday, we got a call that confirms the tape\u2019s existence. While reporting the original story we had reached out to Mollie Nelson, the widow of the owner of Chubbuck\u2019s news station, but never heard back from her. She called us back Tuesday to explain that she had the video for years \u2014 her late husband Robert Nelson had kept a copy of the tape, though Mollie says he never told her why. \n \n When he died, it stayed in her possession. But after the Sundance debut of the quasi-documentary Kate Plays Christine, in which a former news station employee suggests that Nelson might have the tape, people started contacting her asking to see it. The attempts made her uncomfortable, so she gave it to an unnamed \u201cvery large law firm\u201d for safekeeping. She says she has no plans to ever make it available and only held on to the tape to honor her husband\u2019s wishes. It seems, then, that the wait to see a tape nobody really needs to see continues.", "summary": "\u2013 It was one of the most shocking moments on TV, but because it happened before everyone had DVRs (or even VCRs), barely anyone has seen it. Now, USA Today reports, two movies are hitting theaters based around the incident: the suicide of Florida journalist Christine Chubbuck, who killed herself on the air during a June 15, 1974, broadcast for Sarasota station WXLT. \"In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in 'blood and guts' ... you are going to see another first: attempted suicide,\" Chubbuck, 29, said to viewers before shooting herself in the head with a gun she'd hidden under her desk. She died shortly after. USA Today notes the irony of how a death she'd wanted to be seen by so many ended up being relegated to virtual secrecy. The lone tape of the broadcast was thought to be lost, but in June, Mollie Nelson, the station owner's widow, told Vulture her husband had the tape, and when he died, she gave it to a \"very large law firm\" to guard. Fascination about the case and Chubbuck's life, which included bouts with depression and struggles as a woman in the workplace, has spurred Christine\u2014a drama debuting Oct. 21 in select theaters and elsewhere in the fall\u2014and Kate Meets Christine, soon to be playing in a dozen theaters. USA Today calls the latter film a \"quasi-documentary\" that follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil around Sarasota as she preps for the part of Chubbuck. Its director, Robert Greene, notes how we wouldn't see something like this today kept hidden. \"It comes from another era where, for good or bad, it was more swept away,\" he says. \"We live in an era today where we think we have a right to see everything.\" As for the original tape now being harbored by some unnamed law firm? Nelson told Vulture she has no intention of ever showing it to anyone. (A bullfighter was gored to death on live TV in July.)"}
{"document": "Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill. \n \n With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a \"climate of hate.\" \n \n Pima County, AZ Sheriff Clarence Dupnik held a press conference during which he blamed vitriolic political rhetoric for provoking the mentally unstable, and lamented Arizona's becoming the \"mecca of prejudice and bigotry.\" Video courtesy of AFP. \n \n The critics were a bit short on particulars as to what that meant. Mrs. Palin has used some martial metaphors\u2014\"lock and load\"\u2014and talked about \"targeting\" opponents. But as media writer Howard Kurtz noted in The Daily Beast, such metaphors are common in politics. Palin critic Markos Moulitsas, on his Daily Kos blog, had even included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district on a list of congressional districts \"bullseyed\" for primary challenges. When Democrats use language like this\u2014or even harsher language like Mr. Obama's famous remark, in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign, \"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun\"\u2014it's just evidence of high spirits, apparently. But if Republicans do it, it somehow creates a climate of hate. \n \n There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clich\u00e9s. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source. \n \n Jared Lee Loughner, the man suspected of a shooting spree that killed a Federal Judge and critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, had left a trail of online videos in which he railed against the government. WSJ's Neil Hickey reports. \n \n American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be. As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting \"Allahu Akhbar!\" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. \"Where,\" asked Mr. York, \"was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?\" \n \n Set aside as inconvenient, apparently. There was no waiting for the facts on Saturday. Likewise, last May New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CBS anchor Katie Couric speculated, without any evidence, that the Times Square bomber might be a tea partier upset with the ObamaCare bill. \n \n Enlarge Image Close Associated Press Rep. Gabrielle Giffords \n \n So as the usual talking heads begin their \"have you no decency?\" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel? \n \n To paraphrase Justice Cardozo (\"proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do\"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on \"rhetoric\" and a \"climate of hate\" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains. \n \n To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the \"rhetoric\" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the \"rhetoric\" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it? \n \n I understand the desperation that Democrats must feel after taking a historic beating in the midterm elections and seeing the popularity of ObamaCare plummet while voters flee the party in droves. But those who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America's political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder. \n \n Where is the decency in that? \n \n Mr. Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee. He hosts \"InstaVision\" on PJTV. ||||| POLITICO launched Arena in 2008 with the hopes of creating a vibrant forum where Washington\u2019s sharpest minds could debate and dissect the issues of the day. And Arena became just that. Over the past four years, Arena has hosted thousands of constructive, serious, provocative and civil debates on issues facing Washington and the nation. \n \n \n \n But the spirit of innovation that led to the creation of Arena now drives us to think about new ways in which POLITICO can present outside opinion with maximum impact. And as we plan our next steps in the opinion space, we\u2019ve decided to draw the curtains on Arena. \n \n \n \n We\u2019re grateful to everyone who participated in Arena over the years \u2013 as contributors, as moderators, as producers and as readers. Thanks for making Arena a success, and we look forward to continuing the conversation in the pages of POLITICO soon. ||||| I should have said this a few days ago, when my friend Glenn Reynolds introduced the term to this debate. But I think that the use of this particular term in this context isn\u2019t ideal. Historically, the term is almost invariably used to describe anti-Semitic myths about how Jews use blood \u2014 usually from children \u2014 in their rituals. I agree entirely with Glenn\u2019s, and now Palin\u2019s, larger point. But I\u2019m not sure either of them intended to redefine the phrase, or that they should have. ||||| In a recent video, Sarah Palin used the phrase \"blood libel\" to discuss the media's reaction to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting: \"[E]specially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.\"In this case, Palin is likely using the phrase \"blood libel\" to mean a false accusation. But it's a somewhat strange thing to say, given that the history of the phrase is itself quite bloody -- and loaded.Historically, blood libel refers to anti-Semitic accusations from the Middle Ages, when some believed that Jews made Passover matzo from the blood or organs of murdered Christian children. Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf told Politico, \"The blood libel is something anti-Semites have historically used in Europe as an excuse to murder Jews -- the comparison is stupid. Jews and rational people will find it objectionable.\"The first example of blood libel, which is sometimes called \"blood accusation,\" surfaced, as far as we know, in the writings of a monk. In 1173, Thomas of Monmouth wrote \" The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich ,\" which told the story of a young boy who was allegedly killed in England around Easter 1144. According to Thomas of Monmouth, the town believed that local Jews were responsible. Afterward, a Jewish man was murdered. Since Thomas of Monmouth was the only one to write about the story, we have no idea whether the events, or some form of them, ever took place.Despite the questionable origins, the rumors took hold in Europe, lasting through approximately the 14th century. Some Jews were tortured, even executed, after being accused of such abductions and murders of Christian children; others converted to Christianity to save themselves.Though blood libel allegations declined after the Middle Ages, they still cropped up occasionally, even in the United States: In 1928, in upstate New York, the Jewish community of the town of Massenna stood accused when a 4-year-old girl disappeared. It was Yom Kippur, and the police questioned the town rabbi to see whether the local Jews might have been responsible. Even when the girl reappeared, having been lost, the Jewish community was still looked at with suspicion.The phrase was first used this week by Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. Reynolds wrote, \"So as the usual talking heads begin their 'have you no decency?' routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?\"In the National Review Online, blogger Jonah Goldberg questions Palin's and Reynolds' use of the phrase this week. \"I agree entirely with Glenn's, and now Palin's, larger point. But I'm not sure either of them intended to redefine the phrase, or that they should have,\" he writes.But at least one political writer thinks that Palin was using the phrase to be intentionally provocative, fully aware of its associations. Politico's Ben Smith tweeted", "summary": "\u2013 Sarah's Palin's \"blood libel\" is the phrase of the day, even setting off an online debate at Politico about her loaded word choice on victimhood. Palin didn't invent the phrase: As AOL News explains, it goes back to the Middle Ages, usually in reference to the myth that Jews used the blood of Christian children in rituals. It first got used in context with Arizona in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday, in which Glenn Reynolds blasted the criticism of Palin and others, asking, \"Where is the decency in blood libel?\" Much of the debate centers on whether Palin intentionally used it to be provocative, perhaps a testament to how her every utterance can drive a media conversation: Jonah Goldberg, National Review: \"I agree entirely with Glenn\u2019s, and now Palin\u2019s, larger point. But I\u2019m not sure either of them intended to redefine the phrase, or that they should have.\" Ben Smith, Politico (via tweet): \"A quick 'blood libel' thought. Palin's aides, including @thegoldfarb, get the context\u2014so this is a pot being stirred, not an accident.\" Ernest Istook, Heritage Foundation: \"It is but one term within Sarah Palin's thoughtful discourse about the Arizona shootings and our ability to discuss our differences vigorously but without violence. Anyone who listens to her entire comment should appreciate that.\""}
{"document": "A week before Christmas 2013 Christine, a sexual assault forensic nurse from suburban Chicago, went out for a night of dinner and drinks with friends. It was a night that forever changed her life. \n \n \"I don't remember anything after leaving the dinner portion,\" Christine told CBS News. \"I woke up naked and I don't remember anything else after that.\" \n \n She says she was a victim of sexual assault, and would feel victimized again by the hospital where she received a forensic medical exam, commonly known as a rape kit. At her request, CBS News is withholding Christine's last name because she was the victim of a violent crime. \n \n \"The next day I got my first bill for my copay,\" Christine said through tears. \"The bills just kept coming after that.\" \n \n The bills should have never come. Illinois has a voucher system that pays for medical expenses not covered by insurance incurred up to 90 days following a sexual assault. \n \n Since 2005, the federal Violence Against Women Act has prohibited sexual assault survivors from being billed for the forensic collection of evidence, including copays. VAWA requires that the exam, at a minimum, include assessing physical trauma, determination of penetration or force, a patient interview and the collection of evidence. But, sexual assault victim advocates say, the medical guidelines for the rape exam goes beyond what the law provides for. Who pays for that treatment varies by state and at times, county by county. \n \n We contacted Victim Advocates in all 50 states. Thirteen reported survivors getting billed for medical services related to a sexual assault forensic exam in their state. Stretching coast to coast, those advocates described a hodgepodge of laws that for some victims means a rape kit and the associated medical treatment come at a price. \n \n \"When you keep getting revictimized once a month you get a reminder in the mail, hey you were raped, hey this happened, you know, it's hard to move on,\" said Christine. \n \n For Christine, the horror of her assault was made worse by the medical bills that kept coming. She was unable to get out of bed for months. The hospital threatening to send her to collections if she didn't pay was the very same hospital where she'd worked on crafting a sexual assault response protocol. \n \n \"It becomes extremely devastating for them and oftentimes triggers reliving the assault itself or the forensic-medical exam,\" said Sarah Layden, Director of Advocacy Services at Rape Victim Advocates in Chicago. \n \n RVA says it receives as many as six calls a month from survivors of sexual assault who wrongly receive bills. The organization says the errant billing happens at hospitals across the state and at some with regularity. \n \n \"It is very common for a survivor to get a bill,\" Layden said during an interview with CBS News Correspondent Kris Van Cleave. \"We have a full time staff advocate who spends the bulk of their time helping clients resolve bills.\" \n \n The Illinois Department of Public Health it infrequently receives complaints regarding billing. In a statement to CBS News IDPH investigates complaints of patient billing. It requires hospitals found to be out of compliance to provide \"evidence of its billing policy and how the hospital will make its system better moving forward.\" \n \n Earlier this year, reports surfaced of rape victims in Louisiana receiving large medical bills after seeking a rape kit at state-owned LSU Hospitals. Operations of those hospitals had recently been turned over to a private company that ended the state's practice of writing off those related charges. \n \n \"For two nights in a row, I was raped and sexually assaulted, most of which I don't remember,\" a college student, whose name was withheld, told a Louisiana Senate committee during the legislature's first hearing on the billing issue. \"It was around $2,000 of which my insurance covered none of it at all.\" \n \n Hours after her testimony, Governor Bobby Jindal issued an executive order calling for changes to medical billing practices in the state and pledging to work with legislators to change the law. \n \n \"I believe that the victim should never be charged,\" said Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert. \"The next part of this is that we would work with legislators for next session to make sure providers could bill directly to fund to assure that victims were not billed and that there are statutes in place to make sure the victims are not billed.\" \n \n The Louisiana Hospital Association acknowledged to state lawmakers during the Oct. 20 hearing that there are a number of inconsistencies across the state and that reimbursement policies vary by hospital. \n \n \"We are committed to working through this and try to figure out how to make this as painless for the victim as possible,\" Sean Prados, Executive Vice President of the Louisiana Hospital Association, told the state Senate Select Committee on Women and Children. \n \n Advocates in Arizona, California, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin all expressed concern about victims receiving bills in their states. The laws are different and the reasons for the charges vary. \n \n Quantifying the scope of the billing issue is challenging. The Department of Justice estimates more than 237,000 sexual assaults occur annually in the United States, but only 40 percent are reported--and other studies put that number even lower. In at least 34 states, a survivor who reports the attack and cooperates with law enforcement may be eligible to have medical bills reimbursed by state run crime victim compensation funds, according to a 2014 Urban Institute case study. Survivors who choose not to report their attack, such as Christine and the college student who testified in Louisiana, are blocked from accessing that money. \n \n A 2012 AEquitas study found 33 states cover specific 'collateral' services to victim care, 15 states will pay for tests for sexually transmitted infections, 15 states cover medications prescribed during the forensic exam, 10 states pay for emergency room and hospital fees, 13 states cover the cost of a pregnancy test, six will pay for emergency contraception and at least two will pay for victims' counseling related to the sexual assault. According to the study, only five states will pay for treatment of injuries caused by the attack, another four states provide payment for reasonable medical care related to the assault. Several states allow the victim's insurance to be billed for uncovered medical expenses. \n \n Delaware does not allow a survivor to be billed. And just last summer Colorado passed a law creating a state fund to pay the entire bill for the forensic medical exam and related charges regardless of reporting after survivors received medical bills for thousands of dollars. \n \n In the majority of cases victims are not billed says Janine Zweig, the lead researcher on the Urban Institute study, \"but that left a substantial minority\" who, in some fashion were billed. \n \n Her report finds, while victims typically are not billed for the costs associated directly with the forensic collection of evidence, \"they might be billed for other services that are not covered by the public payer in state statutes. This distinction may be lost on victims--a bill is a bill.\" \n \n In six states the payment is left up to the individual counties. Advocates in all six--Minnesota, Kansas, Arizona, South Dakota, Nevada and Louisiana--told CBS News about reports of survivors receiving bills for medical care. In Minnesota that means 87 counties with their own individual policies about what gets paid for and by whom. \n \n The Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault Executive Director Donna Dunn says the system results in inconsistency across the state and \"a lot of confusion.\" \n \n The Urban Institute report concludes \"victims in some portions of the states may have more services paid for...than do victims in other portions of the states.\" \n \n \"We have heard anecdotally that this is a significant issue,\" says Allie Bones, the CEO of Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. Her office just hired someone to study the hospital billing practices in the state. \n \n \"The choice to go to the hospital to get the exam is not theirs to make. It's the only place to get it,\" she said. \n \n Advocates in Nebraska cited several examples of victims receiving bills in the last six months alone. Similar story in South Dakota and Kansas where some survivors may be billed for medical treatment associated with the forensic exam and can languish in a system advocates say can be hard for survivors to navigate. In Nevada, the county is required to pay for all medical care in the first 72 hours, but in rural counties there have been reports of victims being billed anyway. While the numbers are likely small, so is the population in smaller Nevada counties and advocates admit a small number of people could still be a big problem. \n \n In essence, while the medical treatment a sexual assault survivor receives during a forensic medical exam is similar nationwide, who pays for that care varies widely. The end result is a patient may end up being billed for a service that a patient in another state may not. \n \n For victims in California, the bill for the exam goes to law enforcement, but the state law does not require medical care beyond the scope of the federal requirements to be paid by that agency. Those who choose not to report to law enforcement may ultimately find they themselves, or their insurance, billed for those costs. \n \n \"It's not something that people expect at all,\" says Sandra Henriquez, the Executive Director of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. She believes the state's victim compensation fund should cover rape kit related medical costs for all survivors, \"it's a matter of prioritization, I think they should have to pay for it and not have survivors revicitimized by getting a bill.\" \n \n Maryland hospitals are not supposed to bill for related medical costs, but there remains confusion over what's covered, says Lisae Jordan, Executive Director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. She's received complaints from victims who were hit with costs like ambulance fees, and follow up testing. \n \n \"There is not consistent application of the law,\" said Jordan. The state has formed a panel to study access to forensic exams. The panel's first meeting is Thursday. \n \n Katie Hanna, the Executive Director of Ohio Alliance to end Sexual Violence would like to see changes in her state as well. In Ohio the state pays $532 dollars for an exam, the excess can be passed on to the survivor. \n \n \"It varies county to county and hospital to hospital, and needs to change,\" said Hanna. \"The level of care and the amount of charges a survivor incurs should not depend on the zip code in which they live or the hospital that just so happens to be nearest to them after being raped.\" \n \n The Texas coalition against sexual assault hears about survivors surprised by medical bills \"with frequency.\" \n \n \"Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault is receiving fewer reports of victims receiving bills associated with the forensic exam,\" Executive Director Pennie Meyers told CBS News in an email, \"However, there is more work to be done.\" \n \n Officials from the Wisconsin Department of Justice acknowledged receiving complaints, but say the agency is working on preventing similar problems in the future. State officials in Minnesota, Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Ohio, and Maryland said they have not received billing complaints. In South Dakota complaints would be handled at the county level. Government agencies in Arizona, California and Nebraska have not offered comment. \n \n \"Across the United States, victims are being victimized by the very system that is set up to help and protect them after they've been a victim of this crime,\" said Kellie Greene, the Founder and Director of Speak Out Against Rape, or SOAR. \n \n For Greene, the billing issue is a very personal one. On January 18th, 1994 Greene was brutally raped by a stranger who broke into her Florida home. After being taken to the hospital for the forensic exam and medical treatment, she began receiving bills for the entire procedure, from the rape kit to the towel used on her bleeding head in the ambulance. \n \n \"It's like being punched in the gut when you open that mailbox and you see that bill.\" \n \n Greene refused to pay and the hospital sent her bills to collections. She worked with the state attorney general to change Florida's law a year later. \n \n Now through her Washington, D.C. non-profit she tries to help other survivors by speaking about her experiences. In the last few months she says SOAR has been contacted by at least a half dozen survivors across the country looking for help with medical bills. Her group pays some of the bills itself. \n \n Greene believes the change needs to come on a national level. Senator Al Franken introduced legislation in 2009 and 2011 to address the issue, but both bills died in committee. \n \n In response to our investigation, Senator Franken told CBS News, \"I'm committed to making sure that survivors of sexual assault never see the bill for their rape kit exam, and we made significant progress with my provision in the Violence Against Women Act. But I'm very troubled that some women are still being charged for services related to their rape kits. That's unacceptable, and I'll be looking into options to fix this problem.\" \n \n In a statement the American Hospital Association says \"it is every hospitals' goal to treat and care for sexual assault victims in a safe and compassionate manner. While fees related to their care vary by state, we encourage all hospitals to review their policies on charges related to sexual assault victims.\" \n \n \"Would we like to see a standardized best practice response across the country? Of course,\" says Dr. Kimberly Lonsway, Ph.D., the Research Director for End Violence against Women International, \"we are working very hard to get there but we aren't there yet.\" \n \n In Christine's case, her bills were due to hospital error, she had been marked as self-pay; a simple coding error that took more than 10 agonizing months to resolve. \n \n \"We regret that this happened,\" Highland Park Hospital officials said in a statement. \"We have implemented a new series of protocols and procedures in our billing system to ensure this does not happen again.\" \n \n Later this year, Christine will complete her master's program to become a nurse practitioner. She and her husband are considering a move west and away from the memories of her attack. \n \n CBS News Producers Polly Leider and Laura Strickler and researcher Bianca Brosh contributed to this report ||||| CHICAGO (CBS) \u2014 A sexual assault forensic nurse from suburban Chicago was thinking of moving away from Illinois, to get away from memories of her own rape, and the nightmare she experienced afterwards when the hospital demanded she pay for her rape kit. \n \n WBBM Newsradio\u2019s Veronica Carter reports Illinois is one of 13 states where rape victims often have to pay for their medical bills after they\u2019ve been attacked, including the rape kits used to collect physical evidence of the assault. \n \n Christine went to the hospital in 2013 after she was raped in Chicago. She had gone out for a night of dinner and drinks with friends, and said she does not remember the attack itself. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t remember anything after leaving the dinner portion,\u201d Christine told CBS News. \u201cI woke up naked and I don\u2019t remember anything else after that.\u201d \n \n She went to the hospital for a forensic medical exam, commonly known as a rape kit, and was mortified when she started getting bills from the hospital \u2014 the very same hospital where she\u2019d worked on crafting a sexual assault response protocol. \n \n \u201cLots of them, and for thousands of dollars,\u201d she said. \n \n Christine said she felt victimized again by being billed for her treatment. \n \n \u201cOnce a month, you get a reminder in the mail \u2018Hey, you were raped. Hey, this happened.\u2019 It\u2019s hard to move on,\u201d she said. \n \n Rape kits are instrumental in helping police and prosecutors convict rapists, but an investigation by CBS News found, in some states, the cost of rape kits is not completely covered by state law, leaving the victim to foot the bill. \n \n Congress twice has rejected legislation that would have prevented victims from having to pay for their rape kits. \n \n In Christine\u2019s case, she was billed as the result of an error. Illinois has a voucher system that pays for medical expenses not covered by insurance for up to 90 days after a sexual assault; but Christine mistakenly had been marked as self-pay, due to a simple coding error that took 10 months to correct. \n \n She was unable to get out of bed for months after her attack. The hospital threatened to send her to collections if she didn\u2019t pay.", "summary": "\u2013 Christine is a sexual assault forensic nurse from suburban Chicago; helping to put together Highland Park Hospital's sexual assault response protocol was one of her duties. So it was a particularly unwelcome surprise when, after she went to that same hospital in 2013 after being raped, she received a bill from the hospital for the cost of her rape kit. A state voucher system is supposed to pick up whatever part of the tab insurance doesn't regarding expenses incurred within 90 days of a sexual assault. But Christine had incorrectly been coded as \"self-pay,\" CBS Chicago reports, and that mislabeling took 10 months to correct. During that time, the bills kept on coming: \"Lots of them, and for thousands of dollars,\" she says. The hospital even threatened to send her account to collections, she says. Her story highlights what victims face when state law doesn't cover the cost of rape kits, which are integral in getting rapists convicted. \"Once a month, you get a reminder in the mail, 'Hey, you were raped. Hey, this happened,'\" Christine says. \"It's hard to move on.\" The 2005 federal Violence Against Women Act bars sexual assault victims from being charged for their exam, which includes collecting forensic evidence; but a CBS News investigation found 13 states in which victim advocates relayed stories of victims being billed. Rape Victim Advocates in Chicago says it gets up to half a dozen calls about billing issues a month. Sen. Al Franken has twice introduced legislation that would address the issue, but both times the bills didn't make it out of committee. (Out of New Orleans this week: an explosive report on how police handled sex-assault cases.)"}
{"document": "Sponsored Links \n \n Weeks after Egypt's vibrant, youth-led revolution, disturbing details are emerging about the treatment of some young female protesters briefly detained by Egyptian soldiers. Some of the women say they were strip-searched, photographed naked, beaten and forced to undergo \"virginity tests\" on threat of prostitution charges.At least 18 women were captured and held in military detention after army officers violently cleared Cairo's Tahrir Square on March 9, nearly a month after pro-democracy protesters ousted President Hosni Mubarak from power. After their release days later, several of them complained to Amnesty International about their treatment. The human rights group issued a public report on the allegations Wednesday, calling on the Egyptian government to investigate such claims of torture.One of the women is Salwa Hosseini, 20, who said she was arrested and taken to a military prison where she and other women were forced to take off all their clothes. They were searched by a female prison guard, she said, but male soldiers were able to look inside through two open doors and a window -- and snap photos of the degraded prisoners. In a different room, she said, a man in a white lab coat subjected them to \"virginity tests\" and threatened that those who didn't \"pass\" would be charged with prostitution.For one of the girls who claimed to be a virgin, the test purportedly declared otherwise -- and she was then tortured with beatings and electric shocks.\"Forcing women to have 'virginity tests' is utterly unacceptable,\" Amnesty International said. \"Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women. All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called 'tests.'\"Amnesty continued: \"Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment.\"Some of the alleged beatings outlined by Amnesty International even took place inside an annex of the famed Egyptian Museum, where thousands of the country's most precious antiquities are housed. An Egyptian journalist detained along with some of the victims, Rasha Azeb, said she heard the screams of women being tortured and given electric shocks inside the museum. The building was also looted during violent clashes between protesters and Egyptian security forces in February.On Monday, 16 Arab and Egyptian rights groups sent a letter to Egypt's Health Ministry urging an investigation into the alleged conduct by Egyptian doctors, soldiers and officers. The letter, excerpted by the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National , accused them of \"violating the sanctity of the human self and human body.\"One of the signatories, Aida Saif el Dawla, who co-founded the El Nadim Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence , laughed off the idea that the Egyptian government might actually do something about the abuse. \"Of course not,\" she told the newspaper. \"But there is always somebody who knows somebody on the military council, and from that we hear them say they don't have any idea of what was happening in the military prison.\"El Dawla's group said it too gathered testimony similar to the complaints published by Amnesty International.In Egypt, many women face diminished chances of getting married if their \"honor\" is not intact. Surgical procedures to \"restore\" a woman's virginity are common in Egypt and across the Muslim world, as are products that claim to help women fake their virginity and make it seem as if they are having sexual intercourse for the first time.Serious crime is relatively scant in Cairo, a city of 20 million that has a fraction of the number of rapes and violent attacks of other big world capitals. But sexual harassment has long been a problem in Egypt, where poverty and sexual repression amid conservative Muslim norms have been blamed for misconduct by mostly young, uneducated Egyptian men.Many foreign tourists and workers also complain of harassment, but attacks rarely reach the severity of that suffered by CBS News correspondent Lara Logan , whose network said she was brutally sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square in February.The women interviewed by Amnesty International appeared before a military court on March 11 and were released two days later. Hosseini was convicted of disorderly conduct, destroying private and public property, obstructing traffic and carrying unspecified weapons. Several were given suspended, one-year prison sentences.Civilians are often tried before military tribunals in Egypt, where defendants are denied adequate access to a lawyer and also the right to appeal. Pro-democracy protesters who managed to push Mubarak from power Feb. 11 have also called for an end to such trials -- a move Amnesty International has supported. ||||| Columbia University LibrariesArchive-It Partner Since: May, 2008Organization Type: Colleges & UniversitiesOrganization URL: http://library.columbia.edu The Columbia University Libraries (CUL) web resources collection program archives selected websites in thematic areas corresponding to existing CUL collection strengths, websites produced by affiliates of Columbia University, and websites from organizations or individuals whose papers or records are held in CUL's physical archives.", "summary": "\u2013 A group of female protesters detained by Egyptian soldiers say they were beaten, stripped, given electric shocks, and humiliated with so-called \"virginity tests\" while male soldiers were allowed to watch and take photos, reports AOL News. The women complained to Amnesty International, which found the allegations credible and demanded that the new government investigate. (Amnesty's report is here.) The 18 women were arrested in Tahrir Square not during the protests to oust Hosni Mubarak, but in a rally weeks after he left office. They were told they'd be charged with prostitution if they failed the virginity tests. \u201cForcing women to have 'virginity tests' is utterly unacceptable,\" Amnesty says. \"Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women.\" For more, click here."}
{"document": "Well, seems like LulzSec has returned, and moved beyond the DDOS attack! Not content to merely shut down one of Rupert Murdoch's paper's websites, the hacking group has instead planted a bizarro-Onionesque account of the mogul's death-by-palladium on a Times redesign page masquerading as The Sun. Well played, #AntiSec. \n \n The the hack was first announced by AnonymousIRC with a tweet, saying: \n \n We have joy we have fun we will mess up Murdoch's Sun: http://t.co/JArvwg1 | Hi Rupert! Have fun tomorrow at the Parliament! #AntiSec \n \n Murdoch's papers of course, and several of his lieutenants have been implicated in the massive hacking scandal that began to unfold earlier this month. Murdoch is scheduled to appear before the British parliament tomorrow. \n \n As of the time of this post, the report was still up. Despite announcing the attack ten minutes after AnonymousIRC\u2014and previous claims of retirement\u2014LulzSec has taken credit for the hacking. They claimed in a tweet that visits to The Sun's homepage redirected to the Murdoch death notice page, though that no longer appears to be the case. And in case it gets taken down soon, here's the full text: \n \n Media moguls [sic] body discovered Rupert Murdoch, the controversial media mogul, has reportedly been found dead in his garden, police announce. \n \n Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night, passing out in the early hours of the morning. \n \n \"We found the chemicals sitting beside a kitchen table, recently cooked,\" one officer states. \"From what we can gather, Murdoch melted and consumed large quantities of it before exiting into his garden.\" Chemicals found in house Authorities would not comment on whether this was a planned suicide, though the general consensus among locals and unnamed sources is that this is the case. \n \n One detective elaborates. \"Officers on the scene report a broken glass, a box of vintage wine, and what seems to be a family album strewn across the floor, containing images from days gone by; some containing handpainted portraits of Murdoch in his early days, donning a top hat and monocle.\" \n \n Another officer reveals that Murdoch was found slumped over a particularly large garden hedge fashioned into a galloping horse. \"His favourite\", a butler, Davidson, reports. \n \n Butler Davidson has since been taken into custody for additional questioning. \n \n As far as post-modern takes on \"who will watch the watchmen\" go, it ain't half bad. Here's the full page image: \n \n Update: The Times dummy page has finally been taken down\u2014and visiting TheSun.co.uk will redirect you to the LulzSec twitter page\u2014but will stay up indefinitely here on Gizmodo. \n \n Also, the email logins of major News of the World players\u2014including former top News Corp exec Rebeka Brooks\u2014have begun trickling out. \n \n Apparently News International attempted to put out a statement regarding what had happened to The Sun, but LulzSec redirected the page to its Twitter feed before it could be widely circulated. [Times via Twitter] ||||| The fruits of today's Sun UK hack are starting to dangle down: LulzSec (out of retirement?) and Anon are tweeting logins of some serious British media brass. Foremost? Rebekah Brooks, the epicenter of England's voicemail hacking scandal. Update: phone numbers! \n \n The tweet divulged the email and password info for one Rebekah Wade\u2014Brooks' maiden name\u2014along with many others from Murdoch's tabloid upper crust: \n \n Harvey Shaw\u2014Publishing Operations Team Manager, News International\u2014Phone number Pete Picton\u2014Sun Online Editor\u2014Phone number Lee Wells\u2014Editorial Support Manager at News International\u2014Email and Password Bill Akass\u2014Managing Editor, News of the World\u2014Email and password Chris Hampartsoumian\u2014Former Online Editor at timeonline.co.uk\u2014Phone number Danny Rogers\u2014Sun Online Editorial Manager\u2014Email and password \n \n This trickle is probably only the start. LulzSec appears to be hard at work squeezing more logins out of The Sun's servers: \n \n We are battling with The Sun admins right now - I think they are losing. The boat has landed... >:] \n \n In other words, expect more\u2014though the only login fish bigger than Brooks would be Murdoch's. \n \n Advertisement \n \n Update: AntiSec operators have tweeted phone numbers for The Sun's online editor, Pete Picton, along with two other (lesser) Sun editorial figures.", "summary": "\u2013 So it turns out that the News of the World isn't the only gig in town that can hack: Notorious prankster-hackers LulzSec and Anonymous are wreaking havoc with Rupert Murdoch and his empire, reports Gizmodo. Lulzsec fired the first volley, publishing a cheeky account of Murdoch's death\u2014via palladium\u2014on a webpage masquerading as Murdoch's Sun. The post has since been taken down, but you can see a screenshot in the gallery. Not content to simply poke at Murdoch, LulzSec and Anonymous took the fight to Murdoch's newly-unemployed-and-arrested exec, Rebekah Brooks, tweeting her email login and password, notes Sam Biddle on Gizmodo. Other executives' information, including their phone numbers, followed, and it appears that the hackers are busily ferreting out more information. \"We are battling with The Sun admins right now - I think they are losing,\" tweeted LulzSec."}
{"document": "JERUSALEM (Reuters) - President Barack Obama faces a stony reception when he travels to the West Bank on Thursday for talks with Palestinian leaders who accuse him of letting Israel ride rough-shod over their dream of statehood. \n \n Obama has said he will not bring any new initiatives to try to revive long-dormant peace talks and has instead come to Israel and the Palestinian territories for simple consultations. \n \n Arriving in Israel on Wednesday, the main focus of initial discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be pressing regional concerns, primarily Iran's nuclear ambitions and the civil war in neighboring Syria. \n \n After repeated run-ins with Netanyahu during Obama's first term in office, the mood between the two men appeared to be much warmer, angering Palestinians, who blame the 2010 collapse of U.S.-backed peace negotiations on the Israeli leader's expansion of Jewish settlements on land where they want their state. \n \n Obama is to address the decades-old conflict in talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and also in a keynote speech just hours later to a large audience of carefully screened Israeli students in Jerusalem. \n \n But after the lofty ambitions of his first term, when he appointed a special envoy to the Middle East on his very first day in charge and said peacemaking was a priority, it was clear that Obama has now set the bar significantly lower. \n \n \"I will consider this a success if, when I go back on Friday, I am able to say to myself I have a better understanding of what the constraints are,\" he told a joint news conference on Wednesday, standing alongside Netanyahu. \n \n The three-day visit is Obama's first to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank since entering the White House in 2009, and the inaugural foreign trip of a second and final four-year term that began in January. \n \n Sporadic protests flared in the West Bank and Gaza Strip this week, with Palestinians accusing Obama of not doing enough to halt Israeli settlement-building on land seized in the 1967 Middle East war. \n \n In 2009, Obama bluntly told Israel it had to halt settlement construction, but he later backed away from the demand and made no mention of the enclaves on Wednesday. \n \n Posters depicting Obama were defaced in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem earlier this week and anti-U.S. sentiment bubbled up on social media. \n \n \"Do Not Enter,\" said one poster put up on Facebook, showing Obama's face with a red line crossed through it. \"The people of Palestine do not welcome you here.\" \n \n BACK-SLAPPING \n \n Obama was feted when he arrived at Tel Aviv airport on Wednesday, with Israeli leaders lining up to praise the U.S. president for his firm commitment to the security of the Jewish state and his pledge not to let Iran develop nuclear weapons. \n \n Netanyahu, while citing what he described as Israel's right to defend itself, said effusively that he was \"absolutely convinced\" that Obama was determined to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Tehran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes. \n \n After four years of often icy relations with Netanyahu, the body language suddenly changed. Gone were the pursed lips and ill-disguised scowls. In came firm handshakes and back-slapping. \n \n \"Israel has no better friend than the United States of America,\" Netanyahu said, adding that he hoped his visit would help \"turn the page\" in relations with the Palestinians. \n \n \"Israel remains fully committed to peace and to the solution of two states for two peoples. We stretch out our hand in friendship to the Palestinian people,\" he added. \n \n Watching from Ramallah, the Palestinian administrative center just outside Jerusalem, Abbas's allies accused Netanyahu of repeating empty rhetoric and said Obama showed no inclination to re-engage with an issue that confounded his predecessors. \n \n \"The primary purpose of this visit is Israeli security, Israeli-American relations and saying that the U.S. has its back,\" said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). \n \n Obama will fly by helicopter the few miles from Jerusalem to Ramallah on Thursday morning, giving himself a birds' eye view of the walls and fences of the separation barrier between the two cities and of Israeli settlements on surrounding hilltops. \n \n Before that, he will go to a museum in Jerusalem to see the Dead Sea Scrolls - ancient Jewish parchments discovered in the West Bank in the 1940s. \n \n Israeli diplomats say that will help make amends to Israel for a speech Obama made in Cairo in 2009, when he appeared to argue the Jewish state derived its legitimacy from the Holocaust rather than an attachment to the land dating back to the Bible. \n \n Obama will travel to Bethlehem on Friday to visit the Church of the Nativity, and will also lay a wreath on the grave in Jerusalem of Theodor Herzl, the Zionist visionary who died more than four decades before the 1948 founding of Israel. \n \n The U.S. leader will then fly to neighboring Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has made peace with Israel. \n \n (Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Matt Spetalnick and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Alastair Macdonald) ||||| President Obama's first foreign trip after his re-election is to Israel, which he hasn't visited as president. The trip includes stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. A look at his itinerary: \n \n Since President Obama last visited the region in 2009, the Arab Spring uprisings have left neighboring countries in a various states of unrest and peril. \n \n President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands Wednesday at a news conference in Jerusalem. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP) Story Highlights Netanyahu, Obama agree Israeli security paramount with Iran \n \n The trip is seen as a chance to improve U.S. relations with Israelis and Palestinians \n \n A recent poll in Israel found just 10% of Israelis view Obama favorably \n \n JERUSALEM \u2014 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a news conference Wednesday he was \"absolutely convinced\" President Obama is determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. \n \n Netanyahu made his remarks at the end of a long day for Obama, who toured Israeli military facilities and stressed that the two nations share the same concern over Iran's nuclear program. \n \n \"There is not a lot of daylight\" between Israel and the United States on assessments of the status of Iran's nuclear program, Obama said at the joint news conference. \n \n Netanyahu made special point to the media of noting that Obama had reiterated Israel's right to take steps of its own to defend itself and that includes against Iran. \n \n \"Each country has to make its own decisions when it comes to the awesome decision to engage in any kind of military action,\" Obama said. \"And Israel is differently situated than the United States.\" \n \n Obama was greeted warmly on Wednesday in Israel where he is on a high-profile trip to Israel, his first as president, to assure the Jewish state of U.S. commitment to stopping a nuclear Iran and boost the prospect of peace talks with Palestinians demanding their own state. \n \n \"The United States is proud to stand with you as your strongest ally and your greatest friend,\" Obama said after disembarking from Air Force One at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport. \"It's in our fundamental security interest to stand with Israel.\" \n \n \"Across this region, the winds of change bring both promise and peril,\" he said, calling his visit \"an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds between our nations, to restate America's unwavering commitment to Israel's security, and to speak directly to the people of Israel and to your neighbors.\" \n \n Obama said his administration would pursue a Mideast peace that would allow residents of the Jewish state to live in peace and free from the threat of terror. \n \n \"In this work, the state of Israel will have no greater friend than the United States,\" the president said after meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres. \n \n Peres said he welcomed Obama's clear message that \"no one should let skepticism win the day, a vision that says clearly that peace is not only a wish, but a possibility.\" \n \n The two presidents planted a tree brought from the United States to symbolize the relationship between the two nations. \n \n Netanyahu, who has disagreed with Obama on matters of Israeli security, praised the president for his commitment to peace and security for Israel. \n \n \"Thank you for standing by Israel at this time of historic change in the Middle East,\" he said. \"Thank you for unequivocally affirming Israel's sovereign right to defend itself by itself against any threat.\" \n \n The two leaders met again Wednesday evening for dinner at Netanyahu's home, and held their joint news conference afterward. \n \n The White House said it does not expect significant agreements to come out of the trip, in which Obama will also visit Jordan. Obama last visited the region in 2009, traveling to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He visited the Jewish state in 2008 as a presidential candidate. \n \n But Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, are skeptical that President Obama's visit will lead to anything substantive on the peace front. \n \n OBAMA IN ISRAEL: Palestinians not optimistic about Obama's agenda \n \n ISRAELI REACTIONS: Charmed by Obama's warm remarks \n \n \"The only thing I expect from this visit is huge traffic jams,\" said a 60-year-old Jerusalemite on Wednesday, who was watching an early-morning talk show on TV in the small store where he sells lottery tickets, ahead of Obama's arrival. \n \n \"When someone comes to Israel to work seriously, he does so quietly, not with a lot of noise,\" said Natan, who said he could not share his last name because he has worked in Israeli security. For Natan, \"peace means that my grandchildren won't have to serve in the army. But that's just a dream,\" he said. \n \n President Obama arrives on a high-profile trip to Israel to assure the Jewish state of U.S. commitment to stopping a nuclear Iran and boost the prospect of peace talks with Palestinians demanding their own state. \n \n Preparing for a crush of breakfast customers at the bagel caf\u00e9 where he works, Nabulsi Alaa, 26, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, expressed the hope that the American president's visit will make it possible for Arabs in Israel to visit family and friends in the West Bank, and for Arabs in the West Bank to visit Israel. \"I'm somewhat optimistic,\" Alaa said. \n \n Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Edward Djerejian says the trip is a chance to improve U.S. relations with Israelis and Palestinians and clarify where the United States stands on the tumultuous events of the Middle East. \n \n \"I'm a believer in the importance of the personal relationship and dialogue between leaders,\" said Djerejian, ambassador under President Clinton. \"It's important they establish a working relationship ... that can be translated into possible action.\" \n \n Since Obama last visited, the region has become more dangerous. A 2-year-old rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad rages in Syria. Iran is refusing to end its nuclear program despite U.N. sanctions. Islamist governments have gained power in Egypt and Tunisia, and Muslim militias backed by al-Qaeda are on the rise in North Africa and the Persian Gulf states. \n \n Peres referred to these threats in his remarks upon Obama's arrival. \n \n \"The greatest danger is a nuclear Iran. We have tried non-military means, but other options are on the table,\" he said. \n \n \"Hamas remains a terror organization that targets innocent people. On the northern border is Iran's proxy Hezbollah. Hezbollah is destroying Lebanon and supporting the brutal massacre of the Syrian people ... fortunately Syria's nuclear capacity was destroyed, but unfortunately there are still chemical weapons.\" \n \n Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have stalled. Israel says the Palestinian Authority refuses to negotiate over the portions of the West Bank that should go to a Palestinian state and those that should be part of Israel. Palestinians argue that Israel will not compromise to their satisfaction, so why negotiate? \n \n Palestinians held small protests in the West Bank and Gaza. Demonstrators in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip burned posters of Obama and U.S. flags, accusing the U.S. of being biased toward Israel. The militant Hamas, which has been designated a terror group by the U.S., vows to destroy Israel. \n \n In the West Bank, about 200 activists erected about a dozen tents in an area just outside of Jerusalem to draw attention to Israel's policy of building housing in areas they want for an independent state. \n \n Silvan Shalom, a Cabinet minister in Netanyahu's Likud Party, said a provisional agreement is possible. \"Our goal is to reach an agreement (even) if it is in stages,\" he said. \n \n Dan Schueftan, the director of the National Security Center at the University of Haifa, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University, predicted the Obama visit will accomplish almost nothing for Israeli-Palestinian relations. \n \n \"You can't be pessimistic enough. The gaps between the mainstream Israeli and Palestinian positions are too large. You can't have a peace deal without including Gaza,\" Schueftan said. \"But you can't reach a settlement with the (Palestinian President) Abbas that doesn't include Gaza. And Israel can't include Gaza.\" \n \n Furthermore, he said, the Palestinians won't abandon the \"right of return,\" but \"if you bring to Israel every Palestinian whose grandparents left in 1948. No Israeli government could survive if it agreed to this.\" \n \n Still, Schueftan believes Obama's visit could strengthen U.S-Israel ties. \n \n \"The basic relations between Israel and the U.S. are very, very solid. I think Obama realizes that he went about things in the wrong way in his first term in office and is adopting a different approach that has much more potential to succeed. \n \n \"Now, he is emphasizing the positive and is willing to listen to the Israelis. And the recent Israeli election produced a much more centrist reality. We have a much better starting point.\" \n \n However, Obama arrives at a time when a recent media poll in Israel found just 10% of Israelis view him favorably \u2014 in light of his public bouts with Netanyahu, who asked Obama to set a \"red line\" on when military forces must be used against Iran. \n \n \"Obama is retreating from the Middle East, indifferent to the collapse of Egypt, uninterested in the return of al-Qaeda to Iraq, and he appears to have no blueprint for Iran other than more concessions,\" says Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute. \"So why's he going?\" \n \n Contributing: Oren Dorell in McLean, Va. ||||| JERUSALEM \u2014 Showing solidarity with Israel\u2019s growing concern about chemical weapons in neighboring Syria, President Obama stated bluntly on Wednesday that if an investigation he had ordered found proof that the Syrian military had used such weapons it would be a \u201cgame changer\u201d in American involvement in the civil war there. \n \n On the first day of his first trip to Israel as president, in which Israeli officials stated their own conclusion that chemical weapons had been used in an attack on Tuesday in Syria, Mr. Obama\u2019s remarks represented both an effort to warn the Syrian government of the consequences of using its chemical arsenal and to signal his administration\u2019s support for Israel, the central point of his visit. \n \n American officials reiterated that they did not have independent evidence that chemical weapons had been used, and the president made clear that it would require proof gathered by investigators before he would come to any conclusions. Mr. Obama, while vocal in his opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, has been reluctant to involve American forces in support of the opposition. Presidential aides made clear that he was not signaling any change in that regard. \n \n Photo \n \n But Mr. Obama\u2019s remarks, in which he pointedly left open the possibility that President Assad\u2019s government had used chemical weapons \u2014 and all but ruled out Mr. Assad\u2019s assertions that insurgents had used them \u2014 were unusually strong in tone. \n \n \u201cOnce we establish the facts, I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer,\u201d Mr. Obama said at a news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. \n \n Again and again during his visit, Mr. Obama signaled that the United States and Israel were partners on a broad range of issues, reinforcing their historic alliance and America\u2019s stated commitment to protect Israeli security. Mr. Obama pointedly emphasized his administration\u2019s pledge to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, one of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s greatest fears. \n \n But concern about chemical weapons in Syria were a major focus of the day. \n \n Two senior ministers in Israel\u2019s new cabinet said publicly on Wednesday that chemical weapons had been used, and several government officials said in interviews that Israel had credible evidence of an attack. The ministers, Tzipi Livni and Yuval Steinetz, were among those who met with Mr. Obama here on the first day of his trip. \n \n A senior American official, however, said Mr. Netanyahu had not presented conclusive evidence of an attack in his closed-door discussions with Mr. Obama. The president\u2019s words might have been intended to reassure Mr. Netanyahu, who has long feared that Mr. Assad\u2019s stockpiles of chemical weapons could be used against Israelis. \n \n In Washington, the American ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, testified before Congress that the United States still did not have proof that the weapons had been used. But he added, \u201cWe take these reports and these possibilities very seriously.\u201d \n \n Mr. Obama\u2019s remarks were his first public reaction to the reports on Tuesday that chemical weapons had been used. They seemed calculated, in part, to counter claims by both the Syrian government and its major supporter, Russia, that opposition forces had mounted a chemical attack against the government. \n \n \u201cWe intend to investigate thoroughly exactly what happened,\u201d Mr. Obama said. \u201cI\u2019ve instructed my teams to find out precisely what happened, what we can document, what we can prove.\u201d \n \n While Mr. Obama cautioned that he did not have all the facts, he said, \u201cWe know the Syrian government has the capacity to carry out chemical attacks\u201d and that he was \u201cdeeply skeptical of any claim that it was the opposition that used chemical weapons.\u201d \n \n Israeli officials provided no proof of their assertions but appeared more confident that chemical weapons had been used. \n \n Ms. Livni, the new Israeli justice minister, said in an interview with CNN, \u201cIt\u2019s clear for us here in Israel that it\u2019s being used,\u201d adding, \u201cThis, I believe, should be on the table in the discussions.\u201d \n \n Mr. Steinetz, the minister for strategic affairs, said on Israel\u2019s Army Radio, \u201cIt\u2019s apparently clear that chemical weapons have been used against civilians by the rebels or the government.\u201d \n \n Two senior Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, said that Israel was sure that chemicals were used, but did not have details about what type of weapons were used, where they came from, when they were deployed, or by whom. \n \n A third senior official, also refusing to be identified, said, \u201cIt is possible that chemical weapons were used, or some concoction of chemical substances,\u201d but he said he had not \u201cseen clear confirmation.\u201d \n \n Mr. Obama spoke after both the Syrian opposition and the government escalated accusations of chemical weapons use, with both sides demanding an international investigation. \n \n The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the umbrella political group that wants to topple Mr. Assad, said in a statement that it \u201ccondemns these attacks and holds the Assad regime fully responsible for shedding Syrian blood.\u201d The group said the attacks killed at least 19 civilians and left 69 others short of breath, with some in critical condition. \n \n The coalition accused government forces of carrying out two chemical weapons attacks on Tuesday \u2014 one in the Khan al-Assal area of northern Aleppo Province, as originally asserted, and a second strike in the Ataybah area of suburban Damascus. \n \n Ambassador Ford, in his testimony, also said that the United States was investigating reports of attacks in the north, and in the suburbs of Damascus. \n \n Fears about Syria\u2019s growing instability are shadowing Mr. Obama on each stop of this trip. On Thursday, he is to visit the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who is expected to raise worries about the plight of Palestinians in Syria. On Friday, he is scheduled to meet King Abdullah in Jordan, which has been flooded with Syrian refugees. \n \n At the United Nations, the Syrian ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, told reporters that his government had also requested an official inquiry to corroborate its claims that insurgents \u2014 not government forces \u2014 had used the weapons. Mr. Jaafari said he had delivered a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon\u2019s office seeking a \u201cspecialized, independent and neutral technical mission to investigate the use by the terrorist groups operating in Syria of chemical weapons yesterday against civilians.\u201d \n \n Mr. Ban\u2019s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said the request was under study. \n \n Mr. Nesirky also repeated Mr. Ban\u2019s reaction to the first allegations of chemical weapons use on Tuesday, saying, \u201cThe secretary general remains convinced that the use of chemical weapons by any party under any circumstances would constitute an outrageous crime.\u201d \n \n The chemical weapons issue quickly became entangled in the longstanding, sharp divisions on Syria in the United Nations Security Council, between Russia and those Western states opposed to the Damascus government. \n \n In a Security Council debate, France said the United Nations should investigate the opposition\u2019s accusations that chemical weapons were used by the government not just in the Aleppo area but also at the second site, in the Damascus suburbs. Russia accused the West of trying to create a diversion, an accusation echoed by the Syrian envoy. \n \n The Russian envoy, Vitaly I. Churkin, said the United States, France and others were engaged in \u201cdelaying tactics,\u201d for raising the allegation of a second site and for demands like humanitarian access to treat any victims. \n \n \u201cInstead of launching those propaganda balloons it is better to get our focus right,\u201d Mr. Churkin said. \n \n The Western demands, he said, echoed inspections instituted against Iraq more than a decade ago, which failed to find any chemical weapons. Mr. Churkin also said he would not put it past the opposition to fake a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government because it knows their use might well prompt international intervention. The Syrian ambassador seconded that possibility. \n \n The French envoy, Gerard Araud, sarcastically referring to Mr. Churkin\u2019s summary of the council debate as \u201cfascinating,\u201d said France and its allies wanted the United Nations to investigate all possible incidents.", "summary": "\u2013 Maybe the most newsworthy item out of President Obama's news conference today with Benjamin Netanyahu centered on Syria, not Israel. Obama said the US is investigating claims that chemical weapons were used in Aleppo, and he warned that Bashar al-Assad will be held accountable if he employed them, reports Reuters. \"I\u2019ve instructed my teams to find out precisely whether this red line was crossed,\" said Obama, using language the New York Times described as \"surprisingly strong in tone.\" The president added that he was \"deeply skeptical\" of the Assad regime's claims that it was rebels who used chemical weapons. (It remains unclear whether either side used them.) Obama also reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself\u2014\"each country has to make its own decisions when it comes to the awesome decision to engage in any kind of military action\"\u2014and he said \"there is not a lot of daylight\" between US and Israeli assessments on Iran's nuclear program, reports USA Today. Netanyahu said he is \"absolutely convinced that the president is determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.\" While he stressed Israel's right to act independently, Obama said there's still time for a diplomatic solution. The trip isn't expected to yield much in terms of concrete policy."}
{"document": "Please enable Javascript to watch this video \n \n WAUKESHA -- 10-year-old Andrew Ounkham, a non-verbal boy with autism was found safe Monday, October 3rd after he wandered into a corn field near his home on Sunday. Ounkham was found by two Waukesha West High School students. \n \n Adam Lembke played in a volleyball match at Waukesha West Monday night -- but nothing he could've done on the court would've topped what he and his friend Connor Kubiak did Monday morning. \n \n \"Actually, my family and I are really close friends with their family. I know my sister goes over to play with Andrew`s brother,\" Lembke said. \n \n Lembke was part of the massive search that began Sunday for 10-year-old Andrew Ounkham. Law enforcement officials continued that search overnight, and on Monday morning, neighbors showed up en masse at Waukesha West High School to continue the search. \n \n Lembke said he and Kubiak weren't sure whether they should go back out, since there were already so many volunteers, but Nate Kostolni said... \n \n \"Couple more people couldn`t hurt at all -- so why don`t we just go out and try it?\" Kostolni said. \n \n With school officials' blessing, the three teenagers were among those looking for Andrew Ounkham Monday. \n \n \"Actually, I`m terrible with directions so I pretty much just followed Adam,\" Kubiak said. \n \n \"I know where their house is. I know the general direction of where he went, so I decided there`s nobody looking over there. They`re all looking closer to West here,\" Lembke said. \n \n Sure enough, about a mile into the corn field... \n \n \"We were just kind of walking, deciding where to go next and then we just saw him go around the corner,\" Lembke said. \n \n \"Adam said 'call 911 right now!'\" Kubiak said. \n \n CLICK the audio player below to listen to the 911 call that led authorities to Andrew Ounkham: \n \n \"He was just walking and talking and laughing and stuff. I kept looking over at Adam, like, `what is happening right now?'\" Kubiak said. \n \n As for Kostolni, he had split off with another friend. \n \n \"I went and texted Adam and asked if him and Connor were the ones that found the kid and I got a text back saying `yeah we did it.` I should`ve stayed with them,\" Kostolni said. \n \n Lembke said while the attention they've gotten since the boy was found safe is pretty cool, he doesn't think they were heroic. He said he believes, with the amount of people out looking, someone was bound to find Andrew Ounkham. \n \n Lembke said he's just glad they were able to get to him when they did. ||||| CLOSE Volunteers join police Sunday in organizing a search for a 3-year-old boy missing since Saturday afternoon. The boy was found Sunday morning. USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin \n \n A photo of the missing boy that police released to searchers. (Photo: Courtesy of Langlade County Sheriff's Department) \n \n DEERBROOK - Hundreds of volunteers joined police to search through the night and into Sunday for a 3-year-old boy who wandered away from his rural home north of Antigo Saturday afternoon. \n \n Becky Wolf of Antigo was one of those who turned out to search the fields and woods of central Langlade County. She saw a post on Facebook Saturday night and and joined the search party at 10 p.m., searching until 5 a.m Sunday before rejoining the search after a couple of hours' rest. \n \n Word spread quickly around Antigo Saturday night, and scores of folks turned out to help the effort, police said. More than 400 had signed up to help by the time the boy was located late Sunday morning, police said. \n \n The volunteer who found him, Tom Andraschko of Antigo, said he was in a party of about 70 men and women who were stretched out in a line across a field and had been working for more than two hours Sunday morning before they came upon the boy. \n \n Buy Photo Andraschko (Photo: Arielle Hines/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) \n \n The 3-year-old was sitting cross-legged on the ground and obviously was terrified, Andraschko said. Volunteers erupted in cheers when they located him, but their concern quickly turned to the boy's health. He had been outdoors since early Saturday afternoon and was cold and wet but otherwise appeared unharmed. \n \n Andraschko said he volunteered to search because he himself is the father of 2-year-old twins and could imagine the horror of having one of them disappear. He would want others to help him if one of his went missing, he said, so he felt obligated to join the search. \n \n Police from Wausau, Tomahawk, Shawano and around Langlade County congregated at county highways C and H, where volunteers waited Sunday morning for search assignments. Police coordinated volunteers on the ground with air searches and dogs that were assisting. \n \n Pamela Becerra, owner of Neva Grocery and Gas, donated food and drinks to help feed the search party Saturday and Sunday. She said she didn't keep track of all the food she donated, but she knows she gave 200 sandwiches to volunteers Sunday morning. She also donated other snacks, such as granola bars and coffee. She said the idea of a small boy being lost and alone made her \"sick,\" and she wanted to make sure the volunteers were taken care of. She said it's natural for people in a small community to help neighbors in need. \n \n The boy was playing outside when he wandered away from nearby family members and into a corn field, said Langlade County Sheriff Bill Greening. The field was at least 80 acres and the corn stalks were at least 7 feet high, but Greening, who has a grandchild around the same age of the boy, was determined to find him. He said several helicopters, drones and police dogs were used in the search, and additional resources from other departments were on the way when the boy was found. Some officers stayed on duty when their shifts ended and worked more than 24 hours in a row to help. \n \n The owners of a converted schoolhouse allowed police to use their home as a headquarters from which to coordinate the search, police said. Police said the boy was taken to a hospital for treatment. \n \n Wolf said searching in a corn field late at night was \"creepy\" and the search became frustrating at points. But she is proud of her community for coming through. \n \n \"It's a blessing he is OK,\" Wolf said. \n \n Buy Photo Volunteers await assignments Sunday morning in the search for a 3-year-old boy near Antigo (Photo: Arielle Hines/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) \n \n RELATED: Crash kills Langlade County bicyclists \n \n RELATED: Two cougars confirmed in Langlade County \n \n Arielle Hines: ahines@wausau.gannett.com or 715-297-7518; on Twitter@theariellehines. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://wdhne.ws/2dR9mh0 ||||| By Craig Marx, Editor \n \n Langlade County Sheriff Bill Greening commended the volunteers and support staff on Monday that came to the aid of Dyton Logalbo, a three-old year child that went missing in a cornfield on Saturday afternoon in Langlade County. \n \n \u201c[Their support] was incredible,\u201d Greening told the Antigo Times. \u201cIt was amazing. I\u2019ve seen a lot of situations like this before and it is truly amazing the amount of caring and compassion that our community provides without even the need for announcements for volunteers. The support they provided was instrumental in [Dyton\u2019s] discovery.\u201d \n \n The sheriff also noted that the use of social media was a big factor in helping get the word out about the alarming situation. Through the use of Facebook and traditional police scanners, the volunteers amassed totaled 100 civilians overnight until the early morning hours of Sunday and nearly 500 some workers later on that day. \n \n Cooperation was essential with outside law enforcement, and the surrounding communities did their part in helping rescue Logalbo. In addition to civilian volunteers, K9 units from Shawano and Eagle River arrived to help with the search. \n \n As described by Sheriff Greening, Dyton\u2019s mother was outside with her children working on a garden at 2 pm on Saturday when she looked up and saw her son entering the cornfield. After an unsuccessful search of her own, she contacted the sheriff\u2019s department. The authorities were not notified until around 6 pm, when deputies arrived on the scene and interviewed the mother. \n \n Town of Peck emergency personnel and the Rural Fire Control were brought to the scene along with members from the Antigo Fire Department and EMS. As social media erupted over the terrible situation, civilian volunteers began arriving on scene. \n \n Dyton was discovered by Tom Andrashcko around 10:30 am on Sunday morning and later taken to Aspirus Langlade Hospital for medical assistance. \n \n Though the situation was sad, the volunteers also expressed appreciation of their own \u2013 Jim Novak and Pam Becerra provided food and beverages to the volunteers as they tediously searched throughout the day. ||||| He was missing for nearly a full day, but 3-year-old Dyton Longalbo was found safe after hundreds of volunteers searched acres of cornfields in Wisconsin on Sunday. (Source: WAOW/CNN) \n \n DEERBROOK, WI (WAOW/CNN) - Hundreds of volunteers spent hours searching acres of cornfields Sunday. \n \n And almost a full day after 3-year-old Dyton Logalbo went missing, the search was over. \n \n \u201cIt took about two-and-a-half, three hours looking in the field, and we stumbled upon him,\u201d said Tom Andraschko, who found the child safe and unharmed. \n \n Andraschko said after spending hours in the approximately 80 acres of corn, everything started to look the same. He couldn\u2019t believe his eyes once he found the boy. \n \n \u201cIt didn\u2019t really register, really, how amazing it was,\u201d he said. \u201cJust glad that he was sitting up and he looked safe and he was fine. He was just scared, very scared.\u201d \n \n When Andraschko picked Dyton up, the child's legs were cold. He didn\u2019t speak. \n \n \u201cI kept real quiet because I figured he was ... still shaking from being alone all night,\u201d he said. \n \n But it was not just the effort of one man that led to finding Dyton. \n \n More than 450 people registered with the Langlade County Sheriff Department early Sunday to help search the surrounding area. \n \n As a father of two, Andraschko said the decision to come and help was a no-brainer. \n \n \u201cI asked my wife if she thought I should come this morning, if they need any help,\u201d he said. \u201cShe said, \u2018Well, if it were your kids, how many people would you want to come?\u2019 So I came right away.\u201d \n \n A terrifying moment for one small boy turned into a celebration of neighbors lending helping hands, putting on display a small dose of human compassion. \n \n \u201cIt was definitely a group effort,\u201d Andraschko said. \u201cEverybody pitched in and helped.\u201d \n \n Copyright 2016 WAOW via CNN. All rights reserved.", "summary": "\u2013 A 3-year-old boy lost for 20 hours in a cornfield where stalks reached 7-feet tall has been found safe and sound in Wisconsin. Dyton Logalbo was playing outside near his home around 2pm Saturday when his mom saw him wandering into the cornfield north of Antigo, reports the Wausau Daily Herald. She alerted authorities when she couldn't find him on her own. Police\u2014who searched with helicopters, drones, and K9 units\u2014didn't even need to ask for volunteers, per the Antigo Times. Unprompted, some 500 people signed up to search before Dyton was found Sunday morning, police say. Tom Andraschko says he was searching a section of the cornfield with 70 others around 10:30am when he found the toddler sitting cross-legged on the ground. He was cold, wet, and scared, but otherwise in good health, though he was taken to a local hospital as a precaution. \"I asked my wife if she thought I should come this morning, if they need any help,\" Andraschko, a father of 2-year-old twins, told WAOW on Sunday. \"She said, 'Well, if it were your kids, how many people would you want to come?' So I came right away.\" A sheriff praised the \"caring and compassion\" of the community for helping get Dyton home safely. Just as Dyton was found, however, authorities in Waukesha, Wis., began searching for a 10-year-old boy with autism who also disappeared into a cornfield. He was found safe about a mile into the field by two high school students on Monday morning, reports Fox 6."}
{"document": "South Africa\u2019s justice department is intervening to prevent Oscar Pistorius\u2019 early prison release with Justice Minister Michael Masutha seeking advice over the legality of a parole board decision to free the Olympic athlete on Friday. \n \n Under South African law, Pistorius is eligible for release under \u201ccorrectional supervision\u201d, having served a sixth of his sentence. But his intervention has come after The Progressive Women\u2019s Movement of South Africa petitioned the Justice Minister, opposing the Bladerunner\u2019s release on parole, especially during Women\u2019s Month. \n \n The decision of the parole board was outrageous and an insult to victims of abuse. \u2014 Progressive Women\u2019s Movement of South Africa \n \n Pistorius was due to be moved to house arrest on Friday after serving 10 months of his five-year sentence for manslaughter for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013. \n \n Listen below to Justice Masutha speaking to 702's Xolani Gwala... ||||| JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Oscar Pistorius will not be freed on parole this Friday because the decision to do so was made without the right legal basis, the justice minister said on Wednesday, shocking the athlete's family who were preparing for his homecoming. \n \n Pistorius was expected to be released after serving 10 months of a five-year sentence for killing his model and law graduate girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day 2013. \n \n Justice Minister Michael Masutha said in a statement that the parole board had decided to release Pistorius on parole even before the athlete had served a sixth of his sentence, as required by law. \n \n \"It is therefore clear that there is no legal basis upon which such a decision was made ... one sixth of a five years sentence is 10 months and at the time the decision was made Mr. Pistorius had served only over six months of his sentence,\" Masutha said. \n \n The minister said he received a petition from the Progressive Women's Movement of South Africa, opposing Pistorius' release on parole, saying it flouted the rules. \n \n A family member said he was shocked by the minister's decision, adding that the family had planned a \"low key welcome\" for Pistorius on Friday. \n \n \"We are shocked and disappointed that Oscar won't be home this Friday,\" the family member, who declined to be named, told Reuters. \n \n Pistorius has admitted killing Steenkamp, 29, by firing four shots through the locked door of a toilet cubicle, saying he believed an intruder was hiding behind it. \n \n Judge Thokozile Masipa said during sentencing the state had failed to convince her of Pistorius' intent to kill when he fired. ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption Pistorius' early release on Friday has been put on hold \n \n South Africa's justice minister has blocked the early release of athlete Oscar Pistorius from prison on Friday. \n \n He said the decision by the parole board to free the athlete after serving 10 months of his five-year sentence was premature and without legal basis. \n \n It could now take months for the board to review its decision, legal sources told the BBC. \n \n Pistorius was convicted of manslaughter last year after shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. \n \n The Olympic athlete insists he mistook her for an intruder. \n \n He was due to be transferred from prison to house arrest on Friday, when he was expected to stay at his uncle's three-storey mansion in the capital, Pretoria. \n \n Under South African law, Pistorius is eligible for release under \"correctional supervision\", having served a sixth of his sentence. \n \n One of his relatives, who did not want to be named, told Reuters news agency they were \"shocked and disappointed\" at the news. \n \n Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Pistorius' girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was a lawyer, model and TV star \n \n In a statement, South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha said the decision to free the athlete was taken prematurely. \n \n \"One sixth of a five year sentence is 10 months and at the time the decision was made Mr Pistorius had served only over six months of his sentence,\" the statement said. \n \n Thursday would have been Ms Steenkamp's 32nd birthday. \n \n Her parents held a small ceremony for her close friends and supporters in her hometown of Port Elizabeth, throwing roses into the sea in her memory. \n \n Analysis: Milton Nkosi; BBC News; Johannesburg: \n \n The decision by Mr Masutha to put Oscar Pistorius' early release on hold has come as a complete shock, not just to the Pistorius family but to many people who follow legal issues here. \n \n According to the prison department, the double amputee was going to be released on Friday because this is South African law - all offenders convicted under the same law as Pistorius can be considered for correctional supervision once they have served at least one-sixth of their sentence. \n \n In other words it was not the prison's independent view to release the Paralympian but part of South African legal procedure. \n \n Many believe that this will merely cause a slight delay to his early release. \n \n But the intervention by Mr Masutha, who is a lawyer, could have implications for many other cases which are less prominent. \n \n The decision was taken after a petition to the minister by the Progressive Women's Movement of South Africa, which includes the African National Congress Women's League, part of the governing party. It had described the athlete's early release as \"outrageous\" and \"an insult\" to victims of abuse. \n \n It seems as though his last-minute intervention was the result of this political pressure. \n \n Oscar Pistorius - in 60 seconds \n \n The making and unmaking of Oscar Pistorius \n \n This week, prosecutors filed court papers calling for the athlete's conviction to be converted to murder, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years. His defence team has a month to file its response. \n \n During sentencing, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the state had failed to prove Pistorius' intent to kill when he fired. \n \n Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tania Koen, a lawyer for Ms Steenkamp's parents Barry and June: \"Ten months is not enough\" \n \n The double amputee shot and killed Ms Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door at his Pretoria home, believing she was an intruder, he told his trial. \n \n Pistorius was born without the fibulas in both of his legs, and had surgery to amputate both below the knee while still a baby. \n \n He went on to become one of South Africa's best-known sports stars, and was the first amputee sprinter to compete against able-bodied athletes, at the 2012 London Olympics. ||||| South Africa commemorates Women\u2019s Month in August as a tribute to the more than 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956 in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women. The Government of South Africa declared August women\u2019s month and 9 August is celebrated annually as Women\u2019s Day. \n \n Women's Day 2015 \n \n Women\u2019s Day (9 August) was hosted in Sasolburg, Free State. The theme for 2015 is Women United in Moving South Africa Forward. \n \n Watch the video of President Jacob Zuma's address at the event: \n \n Women's Month 2015 \n \n The 2015 Women\u2019s Month is a build-up towards the 60th Anniversary of the Women\u2019s march and is aimed at: \n \n educating the nation about the role women played in the emancipation of the continent \n \n documenting the correct stories of heroines of South Africa \n \n celebrating women who have made it in all spheres of life in the continent \n \n honouring and celebrating the girls of 1976 and recognise the role played by young women in the liberation struggle \n \n uniting South African women \n \n celebrating the struggles of the women over the decades and a rejuvenation of our commitment to strive for a society that is truly non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic and free of all forms of discrimination \n \n remembering the history of Women's struggle in South Africa and to continue writing our history as it has to evolved. \n \n Every week of August 2015will focus on a specific sub-theme: \n \n Week 1: Celebrating Women in Fashion \n \n The week will be dedicated to celebrating profiling women in the fashion industry who contribute to job creation. \n \n Various media platforms will be utilised where we will have a collage of these women and their contribution in dressing the nation. The SABC will partner with the Department of Women in this programme. \n \n Week 2: Celebrating Women in Film \n \n The department in partnership with the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) will have two screenings produced or directed by women or telling stories of women. The screenings will target young people and will take place as follows: \n \n 10 August 2015: Jabulani \n \n 14 August 2016: Kwamashu \n \n The screenings will be extended to other provinces as we move towards the 60th Anniversary. \n \n Week 3: The fight against human trafficking and labour exploitation of women \n \n The week will focus on the fight against trafficking of women and children as well as the exploitation of women from our neighbouring countries with specific focus on Lesotho women. South Africa will partner with Lesotho government and the following activities are planned for the week: \n \n 21 August 2015: Symposium focusing on labour exploitation and related issues. \n \n 22 August 2015: A symbolic march at the Maseru border gate where both South African and Lesotho women will give their memorandum of demands to authorities representing their countries. The march will call for an end to human trafficking and request more stringent measure of combating trafficking of women and children. \n \n 22 August 2015: The march will culminate into a rally on a farm where the leadership of both countries will have an opportunity to address women. The rally will be held at Mooderpoort farm, the home of Mantsopa. \n \n Week 4: Economic Empowerment (Financial Inclusion of women) \n \n In line with the African Union themes of the African Women\u2019s Decade and the new mandate of the Department of Women\u2019s socio-economic empowerment, the department will host high level engagements on the mechanisms and modalities for women\u2019s financial inclusion in the economy and all sectors of the country. \n \n 4-5 September 2015: Trade Fair and Exhibition of Women in South Africa and Zimbabwe to be held in Musina, Limpopo. Women from both countries will showcase and sell their products from clothes to crafts. \n \n 9 September 2015: Techno-girl roundtable \u2013 The department will host The New Age business breakfast focusing on the empowerment of young women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The business breakfast will culminate into a high level panel discussion on how to strengthen the current Techno-Girl job-shadowing programme \n \n Advances made since 1994 \n \n Great strides have been made since 1994 to improve the status of women. \n \n Prior to 1994, the South African Parliament had a mere 2,7% representation of women, and following the first democratic elections, women representation in the National Assembly stood at 27,7%. In 1999 that figure increased to 30% and then to 32.7% in 2004. After the 2009 national elections women representation reached 42%. Currently women ministers comprise 41% of the Cabinet, women deputy ministers make up 47% of the total number of deputy ministers and there is a 41% representation of women in the National Assembly. The Women in Politics 2015 Map launched by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women shows how South Africa fares in relation to the rest of the world. \n \n Furthermore, government policies and programmes have improved the living conditions of women. In 1997 the Office on the Status of Women (OSW) was established in the Presidency to steer the national gender programme and championed the development of the National Policy Framework for Women Empowerment and Gender Equality that was approved by Cabinet in 2000. Subsequently, similar structures were established in the Premier\u2019s offices. In May 2009 the President pronounced on the establishment a Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities (DWCPD). In May 2014 the President evolved the structure to a dedicated Ministry for Women in the Presidency as a way of elevating women\u2019s issues and interests to lead, coordinate and oversee the transformation agenda on women\u2019s socio-economic empowerment, rights and equality through mainstreaming, monitoring and evaluation. \n \n Since the advent of democracy and freedom South Africa has seen a number of women taking up leadership positions in areas previously dominated by men. One of the success stories of our democracy is that of the representation of women in political and decision-making positions. Involving women in governance processes constitutes one of South Africa\u2019s globally acclaimed success stories. \n \n The election of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in July 2012 as the first women in Africa to chair the African Union Commission; the appointment of Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former Deputy President of the country, as the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women; and the positioning of other South African women such as Ms Geraldine Frazer-Moleketi, Special Gender Envoy to the African Development Bank; Ms Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on Violence against women, its causes and consequences; and Judge Navi Pillay as the High Commissioner for Human Rights and formerly as a judge in the International Criminal Court (ICC) is an indication of the impact that women in decision-making have in winning the trust and confidence of citizens in South Africa, on the continent and internationally. \n \n Currently, women are heading portfolios such as the Commissioner of Police; the Public Protector; CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange; the Independent Electoral Commission; Governor of the Reserve Bank, the South African Law Reform Commission, and the first female Deputy Auditor-General, among others. \n \n Prior to 1994, South Africa had only one woman Judge, whilst today women judges make up almost 28% of the Judiciary. Women are making inroads into business leadership and heading up global giants in the country such as the head of the ABSA bank. Women own conglomerates in the country with some business women being millionaires. Women also can be found as chairpersons of corporate boards in the country, while others are entering and leading in previously male dominated territories, for example, the head of the Palaeontology Department in the University of Cape Town is a woman, and the South African Airways (SAA) now has women pilots, some flying international bound flights. Women are in the defence force, navy and air force in South Africa. In fact women make up almost 40% of the Senior Management Service in the public service and overall women comprise more than 50% of employees in the Public Service. \n \n Women have even entered previously male dominated areas in the corporate world, and currently constitute 3.6% of CEO positions, 5.5% of chairperson positions, 17.1% of directorships and 21.4% of executive management positions. \n \n Origin of Women's Month and Day \n \n The historic march in 1956 was a turning point in the role of women in the struggle for freedom and society at large. Since that eventful day, women from all walks of life became equal partners in the struggle for a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. \n \n The march was coordinated by the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw) led by four women: Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams De Bruyn. These leaders delivered petitions to the then Prime Minister JG Strijdom\u2019s office in the Union Buildings. Women throughout the country had put their names to these petitions indicating their anger and frustration at having their freedom of movement restricted by the hated official passes. \n \n Women\u2019s month is a tribute not only to the thousands of women who marched on that day in 1956, but also a tribute to the pioneers of the women\u2019s movement in this country, dating back to 1913, when women like Charlotte Maxeke led the way in establishing the ANC Women\u2019s League and encouraging women to engage in the struggle for freedom. Pioneers include Cissy, Jaynab and Amina Gool who were amongst the leaders of the National Liberation League and the Non-European United Front of the 1930s. The names of Ray Alexander Simons, Elizabeth Mafekeng and Elizabeth Abrahams will always be associated with the struggles of women. \n \n In the 1940s Amina Pahad and Gadijah Christopher, who were amongst the first volunteers to occupy the site of the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign on Umbilo Road in Durban cannot go unnoticed. Women\u2019s month also service to recall and recognise the work of Dora Tamana, Winifred Siqwana, Ida Mntwana, Bertha Gxowa, Florence Matomela and other stalwarts of the 1950s, who led militant women\u2019s formation for the rights of workers and the rights of women. \n \n There were also the women who formed the Black Sashand who were the first to protest against the disenfranchisement of the Coloured voters during the 1950s. The Coloured voters played an important role in the united front of anti-apartheid forces that developed in the last three decades of apartheid. \n \n Government has made significant progress in empowering women in the political, public and educational spheres, but the marginalisation of poor women severely compromises progress. \n \n Speeches, statements and advisories on Women's Month \n \n Women's Month events \n \n Other events ||||| Play Facebook \n \n Twitter \n \n Embed Reeva Steenkamp\u2019s mother: Oscar Pistorius\u2019 delayed release \u2018a shock\u2019 3:28 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog \n \n PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa \u2013 The mother of Reeva Steenkamp, the model fatally shot by Oscar Pistorius, says she is still seeking \u201cjustice\u201d over the killing even as the Olympian's release from prison was delayed at the last moment. \n \n June Steenkamp spoke of her ongoing \u201csadness\u201d at losing her daughter just two days before he had been due to switch to house arrest as part of his five-year sentence for manslaughter. \n \n \"As the story unwinds I want people to remember that somebody actually died\" \n \n Pistorius was expected to be released Friday after serving 10 months in prison. However, South Africa's Department of Justice said Wednesday that the parole board\u2019s earlier decision to free him was made \"prematurely\" and without legal basis. \n \n In South Africa, prisoners must serve one-sixth of their sentence, or 10 months in this case, to be considered for release. The parole board\u2019s decision was taken after only six months. \n \n The government's intervention came on what would have been Reeva Steenkamp\u2019s 32nd birthday. \n \n \"It was a shock,'' Steenkamp told TODAY's Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview early Thursday. \"I'm very, very pleased about this. It's an important thing for other people, other women.\" \n \n \"I'm not worried about if it's a short delay,'' she said. \"It's been set now, the precedent for him to wait now until the time is right.\" \n \n Reeva Steenkamp. Mike Holmes / Gallo via Getty Images, file \n \n Hours before the government's intervention, Steenkamp and her family visited the beach in the Summerstrand suburb of Port Elizabeth, where Reeva's ashes were scattered. \n \n \u201cAs the story unwinds I want people to remember that somebody actually died,\u201d she told NBC News on the beach. \u201cThat she died, she lost her life. This isn\u2019t just about [Pistorius]. We have to learn to live without her and it\u2019s very difficult. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever going to be possible. She was too much \u2026 belonging to us, with us, loving us and we loved here \u2014 it\u2019s just \u2026it\u2019s a bond that can never be broken.\u201d \n \n She added: \u201cToday we come to wish her happy birthday and just remember and celebrate who she was and how wonderful she was. \n \n \u201cTo think that she could have done such wonderful things but her life was taken away. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing now, celebrating her life even though it was short it was amazing.\u201d \n \n On what would have been Reeva's 32nd birthday, the Steenkamp family threw flowers into the water where her ashes were scattered. Chapman Bell / NBC News \n \n June Steenkamp said she still felt \u201csadness,\u201d adding: \u201cA bit part of our life has been taken away. It\u2019s very sad.\u201d \n \n Asked about a possible appeal in the case, she said: \u201cIt\u2019s not over yet, the appeal is coming and we have to leave it to the justice system now.\u201d \n \n She said she just wanted \u201cjustice\u201d in the case. \u201cThat\u2019s all I want. Justice.\u201d \n \n Pistorius\u2019 former lawyer, Wergele McKenzie, said the athlete was still young enough to redeem himself in the eyes of society. \n \n \u201cWe're torn in two because on the one hand there's a family that suffered great loss and we want to support them and we have empathy with them,\u201d he told ITV News. \u201cBut on the other hand we would still like to believe, he's still a young man, there's still hope for him, he can be rehabilitated and he still has something to give to society.\u201d ||||| Advertisement Continue reading the main story \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n South Africa\u2019s justice minister on Wednesday intervened to delay the early release of Oscar Pistorius, the imprisoned Olympic athlete convicted of killing his girlfriend \u2014 48 hours before he was scheduled to begin serving the rest of his five-year term under house arrest. \n \n The decision by the justice minister, Michael Masutha, was a surprise. It contradicted an announcement in June by the corrections department\u2019s parole authorities that Mr. Pistorius would be transferred from prison to house arrest on Friday. \n \n Mr. Pistorius, 28, will have served one-sixth of his sentence by then, which under South African law makes him eligible for early release. Yet Mr. Masutha said the decision to release him should not have been made before he had served the one-sixth minimum. \n \n In an interview on South Africa\u2019s 702 radio station, Mr. Masutha said the parole authorities might have \u201cmisinterpreted the law and been in haste in taking a decision prematurely.\" \n \n It was not immediately clear whether lawyers for Mr. Pistorius would take legal action in an attempt to invalidate Mr. Masutha\u2019s delay order. \n \n It also was unclear why Mr. Masutha waited until Wednesday to issue the order, since he presumably had known about the parole announcement for a few months. But he suggested in the radio interview that anger by women\u2019s groups may have brought the issue to his direct attention. The Progressive Women\u2019s Movement of South Africa had petitioned the minister to protest Mr. Pistorius\u2019s release, especially during the country\u2019s Women\u2019s Month. \n \n Mr. Pistorius, a double-amputee athlete known as the Blade Runner because of his prosthetic legs, shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, a model and aspiring lawyer, in February 2013, and was prosecuted in a globally televised trial. \n \n He was convicted of culpable homicide, the South African equivalent of manslaughter, after his lawyers successfully argued that he mistook Ms. Steenkamp for a burglar hiding in the locked bathroom of his Pretoria home. \n \n Earlier this week, prosecutors filed an appeal of the culpable homicide verdict, arguing that Mr. Pistorius murdered Ms. Steenkamp \u2014 who would have turned 32 on Wednesday \u2014 after an argument. \n \n That appeal is to be heard in November. A murder conviction could incarcerate Mr. Pistorius for at least 15 years.", "summary": "\u2013 Looks like Oscar Pistorius may have a slight delay before he gets to chillax in mansion prison. The Paralympian's early release tomorrow has been blocked by Michael Masutha, South Africa's justice minister, who says that while the country's law dictates releasing inmates after they've served one-sixth of their sentence\u2014in Pistorius' case, 10 months into his five-year sentence, which would be tomorrow\u2014he thinks the release isn't legal because the decision to release the athlete was made only six months into his prison stay, the BBC reports. His decision yesterday came on what would have been Reeva Steenkamp's 32nd birthday, notes NBC News. \"As the story unwinds I want people to remember that somebody actually died,\" her mom, June Steenkamp, says. \"That she died, she lost her life.\" Per the New York Times, Masutha said during a Talk Radio 702 interview that perhaps parole officials \"misinterpreted the law and been in haste in taking a decision prematurely.\" One reason Masutha may have waited until the 11th hour to bring this up, the Times notes: pressure during South Africa's Women's Month from women's rights groups. Legal sources tell the BBC this could delay Pistorius' release for months. Meanwhile, one of his family members tells Reuters, \"We are shocked and disappointed that Oscar won't be home this Friday.\""}
{"document": "It could have all been so simple. Shortly before his death, the son of art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt willed his massive art collection - which is still is police custody - to a Swiss museum. The hundreds of paintings and drawings, which include Nazi-looted art that once belonged to Jewish collectors, would be relocated to a legally neutral country. \n \n In Gurlitt's trove, the so-called \"degenerate art\" - works by Jewish artists deemed culturally unacceptable by the Nazis - would be permanently loaned to German museums. In addition, the German task force, under the direction of attorney Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, would be permitted to continue its provenience research, in order to determine which items from the Gurlitt collection had been looted during the Nazi period and should be returned to their Jewish heirs. \n \n When the more than 1,500 works, worth millions of euros, were uncovered in Gurlitt's Munich residence and his Salzburg house in fall of 2013, questions arose that poked deep into Germany's shameful past and renewed the debate of how Nazi-looted art and artifacts should be legally dealt with three-quarters of a century later. \n \n The Gurlitt case, however, seemed to be neatly resolved and shelved - until German newspaper \"S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung\" reported Monday that Cornelius Gurlitt's will may not be legally binding. \n \n Diagnosis: paranoia \n \n Cornelius Gurlitt died in May at the age of 81 \n \n According to the \"S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung,\" a psychiatric examination indicates that Gurlitt was not mentally stable enough to complete a valid will. Helmut Hausner, lawyer and head physician at the Center for Psychiatry in Cham, in Bavaria, compiled the 48 page report. Cornelius Gurlitt allegedly suffered from \"paranoia,\" which voids his \"freedom to decide\" while composing his will. \n \n Gurlitt is said to have felt that he's been hunted by Nazis since the 1960s, believing that they wanted to steal the paintings he'd inherited from his father. According to the \"S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung,\" Hausner based his findings on documents and letters from Gurlitt's estate. \n \n Will not to be contested \n \n The psychiatric examination was commissioned by two of Gurlitt's legal heirs. Cousins Dietrich Gurlitt and Uta Werner were not mentioned in the will, though they've said they don't plan to contest the document. \n \n The Museum of Fine Arts Bern also has no plans to obtain a certificate of inheritance, according to the news report. \"Without an application for a certificate of inheritance, there is no reason in the case of a notarized will for the court to review the competency of the deceased to write a will,\" wrote the \"S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung.\" \n \n The Bern museum plans to announce on November 26 whether it will accept the inheritance of Cornelius Gurlitt, who passed away on May 6. Should the museum take the collection, the psychiatric report may be quickly forgotten. ||||| BERN, Switzerland\u2014A small art museum in the Swiss capital is preparing to take possession of more than 1,000 artworks bequeathed to it by the son of one of Hitler\u2019s main art dealers, unshackling Germany from an embarrassing burden that has weighed on it for a year. \n \n Barring any last-minute legal objections, the Kunstmuseum Bern is expected to decide as early as Saturday to accept the estate of the late Cornelius Gurlitt, according to three people familiar with the museum board\u2019s discussions. \n \n ...", "summary": "\u2013 A small Swiss museum is ready to take on a huge collection of art looted by the Nazis\u2014and the mammoth task of finding the rightful owners of the paintings. Insiders tell the Wall Street Journal that the Kunstmuseum Bern is preparing to accept the $1.3 billion collection of Cornelius Gurlitt, who died in May\u2014not long after his hoard was discovered at his Munich home\u2014and unexpectedly made the museum his sole heir. If the museum does accept the collection, heirs of Holocaust victims could receive restitution in a matter of days. Gurlitt, the son of Hitler's art dealer, made a deal with German authorities to return art known to have been looted to present-day heirs. Sources say Gurlitt decided to leave the collection, much of which had been deemed \"degenerate\" by the Nazis, to the Swiss because he was unhappy about how he was treated by German authorities. But the German government, which has been under pressure to return stolen artwork, will be glad to see the scandal end, the Journal notes. One potential hiccup could be a psychiatric report that found Gurlitt was in no fit state to make a will\u2014he was paranoid and believed Nazis had been hunting him since the 1960s to recover the art, according to reports in the German press\u2014but it's not likely to be an issue unless the museum decides against taking the collection, causing the art to be distributed among Gurlitt's distant relatives, Deutsche Welle reports."}
{"document": "Earlier this week, Placed CEO David Shim notified me that the company\u2019s \u201cInsights\u201d product would be launching today. As we wrote back in October, this is a key piece of the \u201cbig data meets local\u201d trend to provide analytics around physical world locations. \n \n In that respect, the best way to think about Placed Insights is comScore for the offline world. Much like comscore, Placed gets its data from an opt-in panel of mobile users. It has accelerated that effort by paying app developers to integrate opt-in location tracking to their apps. \n \n After collecting all this data for a few years, the result has been 13 billion locations measured from about 70, 000 panelists. As we\u2019ve discussed, this can be valuable for retailers, brands, advertisers or app developers to measure user behavior and build strategy accordingly. \n \n From our previous writeup: \n \n Users of a given app can be measured to see that in the aggregate, 8% are likely to be near a McDonalds or 12% are likely to be near a Starbucks. This has marketing implications for these chains, as well as their competitors or complimentary products. According to Shim, Placed offers this data for free, and will begin to monetize after an ecosystem is formed around its use. There are also many upsell possibilities such triangulating different data sets to discern deeper levels of understanding of user behavior. \n \n To illustrate what Insights is capable of, today\u2019s launch comes with a few data nuggets. Check them out below, and more to come as we follow Placed and the overall developing \u201clocation analytics\u201d space. It will come into play in location based mobile ad targeting among other things. \n \n \n \n \n \n No Comment \n \n ||||| The seed for Wide00014 was: \n \n - Slash pages from every domain on the web: \n \n \n \n \n \n -- a ranking of all URLs that have more than one incoming inter-domain link (rank was determined by number of incoming links using Wide00012 inter domain links) \n \n \n \n -- up to a maximum of 100 most highly ranked URLs per domain \n \n - Top ranked pages (up to a max of 100) from every linked-to domain using the Wide00012 inter-domain navigational link graph", "summary": "\u2013 Just how popular are the golden arches? So popular that nearly half of US consumers visited them last month, according to a new study spotted by the Consumerist. The study, from the new Placed Insights service, sought to determine which businesses Americans visit most. Fast food dominates the list, but McDonald's is in a class of its own, with 49% visiting in March. Here's the top 10: McDonald's (49%) Walmart (38.8%) Subway (37.8%) Burger King (24.3%) Starbucks (23.9%) Wendy's (22.8%) Walgreens (22.7%) CVS (18.9%) Taco Bell (18.2%) Target (14.2%) There were some other surprises further down the list as well, like GameStop coming in at No. 12 with 12.8%, or RadioShack (No. 14, 12.1%) trouncing Best Buy (No. 35). And check out Dollar Tree; the unassuming discount store is No. 18, with just more than one in 10 Americans visiting last month. The data comes from Placed's mobile users on an opt-in basis, explains the Kelsey Group, which describes it as \"comScore for the offline world.\" The data came from 70,000 volunteers."}
{"document": "The purpose of this article is to subject the structural components of an apology\u2014that of providing an account and an apology as well as understanding how that apology is structured\u2014to rigorous empirical examination from the social psychological, deductive perspective. The paper's intent is to explore and better understand if and when certain types of apologies may be more compelling than others. We begin with a brief review of the literature on the effectiveness of apologies at addressing injustice and repairing trust within this literature, and specify six critical components of an effective apology identified by Lewicki and Polin ( 2012 ). We then present the findings from two empirical studies which tested the relative effectiveness of these different apology components. While our work is informed by those who have studied apologies from the rhetorical communication perspective, we adopt the second perspective identified above, drawing from the deductive, hypothesis testing social psychological and organizational behavior literature on the strategies and tactics of accounts and apologies as they are used to repair trust and justice violations. \n \n A closer examination of these two literatures\u2014rhetorical communication and social psychology\u2013organizational behavior\u2014indicates that each fundamentally attempts to address a similar question: what constitutes an optimally \u201ceffective\u201d apology or account for a violation that damages someone's image, remedies an injustice, or attempts to repair broken trust? The answers to this question are critical to the development of our understanding of trust repair, but we need to consider that each literature works toward the answers in a different manner. For example, the two literatures differ in the way that they are conceptually derived, and each tends to use a different methodological approach (e.g., Benoit's approach to data is ethnographic, while the second approach is hypothesis testing and empirical deductive). But despite the fact that each literature does not regularly reference the other, the two do exert influence on one another and other related research streams. An example of this influence on other streams lies in research on the interface of apologies and facework\u2014the idea that those involved in a trust violation situation have differing needs when it comes to face needs, with cultural differences being particularly relevant (Guan, Park, & Lee, 2009 ; Kim, Guan, & Park, 2012 ; Park & Guan, 2006 ). For instance, Park & Guan ( 2006 ) documented that, relative to U.S. respondents, Chinese respondents have been shown to be more prone to initiate an apology depending on the broader situational context (i.e., whether their act potentially violated a target's positive face). While these literatures and research streams each contribute differently toward our understanding of the effectiveness and need of apologies, what remains lacking is a clear answer to the question, \u201cwhat are the core components of an effective apology, and are certain components more critical than others?\u201d \n \n The second literature that has addressed the question of apologies has been derived from the related fields of social psychology and organizational behavior. Approaches within these disciplines have relied on psychologically based theories and frameworks for repairing damage to an interpersonal or interorganizational relationship, particularly addressing problems of unjust treatment and violations of trust, and employing deductive hypothesis testing and empirical data drawn from laboratory and scenario studies. A violator may take a variety of approaches to address a fairness or trust violation, but the most common is to take ownership of the violation through some kind of a verbal account; for example, an actor may make an acknowledgment that they are aware that a violation occurred, offer an explanation or \u201caccount\u201d of what the violation was and why it occurred, and/or address the consequences (Bies & Shapiro, 1987 ; Scott & Lyman, 1968 ). An assortment of other typologies of accounts have been offered in the literature, including ones by Scher and Darley ( 1997 ), Shapiro ( 1991 ), and Shaw, Wild, and Colquitt ( 2003 ). \n \n Relevant to the focus of this article, there are several research literatures that have addressed the question of what constitutes a \u201cgood\u201d apology. The first literature draws from the discipline of rhetorical communication, primarily from the work of Benoit's \u201cimage repair theory\u201d. Benoit's ( 1995 ) earlier work proposed a model of image repair discourse and then applied the framework to four major case studies of corporations (and a U.S. President) attempting to repair their image. More recently, Benoit ( 2015 ) provides a modification of the framework and references additional case studies that were performed in the intervening two decades. In this work, Benoit identifies five major verbal \u201caccounting\u201d strategies that can be used for image repair: denial of the action, evasion of responsibility for the action, reducing the perceived offensiveness of the specific act, proposing corrective action for the future, and \u201cmortification\u201d, which includes some expression of regret for the offending action. \n \n Conflict management and negotiation processes occur when parties must manage and coordinate their interdependence with each other while attempting to satisfy their individual interests (Deutsch, 1962 ; Kelley, 1966 ). These conflict management and negotiation processes must address problems of miscoordination; violations of expectations; erroneous, incomplete, and deceptive communication; breaches of promises and commitments; and actions designed to inhibit the other's ability to meet their needs. Given that it is commonly acknowledged that trust is the \u201cglue\u201d that binds strategic relationships together, apologies have been viewed as a key verbal tool to address the source and nature of these problems, and restore more productive communication and coordination processes. But with the ubiquity of apologies, the effectiveness of what constitutes a \u201cgood\u201d apology must be considered. Through paying close attention to what is exactly said in an apology, one may gain insights into when apologies may be particularly efficacious and hence how to optimally construct an effective one. \n \n Almost every day, the media covers a high\u2010profile apology. These apologies come from many sources: a business leader apologizes for failures to meet economic forecasts or to follow through on promises made in negotiation talks; a political leader apologizes for a deficiency in the design or implementation of effective social policy; a church leader apologies for unethical conduct by some of its ministers; or a professional athlete apologizes for unacceptable behavior, both on and off the field. Violations of trust and confidence occur regularly in conflict and negotiation, and apologies (and other forms of social accounts) are common as attempts to restore trust in these relationships. Thus, apologies are clearly central to the disciplines of negotiation and conflict management. \n \n If we are to have a broader understanding of the potential efficacy of an apology, it is important to not only examine the relative efficacy of the components themselves, but to also examine whether their efficacy holds, or is highly sensitive to variations, across situations. For instance, recent studies have demonstrated that the efficacy of apologies can be shaped by a variety of factors including the degree of offender responsibility (Bennett & Earwaker, 1994 ), prior relationship between the victim and the violator (Tomlinson et al., 2004 ), the timing of the repair communication (Frantz & Bennigson, 2005 ), the existence of prior deception (Schweitzer, Hershy, & Bradlow, 2006 ), and the national context (Han & Cai, 2010 ). To this end, whereas our main question in the current article is to examine the relative efficacy of individual components and how their combinations matter, we also sought to examine how their efficacy would hold across two key contexts which have been shown to have a strong impact on apology efficacy: competence\u2010based and integrity\u2010based trust violations. Whereas apologies have been documented to help repair trust in cases of a competence\u2010based trust violation, influential studies have called into question whether apologies will provide any value\u2014and that they may even be harmful\u2014in contexts of an integrity\u2010based trust violation (Kim, Cooper, Dirks, & Ferrin, 2013 ; Kim, Dirks, Cooper, & Ferrin, 2006 ; Kim, Ferrin, Cooper, & Dirks, 2004 ). In order to gain broader insights into how and whether certain apology components matter more than others, and whether more components are better than fewer components, we conducted two experiments which examined the perceived quality of apologies across both competence\u2010 and integrity\u2010based trust violations. \n \n In addition to the two components listed above, other components have been argued to provide value to an apology (Lewicki & Polin, 2012 ; Scher & Darley, 1997 ). First, and given the importance of including an \u201caccount\u201d, the explanation for why the violation occurred will help improve the perceived quality of an apology. After all, victims may respond differently to trust violations depending on the reasoning behind the behavior, and the explanation offers an opportunity to express this reasoning. Second, the declaration of repentance signals that the speaker will take steps to ensure that the violation is not repeated. Third, the offer of repair acts as a signal that the violator is willing to take, and aware of the need for, actions aimed at remedying the situation and making an effort toward repairing the relationship. Lastly, Lewicki and Polin ( 2012 ) propose that it may be useful to also include a request for forgiveness , as doing so creates a verbal component which most directly engages the victim in the interpersonal communication process. In other words, requesting someone's forgiveness can transform the apology from a unilateral set of statements made by the violator to a bilateral communication process, asking for the victim's participation in the trust repair process (Chapman & Thomas, 2006 ). Research on the offering of apologies suggests that a violator is more likely to offer an apology if they believe the victim will, indeed, join in the trust repair process and offer forgiveness (Leunissen et al., 2012 ). \n \n At its essence, an apology serves two general functions: first, the mere offering of an apology shows that the apologizer understands there is a \u201csocial requirement\u201d to an apology when any sort of harm is done; second, the apology should be accompanied by an emotional expression that provides additional meaning about the apologizer's intentions (Scher & Darley, 1997 ). The acknowledgment of responsibility for committing the offending act demonstrates the apologizer's awareness of this social norm of recognizing harm and caring to rectify it. Of all apology \u201ccomponent\u201d research, the most appears to exist regarding the acknowledgement of responsibility. Coombs and Holladay ( 2008 ) go as far as saying it is the \u201ccenterpiece of an apology\u201d (p. 253). Research suggests that, indeed, victims perceive more positive evaluations of the violators when the violators show greater responsibility\u2010taking (Hodgins & Liebeskind, 2003 ). Pace, Fediuk, and Botero ( 2010 ) find that taking responsibility of one's actions can lead to less stakeholder anger toward and less reputation damage for an organization. Speaking to the second general function of the apology, an expression of regret for the offense is necessary because it demonstrates some negative feeling that have consequently been experienced by the violator because of their actions. Pace et al. ( 2010 ) also find that expressing regret over one's actions can lead to less stakeholder anger toward and less reputation damage for an organization. \n \n These three examples demonstrate that some authors are attempting to increase the understanding of the content that is, and should be, included in apologies. But outside of these articles, most research on apologies does not utilize consistent apology content. The sheer number of components to include in apologies and the clear lack of agreement of what constitutes an apology is problematic. How can findings from these studies be compared and validity ensured when an \u201capology\u201d used in one study contains different numbers and types of components than an \u201capology\u201d used in another study? For example, Schlenker and Darby ( 1981 ) examine five components in their research of reactions in undesirable events (i.e., statement of apologetic intent, expression of remorse\u2013sorrow\u2013embarrassment, offer of help to the injured party or restitution to redress damage, self\u2010castigation, attempts to obtain forgiveness); De Cremer ( 2010 ) uses two components in his trust repair research (i.e., taking responsibility and expressing remorse); Lee and Chung ( 2012 ) use only one component in their study (i.e., responsibility admittance); and multiple studies simply use the phrase \u201cI want to apologize\u201d as their studied apology (Haesevoets et al., 2013 ; Leunissen, De Cremer, & Reinders Folmer, 2012 ). The content included in an apology matters and affects the apology's efficacy, and an apology lacking the appropriate components \u201ccould be perceived as superficial and insincere to the eyes of the public\u201d (Lee & Chung, 2012 , p. 932). To better understand this trust repair strategy, we argue that consistency is needed. \n \n As a final example, Lewicki and Polin ( 2012 ) reviewed the empirical literature on apologies and analyzed a series of high\u2010profile apologies from celebrities and corporate leaders. They argue that a maximally effective apology should consist of six components including the following: (1) an expression of regret, (2) an explanation for why the offense occurred, (3) an acknowledgement of responsibility, (4) a declaration of repentance, (5) an offer of repair, and (6) a request for forgiveness. Through their analysis of apologies, the authors found that an expression of regret and an explanation for why the violation occurred were commonly included in apologies, whereas a clear, direct declaration of repentance and the request for forgiveness were lacking in apologies. The acknowledgement of responsibility was usually included, but the quality of the component was questionable in many instances. And the inclusion of an offer of repair was dependent upon the type of transgression and whether repair of damage was possible. Despite useful insights garnered from Lewicki and Polin's evaluation of public apologies, a systematic evaluation of how each of these components and their combination impact the efficacy of an apology has not been fully explored. \n \n As another example, Scher and Darley ( 1997 ), through their discourse analysis, relied on the Cross\u2010Cultural Speech Acts Realization Project (CCSARP), an initiative which had performed an extensive analysis of the efficiency of various requests and apologies across cultures. Drawing from work by Blum\u2010Kulka and Olshtain ( 1984 ), Scher and Darley highlighted five components of the \u201capology speech act set:\u201d (1) an illocutionary force indicating device, (2) an explanation of the cause of the violation, (3) an expression of responsibility for the offense, (4) an offer of repair, and (5) a promise of forbearance (p. 128). To study the use of components, the authors presented participants with a scenario about a person who promised to call a friend with some information that was critical to the friend's upcoming job interview. The person then forgot to make the call and several days later, called, and offered an apology. Each participant judged multiple scenarios where no apology, a 1\u2010component apology, a 2\u2010component apology, a 3\u2010component apology, or a 4\u2010component apology was provided. 2 Their examination of the use of these components in offering an apology demonstrates that the use of apologies does affect others\u2019 judgments of the transgressor. More specifically, \u201cthe addition of each strategy seems to have had an additive effect on judgments of how appropriate the utterance of the transgressor was and how much the transgressor was blamed and sanctioned for the transgression\u201d (p. 137). That is, a linear trend was found, such that more components were perceived as better than fewer components. The single act of making an apology (compared to not making an apology) contributed the clearest and strongest effect on perceptions of the violator. Although their study is not without limitations, it does provide some support for the argument that the quality of an apology may be affected by the presence and number of certain key apology components. \n \n The composition of an apology matters. The structure of these narratives\u2014in other words, the consideration of both format and content\u2014affects perceptions of the transgressor (van Laer & de Ruyter, 2010 ). A number of researchers have provided suggestions of what should be verbally included in an apology. For example, Schlenker and Darby ( 1981 ) highlight five components, including (1) a statement of apologetic intent, (2) expressions of remorse\u2013sorrow\u2013embarrassment, (3) offers to help the injured party or make restitution, (4) self\u2010castigation, and (5) direct attempts to obtain forgiveness (p. 272). These authors explain that not all components will be used in all apologies; according to them, the consequences of the transgression play a role in the number of components included in the apology such that minimal consequences usually elicited a \u201cperfunctory form of an apology\u201d (p. 275), and increased severity of the predicament brought about by an increased number of apology components. In their later work, these authors state that in a \u201cmore complete\u201d apology, \u201can actor recognizes the existence of interpersonal obligations, acknowledges and reaffirms the values of the rules that have been broken, promises more acceptable conduct in the future, [and] may seem to suffer remorse\u201d (Darby & Schlenker, 1989 , p. 354). \n \n An important and yet poorly understood question that remains, however, is whether the effectiveness of an apology will depend on the structure of the apology itself. Some apologies may be simple\u2014no more than a straightforward \u201cI'm sorry\u201d\u2014while others are rich and extensive in detail. For example, Lewicki and Polin ( 2012 ) offered examples of public apology statements made by several well\u2010known personalities and organizations who had violated public trust: professional golfer Tiger Woods; stockbroker and investment advisor Bernard Madoff; global oil and gas energy corporate giant British Petroleum; and the management of JetBlue Airlines. The authors noted that these apologies\u2014as well as numerous other public apologies from corporate, government, religious, sports, and entertainment personalities\u2014were quite different from one another in structure and composition, and that these differences may account for the perceived effectiveness of the statements and their impact on beginning to restore trust in the actor. Therefore, it is appropriate to understand whether some apologies are better than others, that is, that certain components of an apology are more likely to be perceived as central to an apology's effectiveness. \n \n There is an extensive literature on apologies, and how, why, and under what conditions they are effective; only a cursory review of that literature can be provided here. As one example, Tomlinson, Dineen, and Lewicki ( 2004 ) provided empirical support for the importance of apologies. Examining the factors which were perceived as important to a victim to reconcile a professional relationship following a broken promise, these authors found that: (a) apologies were more effective than no apologies in trust repair; (b) apologies were more effective when they were perceived as sincere; (c) apologies were more effective when they were delivered soon after the trust violation; (d) apologizers who \u201ctook responsibility\u201d for creating the trust violation were seen as more effective than apologizers who attempted to deflect or deny the responsibility; and (e) apologies were more effective when the parties had established a strong, positive relationship and the trust violation was seen as an isolated event rather than a frequently recurring problem (see also Kramer & Lewicki, 2010 ; Schlenker & Darby, 1981 ; Scott & Lyman, 1968 ; van Laer & de Ruyter, 2010 for reviews). 1 \n \n At the outset, it should be noted that some authors have criticized apologies as a form of trust repair. For example, Farrell and Rabin ( 1996 ) have argued that apologies are one of many forms of \u201ccheap talk\u201d, and that such talk (e.g., accounts, explanations, apologies, etc.) has no real value to the victim when compared to the violator providing more substantive, tangible reparations for the trust violation. Other studies (De Cremer, 2010 ) have shown that apologies can be effective only as \u201csupplements\u201d to substantive compensation. For example, Haesevoets, Reinders Folmer, De Cremer, and Van Hiel ( 2013 ) found that a simultaneous effect exists for the benefit of compensation and apologies together and that compensation with an apology can better \u201cfacilitate relationship preservation\u201d than compensation without an apology (p. 96). Even more broadly, some have argued that the apology has unfairly been considered as \u201cthe\u201d best repair strategy, yet find that other repair strategies such as compensation are just as effective as apologies (Coombs & Holladay, 2008 ). But a number of other studies have indicated that providing an apology alone can be effective because, at the very least, expressing the appropriate words can reveal that the violator understands that some events have occurred which damaged trust (Baron, 1990 ; Thomas & Millar, 2008 ; see Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010 for a review) and that the problem must be addressed. \n \n Based on the data obtained from reactions to the single\u2010component apologies, we next examined reactions to 3\u2010Component apologies to investigate whether certain combinations of apology components might be more effective than others. A repeated\u2010measures ANOVA showed support for a significant effect across evaluations of the 20 different combinations F (19, 1,957) = 8.56, p < .001. 5 Based on the reactions to single\u2010component apologies, we examined whether our more highly rated individual component apologies would yield more favorable reactions when combined as compared to when less effective individual components were combined. When looking at all the means from each of the single components, the three most effective individual components were Acknowledgement of Responsibility (A; M = 3.49), Offer of Repair (O; M = 3.34), and Explanation (E; M = 3.17). The three least effective individual components were Expression of Regret (R; M = 3.03), Declaration of Repentance (D; M = 3.00), and Request for Forgiveness (F; M = 2.68). Based on the responses of participants who evaluated all the 3\u2010Component apologies (Table 3 ), a repeated\u2010measures analysis was conducted in which we compared the relative efficacy of apologies containing the three most effective individual components (EAO) versus the three least effective individual components (RDF). Results showed support for the expectation that the three most important individual components combined together was evaluated as a much more effective apology ( M = 3.59, SD = 0.93) as compared to combining the three least effective individual components into an apology ( M = 2.80, SD = 1.13), t (108) = 6.85, p < .001. It is worth noting that when evaluating the 20 different possible combinations of 3\u2010Component apologies, the aforementioned two particular combinations also were the most favorably rated and the least favorably rated apologies. Taken together, these findings show compelling support for the expectation that not all apologies are created equal, and it is important to pay attention to the content components of an apology, rather than just adding more components, to maximize its potential effectiveness. \n \n Although our earlier analyses suggest that more components are better than fewer components (i.e., 6\u2010Component apologies were evaluated significantly more favorably than 3\u2010 or 1\u2010Component apologies), no differences emerged when comparing single versus 3\u2010Component apologies ( p = .632). Some of this lack of difference may have had to do with the fact that there is a considerable variance in the efficacy of apology components when aggregated into groups of three. As such, it may be premature to broadly state that there exists no difference in the efficacy of single\u2010 versus 3\u2010Component apologies, as attention needs to be given to the specific content of various components. \n \n Up to this point, the results suggest that more components are better than fewer, with a particular clear benefit being given to a \u201cfull apology\u201d irrespective of whether the violation type was competence\u2010based or integrity\u2010based in nature. We next sought to more closely examine whether certain components are deemed more beneficial than others. To do so, we first investigated responses of participants who only evaluated single apology components. Within\u2010subjects analyses were conducted within the framework of an ANOVA, and Bonferroni adjustments were used to limit the possibility of type 1 errors. 4 Results of the overall ANOVA indicated the presence of difference between individual components F (5, 104) = 10.96, p < .001. An examination of the means showed clear differences with reactions to the quality of single components (Figure 1 ), with an Acknowledgement of Responsibility ( M = 3.49, SD = 0.94) being evaluated as the most effective component and a Request for Forgiveness evaluated as the least effective ( M = 2.68, SD = 0.99). Post hoc Bonferroni comparisons showed that the Acknowledgement of Responsibility was evaluated significantly more effective than all other components ( p 's < .05) with the exception of an Offer of Repair ( M = 3.34, SD = 1.01) from which it did not differ. Moreover, a Request for Forgiveness was evaluated as significantly less effective than each of the other five components ( p 's < .05). Accordingly, these results suggest that if someone can make only one statement in an apology, an Acknowledgement of Responsibility may serve the individual significantly better compared to all other components, while a Request for Forgiveness would be significantly less effective than all other components. \n \n Given the absence of a statistical interaction, we collapsed conditions across the Violation Type factor prior to conducting analyses to better understand how the number of components affected evaluations of apologies. Bonferroni\u2010adjusted significance values were employed to reduce the probability of a type 2 error given that multiple comparisons were being conducted. An inspection of means (Table 2 ) by condition showed a benefit from having more components: 1\u2010Component: M = 3.12, SD = 0.67; 3\u2010Component: M = 3.26, SD = 0.82; 6\u2010Component: M = 3.61, SD = 0.95. Bonferroni multiple comparisons showed that the 6\u2010Component apology was evaluated more favorably than either the 1\u2010Component ( p < .001) or 3\u2010Component apology ( p = .004). No difference emerged between the 1\u2010Component and 3\u2010Component apologies ( p = .632). \n \n Initial analyses were conducted in the framework of a two\u2010way between\u2010participants ANOVA where apology efficacy was the dependent variable. To maintain statistical independence of observations, when comparing the efficacy of the number of components across participants in our Number of Components conditions, a single overall apology efficacy score was used for each participant assigned to the 1\u2010component condition (i.e., the average efficacy score of the six single\u2010component apologies they evaluated) and for participants assigned to the 3\u2010component condition (i.e., the average efficacy score from the 20 different 3\u2010component combinations they evaluated). \n \n Below each apology, participants were asked to respond to three questions on a 5\u2010point Likert scale (1 = Not at All ; 5 = Very ): \u201cHow effective would this statement be at dealing with the violation?\u201d, \u201cHow credible would this statement be?\u201d , and \u201cHow adequate would this statement be?\u201d Responses to these three questions (\u03b1 = .87) were then averaged to form the dependent variable apology efficacy . \n \n After reading the scenario, each participant was presented with only a descriptive definition of apology components (see the Definition column of Table 1 ). Depending on condition, respondents evaluated either: each of the 1\u2010component apology definitions presented one at a time (1\u2010component condition); or each of the possible 3\u2010component apology definitions presented one at a time (3\u2010component condition); or the single 6\u2010component apology definition (6\u2010component condition). Order of presentation of components within each condition was randomized. For each apology, the participant was asked: \u201cImagine that the candidate's response to this situation was made up of [one, three, six] statements:\u201d followed by the definition(s) of that (or those) statement(s). \n \n After viewing consent information, participants read a trust violation scenario in which, depending on condition, either competence\u2010based trust was broken or integrity\u2010based trust was broken. The scenario and wording of the competence\u2010 and integrity\u2010based trust violation manipulations were adopted from Kim et al. ( 2004 , 2006 , 2013 ; see Appendix ). Participants were asked to imagine they were reviewing the application of a job candidate for an accounting position who had gotten in some trouble in a prior job over a client's tax return being filed incorrectly. In the competence\u2010based trust violation condition , the violation was said to occur because the candidate was not sufficiently knowledgeable in all relevant tax codes. In the integrity\u2010based trust violation condition, the candidate was said to have knowingly filed the tax return incorrectly. \n \n Given the impact that Kim et al.'s ( 2004 , 2006 , 2013 ) work has had on contemporary thinking about the conditional effectiveness of apologies, we based our competence and integrity\u2010based violations after theirs, but we systematically manipulated the number of components of apology presented in response to the scenario. That is, the perceived effectiveness of these components was explored singly, in various combinations of three, and collectively as one aggregation of six in the context of either a competence\u2010based or an integrity\u2010based trust violation. As expressed by the apologizer, the six single components include the following (Table 1 ): an expression of regret for the offense (subsequently labeled R), an explanation of why the violation occurred (subsequently labeled E), an acknowledgment of responsibility for the offense (subsequently labeled A), a declaration of repentance (subsequently labeled D), an offer of trust repair (subsequently labeled O), and a request for forgiveness (subsequently labeled F). 3 \n \n In our first study, we set out to determine whether some individual components were seen as more effective than others, and whether various combinations of components were judged as more effective than others. Building off of the insights from Lewicki and Polin ( 2012 ), it was anticipated that the presence of multiple components would aid in apologies being seen as effective, with apologies containing all six components being seen as the most effective. However, because the type of violation has been documented as a key determinant of apology effectiveness (Kim et al., 2004 , 2006 , 2013 ), we examined the components in the context of both competence\u2010based and integrity\u2010based violations, namely we set the six separate components of an apology as previously discussed into the specific context scenario used by these authors, giving subjects a brief overview of the scenario context. \n \n Following up on our exploratory findings from Study 1 , we next examined 3\u2010Component apology combinations (Table 5 ), namely we sought to provide a confirmatory test that the 3\u2010Component apology of EAO would be more effective than the 3\u2010Component combination of RDF. To do so, we conducted a paired\u2010samples planned t \u2010test where we compared apologies containing EAO components against those containing RDF components. Consistent with the exploratory analyses from Study 1 , results confirmed that the EAO ( M = 3.22, SD = 0.71) was evaluated more favorably than an apology containing the RDF ( M = 2.95, SD = 0.84), t (69) = 2.58, p = .012. Taken together, these results provide further evidence supporting the argument that in the absence of providing a \u201cfull apology\u201d (all six components), there is clear benefit in giving attention to which components one provides in their apology. \n \n We next sought to examine whether individual components differed in their efficacy similar to what we found in Study 1 . To do so, we conducted a within\u2010subjects analysis within the framework of an ANOVA on evaluations of apologies from participants in our single\u2010component condition. A significant ANOVA supported the expectation that our individual components would be differentially evaluated in their perceived efficacy F (5, 350) = 29.50, p < .001. An examination of the means showed that reactions differed between individual components: Offer of Repair ( M = 3.62, SD = 0.79), Declaration of Repentance ( M = 3.62, SD = 0.84), Acknowledgement of Responsibility ( M = 3.30, SD = 0.92), Expression of Regret ( M = 2.86, SD = 0.96), Explanation ( M = 2.74, SD = 1.09), and Request for Forgiveness ( M = 2.32, SD = 0.90). Although the individual component data did not exactly mirror the order of perceived efficacy for components from Study 1 , there was still some consistency in order, providing confirmatory support to the exploratory findings from Study 1 . Bonferoni\u2010corrected comparisons showed Request for Forgiveness was evaluated significantly worse than all other single\u2010component apologies ( p 's < .001) and was marginally worse than an Explanation ( p = .057). Also similar to Study 1 , Bonferroni\u2010corrected comparisons revealed that an Acknowledgement of Responsibility was evaluated more favorably than an Expression of Regret ( p = .016), Explanation ( p = .006), and a Request for Forgiveness ( p < .001). Acknowledgement of Responsibility did not significantly differ from an Offer of Repair ( p = .37) or Declaration of Repentance ( p = .37; Figure 2 ). \n \n We next collapsed data across violation type and more closely examined how number of components shaped apology evaluations. More components added together in an apology tended to yield a more positively evaluated apology than fewer components: 1\u2010Component ( M = 3.08, SD = 0.55); 2\u2010Component ( M = 3.11, SD = 0.55); 3\u2010Component ( M = 3.12, SD = 0.45); 4\u2010Component ( M = 3.29, SD = 0.54); 5\u2010Component ( M = 3.22, SD = 0.66); and 6\u2010Component ( M = 3.37, SD = 0.80). Following the pattern of data observed in Study 1, planned comparison t \u2010tests were conducted within the framework of a one\u2010way ANOVA. Results confirmed that a 6\u2010Component apology was evaluated as more favorable than either a 1\u2010Component, t (416) = 2.85, p = .005 or 3\u2010Component apology t (416) = 2.47, p = .014. Moreover, as in Study 1 , no difference emerged when comparing the efficacy of a single\u2010 and 3\u2010component apology, t (416) = 0.37, p = .71. \n \n A two\u2010way between\u2010subjects ANOVA was conducted where apology efficacy was the dependent variable. As in Study 1 , to maintain statistical independence of observations, prior to conducting analyses to compare participants in the different Number of Components conditions, for conditions where participants evaluated more than 1 apology, we created a single efficacy score for each participant in that condition. Replicating the findings of Study 1 , two significant main effects emerged (Table 4 ). Participants evaluated apologies following a competence\u2010based violation ( M = 3.26, SD = 0.58) more favorably than apologies following an integrity\u2010based violation ( M = 3.12, SD = 0.63), F (1, 410) = 6.48, p = .011. Moreover, the number of apology components also affected the evaluations of apology effectiveness, F (5, 410) = 2.64, p = .023. As in Study 1 , no statistical interaction emerged, F (1, 410) = 0.683, p = .637, suggesting that the efficacy of the number of components was not moderated by the type of violation. \n \n The procedure for Study 2 was very similar to that of Study 1 . After reading either the competence\u2010based or integrity\u2010based trust violation scenario based on the Kim et al. ( 2004 , 2006 , 2013 ) used in Study 1 , depending on condition, participants evaluated either: each of the six 1\u2010Component apology statements; or each of the 15 possible 2\u2010Component apology statements; or each of the 20 possible 3\u2010Component apology statements; or each of the 15 possible 4\u2010Component apology statements; or each of the six possible 5\u2010Component apology statements; or the single 6\u2010Component apology statement (see Table 1 for the wording of each individual component statement). \n \n Whereas Study 1 provided insight into reactions to definitions of apology components and the perceived efficacy of those components, we sought to replicate and expand upon our findings in two ways. First, to provide a more fine\u2010grained analysis on the number of apology components, we now examined the relative efficacy of the following: 1\u2010, 2\u2010, 3\u2010, 4\u2010, 5\u2010, and 6\u2010Component apologies (as compared to only 1\u2010, 3\u2010, and 6\u2010Component apologies presented in Study 1 ). Second, whereas Study 1 participants were told to evaluate an apology which contained labels of the individual components and their definitions, to provide more realism we sought to capture the perceived efficacy of these components when they were presented as actual verbalizations from parties within the Kim et al. studies ( 2004 , 2006 , 2013 ), rather than as definitions (see the Statement columns of Table 1 ). That is, we created statements which contextualized the definitions of each of the six components and had participants evaluate these response(s). We did not label or define components for participants. \n \n Discussion \n \n Across two studies, we examined whether certain components of an apology, taken individually and collectively, were perceived as more critical for the apology to be perceived as effective. Based on the previous research, it was also important to examine whether these components might be differentially perceived if the apology were being offered for the violation of competence\u2010based versus integrity\u2010based trustworthiness. Across both experiments, strong and consistent results were obtained. First, the greater the number of designated components in an apology, the more effective it was perceived to be. In the first study, this was clear when comparing the definitions within the 6\u2010component apology against the definitions within the components taken one or three at a time; in the second study, this was true when comparing greater number of components to a lesser number of components. Second, the more positive reaction to the greater number of components occurred equally for both competence\u2010 and integrity\u2010based offenses, although in general apologies for competence\u2010based offenses were perceived as significantly more effective than apologies for integrity\u2010based offenses. This is in line with Kim et al. (2004), who have documented that apologies are more effective in competence\u2010based offenses than they are in integrity\u2010based offenses. Third, it appears that certain components are more critical than others, but it does depend on how many components are aggregated together and the context in which they were presented. \n \n When presented one component at a time, we found that an Acknowledgement of Responsibility was viewed as most important, Offer of Repair second, and Explanation third; specifically, the components of Offer of Repair and Declaration of Repentance were tied for most efficacious, and Acknowledgment of Responsibility was the third most important. Thus, while there was some general consistency in the order of importance of the components, the context of the Kim et al. (2004, 2006, 2013) scenario may have downplayed the importance of an Explanation and increased the importance of a Declaration of Repentance. However, across both of our studies, the data indicated that Request for Forgiveness was least critical. When components are evaluated three at a time, the importance of certain component aggregates emerges more consistently. Both studies revealed that when an apology contains an Explanation for the offense, an Acknowledgment of Responsibility, and an Offer of Repair (EAO), the apology is perceived as significantly more effective than when it only contains an Expression of Regret, a Declaration of Repentance, and a Request for Forgiveness (RDF). \n \n Taken together, the results illustrate that while more components are better than fewer, some components are clearly more important than others. In addition, the context of the apology matters, but only to some degree. While context appeared to affect the perceived importance of some components (such as Acknowledgement of Responsibility and Explanation), it did not affect other components (such as Request for Forgiveness, which was seen as least important in both studies). \n \n Contributions to Theory Development The first and most important question is, how do we explain these results? The results seem to indicate that following some form of violation (of trust, of expectations, or of treatment), victims are highly sensitive since the violation most likely threatens their confidence in their own judgment and sense of personal efficacy. Uncertainty and tension are created by this disconfirmation, and the victim seeks information from the violator that works to restore their own sense of judgment and efficacy. As noted by Kim et al. (2004, 2006), this impact is not as great when a victim has misjudged the actor's competence as it is when victim has misjudged the actor's integrity. In the first case, the actor could have made a mistake which may or may not have been under his or her control, and an explanation about that mistake may be adequate for us to restore our confidence in the other. In the second case, the actor may have misread the other's fundamental character and honesty, and simple explanations or other verbal statements will not easily restore those character judgments. It is not just the nature of the violation that affects an apology's effectiveness but also the fact that the victim looks for certain specific assurances in the statements that will serve to reduce the distress and uncertainty created by the violation. While there are variations across the two studies, our results show that while more components are better in general, the presence of three particular components included in a single apology is particularly valuable (not necessarily in any specific order): An Explanation for why the violation may have occurred, which is an effort by the violator to affect the victim's sense\u2010making about the violation in a way that might make the violation seem more understandable, less intentional, or less dissonance\u2010creating to the victim. \n \n An Offer of Repair, which may restore the tangible or economic damage that occurred as a result of the violation. \n \n An Acknowledgement of Responsibility, in which the violator assumes responsibility for having created the violation, hence limiting the number of alternative explanations for why the violation occurred. Note that some of these findings support results from past research, while others challenge those results. Speaking to the first of these components, the importance of explanations or \u201caccounts\u201d has been significantly documented in research on procedural justice and trust repair. As noted earlier, Shapiro (1991) showed the importance of an explanation in repairing trust following deception, and subsequent work by Ohbuchi, Kameda, and Agarie (1989) explored how the characteristics of both the explanations and the explainer had a significant impact on whether the victim accepted the explanation. Speaking to the second of these components, the Offer of Repair offers a promise that whatever tangible or economic damage may have been done can be repaired. As noted in the introduction, there has been a significant debate in the research literature about whether apologies can be effective at all\u2014that is, whether they are no more than \u201ccheap talk\u201d\u2014under conditions when real, tangible, economic damage has been done. Our results seem to indicate that even a verbal commitment to restore damage done by the violation is seen as an important apology component by the victim but clearly would have to be followed by actual repair\u2013restoration to assure full credibility (see Kramer & Lewicki, 2010, for a fuller treatment of these literatures). Finally, speaking to the third of these components, our results indicated that an Acknowledgment of Responsibility was deemed to be quite important. This was true even in Study 2, where the phrasing was drawn from scenarios used by Kim et al. (2004, 2006, 2013). A victim wants to know that the violator acknowledges ownership for creating the violation, even when taking such ownership may undermine the victim's perception of the violator's integrity. In Kim et al. (2004), the authors argue from their results that denial of responsibility was a more effective strategy after an integrity\u2010based violation. In contrast, our results tend to show that Acknowledgment of Responsibility was deemed to be important, ranked first when the definitions alone were rated, third when the actual statements were rated in context, and in the critical \u201ctop three\u201d in both studies. Since the Kim et al. finding (and a subsequent study by Ferrin, Kim, Cooper, & Dirks, 2007) stresses the importance of \u201cdenial\u201d or \u201csilence\u201d as prescriptive advise for dealing with integrity\u2010based trust violations, our findings raise questions about the ubiquity of this approach, and further investigation is required as to the conditions under which taking responsibility versus denying responsibility for an offense can be concluded as sound prescriptive advice. Although we did not include a denial condition in our studies, future work may examine whether a complete apology (i.e., containing all six components) may surpass the efficacy of a denial. Although our study design allowed us to examine reactions to apologies, and whether they differed, across two main types of trust\u2010violation contexts (i.e., competence\u2010 and integrity\u2010based violations), future work would benefit from examining whether the number of components (and specific components) depends on other potential moderators. For instance, the severity of the violation, the timing of the apology, and the cultural context in which the violation occurred are important aspects which deserve to be examined in future studies. One contextual feature which we anticipate to be particularly influential is the nature of the prior relationship between the parties. In our two studies, we placed participants into the accounting scenario between a job candidate and potential employer. From the subject's point of view (the Accounting Manager), in our scenario drawn from Kim et al.'s (2004, 2006, 2013) influential work, he or she has not directly experienced the violation (and hence been in the victim's shoes) nor heard accounts of it from anyone directly involved in the violation. Moreover, the relationship between the Accounting Manager, the HR Director and the candidate is a transactional one regarding an arms\u2010length hiring decision and not one in which the violator and victim have any kind of established, long\u2010standing history or meaningful, emotion\u2010based relationship. Hence, any evaluation of these apology components may significantly differ in perceived efficacy and impact if one is evaluating them directly from the victim's shoes, and if the violation has occurred in the context of a strong preestablished relationship such as a business partnership, personal friendship, or marriage. Again, future research will need to investigate the resilience of our findings when these important context elements are evaluated in subsequent studies (c.f. Chapman & Thomas, 2006). In addition to examining the role of contextual moderators, future work may also seek to adopt a person \u00d7 situation framework, as optimally effective apologies not only depend on what component(s) are said, but also depend on individual differences associated with the recipient. For instance, Fehr and Gelfand (2010) argued that an apology is most effective when its contents match with the victim's specific type of self\u2010construal\u2014independent, relational, or collective. These authors investigated apologies that took one of three different forms: offers of compensation, expressions of empathy, or acknowledgment of norms or rules that had been violated (note that by this categorization, offers of compensation are similar to our Offers of Repair, expressions of empathy are similar to our Expression of Regret, and acknowledgement of rule violation are similar to our Acknowledgment of Responsibility). They found that the relationship between each of the three apology types and the willingness of the victim to forgive the perpetrator depended on one's self\u2010construal. Thus, their work suggests that the efficacy of which components, and how many components, are stated may depend on the psychological orientation and/or values of the receiver. ||||| There are six components to an apology \u2013 and the more of them you include when you say you\u2019re sorry, the more effective your apology will be, according to new research. \n \n But if you\u2019re pressed for time or space, there are two elements that are the most critical to having your apology accepted. \n \n \u201cApologies really do work, but you should make sure you hit as many of the six key components as possible,\u201d said Roy Lewicki, lead author of the study and professor emeritus of management and human resources at The Ohio State University\u2019s Fisher College of Business. \n \n In two separate experiments, Lewicki and his co-authors tested how 755 people reacted to apologies containing anywhere from one to all six of these elements: \n \n 1. Expression of regret \n \n 2. Explanation of what went wrong \n \n 3. Acknowledgment of responsibility \n \n 4. Declaration of repentance \n \n 5. Offer of repair \n \n 6. Request for forgiveness \n \n The research is published in the May 2016 issue of the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research. Lewicki\u2019s co-authors were Robert Lount, associate professor of management and human resources at Ohio State, and Beth Polin of Eastern Kentucky University. \n \n While the best apologies contained all six elements, not all of these components are equal, the study found. \n \n \u201cOur findings showed that the most important component is an acknowledgment of responsibility. Say it is your fault, that you made a mistake,\u201d Lewicki said. \n \n The second most important element was an offer of repair. \n \n \u201cOne concern about apologies is that talk is cheap. But by saying, \u2018I\u2019ll fix what is wrong,\u2019 you\u2019re committing to take action to undo the damage,\u201d he said. \n \n The next three elements were essentially tied for third in effectiveness: expression of regret, explanation of what went wrong and declaration of repentance. \n \n The least effective element of an apology is a request for forgiveness. \u201cThat\u2019s the one you can leave out if you have to,\u201d Lewicki said. \n \n The first study involved 333 adults recruited online through Amazon\u2019s MTURK program. All the participants read a scenario in which they were the manager of an accounting department that was hiring a new employee. \n \n At a previous job, the potential employee had filed an incorrect tax return that understated a client\u2019s capital gains income. When confronted about the issue, the job candidate apologized. \n \n The participants were told that the apology contained one, three or all six of the apology components. They were then asked to rate on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very) how effective, credible and adequate the apology statement would be. \n \n The second study included 422 undergraduate students. The students read the same scenario as in the first study, but instead of being told which components the apology contained, they read an actual apology that included anywhere from one to six statements based on the six elements. For example, for acknowledgment of responsibility, the apology statement read \u201cI was wrong in what I did, and I accepted responsibility for my actions.\u201d \n \n They again rated how effective, credible and adequate the apology statement would be. \n \n The results of the two studies were not identical, but they were very similar, Lewicki said. For both studies, the more elements that the apology contained, the more effective it was rated. \n \n When the elements were evaluated one at a time, there was general consistency in the importance of the components across the two studies, with slight variations. But in both studies, the request for forgiveness was seen as least important. \n \n In both studies, half the respondents were told the job applicant\u2019s incorrect tax return was related to competence: He was not knowledgeable in all relevant tax codes. The other half were told it was related to integrity: He knowingly filed the tax return incorrectly. \n \n The value of each of the six components was the same whether the apology was related to failures of competence or integrity. But overall, participants were less likely to accept apologies when the job applicant showed a lack of integrity versus a lack of competence. \n \n Lewicki noted that, in this work, participants simply read apology statements. But the emotion and voice inflection of a spoken apology may have powerful effects, as well. \n \n \u201cClearly, things like eye contact and appropriate expression of sincerity are important when you give a face-to-face apology,\u201d he said. ||||| Elton John once sang that sorry seemed to be hardest word but now scientists have found that the perfect apology requires more than just the word 'sorry' itself. \n \n Based on the findings of a new study, researchers said there are six key elements to make one's apology more sincere and easy to accept with two being very critical in ensuring acceptance. \n \n They are accepting one's own fault and offering to repair the damage when making an apology, according to Ohio State University researchers. \n \n The study looked at how 755 volunteers reacted to apologies that contained some or all of the six key elements in two separate parts. \n \n The first part involved 333 adults acting out a fictional scenario where they were an accounting department manager interviewing a potential employee. \n \n The applicant had filed an incorrect tax return during their previous work but when asked during the fake interview about it, they apologised. \n \n The adults involved in the study then had to rate different apologies which contained one, three or all of the sorry elements listed above. The scale was between one (not at all) and five (very), MailOnline reported. \n \n In the second part of the research, 422 undergraduates had the same scenario but this time they did not know what elements were within the apologies and had to rate it in a similar fashion.", "summary": "\u2013 A true apology involves a lot more than saying, \"I'm sorry,\" and scientists are reporting in the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research that they've broken down effective apologies to six basic elements\u2014and that two of them are by far the most important aspects. First, the six elements as laid out by Ohio State University researchers are: Expressing regret Explaining what went wrong Acknowledging responsibility Declaring repentance Offering to repair Asking forgiveness If you've got the time (and lack of ego) to squeeze in all six, the greater your chances of being forgiven, according to several hundred adults and undergrads asked to evaluate a hypothetical apology, reports the Telegraph. If you have to leave out one element, asking to be forgiven is the one to go. But owning up to your misstep and offering to fix it are by far the most effective of the remaining five. \"Our findings showed that the most important component is an acknowledgement of responsibility\u2014say it is your fault, that you made a mistake,\" the lead researcher says. But that's not all. \"One concern about apologies is that talk is cheap. But by saying, 'I'll fix what is wrong,' you're committing to take action to undo the damage.\" (Check how these top five political apologies stack up.)"}
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Get a PayPal account here \n \n Your bid is the same as or more than the Buy It Now price.You can save time and money by buying it now. \n \n Place bid \n \n Review and confirm your bid \n \n Bid confirmation \n \n Increase max bid \n \n Enter a custom max bid more than ##2## \n \n Enter a custom max bid of ##2## or more \n \n + ##2## approximate import charges \n \n ##2## (approximately) \n \n Please enter a higher amount than the current bid. \n \n + ##2## for shipping \n \n + FREE SHIPPING \n \n Bid ##3## now \n \n Bid ##3##", "summary": "\u2013 Someone bid nearly $100,000 on eBay for a Cheeto that bears a resemblance to gorilla Harambe, shot by handlers at the Cincinnati Zoo after dragging a small boy who had gotten into his enclosure. The seller says he found the cheese snack in a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, reports the AP. Bidding began at $11.99 on Jan. 28 and ended early Tuesday morning with a winning bid of $99,900. The listing showed a picture of the Cheeto side-by-side with a gorilla climbing a tree. Similar listings have since appeared online; the Indianapolis Star notes you can still bid on a far more affordable Cheeto shaped like Harambe's \"poop.\""}
{"document": "Amanda Bynes has been forced out of her Midtown Manhattan apartment, In Touch is exclusively reporting. The troubled star, who was arrested at her apartment on May 23 following a complaint that she was smoking marijuana in the building\u2019s lobby, \u201cwas notified that she is no longer welcome as a tenant in the building in light of recent events,\u201d an insider reveals. \n \n \u201cAt 9 p.m. on Tuesday, movers showed up and removed Amanda\u2019s belongings from her apartment,\u201d the insider adds. \u201cShe is officially gone from the building.\u201d \n \n That could also explain why Amanda was spotted in Buffalo, N.Y., the following day (May 29), jumping on a trampoline at the Sky Zone gym. \n \n Amanda Bynes Claims Police Sexually Harassed Her \n \n An NYPD source tells In Touch that the plan to get Amanda out of the apartment had been in the works for weeks. \u201cEven before her arrest, residents had constant complaints about the smell of marijuana coming from her apartment,\u201d the source says. \u201cShe had also cursed out residents and the doormen, and the smell of pot from her apartment was really annoying people.\u201d \n \n As In Touch previously reported, when the Easy A star first moved into the Biltmore apartment building in Times Square, the doormen were incredibly protective of her, but that quickly changed as her behavior became more and more erratic. Just a month after she moved in, it was one of the building staff who called police to report that Amanda was smoking a joint in the lobby on May 23. \n \n Exclusive: Photographer Details Amanda Bynes Drug Use Weeks Before Arrest \n \n When police arrived at her 36th-floor apartment, they found it filled with heavy smoke. They arrested the 27-year-old after she allegedly threw a foot-high bong out a window. Amanda was taken to Roosevelt Hospital for a psychological evaluation, and charged with reckless endangerment, tampering with evidence and possession of marijuana. \n \n Though Amanda has vehemently denied she does drugs, a photographer who recently spent time with Amanda in her apartment tells In Touch that Amanda had drugs on her. \n \n \u201cShe had at least a dozen hand-rolled joints on her,\u201d he says. \u201cShe had them in her palm at one point \u2014 she'll smoke one halfway, put it out. Then light a new one. Then re-light the other half. It\u2019s so weird! But she is constantly smoking weed.\u201d \n \n In Touch reached out to Amanda for comment but she had not responded by press time. ||||| Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window) \n \n Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) \n \n The Amanda Bynes situation just keeps getting uglier. \n \n The former child star on Sunday admitted via Twitter she had a nose job after her arrest late last month, while taking a shot at her concerned parents, Rick and Lynn. \n \n \u201cMy dad is as ugly as RuPaul!\u201d she tweeted Sunday. \u201cSo thankful I look nothing like you both! I had nose surgery after my mug shots so my nose and I are gorgeous! \n \n PHOTOS: Amanda Bynes Shows Off Half-Shaved Head At The Gym \n \n The 27-year-old last month alluded to other procedures she\u2019s had in the past, writing on May 5: \u201cThe reason I\u2019ve asked all magazines and blogs to stop using old photos of me is I don\u2019t look like that anymore! \n \n \u201cI had a nose job to remove skin that was like a webbing in between my eyes. I wasn\u2019t going to tell anyone, but I look so much prettier in my new photos that I don\u2019t want old photos used anymore!\u201d \n \n PHOTOS: Amanda Bynes Handcuffed After New York Drug Bust \n \n After she was released from custody following her May 23 arrest in connection with criminal possession of marijuana, reckless endangerment, and felony tampering with physical evidence, she tweeted May 24, \u201cI need to get another nose job after seeing my mugshot!\u201d \n \n It\u2019s worth noting that Bynes has used \u2014 or should we say overused? \u2014 the term \u201cugly\u201d in her attacks on a number of individuals, including Rihanna, Courtney Love, Sports Illustrated model Chrissy Teigen and Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy. \n \n PHOTOS: Amanda Bynes Tweets More Racey Photos Of Herself \n \n Keep it right here on RadarOnline.com for the latest on Amanda Bynes.", "summary": "\u2013 Amanda Bynes' increasingly strange behavior has finally gotten her booted from her apartment, an NYPD source tells In Touch. Days after she was arrested after allegedly throwing a foot-high bong out her window, \"movers showed up and removed Amanda\u2019s belongings from her apartment,\" the source says. Bynes \"was notified that she is no longer welcome as a tenant in the building in light of recent events.\" And she might have been kicked out even without the alleged bong-throwing incident. \"Even before her arrest, residents had constant complaints about the smell of marijuana coming from her apartment,\u201d the source says. \u201cShe had also cursed out residents and the doormen, and the smell of pot from her apartment was really annoying people.\" Meanwhile, on Twitter, Bynes admitted she recently had a nose job ... and randomly called her dad \"as ugly as RuPaul.\""}
{"document": "Map goes on sale in Oxford for \u00a360,000 after being found inside novel belonging to illustrator Pauline Baynes \n \n A recently discovered map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien reveals The Lord of the Rings author\u2019s observation that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and implies that the Italian city of Ravenna could be the inspiration behind the fictional city of Minas Tirith. \n \n The map was found loose in a copy of the acclaimed illustrator Pauline Baynes\u2019 copy of The Lord of the Rings. Baynes had removed the map from another edition of the novel as she began work on her own colour Map of Middle-earth for Tolkien, which would go on to be published by Allen & Unwin in 1970. Tolkien himself had then copiously annotated it in green ink and pencil, with Baynes adding her own notes to the document while she worked. \n \n \n \n Blackwell\u2019s, which is currently exhibiting the map in Oxford and selling it for \u00a360,000, called it \u201can important document, and perhaps the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years at least\u201d. \n \n It shows what Blackwell\u2019s called \u201cthe exacting nature\u201d of Tolkien\u2019s creative vision: he corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map\u2019s various flora and fauna. Hobbiton, he notes, \u201c is assumed to be approx at latitude of Oxford\u201d; Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest The notebooks reveal that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and imply that the Italian city of Ravenna could be the inspiration behind Minas Tirith. Photograph: Blackwell\u2019s Rare Books \n \n The novelist also uses Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem as other reference points, and according to Blackwell\u2019s suggests that \u201cthe city of Ravenna is the inspiration behind Minas Tirith - a key location in the third book of the Lord of The Rings trilogy\u201d. \n \n \u201cThe map shows how completely obsessed he was with the details. Anyone else interfered at their peril,\u201d said Sian Wainwright at Blackwell\u2019s. \u201cHe was tricky to work with, but very rewarding in the end.\u201d \n \n Correspondence between Tolkien and the late and acclaimed illustrator Baynes, who also worked on books for CS Lewis, as well as Baynes\u2019s unpublished diary entries, gives further details about the sometimes thorny relationship between the two. On 21 August 1969, Baynes describes a visit to Tolkien and his wife in Bournemouth, \u201cto chat about a poster map I have to do \u2013 he very uncooperative\u201d. \n \n The author later apologies for having \u201cbeen so dilatory\u201d, and a later lunch sees the author \u201cin great form \u2013 first names and kissing all round \u2013 and pleased with the map\u201d. \n \n Henry Gott, modern first editions specialist at Blackwell\u2019s Rare Books, said the map was \u201can exciting and important discovery: new to scholarship (though its existence is implied by correspondence between the two), it demonstrates the care exercised by both in their mapping of Tolkien\u2019s creative vision\u201d. \n \n \u201cBefore going on display in the shop this week, this had only ever been in private hands (Pauline Baynes\u2019s for the majority of its existence). One of the points of interest is how much of a hand Tolkien had in the poster map; all of his suggestions, and there are many (the majority of the annotation on the map is his), are reflected in Baynes\u2019s version,\u201d said Gott. \u201cThe degree to which it is properly collaborative was not previously apparent, and couldn\u2019t be without a document like this. Its importance is mostly to do with the insight it gives into that process.\u201d \n \n Blackwell\u2019s is selling a range of works by Baynes, who died in 2008, aged 85, including a range of her original signed drawings from the Narnia books. ||||| --- \n \n A map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien himself has been discovered in a copy of The Lord of the Rings. \n \n Tolkien's comments, in green ink and pencil, show that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and the Italian city of Ravenna was the inspiration for the fortress city of Minas Tirith. \n \n He also references Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem as influences on how Middle-earth was supposed to look. \n \n The map was found loose in a copy of the books owned by illustrator Pauline Baynes, who worked on several of Tolkien's books, as well as CS Lewis' Tales of Narnia. \n \n A specialist at Blackwell's Rare Books in Oxford discovered Baynes had removed the map from another edition as she was working on her own version of Middle-earth for a 1970 edition of the trilogy. \n \n Tolkien's loving attention to detail is apparent in the annotations, as he worked with Baynes to bring his creative vision to life. In dozens of notes he gives her suggestions for flora and fauna, extra place names and corrects mistakes. \n \n The shop called it \u201can important document\" which shows for the first time just how collaborative the duo's working process was. According to Blackwell's the map is \"the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years at least\u201d. \n \n The map is currently being exhibited in Blackwell's and the shop plans to sell it later this month for \u00a360,000. \n \n More: City maps reimagined in style of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings", "summary": "\u2013 A one-of-a-kind map of Middle-earth filled with JRR Tolkien's own green ink and penciled notes has been found in renowned illustrator Pauline Baynes' copy of The Lord of the Rings. Baynes appears to have removed the map from an earlier edition as she began to work on a color map for a 1970 Allen & Unwin edition, reports the Independent. The map reveals the extent of the collaboration between the two, who had a sometimes rocky but ultimately thriving working relationship, and illustrates several reference points, including that Tolkien may have based Minas Tirith on the Italian city of Ravenna, put Hobbiton on the same latitude as Oxford, and used Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem for inspiration as well. The map is \"an exciting and important discovery\" that \"demonstrates the care exercised by both in their mapping of Tolkien's creative vision,\" a specialist with Blackwell's Rare Books tells the Guardian. Blackwell's says it plans to sell \"perhaps the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years at least\" for about $92,000. \"The map shows how completely obsessed he was with the details,\" another expert with Blackwell's adds. \"Anyone else interfered at their peril. He was tricky to work with, but very rewarding in the end.\" The notes from Tolkien, then a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, include correcting place names, adding new ones, and suggesting flora and fauna. Baynes, who died in 2008 at the age of 85, also illustrated CS Lewis' Tales of Narnia. (Check out what Tolkien did to Beowulf.)"}
{"document": "(CNN) -- World reaction poured in early Monday after President Barack Obama's announcement that terror leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. The United States put its diplomatic facilities around the world on high alert and issued a global travel warning for Americans. \n \n Afghan President Hamid Karzai \n \n Karzai said he hopes the world believes that his country is \"not the place of terrorism\" after the announcement that the al Qaeda leader was killed in neighboring Pakistan. \n \n \"If the international troops/forces are true allies of the Afghans -- they should come out and say that the killing of Afghans, children and elders which took place over the many years on a daily basis was not a good idea,\" Karzai said on RTA TV. \n \n Afghan opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah, Hope and Change \n \n Bin Laden's killing proves that Pakistan is a \"haven\" for terror groups, according to Abdullah. \n \n \"Killing of Osama bin Laden is pleasant news for Afghans, and now it's proven that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are not based in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a haven for them,\" he said. \n \n Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa \n \n \"We have never been supporters of al Qaeda or any violence against civilians. This is a permanent and agreed upon Arab position regarding al Qaeda and any activities against civilians. And of course, our position against international terrorism is known.\" \n \n Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard \n \n Gillard congratulated the U.S. on the operation, and said she acknowledges the role of Pakistan in the fight against terror. \n \n \"Our fight against terrorism does not end with bin Laden's death. We must remain vigilant against the threat posed by al Qaeda and the groups it has inspired,\" she said. \n \n \"We will continue our support for the counterterrorism efforts of the United States and our partners, and we will continue our efforts in Afghanistan to ensure that the country never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism.\" \n \n British Foreign Secretary William Hague \n \n \"I welcome this development. I congratulate the United States on the success of the operation. Osama Bin Laden will no longer be able to bring terror and murder and mayhem to the world.\" \n \n British Prime Minister David Cameron \n \n \"Osama bin Laden was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocities the world has seen -- for 9/11 and for so many attacks, which have cost thousands of lives,\" he said. \"This is a time to remember all those murdered by Osama bin Laden, and all those who lost loved ones,\" he said. \"It is also a time too to thank all those who work round the clock to keep us safe from terrorism.\" \n \n Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu \n \n China believes \"the death of Osama bin Laden is a milestone and a positive development for the international anti-terrorism efforts,\" Jiang said. \"China believes that it is necessary to seek both a temporary solution and a permanent cure in fighting terrorism and to make great efforts to eliminate the soil on which terrorism relies to breed.\" \n \n European Commission President Barroso and European Council President Van Rompuy \n \n \"Osama bin Laden was a criminal responsible for heinous terrorist attacks that cost the lives of thousands of innocent people,\" Barroso and Rompuy said in a joint statement. \"His death makes the world a safer place and shows that such crimes do not remain unpunished.\" \n \n French President Nicolas Sarkozy \n \n Sarkozy said bin Laden's death was a result of a \"remarkable U.S. commando\" operation. \n \n \"Osama Bin Laden was a promoter of the ideology of hatred and was the chief of a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of thousands of victims, especially in Muslim countries,\" he said. \n \n \"For his victims, justice has been done. Today, in France, we think of them and their families.\" \n \n German Chancellor Angela Merkel \n \n \"With the commando action against Osama bin Laden and his killing, the U.S. military has achieved a decisive strike against al Qaeda,\" she said. \n \n \"At his command and in his name, terror was enforced into many countries against men women and children, Christians as well as Muslims. Osama bin Laden suggested that he was operating in the name of Islam, but in reality he makes a mockery of the fundamental values of his own and every other religion.\" \n \n Iranian Foreign Ministry The Islamic Republic of Iran hopes that the death of Osama bin Laden will put an end to war and the killing of innocent people and restore peace to their region, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. \n \n The IRNA website reports Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast reacted to news on bin Laden's killing by U.S. troops by saying, \"The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that foreign countries now have no excuse for military buildup in the region to fight terrorism.\" \n \n Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister for the Hamas government in Gaza \n \n The prime minister condemned the killing, describing bin Laden as a Muslim \"mujahid\" or holy warrior. \n \n Al Qaeda and the Islamist radical group Hamas have no official relationship, but the Palestinian conflict with Israel has been the subject of frequent audio messages from al Qaeda. \n \n India's external affairs minister M. Krishnas \n \n India applauded the killing as a \"historic development and victorious milestone in the global war\" against terror. \n \n \"Over the years, thousands of innocent lives of men, women and children have been tragically lost at the hands of terrorist groups,\" the minister said. \n \n \"The world must not let down its united effort to overcome terrorism and eliminate the safe havens and sanctuaries that have been provided to terrorists in our own neighborhood.\" \n \n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \n \n \"Israel joins in the joy of the American people on this historic day in which Osama bin Laden was killed. ... This is a resounding victory for justice, freedom and for the joint values of all the countries that fight side by side determinedly against terror.\" \n \n Israeli President Shimon Peres \n \n \"The end of bin Laden is a great piece of news for the free world,\" Peres said. \n \n \"This man was a mega murderer, he killed thousands and thousands of people, people who were totally innocent, and would continue to kill, his purpose in life was to kill anybody who doesn't belong to him.\" \n \n Italian foreign Minister Franco Frattini \n \n The foreign minister said \"this is a great victory for the United States and for the entire international community\" in the fight against terror. \n \n \"It is a victory made possible by the determination of the United States in their hunt against the one responsible for the most tragic episode at the beginning of this century, 9/11, and numerous other tragedies,\" he said. \"A victory that rewards the efforts that all of us next to the United States have fought and continue to fight against terrorism. A victory of good against evil, of justice against malignancy. It is a victory of the free and democratic world.\" \n \n Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan \n \n Spokesman Noriyuki Shikata said the nation would continue its work with the international community to combat terrorism. \n \n \"We pay our respects to the efforts of those concerned, including the U.S. and Pakistan. We regard this as part of a united effort to fight against terrorism,\" Shikata said. \"Japan has been working on assistance to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and proactively tackling the issue of terrorism.\" \n \n Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua \n \n The nation, which was bombed by al Qaeda in 1998, called his killing a \"defining moment in the fight against\" terrorism. \n \n \"Kenya was the first country to be attacked by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's death comes as a relief to many of the victims of the bombings in East Africa,\" the spokesman said. \n \n Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri \n \n \"The harm that Osama Bin Laden has inflicted to the image of Islam and the Arab causes is no less than the harm caused by enemies to the causes of Muslims and Arabs everywhere. ... Our national and Muslim history will not forgive this man. He has been, for two consecutive decades, a black mark in this history, and voluntarily poisoned the minds of thousands of youth with the culture of terrorism and killing and sabotage and destruction, and has placed Islam, which is a religion of justice and forgiveness and dialogue and good deeds, in a hostile position towards other civilizations, religions and cultures.\" \n \n Muslim Council of Britian: \n \n \"Few will mourn the reported death of Osama bin Laden, least of all Muslims. Many Muslims will reflect on the 10 years that have passed in which our faith and our community have been seen through the prism of terrorism and security. The Muslim Council of Britain has consistently stood firm against terrorism and violence, and will continue to do so.\" \n \n NATO \n \n \"This is a significant success for the security of NATO allies and all the nations which have joined us in our efforts to combat the scourge of global terrorism to make the world a safer place for all of us,\" it said in a statement. \"NATO made clear that it considered the September 11 attacks on the United States an attack against all allies. We remember the thousands of innocent lives lost to terrorist atrocities in so many of our nations, in Afghanistan, and around the world.\" \n \n Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad \n \n \"I would definitely view this as a major, indeed, mega-landmark event, marking the end of a life of a person who clearly was involved in outrageous acts of terror and destruction. It is certainly our hope that this would mark the beginning of an end of a very dark era.\" \n \n Pakistan foreign ministry \n \n The Pakistani foreign ministry issued a statement confirming the terror leader's death. \n \n \"In an intelligence driven operation, Osama bin Laden was killed in the surroundings of Abbottabad in the early hours of this morning. This operation was conducted by the U.S. forces in accordance with declared U.S. policy that Osama bin Laden will be eliminated in a direct action by the U.S. forces, wherever found in the world,\" the ministry said. \n \n \"Earlier today, President Obama telephoned President Zardari on the successful U.S. operation which resulted in killing of Osama bin Laden.\" \n \n The ministry said the killing highlights the resolve of Pakistan and the international community to combat terrorism. \n \n Russia \n \n Russia said it is ready to help step up efforts to combat terror, saying only joint efforts can produce results. \n \n \"Russia was among the first countries to face the dangers inherent in global terrorism, and unfortunately knows what al Qaeda is not from hearsay,\" the Kremlin said. \"Retribution will inevitably reach all terrorists.\" \n \n Spain's ruling Socialist Party \n \n \"This is good news because it has put an end to the symbolic leader of international jihadi terrorism, the al Qaeda chief, the head of the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world.\" \n \n Turkish President Abdullah Gul \n \n \"Terrorists and leaders of terrorists are captured alive or dead sooner or later,\" Gul said at a news conference. \"It should teach a lesson that the leader of the world's most dangerous and sophisticated terrorist organization is captured this way. \n \n Uganda government spokesman Fred Opolot \n \n The East African nation pledged to continue its fight against terrorism. Ugandan troops are part of an African Union force helping fight the al-Shabaab -- an al Qaeda proxy -- in Somalia. \n \n \"Uganda shall continue to support the ongoing fight against global terrorism and renews its commitment to bring to justice those who commit acts of terror in the country,\" the spokesman said. \n \n United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon \n \n The death of Osama bin Laden, announced by President [Barack] Obama last night, is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism...... The crimes of Al Qaeda touched most continents, bringing tragedy and loss of life to thousands of men, women and children. ...This is a day to remember the victims and families of victims, here in the United States and everywhere in the world.\" \n \n The Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi \n \n \"Osama bin Laden, as we all know, had the very grave responsibility of spreading division and hatred amongst the people, causing the death of countless of people, and of instrumentalizing religion for this end,\" he said. \"In front of the death of man, a Christian never rejoices but rather reflects on the grave responsibility of each one in front of God and men, and hopes and commits himself so that every moment not be an occasion for hatred to grow but for peace.\" \n \n Yemeni government official \n \n A government official described the death of Osama bin Laden as \"a truly historic moment.\" \n \n We welcome the news ... millions of people will sleep in peace tonight,\" the official said. \"Osama bin Laden was more of a symbolic figure, a spiritual leader for al Qaeda.\" \n \n The official said it is too early to determine how his death will affect the war against terror. \n \n \"But this is definitely a strong blow to the organization,\" said the official, who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to talk to the media. \n \n Embassy of the Republic of Yemen \n \n \"The government of the Republic of Yemen welcomes the elimination of Usama Bin Laden, the founding father of the al Qaeda terrorist network. The successful operation, spearheaded by U.S. forces, marks a monumental milestone in the ongoing global war against terrorism.\" ||||| Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh speaks to the media during a news conference in Gaza City May 2, 2011. The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Monday condemned the killing by U.S. forces of Osama bin Laden and mourned him as an ''Arab holy warrior''. \n \n RAMALLAH/GAZA The killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces was welcomed on Monday by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority while its prospective power-sharing partner, Islamist Hamas, deplored his death. \n \n \"Getting rid of bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods -- the violent methods -- that were created and encouraged by bin Laden and others in the world,\" Palestinian Authority (PA) spokesman Ghassan Khatib said. \n \n Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, called bin Laden a martyr. \n \n \"We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior,\" Haniyeh told reporters. \"We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.\" \n \n Hamas, classified by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group over its violence against Israel, is due to sign a unity deal this week in Cairo with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. \n \n Israel has condemned the agreement, saying it could sabotage any efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians. The deal envisages an interim unity government comprised of independents and Palestinian elections later in the year. \n \n The Fatah-led PA supports a negotiated peace with Israel to obtain a state in territories the Jewish state captured in a 1967 war. Hamas is officially sworn to Israel's destruction. \n \n Abbas has defended reconciliation with Hamas, saying it reflected a deep-seated Palestinian desire to close a rift with the group that seized Gaza from Fatah forces in 2007. \n \n The United States has responded coolly to the unity pact. \n \n MIXED MESSAGES \n \n In the West Bank city of Ramallah, the PA's view on the death of the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks was shared by Ahmed Saleh, a 58-year-old retiree. \n \n \"The world is better without bin Laden. This has removed a pillar of evil from the world,\" he said. \"His heinous actions were exploited to allow hostile policies toward the Arabs and Muslims.\" \n \n But Umm Mohammed, a veiled woman, said she hoped news of bin Laden's death was a lie. \"God willing, he will continue to conquer the West,\" she said. \n \n Palestinians hit the headlines after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, carried out by al Qaeda, when a small group were filmed celebrating in East Jerusalem. \n \n At the time, there were bigger demonstrations in the Gaza Strip in support of the attacks. Palestinians partly blame their national plight on generations of U.S. support for Israel. \n \n But late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat banned such public displays and voiced sympathy for the dead in the United States. \n \n In Gaza, Hamas now faces a challenge from al Qaeda-inspired groups that consider it to be too moderate. One such group was behind last month's killing of a pro-Palestinian Italian activist in the territory. \n \n Abdel-Qader Abu Shaaban, a 53-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, described bin Laden's killing as \"a very criminal act.\" \n \n \"This is not a victory. If they assassinated bin Laden, there will be others stronger than him: politicians and military people,\" he said. ||||| Reaction to Osama bin Laden\u2019s killing was mixed in the Muslim world, including in Pakistan, where former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said that the United States should not have executed a mission within his country\u2019s borders. \n \n \u201cAmerica coming to our territory and taking action is a violation of our sovereignty,\u201d Musharraf told CNN-IBN. \u201cHandling and execution of the operation [by U.S. forces] is not correct. The Pakistani government should have been kept in the loop.\u201d \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset POLITICO 44 \n \n Though President Barack Obama did refer to Pakistani help in his remarks Sunday night, there was no mention of involvement in Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari\u2019s statement, which said that Zadari was notified of bin Laden\u2019s killing with a phone call from Obama. \n \n In a statement, the Pakistani foreign ministry celebrated bin Laden\u2019s death as \u201ca major setback to terrorist organizations around the world.\u201d \n \n Over the border in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai on Monday urged the Taliban not to seek retaliation. \n \n \u201cWe call on Taliban to learn from what happened yesterday and stop fighting,\u201d Karzai said in a televised statement, AFP reported. \u201cTalib, come to your country and stop the fighting and leave the weapon that the foreigners have put on your shoulders.\u201d \n \n In Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that the United States has \u201cno excuse\u201d for continuing its military involvement in the Middle East now that bin Laden has been killed. \u201cWe hope that this development will end war, conflict, unrest and the death of innocent people, and help to establish peace and tranquility in the region,\u201d he said in a statement quoted by Iran\u2019s English-language Press TV. \n \n The leader of the Palestinian terror group Hamas condemned bin Laden\u2019s killing as the assassination of \u201ca Muslim and Arabic warrior,\u201d The Associated Press reported. Bin Laden\u2019s death, said Ismail Haniyeh, is \u201cthe continuation of the American oppression and shedding of blood of Muslims and Arabs.\u201d \n \n The more moderate Palestinian Authority took an alternate view. \u201cGetting rid of bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods \u2014 the violent methods \u2014 that were created and encouraged by bin Laden and others in the world,\u201d spokesman Ghassan Khatib said, according to a Reuters report. \n \n While Hamas and other radical groups and individuals spoke out against the killing of bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader\u2019s image in the Muslim world has been in decline in the last few years, a Pew Research Group survey released Monday shows. \n \n Support for bin Laden was most widespread in Palestinian territories, where 34 percent of those surveyed said they had confidence in him, down from 52 percent in 2009 and 72 percent in 2003. In Egypt, 22 percent of Egyptians surveyed this year said they have confidence in bin Laden, down from 27 percent in 2005. \n \n Confidence in the Al Qaeda leader was never high in Turkey or in Lebanon \u2014 in 2003, his positives were 15 percent and 19 percent, respectively \u2014 but his numbers have fallen further since. In Turkey, three percent of those surveyed this year said they have confidence in bin Laden, while just one percent of those surveyed in Turkey said the same. \n \n And in Pakistan, where bin Laden was killed, support for him has dropped from 46 percent in 2003 to 18 percent in 2010.", "summary": "\u2013 Reaction to Osama bin Laden's death is pouring in from around the world\u2014and not everybody's cheering, Reuters reports: Hamas: \u201cWe condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior,\u201d said Ismail Haniyeh, the group\u2019s leader in the Gaza Strip. \u201cWe regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.\u201d Pervez Musharraf: Pakistan\u2019s former president said the US had violated \u201cour sovereignty\u201d by carrying out the mission, Politico reports. \u201cThe Pakistani government should have been kept in the loop.\u201d Still, the country\u2019s foreign ministry applauded the killing. The Vatican: \"In front of the death of man, a Christian never rejoices but rather reflects on the grave responsibility of each one in front of God and men,\" said a spokesman, according to CNN. He did acknowledge that bin Laden spread \"division and hatred.\" Civilians in Ramallah, in the West Bank, offered mixed views. One woman hoped the news was false: \u201cGod willing, he will continue to conquer the West,\u201d she said. Another Palestinian called the killing \u201ca very criminal act.\u201d But others approved: \u201cHis heinous actions were exploited to allow hostile policies toward the Arabs and Muslims,\u201d one says."}
{"document": "Updated at 1:50 p.m. ET \n \n (CBS News) President Obama spoke out for the first time on Friday about the fatal shooting of an unarmed 17-year-old African-American boy in Florida named Trayvon Martin, calling it a \"tragedy.\" \n \n \"I can only imagine what these parents are going through,\" Mr. Obama said from the White House Rose Garden, \"and when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local, to figure out how this tragedy happened.\" \n \n Mr. Obama said he is glad the Justice Department is investigating the shooting and that Florida Gov. Rick Scott formed a task force in response to the incident as well. The president suggested he was sympathetic to suspicion that the shooting may have been racially motivated. \n \n \"You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon,\" Mr. Obama said. \n \n \"All of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen,\" he continued. \"And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened as well as the specifics of the incident.\" \n \n Gingrich, Romney, Santorum discuss Trayvon Martin \n \n Mr. Obama was asked about the shooting on Friday during an event at which he announced the nomination of Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to be World Bank president. \n \n Martin was shot in Sanford, Florida, nearly a month ago after a confrontation in a gated community with a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. \n \n Zimmerman maintains he shot Martin in self defense, and a Florida self-defense law has so far let Zimmerman remain free. But Martin's girlfriend, who was on the phone with him when it happened, says Zimmerman was the aggressor. Before he shot Martin, Zimmerman called 911 and told an operator an unfamiliar African American was in the neighborhood. The 911 operator told Zimmerman to stop following him. \n \n In spite of the ongoing investigations, outrage over the incident continues to grow. \n \n Martin's mother Sybrina Fulton said on \"CBS This Morning\" on Friday that she wants Zimmerman arrested. Thousands of people rallied in Sanford on Thursday to push for his arrest, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also decried the fact that Zimmerman remains free. \n \n Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida took to the House floor on Wednesday to call for justice for Martin, calling the incident \"a classic example of racial profiling quickly followed by murder.\" \n \n After Mr. Obama commented on the shooting today, the Martin family released the following response: ||||| President Barack Obama weighed in Friday on the shooting of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, calling it a national tragedy \u2014 and saying that the young man reminded him of his own children. \n \n \"When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids,\" Obama said in the Rose Garden. \"I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this. And that everybody pull together.\" \n \n Obama has come under fire from some black leaders for failing to comment on a case that has become a major national story \u2014 and brought thousands of Americans into the streets for demonstrations calling for the arrest of Martin's shooter. One black leader even wondered why Obama called a Georgetown student who was attacked by Rush Limbaugh but not Martin's family. Obama's comments Friday represent the first time the president has addressed the growing controversy. \n \n \"My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon,\" Obama said. \"All of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves.\" \n \n \"Obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through,\" Obama said. \"All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how something like this has happened.\" \n \n (Also on POLITICO: Geraldo Rivera: Trayvon Martin killed due to 'hoodie') \n \n The president was careful not to comment too extensively on an active investigation on both the federal and state levels, noting that as head of the executive branch, the Department of Justice reports to him. Earlier this week, under intense public pressure, the FBI and the DOJ joined the investigation into the Martin case. \n \n Obama's answer also reflects a departure from usual precedent. The president, who was ostensibly announcing the nomination of a new World Bank head, usually does not take questions shouted by reporters at the end of his prepared remarks \u2014 but today, he made an exception for the Martin case. \n \n Martin, a middle-class black teen with no history of trouble, was shot and killed in Sanford, Fla., a community just north of Orlando. His alleged assailant, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain and criminal justice student, apparently killed him on Feb. 26 as the 17-year-old walked home from a convenience store near his suburban neighborhood to his father's house a few blocks away. \n \n Before the shooting, Zimmerman, who has a weapons permit, told a police dispatcher there was \"a real suspicious guy\" who looked \"like he was up to no good or on drugs or something\" and looked to have \"something in his waistband.\" The dispatcher told Zimmerman not to approach the teen, but Zimmerman pursued Martin anyway. He chased Martin on foot and eventually shot him. The unarmed teen was carrying only a bag of candy and an iced tea he had just purchased. \n \n The case exploded into a national story after reports that the town's police department had not arrested or charged Zimmerman, who says he was acting in self-defense and pointed to a state la,w allowing him to respond with deadly force. On Wednesday, Sanford's police chief announced he'll take a voluntary leave of absence, effective immediately, to avoid becoming a distraction in the investigation. And on late Thursday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed a new prosecutor to investigate the killing. \n \n The White House had originally said not to expect Obama to stand at a lectern and speak about the tragedy any time soon. Though staffers and Democratic operatives interviewed Wednesday said the shooting has been a hot topic inside the West Wing \u2014 and that Obama is monitoring the situation closely \u2014 they're wary of a repeat of the uproar caused by Obama's 2009 comment at a news conference that a Cambridge, Mass., police officer \"acted stupidly\" in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. \n \n That remark, hailed by African Americans but condemned by some whites and many conservatives, unleashed a firestorm of criticism. The furor lasted for weeks and didn't subside until after Obama's awkward White House \"beer summit.\" \n \n The White House had said Obama wasn't likely to talk about the Martin case because \u2014 unlike the Gates arrest and the firing of Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod over video of what appeared to be racially insensitive remarks \u2014 the shooting is a law-enforcement matter still under investigation by local police as well as the Justice Department. And Obama was careful in his remarks to steer clear of specifics on the case. \n \n On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivered the administration's official position on the case. \n \n \"We here in the White House are aware of the incident, and we understand that the local FBI office has been in contact with the local authorities and is monitoring the situation,\" Carney said. \"Our thoughts and prayers go out to Trayvon Martin's family, but obviously, we're not going to wade into a local law-enforcement matter.\" \n \n Attorney General Eric Holder announced late Tuesday that a team of investigators from the FBI and other Justice offices were headed to Sanford to investigate the case and monitor developments. But just before federal investigators departed for Florida, the Congressional Black Caucus called for the shooting to be investigated as a federal hate crime. \n \n Martin's death \"compromises the integrity of our legal system and sets a horrific precedent of vigilante justice,\" Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said in a statement. \"As a nation we cannot, should not, and will not ignore, Trayvon's brutal murder and the inconceivable fact that his killer remains free. ... Trayvon had a family, friends and a future all taken away because of the color of his skin.\" \n \n Joe Williams contributed to this report. \n \n Read more about: Barack Obama, Trayvon Martin", "summary": "\u2013 President Obama weighed in on the Trayvon Martin shooting today in the most personal of ways: \"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon,\" he said at the White House today, reports Politico. \"When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this. And that everybody pull together.\" Obama has come under pressure from black leaders for steering clear of the case, and today marked his first public comments. \"All of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves,\" he said, calling it \"absolutely imperative\" that the investigation be thorough, notes CBS News."}
{"document": "Posted by lastrealindians on May 12, 2014 in Featured \n \n \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 Shirts Worn at the University of North Dakota\u2019s Springfest, By Ruth Hopkins \n \n On Saturday, May 10, 2014, a Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota man posted this picture to my Facebook wall: \n \n The photo was taken at the University of North Dakota\u2019s Springfest earlier that same day. In it, non-Native UND students are wearing shirts that say \u2018Siouxper Drunk.\u2019 Beneath it, a stereotypical \u2018Indian head\u2019 reminiscent of the retired Fighting Sioux logo is pictured drinking from a beer bong. What followed the post were a string of comments from understandably infuriated Natives, many of whom were from the Spirit Lake Nation, the Dakota Tribe located closest to the UND campus. \n \n Dakota, Lakota and Nakota people comprise the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires), also known as The Great Sioux Nation. Oceti Sakowin were called \u2018Sioux\u2019 by their enemies. \n \n The UND Fighting Sioux logo was retired after the NCAA concluded that the race-based mascot was hostile and abusive toward Native Americans. This decision was based on numerous complaints, affidavits, and an abundance of evidence collected over the years that proved the mascot was not only offensive, but detrimental and contrary to NCAA policy. \n \n Native mascots personify the widespread systemic racism against Native people that still prevails in the subconscious of western society. The Fighting Sioux-esque \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 tees worn at UND\u2019s Springfest by UND students are proof positive that Native mascots are harmful and degrading to Native people, and that retiring all race-based mascots is not only appropriate, but necessary. \n \n The \u2018drunken Indian\u2019 caricature is one of the worst stereotypes about Native people that there is. Historically, imbibing is not part of Native culture. There are many Native people, Oceti Sakowin included, who do not abuse alcohol. \n \n Europeans introduced alcohol to the Indigenous population in America. Prior to their arrival, Native people did not drink alcohol at all. Since then, Europeans have been pretty successful at using alcohol to subdue & assimilate Natives. \n \n Alcoholism is a serious issue in Indian country and its nothing to laugh about. According to the CDC, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis is the #5 cause of death among Native Americans. In 2010, 15,990 Natives died from alcoholic liver disease alone. Another 25,692 died from alcohol-induced deaths, not counting accidents and homicides. In fact, 1 in 10 Native American deaths are alcohol-related. \n \n The tiny town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, located just over the border from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, rakes in millions of dollars for beer companies every year by profiting off the misery of Lakota addicted to alcohol. These people who are sick live short lives full of pain and suffering. Families are destroyed. Now tell me again, how is \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 funny? \n \n The fact that a whole group of students were able to walk around UND\u2019s Springfest in \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 t-shirts without being stopped speaks volumes. Why would faculty, staff, students, and community members choose to ignore such blatant racism? Didn\u2019t anyone have the good sense to feel embarrassed or ashamed of such a discriminatory display? By allowing such open, aggressive hostility against Natives, you are complicit. If you disapprove of such behavior, stand up and be counted. \n \n Native students attend UND now, and dozens of Natives have graduated from there. Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Tribal members have degrees from the University of North Dakota. It\u2019s appalling that UND would allow their own students and distinguished alumni to be openly harassed and humiliated on the basis of race by others who attend their institution and are subject to the University disciplinary system. \n \n No one can tell me this act was not purposeful. Social media posts reveal that students wearing \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 shirts knew exactly what they were doing. One individual, who\u2019s Twitter handle is @Sioux_Sam, not only posted a picture of himself wearing the offending garment, he previously tweeted about having the shirts made and putting \u201cthe beer bong right into the mascot head.\u201d \n \n Another UND student apparently had the nerve to hope she would gain notoriety from the act of prejudice against Natives her and her friends perpetrated when they wore \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 shirts. Parents, please let your children know that this is not the kind of behavior one should want to be known for. Being labeled a racist for the rest of your life is nothing to be proud of. \n \n University of North Dakota administrators: you cannot afford to remain silent in the face of such arrogant bigotry. This mockery against Native people, this repugnant spectacle of racial intolerance, took place at your Springfest. An apology for allowing \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 tees to be worn at your Springfest isn\u2019t good enough. Sensitivity training will not suffice. Racially motivated incidents keep happening on the University of North Dakota campus. Implement a zero tolerance policy for any and all words, actions, and depictions that discriminate against Native Americans. Only by imposing automatic, pre-determined penalties for clearly defined, racially motivated infractions will you finally purge such shameful conduct from your institution. The onus is on you, not the Native Americans who are being subjected to this harassment and abuse. Students who wore \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 shirts at Springfest should be expelled. \n \n Native people deserve to be treated like human beings, worthy of respect. We pay taxes. We vote. We are part of this economy and society. We make contributions to our communities, UND, North Dakota, and this country. We will no longer accept being treated as second class citizens. If you aren\u2019t outraged by \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 shirts featuring a Native mascot in a headdress drinking from a beer bong, you need to check your moral compass. \n \n Pictures provided via Frank de la Paz, Danielle Miller and https://storify.com/xodanix3/sioux-sam ||||| UND students wear \"Siouxper Drunk\" shirts to Springfest Posted: Monday, May 12, 2014 6:57 PM EDT Updated: Monday, May 19, 2014 6:57 PM EDT \n \n Valley News Live -- A group of students at the University of North Dakota are in hot water for wearing shirts that, some say, display \"blatant racism.\" Several photos of the T-shirts have been making the rounds on social media following this weekend's Springfest at UND. \n \n The group photo shows ten students in their black, green and white shirts. The shirts say \"Siouxper Drunk\" with a logo underneath, similar to the retired Fighting Sioux logo, pictured drinking from a beer bong. Prior to Springfest, someone in the group tweeted \"Our Springfest shirts will make the news I just know it lol.\" \n \n UND student Frank Sage says many students coming into Indian Student Services on Monday were upset by the incident. Sage says there was no excuse for it. He called it very degrading and demeaning. We are still waiting for comment from UND Administration on whether the students involved in the incident could face any disciplinary action. \n \n A blog on \"Thelastrealindians.com\" says, \"The 'Drunken Indian' caricature is one of the worst stereotypes about Native people that there is.\" Writer Ruth Hopkins goes on to say, \"Alcoholism is a serious issue in Indian country and it's nothing to laugh about.\" The blogger cites a CDC statistic that liver disease and cirrhosis is the fifth cause of death among Native Americans and says 1 in 10 Native American deaths are alcohol-related. \n \n People on social media are not only bothered by the student's choice to wear the shirts, but are also coming down on CustomInk.com, which is apparently where the shirts were made. CustomInk released the following statement on Monday: \n \n \"We are very sorry about this offensive design. CustomInk's business is focused on bringing people together in positive ways. We handle hundreds of thousands of custom t-shirt designs each year and have people review them to catch problematic content, including anything that's racially or ethnically objectionable, but we missed this one. We apologize for any pain or offense caused by this shirt, and we will continue to improve our review processes to make them better.\" \n \n \n \n UND President Robert Kelley released the following statement late Monday afternoon: \n \n \"I was appalled to learn this weekend that a group of individuals had the poor judgment and lack of awareness and understanding to create and then wear T-shirts that perpetuated a derogatory and harmful stereotype of American Indians. The message on the shirts demonstrated an unacceptable lack of sensitivity and a complete lack of respect for American Indians and all members of the community. \n \n These T-shirts were not worn at a UND function -- in fact, the event they are associated with is NOT a university event. They don't appear to have been worn on UND property, and we are not aware that the group represents any UND organization. UND has a responsibility to promote respect and civility within the campus community, and we have the responsibility and right to speak out against hateful behavior. As a University, we teach respect for others. It is imperative that, through our actions, we demonstrate respect for all.\" \n \n The UND Fighting Sioux logo was retired after 68 percent of North Dakota voters voted to drop the nickname deemed \"hostile and abusive\" by the NCAA. The University of North Dakota cannot select a new nickname until 2015. ||||| The NCAA declared the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux mascot \"hostile and abusive\" in 2005, and the state voted to remove it in 2012, which leaves the school without a nickname until 2015. Not to worry, though. A group of students has found a solution: Use the same mascot, but add a beer bong to the logo. There's no way this could possibly backfire. \n \n \"Siouxper Drunk\" T-shirts featuring the beer-bonging Fighting Sioux character debuted over the weekend at Springfest, a popular party not sponsored by UND, leading to several complaints to Indian Student Services Monday morning. One student called the shirts \"degrading and demeaning.\" \n \n American Indian Student Services Director Leigh Jeanotte told the Grand Forks Herald he doesn't expect the school to take the complaints seriously. \n \n \"Until there is a statement, until there is action, true action, to say that this is wrong, hurtful and it shouldn't be continued, it's going to just keep going on and on and on,\" he said. \n \n The timing of the shirts only added to the controversy. During Time Out Week, a Native American educational event in April, a sorority hung a banner referencing the Fighting Sioux nickname, which also drew several student complaints. \n \n The shirts also got the attention of the blog Last Real Indians, which broke down the drunken Indian stereotypes and stats on Native deaths from alcohol that make \"Siouxper Drunk\" offensive. \n \n The students behind the shirts apparently knew they would bring negative attention, but either didn't care or welcomed it. Last Real Indians posted a screengrab of a deleted tweet from April where a student bragged the shirts would \"make the news.\" \n \n [H/T ValleyNewsLive, Photo via Last Real Indians]", "summary": "\u2013 University of North Dakota students are taking heat\u2014not least from their school's president\u2014after photos showed 10 of them in T-shirts reading, \"Siouxper Drunk.\" The shirts were apparently for a spring festival this weekend, and they show an image that looks a lot like the university's former Fighting Sioux logo drinking from a beer bong, KSFY reports. The NCAA called that logo \"hostile and abusive,\" and the state voted to get rid of it in 2012, Gawker reports. One member of the group tweeted, \"Our Springfest shirts will make the news I just know it lol.\" \"I was appalled to learn this weekend that a group of individuals had the poor judgment and lack of awareness and understanding to create and then wear T-shirts that perpetuated a derogatory and harmful stereotype of American Indians,\" says university president Robert Kelley in a statement, saying the shirts show \"a complete lack of respect for American Indians and all members of the community.\" He notes that the shirts weren't worn at an official school event. It's unclear whether the students will be disciplined. Notes a blogger at Last Real Indians: \"The Fighting Sioux-esque \u2018Siouxper Drunk\u2019 tees worn at UND\u2019s Springfest by UND students are proof positive that Native mascots are harmful and degrading to Native people, and that retiring all race-based mascots is not only appropriate, but necessary.\""}
{"document": "\n \n \u201cThe British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta\u201d at Sotheby\u2019s in London. (Reuters) \n \n \n \n A Sotheby\u2019s employee holds the stamp. (Agence France-Presse) \n \n In 1873, a British schoolboy living with his family in British Guiana (now Guyana) who was a fledgling stamp collector was going through his late uncle\u2019s personal letters, soaking off the stamps to add to his collection, when he came across an octagonal specimen, printed in black letters on magenta, adorned with an image of a three-masted ship and inscribed with the colony\u2019s motto: \u201cWe give and expect in return.\u201d \n \n Louis Vernon Vaughan had not seen anything like it, in part because there was nothing like it. \n \n It was printed in 1856 by a newspaper publisher in the colony of British Guiana after the local post office ran out of stamps shipped from London. \n \n The postmaster was unhappy with the quality of the stamps and concerned that they might be counterfeited. So he ordered the postal clerks to personally initial each stamp at the time of sale to prevent fraud, according to a history offered by the Kenmore Stamp Company. \n \n Sotheby\u2019s is set to auction the stamp known as \u201cThe British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta\u201d on June 17 in New York. \n \n The value: between $10 million and $20 million. (The highest auction price ever paid for a stamp is reportedly $2.3 million for the Swedish Treskilling Yellow.) \n \n \u201cIt will be by size and weight simply the most expensive object ever sold in history,\u201d said Sotheby\u2019s David Redden in a promotional video. \n \n Vaughn\u2019s heirs and descendants, wherever they are, must be eating their hearts out. \n \n Perhaps because it had been cut at the corners and was smudged, he thought it dispensable, according to an exhaustive study by Sotheby\u2019s. \n \n Vaughn offered the stamp to a local dealer who had no interest until Vaughn told him he would use the proceeds to make a few purchases. The dealer agreed to buy it for six shillings, the equivalent then of about $1.50. \n \n \u201cNow look here, my lad,\u201d the dealer reportedly said, \u201cI am taking a great risk in paying so much for this stamp and I hope you will appreciate my generosity.\u201d \n \n That was an early link in a long chain of ownership that would make the One Cent perhaps the most famous stamp in the world. \n \n In 1980, it was sold for $935,000 to an anonymous bidder who turned out to be John E. duPont, heir to the chemical company fortune and an avid collector. DuPont, who also was a patron of amateur wrestling, was later convicted of murdering a freestyle wrestler with whom he had had a falling out. He died in prison in 2010. \n \n In 1935, when the stamp had an estimated value of about $40,000, the Sotheby\u2019s study reported that: \n \n The London Daily Mail tracked down Louis Vernon Vaughan, still living in British Guiana, to ask how he felt about the prospect of the stamp selling for twenty-five thousand times the six shillings he had received more than sixty years previously. He appeared more bemused than regretful: \u201c[I]t is apparently coming into the market again \u2014 and the world\u2019s greatest stamp dealers and philatelists are ready to outbid each other and pay ridiculous sums of money for that little scrap of paper that I once owned. Really, it does seem remarkable! People ask me what I think about it. \u2026 As a matter of fact, I hardly ever think of it at all now and never with disappointment or chagrin. What is the use?\u201d \n \n Interested in bidding? Register here. ||||| Unique 1856 stamp, which has not been seen in public for 28 years, was last owned by a millionaire convicted murderer \n \n A scrap of dark-red paper faintly printed in black, the only surviving example of a legendary stamp that sold for one cent in 1856, is to be auctioned in New York for an estimated $20m (\u00a312m), reinforcing its reputation as the world's most famous and valuable stamp. It was most recently owned by an American millionaire who died four years ago in a prison cell. \n \n If the British Guiana one-cent magenta reaches the predicted price at a Sotheby's sale in New York on 17 June, it will set a new auction record for a single stamp. \n \n The stamp was one of an emergency printing of several denominations by the local Official Gazette newspaper in British Guiana in 1856, when storms delayed a shipment from the UK and the postmaster was in danger of entirely running out of stamps. Apart from the schoolboy who first recognised its rarity, it has brought no luck to a succession of eccentric private owners. \n \n The last owner, John du Pont, an heir to the DuPont chemical fortune, paid nearly $1m for it in New York in 1980. He won an award in 1986 for a display of British Guiana stamps at an international exhibition in 1986, the last time the stamp was seen in public before the current promotional tour by the auction house. \n \n Ten years later, suffering from severe mental illness, Du Pont shot dead the Olympic gold-medal wrestler Dave Schultz \u2013 after many years of sponsoring and helping in the training of Schultz and other US Olympic athleteswrestlers. His illness meant he escaped the death penalty but he was found dead in his Pennsylvania prison cell in 2010, aged 72. \n \n The stamp is now being sold by his estate, with some of the money going to another of the causes he championed, the Eurasian Pacific Wildlife Conservation Foundation. \n \n The stamp's first collector, who sold it to a dealer for a few shillings in 1873, was Vernon Vaughan, a 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy living with his family in British Guiana, who found it among his uncle's papers. In the 1880s it was bought by Count Philippe la Renoti\u00e8re von Ferrary, one of the wealthiest men in Europe, who kept a mansion full of stamps that he never sold or exhibited. \n \n He intended to leave his collection to Berlin's postal museum but the French state seized it as part of post-war reparations, and sold it in 1922, when it set its first world record: the American collector Arthur Hind outbid several rivals, including the stamp-obsessed King George V, and paid \u00a37,343. According to stamp-collecting legend, a second copy did turn up soon afterwards, which Hind bought and set fire to, saying: \"I still possess the only copy.\" \n \n David Redden, Sotheby's chairman and a books specialist, said he was overawed to have the stamp in his care. \n \n \"I have been with Sotheby's all my working life, but before I knew about the world's greatest works of art, before I knew about the Mona Lisa or Chartres Cathedral, I knew about the British Guiana. \n \n \"For me, as a schoolboy stamp collector, it was a magical object, the very definition of rarity and value, unobtainable rarity and extraordinary value. That schoolboy of long ago would be bemused and astonished to think that he would one day, years later, be temporary guardian of such a world treasure.\"", "summary": "\u2013 A stamp, created by a newspaper publisher when a British colony ran out of proper stamps in 1856, \"will be by size and weight simply the most expensive object ever sold in history.\" The British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta stamp will sell at Sotheby's on June 17 and is expected to fetch between $10 million and $20 million. If that sounds like a lot for a stamp, that's because it is. The most expensive stamp to ever sell at auction went for a far less-impressive-sounding $2.3 million, the Washington Post reports. The British Guiana hasn't been seen in public for 28 years and was last owned by convicted murderer John duPont, who died in prison four years ago, reports the Guardian. The stamp can be traced back much further than duPont, though. Sotheby's notes a young stamp collector living in what is now Guyana found it among his late uncle's letters in 1873. Since it was cut at the corners and a bit smudged, Louis Vernon Vaughan sold it for six shillings, or about $1.50 at the time, to a dealer who reportedly said, \"I am taking a great risk in paying so much for this stamp and I hope you will appreciate my generosity.\" It had an estimated value of $40,000 by 1935, at which time Vaughan said \"the world's greatest stamp dealers and philatelists are ready to outbid each other and pay ridiculous sums of money for that little scrap of paper that I once owned.\""}
{"document": "Defence lab unable to definitively say where nerve agent that poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter came from \n \n British scientists at the Porton Down defence research laboratory have not established that the nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal was made in Russia, it has emerged. \n \n Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the government\u2019s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), said the poison had been identified as a military-grade novichok nerve agent, which could probably be deployed only by a nation state. \n \n Aitkenhead said the government had reached its conclusion that Russia was responsible for the Salisbury attack by combining the laboratory\u2019s scientific findings with information from other sources. \n \n The UK government moved quickly to make it clear that the prime minister, Theresa May, had always been clear the assessment from Porton Down was \u201conly one part of the intelligence picture\u201d. The comments came hours before an extraordinary meeting in The Hague of the executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), called by Russia. \n \n Speaking to Sky News, Aitkenhead said it was not possible for scientists alone to say precisely where the novichok had been created. \n \n \n \n He said: \u201cIt\u2019s a military-grade nerve agent, which requires extremely sophisticated methods in order to create \u2013 something that\u2019s probably only within the capabilities of a state actor.\u201d \n \n He denied Russian claims that the substance could have come from Porton Down, which is eight miles from Salisbury, saying: \u201cThere\u2019s no way that anything like that would ever have come from us or leave the four walls of our facilities.\u201d \n \n Aitkenhead said: \u201cWe were able to identify it as novichok, to identify it was a military-grade nerve agent. We have not verified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific information to the government, who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions that they have come to.\u201d \n \n He said the location of manufacture could be established through \u201ca number of different input sources which the government has access to\u201d, adding: \u201cScientific evidence is only one of those sources.\u201d \n \n Aitkenhead said Porton Down was continuing to work on the substance to try to provide additional information that might help. \n \n He also said there was no known antidote to novichok but said Porton Down had advised Salisbury district hospital on how to treat the Skripals. \n \n Salisbury attack sites face months of decontamination Read more \n \n Seizing on Aitkenhead\u2019s remarks, Vladimir Putin\u2019s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Britain will have to apologise to Russia for its \u201cmad accusations\u201d that \u201chave no foundation whatsoever.\u201d \n \n The Russian embassy in London said the UK\u2019s claims that Moscow was behind the attack was a \u201cbluff\u201d and added: \u201cThis has been confirmed by the head of the secret lab. This only proves that all political declarations on the Russian origin of the crime are nothing but assumptions not stemming from objective facts or the course of the investigation.\u201d \n \n A UK government spokesman played down the signficance of Aitkenhead\u2019s remarks. He said: \u201cWe have been clear from the very beginning that our world-leading experts at Porton Down identified the substance used in Salisbury as a novichok. \n \n \n \n \u201cThis is only one part of the intelligence picture. As the prime minister has set out in a number of statements to the Commons since 12 March, this includes our knowledge that within the last decade Russia has investigated ways of delivering nerve agents probably for assassination \u2013 and as part of this programme has produced and stockpiled small quantities of novichoks; Russia\u2019s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views former intelligence officers as targets. \n \n \u201cIt is our assessment that Russia was responsible for this brazen and reckless act and, as the international community agrees, there is no other plausible explanation.\u201d \n \n However, two weeks ago Boris Johnson was asked by an interviewer on Deutsche Welle, Germany\u2019s public international broadcaster, how the UK had been able to find out the novichok originated from Russia so quickly. \n \n He replied: \u201cWhen I look at the evidence, the people from Porton Down, the laboratory, they were absolutely categorical. I asked the guy myself, I said: \u2018Are you sure?\u2019 And he said: \u2018There\u2019s no doubt.\u2019 So we have very little alternative but to take the action that we have taken.\u201d \n \n Looking ahead to Wednesday\u2019s OPCW meeting, a Foreign Office spokesman said Russia had called it to try to undermine the work of the organisation. The spokesperson said: \u201cThis Russian initiative is yet again another diversionary tactic, intended to undermine the work of the OPCW in reaching a conclusion.\u201d \n \n The Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov, was the latest to join the criticism from Russia over the UK\u2019s handing of the aftermath of the attack. \n \n He said Russia wanted Britain to \u201cprovide every possible element of evidence\u201d it had, adding: \u201cWe certainly reject any notion or claim of Russian involvement in the Salisbury incident. We will not tolerate this kind of irresponsible and basically indecent behaviour on the part of the British government. They will have to answer for that.\u201d \n \n Russia\u2019s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, called the attack a \u201cprovocation arranged by Britain\u201d to justify high military spending because \u201cthey need a major enemy\u201d. ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Image copyright EPA/ Yulia Skripal/Facebook Image caption Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were poisoned by a nerve agent called Novichok \n \n The precise source of the nerve agent used to poison a Russian ex-spy and his daughter has not been verified, says the head of Porton Down laboratory. \n \n The defence research facility, which identified the substance in Salisbury as Novichok, said it was likely to have been deployed by a \"state actor\". \n \n The UK said further intelligence led to its belief that Russia was responsible. \n \n Russia's president has said he hopes a line can be drawn when the chemical weapons watchdog meets on Wednesday. \n \n Expressing surprise at the \"pace\" of what he described as an \"anti-Russia campaign\", Vladimir Putin added that Russia wants to be part of the investigation and hopes \"a line can be drawn under\" the incident. \n \n Porton Down's chief executive Gary Aitkenhead dismissed Russian claims it might have come from the UK military laboratory. \n \n \"We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to [the] government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions,\" Mr Aitkenhead said. \n \n \"It is our job to provide the scientific evidence of what this particular nerve agent is - we identified that it is from this particular family and that it is a military grade, but it is not our job to say where it was manufactured.\" \n \n A UK government spokesperson said that identifying the substance at Porton Down was \"only one part of the intelligence picture\". \n \n It maintained Russia was responsible, adding there was \"no other plausible explanation\". \n \n Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with the nerve agent on 4 March. \n \n The BBC understands Miss Skripal, 33, is now conscious and talking. Salisbury District Hospital has said her father, 66, remained critically ill but stable. \n \n Mr Aitkenhead said he had been advising those treating the Skripals. \n \n \"Unfortunately this is an extremely toxic substance. There is not, as far as we know, any antidote that you can use to negate the effects of it,\" he added. \n \n Analysis \n \n By Frank Gardner, BBC security correspondent \n \n The man who runs the government's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down chose his words carefully today. \n \n Speaking strictly as a scientist, Gary Aitkenhead said that his staff had not yet verified that the nerve agent used to poison the Skripals had come from Russia. \n \n It was not his scientists' role, he said, to work out the source of the poison, implying that the government had reached the conclusion that Russia was to blame from other sources - notably secret intelligence. \n \n His comments come a day before an extraordinary meeting - called by Russia - with the world's chemical weapons watchdog, the executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). \n \n 'The whole truth' \n \n \"We hope to discuss the whole matter and call on Britain to provide every possible element of evidence they might have in their hands,\" said the Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov. \n \n \"Russia is interested in establishing the whole truth of the matter and we hope certainly that this meeting will help to return to at least the realm of normality within the realm of international law and...decency in international relations.\" \n \n A Foreign Office spokesman called the meeting a \"diversionary tactic, intended to undermine the work of the OPCW in reaching a conclusion\". \n \n \"There is no requirement in the chemical weapons convention for the victim of a chemical weapons attack to engage in a joint investigation with the likely perpetrator,\" he added. \n \n Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Skripals were found on a bench in Salisbury \n \n So far 29 nations have expelled diplomats over the poisoning, which the British government holds Russia responsible for. \n \n Russia has now told the UK that more than 50 of its diplomats have to leave the country. \n \n In a news conference on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested the poisoning could be \"in the interests of the British government\" because of the \"uncomfortable situation\" they had found themselves in with Brexit. \n \n \"There could be a whole number of reasons and none of them can be ruled out,\" Mr Lavrov said. ||||| Scientists from Porton Down have not been able to establish where the novichok nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal was made. \n \n Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, told Sky News they were not yet able to prove it was made in Russia. \n \n He said: \"We were able to identify it as novichok, to identify that it was military-grade nerve agent. \n \n \"We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to Government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to.\" \n \n 1:42 Video: 'We don't know source of nerve agent' \n \n He said establishing its origin required \"other inputs\", some of them intelligence-based, that the Government has access to. \n \n Mr Aitkenhead added: \"It is our job to provide the scientific evidence of what this particular nerve agent is, we identified that it is from this particular family and that it is a military grade, but it is not our job to say where it was manufactured.\" \n \n However, he confirmed the substance required \"extremely sophisticated methods to create, probably something only in the capabilities of a state actor\". \n \n He said there was no known antidote to novichok. \n \n Image: Mr Aitkenhead would not comment on whether Porton Down keeps novichok \n \n Porton Down's boss would not comment on whether the lab had developed or keeps stocks of novichok, but dismissed suggestions the substance used to poison the Skripals had come from Porton Down. \n \n \"There is no way anything like that could have come from us or left the four walls of our facility,\" said Mr Aitkenhead. \n \n The Foreign Office responded that they still believed Russia was behind the attack because of the wider \"intelligence picture\". \n \n A spokesperson said: \"We have been clear from the very beginning that our world leading experts at Porton Down identified the substance used in Salisbury as a novichok, a military grade nerve agent. \n \n \"This is only one part of the intelligence picture. \n \n 0:23 Video: 'Porton Down said it was Russia' \n \n \"As the Prime Minister has set out in a number of statements to the Commons since 12 March, this includes our knowledge that within the last decade, Russia has investigated ways of delivering nerve agents - probably for assassination - and as part of this programme has produced and stockpiled small quantities of novichoks. \n \n \"Russia's record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views former intelligence officers as targets. \n \n \"It is our assessment that Russia was responsible for this brazen and reckless act and, as the international community agrees, there is no other plausible explanation.\" \n \n The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory also responded to Mr Aitkenhead's comments, writing in a series of posts on Twitter: \"Our experts have precisely identified the nerve agent as a novichok. \n \n \"It is not, and has never been, our responsibility to confirm the source of the agent. \n \n \"This chemical identity of the nerve agent is one of four factors used by the Government to attribute the use of chemical weapons in Salisbury to Russia. \n \n \"The Government's assessment has been clear from the start. Our chemical analysis is a key part of the Government's assessment, and this has not changed.\" \n \n It comes as the chemical weapons watchdog said it would hold a special meeting on Wednesday into the UK Government's claim that Russia was behind the attack. \n \n Image: Porton Down's boss says there is 'no way' the nerve agent came from there \n \n The OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) said its executive council would meet in the morning in The Hague. \n \n In a letter, Russia's ambassador to the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin, asked for the meeting to discuss Britain's allegations \"in a confidential sitting\". \n \n Russian President Vladimir Putin has also called for a \"thorough inquiry\" into the incident. \n \n OPCW experts have taken samples from Salisbury to try to verify the nerve agent used and its origin. \n \n Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned four weeks ago in Salisbury. \n \n Russia has been pushing hard for access to the pair, saying it \"insists\" on seeing them. \n \n Image: Sergei Skripal and his daughter remain in hospital \n \n Ms Skripal's condition improved significantly last week and she is now said to be conscious and talking. Her father, however, remains unresponsive and critical. \n \n The UK Government has said it is looking into the legality of Moscow's request and also considering \"the rights and wishes\" of the 33-year-old. \n \n The diplomatic row has led to more than 100 diplomats being expelled from the UK, Russia, the US and Europe, and the war of words shows no signs of dying down. \n \n Moscow's deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, said on Tuesday that the poisonings may have been set up by the UK to justify an increase in military spending. \n \n In comments reported by Russian news agencies, Mr Grushko said the attempted murders could have been \"arranged by Britain\" because \"they need a major enemy\". \n \n Image: Sergei Lavrov suggested the UK may have carried out the attack because of Brexit \n \n His boss, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, floated another possible motive on Monday: that the UK could have carried out the poisonings to distract from Brexit. \n \n A retired Russian lieutenant general has also warned of a doomsday scenario and suggested the situation could escalate into the \"last war in the history of mankind\". \n \n Evgeny Buzhinsky, who leads security think tank the PIR Center, told the BBC's Today programme he was \"afraid that it will end up in a very, very bad outcome\". \n \n Asked to clarify, he said: \"A real war, worse than a cold war is a real war, it will be the last war in the history of mankind.\" \n \n Mr Buzhinsky said the West was \"cornering Russia and to corner Russia is a very dangerous thing\". \n \n When asked if there was any realistic possibility of triggering war, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said: \"We need to respond in a proportionate way to this aggressive behaviour from Russia and that's what we're doing.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Countries have lined up behind the UK to enact consequences on Russia in the wake of the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia, but the scientists who have been analyzing the nerve agent on Tuesday clarified that they haven't been able to establish it was created in Russia. Porton Down exec Gary Aitkenhead tells Sky News it was \"probably only in the capabilities of a state actor\" to have created the substance, which was definitively identified as novichok. But \"we have not identified the precise source,\" which he presents as unconcerning. \"We identified that it is from this particular family and that it is a military grade, but it is not our job to say where it was manufactured.\" What the scientists did do is hand \"the scientific information to government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions that they have come to.\" Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down elaborated on Twitter, writing, \"This chemical identity of the nerve agent is one of four factors used by the Government to attribute the use of chemical weapons in Salisbury to Russia.\" The BBC quotes a UK government rep as echoing that, saying Porton Down's work is \"only one part of the intelligence picture\" and asserting there is \"no other plausible explanation\" than that Russia was the perpetrator. But the Guardian suggests Aitkenhead's \"comments are bound to be seized on by Russia\" all the same. (Read the latest on Yulia's condition here.)"}
{"document": "Students protest the election of Donald Trump as president after walking out of classes from nearby schools, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) (Associated Press) \n \n Students protest the election of Donald Trump as president after walking out of classes from nearby schools, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) (Associated Press) \n \n LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Students left high school classrooms by the thousands, carrying their signs and their chanting voices into the streets of several U.S. cities nearly a week after Donald Trump's election. \n \n They walked out Monday in California, Colorado, Maryland, Washington and other states, many declaring concerns over the president-elect's comments about minorities and the effect he will have on their communities. \n \n Some of Trump's supporters have called for the demonstrations to stop, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who dismissed the protesters as \"spoiled crybabies.\" \n \n Trump has accused some of being \"professional protesters,\" although he said in a \"60 Minutes\" interview broadcast Sunday that he also believes some are afraid for the country's future \"because they don't know me.\" \n \n Here's a look at some of Monday's protests: \n \n ___ \n \n LOS ANGELES \n \n More than a thousand students from several schools on Los Angeles' heavily Hispanic east side marched out of classes. \n \n The demonstrations began at Garfield High School, the subject of the 1988 film \"Stand and Deliver\" focusing on teacher Jaime Escalante's successful college-level math programs. \n \n Students with signs and slogans headed to nearby Mariachi Plaza. They were joined by hundreds of students from several schools, many shouting, \"Say it loud. Say it clear. Immigration, welcome here.\" \n \n Some carried signs that read \"Deport Trump,\" while others waved the U.S., Mexican and gay pride flags. Many said they have relatives and friends in the country illegally who they fear will be deported. \n \n Brian Rodriguez, 16, was born in the U.S. to parents from Mexico and Guatemala. He said he was offended by Trump's criticism of Latinos. \n \n \"It hurt me inside knowing somebody from outside our race is talking bad about us,\" said Rodriguez, carrying a sign reading, \"Brown and Proud.\" \n \n Rodriguez said his school's principal opened the gates and told students they could participate. \n \n Nancy Meza, a community organizer who announced the walkout, said she helped students organize after they reached out to her. \n \n \"It was really out of frustration of students wanting to voice their opinions,\" Meza said. \"And wanting to feel protected.\" \n \n ___ \n \n OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA \n \n Hundreds of students from a dozen high schools in Oakland skipped classes to demonstrate. \n \n They called on California cities to remain sanctuaries for people in the country illegally, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee vowed Monday to maintain that status. \n \n Administrators had hoped students would return to class quickly, but they did not ask them to stop protesting, Oakland Unified School District spokesman John Sasaki said. \"We support our students' First Amendment rights,\" he said. \n \n ___ \n \n DENVER \n \n About 200 middle- and high-school students left two Denver charter schools to march to the state Capitol, where they chanted and held up signs saying, \"Millennial voice matters\" and \"Make peace not war.\" \n \n Police and school officials escorted the students along city streets to ensure their safety. \n \n The protesters called out \"Si, se puede\" \u2014 Spanish for \"Yes, we can\" \u2014 and \"The people united will never be divided.\" \n \n Noelie Quintero, 17, said they represented Latinos, Muslims, women and others marginalized by Trump. \n \n \"We're not going anywhere \u2014 we're going to continue to stand strong,\" she said. \"Even though we're only 16- and 17-year-olds and we can't vote, our voice matters. What we believe matters, and we're not going to stop.\" \n \n ___ \n \n PORTLAND, OREGON \n \n In a city that has seen large and destructive protests, a few hundred students from several schools walked out of class to gather in the rain near City Hall. \n \n The group held signs saying \"Students for change\" and \"Love trumps hate.\" They marched across a bridge, some of them climbing up it, while officers stopped traffic. \n \n It was peaceful, following smashed windows and other vandalism at recent rallies. Daily demonstrations have led to $1 million in damage and more than 100 arrests. \n \n A protest organizer says activists were contacting counterparts in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and other cities in an effort to stop Trump from prevailing on his issues. \n \n \"Trump is going to be president, so we need to prepare for that,\" said Greg McKelvey of the group Portland's Resistance. \n \n McKelvey said they want to ensure local governments fight racial disparities in policing and help address global warming. \n \n ___ \n \n SEATTLE \n \n Thousands of students across Seattle chanted as they marched in the streets and waved \"Not My President\" or \"Love Wins\" signs. \n \n Seattle Public Schools spokesman Luke Duecy reported more than 5,000 students from 20 middle and high schools walked out of classes Monday. \n \n Some said they oppose Trump's divisive rhetoric and wanted to show support for those he targeted, such as Muslims or immigrants. Others say they came to support their friends or simply to observe. \n \n High school senior Rose Taylor, who is bisexual, says she worries about what Trump's election will mean for the LGBT community and others. \n \n Police say two men, who were not students, were arrested in connection with the protest. \n \n ___ \n \n SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND \n \n Hundreds of high school students left campus and took to the streets to declare their opposition to Trump, while hundreds more gathered for a rally at a school football stadium. \n \n About 800 Montgomery Blair High School students attended the rally at the stadium, and most returned to class afterward, Montgomery County Public Schools spokeswoman Gboyinde Onijala said. \n \n The ones who left joined students from nearby Northwood High School, making up a gathering that Onijala estimated at 200 to 300, some of them chanting, \"Not my president.\" \n \n Police Capt. Paul Starks says the protesters were peaceful except for one bottle-throwing incident. No one was hurt. \n \n ___ \n \n Associated Press writers Christine Armario in Los Angeles; Andrew Selsky in Portland, Oregon; Phuong Le in Seattle; and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this story. \n \n ___ \n \n This story has been corrected to show Jaime Escalante's name was misspelled Jamie. ||||| Top Donald Trump campaign advisers who have taken charge of the president-elect\u2019s transition team are casting aside much of the work on Cabinet picks that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his aides put in place over several months \u2014 and leaving behind a far more chaotic operation dominated by Trump loyalists. \n \n Trump aides have nixed at least one Christie-backed person being considered for a Cabinet position in the aftermath of last Friday\u2019s shakeup, a person closely tracking the transition told POLITICO. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n The transition team has yet to publicly release a code of ethics for itself or for nominees. And an aide to a person being considered for a top Cabinet position said the person had not yet been asked to complete a detailed questionnaire to suss out red flags. \n \n Trump was slated to meet Tuesday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who now leads the team, to review names in hopes of announcing nominees for key Cabinet posts in the coming weeks. \n \n \"Obviously, Inauguration Day is not getting further away,\" transition spokesman Jason Miller told reporters waiting in Trump Tower Monday night. \"And people need to get going. This is an absolute top priority understood by the president-elect and the vice president-elect.\u201d \n \n By comparison, President-elect Barack Obama\u2019s transition team was deep into the vetting process by early November 2008 \u2014 not just meeting with prospective nominees but also compiling fat dossiers on them, according to emails made public through WikiLeaks. The Obama team also released a code of ethics for transition team members just a few days after the election to limit the influence of special interests. The Trump transition team, meanwhile, is full of lobbyists and has not released such a code. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of new people coming in the door. I\u2019m sure their heads are spinning, with security clearances and background checks,\u201d said one transition team source. \u201cThey\u2019re going from the footloose and fancy-free world of the campaign into the process of setting up a government. It\u2019s a little different.\u201d \n \n The demotion of Christie and his top aides \u2014 Rich Bagger, Christie\u2019s former chief of staff, and William Palatucci, a former Christie law partner and the transition\u2019s general counsel \u2014 sent shock waves through the team\u2019s ranks. \n \n Bagger and Palatucci worked behind the scenes for months to create a methodical operation that was less drama-filled than the New York-based campaign shop. They played a central role in hiring transition staff, developing an infrastructure, setting up policy- and agency-focused teams and culling shortlists for top administration jobs. \n \n The shakeup \u201cdefinitely caused some confusion,\u201d said one person on Trump\u2019s transition team. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of dust that\u2019s been kicked up.\u201d \n \n Among those departing is former House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, who said Tuesday that the group\u2019s work \u201cwill provide a strong foundation for the new transition team leadership as they move into the post-election phase, which naturally is incorporating the campaign team in New York who drove President-elect Trump to an incredible victory last Tuesday.\u201d \n \n At one point, members of the transition team even talked with good-government types \u2014 some of them Democrats, such as former Obama administration ethics czar Norm Eisen \u2014 to think through a code of ethics for the team. \u201cI and others appealed to both sides in this election to put in these tough rules, starting in the transition, because that is where the tone is set,\u201d he said. \n \n The transition team has not yet made public its internal code of conduct, nor did it respond to a request for comment about it. \n \n Nonetheless, Trump\u2019s closest aides are meeting with prospective candidates in hopes of announcing nominees for key Cabinet posts in the coming weeks, sources told POLITICO. \n \n Going forward, sources familiar with the team said they expect the operation to have a more top-down structure, with the president-elect\u2019s closest advisers, such as Pence, Sen. Jeff Sessions, newly named chief of staff Reince Priebus, political strategist Steve Bannon and Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner bulldozing much of the former transition leaders\u2019 existing work and making Cabinet decisions on their own, in consultation with Trump. \n \n Trump\u2019s aides are focused on recruiting allies and loyalists who they have long hoped to install in top Cabinet posts, such as Sessions, or as Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, a Trump donor and Goldman Sachs veteran. \n \n One person who has talked to transition officials compared their approach to that of Dick Cheney, who ran George W. Bush\u2019s transition team. \n \n \u201cCheney had his own list in his head, and he appointed the people he wanted,\u201d the person said, adding that there are factions within the Trump transition \u2014 including Sessions loyalists, Heritage Foundation wonks, Trump\u2019s campaign staff and conservative activists who admire Pence \u2014 that are each pushing their preferred candidates. \n \n The transition team is also working to develop cohesive policies aimed at vetting nominees and protecting against conflicts of interest. Trump\u2019s transition website, greatagain.gov, says candidates for jobs in his administration will be subjected to a full FBI background check and must complete a \u201cPersonal Data Statement.\u201d \n \n The statement includes questions about \u201cpossible conflicts of interest deriving from your sources of income; all aspects of your personal and professional life, including organizations to which you belong or once belonged; speeches you may have given and books, articles and editorials you may have written; legal, administrative and regulatory proceedings to which you may have been a party,\u201d according to the website, which urges candidates to disclose \u201canything that might embarrass the President or you if he should choose you for a position in his administration.\u201d \n \n If the transition team follows through on that plan, it would subject Cabinet nominees and top White House staff to a greater level of scrutiny than Trump himself received. He was the first presidential candidate in modern history to refuse to release his tax returns, leaving Americans in the dark about his own possible conflicts on financial matters and dealing with foreign governments. \n \n Past transition teams have generally subjected Cabinet nominees and other top administration officials to a rigorous in-house screening before announcing their nominations \u2014 and before nominees face questions from the White House Office of Government Ethics, the Office of Personnel Management and key Senate committees. \n \n Obama infamously asked Cabinet candidates to complete a seven-page form with 63 separate requests for information. A WikiLeaks email from Nov. 2, 2008 shows the extensive vetting of James Steinberg, which involved a total of nine lawyers and a deep dive into his past. Steinberg later served as deputy secretary of state. \n \n So far, the Trump transition team does not seem particularly concerned, for instance, about a transition team staffed heavily with lobbyists from energy, agriculture, transportation and banking. \n \n \u201cFrankly, one of the refreshing parts of it about the whole Trump style is that he does not care about political correctness. From a practical standpoint, I have heard lots of people say, \u2018Why would we box ourselves out of the most knowledgeable policy people in the country?\u2019\u201d said one source close to the transition team. \n \n Donald McGahn II, a partner at the firm Jones Day and Trump\u2019s lawyer, is expected to play a central role in vetting nominees. So is Arthur Culvahouse Jr., a partner at the firm O\u2019Melveny & Myers, who helped vet vice presidential candidates and, according to a source, has been helping the campaign organize its White House picks. \n \n Culvahouse declined a request for an interview. None of the lawyers in the political law practice at Jones Day returned POLITICO\u2019s calls. Culvahouse has faced backlash from colleagues at his firm for working with Trump, according to people familiar with the situation, with one person saying the decision was \u201camazingly controversial\u201d within the firm. Many top partners at O\u2019Melveny, including Tom Donilon, were vocal backers of Hillary Clinton. \n \n ||||| Official: Trump's children have not sought security clearances \n \n Donald Trump's transition organization refuted a CBS report that the President-elect wants his children to have top-level security clearances. \n \n A transition official said that Trump has not requested for his children that they be granted this type of clearance, nor did he expect that to occur. \n \n Story Continued Below \n \n \"That's not something I'm expecting right now,\" the official said, according to pool reports. \n \n Earlier, Rep. Adam Kinzinger downplayed the notion that this type of clearance would be a big deal. \n \n \"There's a lot of people, by the way, in the country that have top-secret security clearance \u2014 basically anybody that does what I do in the military gets it,\" Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. \n \n \"It's a level that you have to go through some intense background, but that's different than what would be considered basically presidential-level security, and I'm not sure what that's called or that classification. But basically you're exposed to anything the president has, versus just top secret.\" \n \n The Illinois lawmaker served three tours of duty in Iraq and two Afghanistan as a pilot serving in Air Force Special Operations and Air Combat Command, among other posts. \n \n Authors: ||||| WASHINGTON\u2014Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the leading candidate to be President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for secretary of state, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would elevate a well-known national figure to become the U.S.\u2019s chief diplomat. \n \n Mr. Trump\u2019s aides have also considered former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as a possible candidate, but the close relationship between Messrs. Giuliani and Trump was a major consideration, the people said. \n \n ... ||||| As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to fight gridlock in Washington, the city he leaves behind should get ready for the real thing. \n \n The NYPD and the Secret Service are negotiating how to secure Trump Tower, the President-elect\u2019s home and headquarters, with measures that could include shutting down Fifth Ave. \n \n The two agencies are scheduled to meet Thursday to develop plans to keep troublemakers at bay, according to a police source, who said the Secret Service wants to keep traffic off the busy avenue whenever Trump is in town. \n \n But top brass in the Police Department have argued that shutting down even a portion of one of the city\u2019s major avenues would be a nightmare that \u201ccan\u2019t happen.\u201d \n \n Obama calls Trump 'pragmatic' in post-election press conference \n \n Front page of Tuesday's edition of the New York Daily News. (New York Daily News) \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a negotiation,\u201d the source said. \u201cTheir job is to keep the President safe. Our job is to keep the President safe, but also let the people who live and work and visit there have some semblance of normality. It won\u2019t be complete normality, but it\u2019ll be adjusted normality.\u201d \n \n It was unclear how many blocks of Fifth Ave. would have to be closed to accommodate stepped-up security at the building between 56th and 57th Sts. \n \n A spokesman for the Secret Service had no comment Monday regarding security or negotiations with the NYPD. \n \n Protests erupt around the country after Donald Trump is elected president \n \n The area around Trump Tower has been the epicenter of protests since Trump\u2019s surprise election victory last week. \n \n Donald Trump may appoint openly gay man as UN ambassador \n \n The building has been blocked by concrete barriers to keep away protesters and thwart potential car or truck bombs. The glass tower, which opened in 1983, was built before 9/11 and is not fitted to withstand a terror attack. \n \n The building includes retail, office and residential space. \n \n President-elect Donald Trump is preparing for gridlock in Washington. (CARLO ALLEGRI/REUTERS) \n \n The Federal Aviation Administration has already declared a no-fly zone over the Midtown skyscraper until Trump is sworn in Jan. 21. \n \n The urgency surrounding the security measures was ratcheted up after talk Trump may not spend all of his time at the White House. \n \n Vladimir Putin congratulates Donald Trump for winning election \n \n The billionaire may still try to spend much of his time in his $100 million, three-story apartment on the building\u2019s 58th floor. \n \n Donald Trump's road to the White House as President-elect \n \n But the Secret Service is reportedly trying to talk him out of it, according to London\u2019s The Telegraph. \n \n Merchants said all the attention has been bad for business. \n \n Henri Bendel, the retailer directly across Fifth Ave. from the President-elect\u2019s home, closed at 2 p.m. on Saturday and 3:45 p.m. on Sunday. \n \n \u2018The Simpsons\u2019 on Trump president prediction: 'Being right sucks' \n \n It was unclear how many blocks of Fifth Ave. would have to be closed to accommodate increased security at Trump Tower. (Susan Watts/New York Daily News) \n \n It is normally open until 8 p.m. those days. \n \n The store has also endured fallout from the protests in another way. The theme of the store\u2019s annual holiday window is love \u2014 in the form of a \u201cLove Wall\u201d being installed by artist James Goldcrown. Protesters swamped Fifth Ave. on Wednesday as Goldcrown was putting up his love-themed mural. \n \n The window is officially unveiled Tuesday. \n \n Congestion on Fifth Ave. around Trump Tower on Monday. (James Keivom/New York Daily News) \n \n Michael Townsend, 41, of Weehawken, N.J., was in the neighborhood for a job interview. He said the new security measures are \u201cchilling.\u201d \n \n To Alec Baldwin: America needs your Trump impersonation \n \n \u201cThey don\u2019t want to hear us.\u201d Townsend said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to acknowledge there\u2019s a lot more to America than the people who support Trump. So they\u2019re going to shut this whole place down. \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve had so many conversations, from people who are afraid, to those being condemned. We need to fight and we need to take a stand.\" \n \n Paul Rossen, 54, a comedy club manager selling \u201cNOT MY PRESIDENT\u201d buttons on the corner of Fifth Ave. and 56th St., said he had mixed feelings about the potential lockdown. \n \n \u201cThe first thing they did was a good idea, with the dump trucks surrounding the buildings,\u201d Rossen said. \u201cI think there has to be a balance between incredible risk and being left alone. Airports are a great example. Everyone is getting searched and no one is complaining. \n \n Dunham on Trump\u2019s call for unity: \u2018You have to protect yourself\u2019 \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve been protesting out here six months, most of it right in front of Trump Tower. All I can say is the balance between free speech and danger must be considered. Three blocks seems like a bit much. If that happens, they\u2019re going to enjoy a lot more protests. I don\u2019t see how that helps anyone.\u201d \n \n With Joe Dziemianowicz ||||| President Obama held his first news conference since voters sharply rejected his candidate and his party at the polls last week, reassuring people at home and abroad that Donald Trump was committed to governing in a more pragmatic fashion than his harsh campaign style would suggest. \n \n \u201cHe\u2019s going to be the next president and regardless of what experience or assumptions he brought to the office,\u201d said Obama, who met with Trump for the first time last week. \u201cThis office has a way of waking you up.\u201d \n \n Obama faced reporters crammed into the James S. Brady Briefing Room on Monday before leaving Washington for a week-long foreign trip to Greece, Germany and Peru, where he will meet with more than a dozen foreign leaders with their own set of worries about where the United States is headed under its next president. \n \n At moments the president offered advice to his successor that sometimes sounded like a warning. He urged Trump to respect \u201cthose norms that are vital to a functioning democracy,\u201d such as \u201ccivility and tolerance and a commitment to reason and facts and analysis.\u201d For months Obama had accused candidate Trump of breaching those norms during a bitter and contentious campaign. \n \n After last week\u2019s shocking election results, Obama struck a more sanguine note. \u201cI think he\u2019s sincere in wanting to be a successful president and moving this country forward,\u201d Obama said. \u201cI don\u2019t think any president ever comes in saying to himself, \u2018I want to figure out how to make people angry or alienate half the country.\u2019 \u201d \n \n President Obama said during a news conference Monday that it's \"healthy\" for the Democratic Party to go through reflection. \"When your team loses, everyone gets deflated,\" Obama said. (The Washington Post) \n \n The president sought to reassure U.S. allies, noting that in his conversation with Trump last week, the New York businessman \u201cexpressed a great interest in maintaining our core strategic relationships,\u201d including the one with NATO. As he visits with world leaders, Obama vowed to let them know \u201cthat there is no weakening of resolve\u201d when it comes to America meeting its commitments and defending its allies. \n \n Throughout the hour-long news conference, Obama sought to calm and reassure a jittery and divided country, choosing his words carefully and emphasizing unity over division. \n \n On many issues the president conceded that he and Trump continue to have competing visions on where to take the country and that his worries about Trump\u2019s fitness for office and temperament haven\u2019t disappeared. \u201cOf course I have got concerns,\u201d Obama said. \n \n He sought solace in the notion that change in Washington usually takes time. \n \n \u201cThe federal government and our democracy is not a speedboat. It\u2019s an ocean liner,\u201d Obama said. \n \n And he expressed hope that on issues such as the Affordable Care Act, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Trump would modify his position. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t think he is ideological. I think, ultimately, he is pragmatic,\u201d Obama said. \u201cAnd that can serve him well as long as he has got good people around him and he has a clear sense of direction.\u201d \n \n President Obama said that his administration \"stands ready\" to assist President-elect Donald Trump and his staff as they transition to the White House in January. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) \n \n The president declined to comment on Trump\u2019s highest-profile and most controversial appointment so far \u2014 senior counselor and chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, former chief executive of the conservative website Breitbart News. Bannon is closely associated with the alt-right movement, which white nationalists have embraced. \n \n \u201cWithout copping out, I think it\u2019s fair to say that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on every appointment that the president-elect starts making if I want to be consistent with the notion that we are going to try to facilitate a smooth transition,\u201d Obama said. \n \n The president declined to answer a question on whether he still saw Trump as unfit to serve in the Oval Office \u2014 a criticism he had leveled more than once during the campaign \u2014 and instead emphasized that he had counseled the president-elect to reach out to some constituencies that had not supported his bid. \n \n \u201cIt is important to send some signals of unity\u201d to minorities, women and other groups \u201cthat were concerned about the tenor of the campaign,\u201d Obama said. \n \n In a sign of how Obama has been working doggedly to influence Trump to preserve some of his administration\u2019s landmark achievements, the president spoke of the need to improve the Affordable Care Act rather than jettison it. He made a passionate case for not forcing children of undocumented immigrants to leave the country. \n \n \u201cI will urge the president-elect and the incoming administration to think long and hard before they are endangering the status of what, for all practical purposes, are American kids,\u201d he said. \n \n Going before the media soon after a major election is a rite of passage for the president. In Obama\u2019s case, only one of these exchanges has been celebratory. While he could embrace his 2012 reelection victory, both the 2010 and 2014 midterms and now the election of his successor have amounted to serious setbacks. \n \n Six years ago, Obama called the Democrats\u2019 congressional losses a \u201cshellacking\u201d; in 2014, he declined to characterize the results, saying instead to the American people, \u201cI hear you.\u201d \n \n Obama spent much less time talking about what contributed to Democrats\u2019 latest losses, which were punctuated by disappointing turnout among some minority groups and a poor showing in rural areas and some key suburbs. \n \n But he acknowledged that Democrats need to engage in \u201csome reflection\u201d about the way they campaign and connect with the American people. \n \n \u201cI believe that we have better ideas, but I also believe that good ideas don\u2019t matter if people don\u2019t hear them,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere.\u201d \n \n Much of the president\u2019s hour-long news conference was dominated by questions of his view of Trump\u2019s character, temperament and fitness for office. Obama offered careful praise for Trump\u2019s ability to galvanize his constituency. \n \n \u201cWhat\u2019s clear is that he was able to tap into, yes, the anxieties, but also the enthusiasm of his voters in a way that was impressive,\u201d the president said. He observed that Trump was \u201cimpervious to events that might have sunk another candidate. That\u2019s powerful stuff.\u201d \n \n But Obama cautioned that Trump would not be able to govern as he campaigned: \u201cThere are going to be certain elements of his temperament that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them and corrects them.\u201d", "summary": "\u2013 Is the Trump administration going to be a family affair? Nepotism rules prevent Donald Trump from hiring his children to serve in his administration, but sources tell CBS News that the president-elect is already looking into getting top-secret security clearances for his children, a move that, for now, would have to be approved by the current administration. They could get the clearances by being declared national security advisers. Trump kids Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr. are on his transition team, as well as son-in-law Jared Kushner. A member of the transition team, however, denies that top-secret clearances had been requested for Trump children, saying it's \"not something I'm expecting right now,\" Politico reports. In other developments: The Wall Street Journal reports that Rudy Giuliani is rumored to be Trump's leading choice to replace John Kerry as secretary of state. \"One never knows,\" Giuliani said Monday evening when asked if his job title would soon include the word \"secretary.\" A source tells Politico that the transition team has become chaotic since Chris Christie was ousted. The insider says that in an approach reminiscent of how Dick Cheney ran George W. Bush's transition, the campaign officials that replaced Christie have discarded much of his work to focus on picking Trump loyalists. The Washington Post reports that in his first press conference since the election, President Obama described Trump as sincere about wanting to be a good president. \"This office has a way of waking you up,\" said Obama, who was on his way out of town for a final foreign trip that will take in Greece, Germany, and Peru. A source tells the New York Daily News that the Secret Service has been holding talks with the NYPD about how to protect Trump when he's at Trump Tower. The source says the NYPD has told the Secret Service to forget about its plan to shut down Fifth Avenue whenever Trump is in town. The AP reports that students protesting Trump's election walked out of classes Monday in cities including Denver, Los Angeles, and Seattle, where more than 5,000 from 20 middle and high schools skipped classes to protest."}
{"document": "MANILA (Reuters) - When the image of Jennelyn Olaires weeping as she cradled the body of her slain husband went viral in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte called it melodramatic. \n \n Jennelyn Olaires, 26, cradles the body of her partner, who was killed on a street by a vigilante group, according to police, in a spate of drug related killings in Pasay city, Metro Manila, Philippines July 23, 2016. REUTERS/Czar Dancel \n \n There\u2019s not much Duterte hasn\u2019t said when it comes to his war on drugs, his only real election platform and his big promise to the 16 million Filipinos who swept him to power in May by a massive margin. \n \n And \u201cthe punisher\u201d, as he is known, has been true to his word. \n \n Hundreds of suspected drug dealers have been killed since Duterte took office just one month ago. Six were assassinated in a single night in Manila, among them Michael Siaron, Olaires\u2019s 29-year-old husband who was shot dead by unknown assailants on motorcycles. \n \n \u201cA friend called out that Michael was shot. I ran out to see him,\u201d Olaires, 26, said in a rundown part of the capital\u2019s Pasay area, with its ubiquitous slums, squatters and thieves. \n \n \u201cThoughts were running in my mind. It can\u2019t be you. You don\u2019t deserve this. There are others who deserve this more than you,\u201d she said, recalling the moment she discovered his body. \n \n \u201cIf I only have wings, I will quickly fly to his side.\u201d \n \n (For a Wider Image photo series of Jennelyn Olaires, see reut.rs/2anBCTt) \n \n Photographers surrounded her behind a police cordon as she held his body. A piece of cardboard was left next to his corpse with the word \u201cpusher\u201d written on it. \n \n Dozens of similar killings have taken place almost daily in the Philippines, but with drugs and crime so deep-rooted, there is barely any public outrage. \n \n Some 316 suspected drug dealers were killed from July 1-27, 195 of which were vigilante killings, according to police. Human rights groups estimate the body count to be at least double the official number. \n \n \u2018KILL DRUGS, NOT PEOPLE\u2019 \n \n Duterte has not condemned vigilante killings. He has previously promoted them. \n \n The tough-talking former mayor of Davao City mentioned the image of Olaires holding her husband in his state of the union address on Monday and said media had tried to portray it as being like the Michelangelo\u2019s Pieta, the sculpture of Mary holding the body of Jesus. \n \n Olaires will bury her husband on Sunday. She concedes he was a drug user but says it is impossible he was a dealer because they were too poor and could barely pay for their next meal. \n \n Siaron made money by riding a pedicab - a bicycle with a sidecar - and did odd jobs. \n \n He even voted for Duterte in the May 9 election. \n \n \u201cThey must kill the ones who don\u2019t deserve to live anymore, the ones who are a menace to society. Because they cause harm to others. But not the innocent people,\u201d she said. \n \n Slideshow (7 Images) \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t need the public\u2019s sympathy. I don\u2019t need the president to notice us. \n \n \u201cI know that he doesn\u2019t like this kind of people. But for me, I just hope that they get the true offenders.\u201d \n \n Asked if she had a message to tell Duterte, she said: \u201ckill drugs, not people.\u201d ||||| It was the third extrajudicial killing of suspected drug pushers that I covered on the graveyard shift last week. \n \n Around 1:30 a.m. on July 23, upon arriving on Edsa Taft-Pasay Rotunda from another crime scene, I could already see the picture. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n I knew this was different. In the middle of the police line in which photographers and bystanders are not allowed to cross was the lifeless body of suspected drug pusher Michael Siaron, cradled by partner Jennilyn Olayres. A cardboard sign that read \u201cDrug pusher huwag tularan\u201d (I am a drug pusher, don\u2019t emulate) was left near the body. \n \n An hour had passed after the shooting, according to witnesses. A gunman on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice fired on Siaron and left the cardboard sign beside him. Another person was wounded. \n \n TV floodlights and news cameras popped and flashed as Olayres wept for Siaron while cradling him in her arms like Michelangelo\u2019s world-famous sculpture \u201cPieta,\u201d a depiction of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead Christ. \n \n I took many shots from a distance supported by the light from cameras illuminating Siaron and Olayres, which appeared very much like lighting from a theater stage. Hearing her pleading for help was gut-wrenching. I could do nothing but take more shots. \n \n I saw no need to use a flash, as I needed to capture the dark-at-dawn atmosphere. \n \n \u201cThat\u2019s enough! And help us!\u201d she cried out to media workers, authorities and onlookers. \n \n I stopped taking pictures and looked for a policeman. I asked him, \u201cWhat are you waiting for?\u201d \n \n The policeman replied: \u201cWe can\u2019t do anything as he is already dead. Let\u2019s wait for the Soco (Scene of the Crime Operatives).\u201d \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n The members of the Soco team came several minutes late because they came from the same crime scene we covered earlier outside the Senate Building in Pasay City. \n \n What could I do? It was heartbreaking but I knew I had to do my job. The crime scene still had to be processed. Evidence had to be gathered. \n \n I climbed the overpass and took more shots: an overview of the scene with cars passing along Edsa, with a few motorists stopping and looking at the commotion, a crowd gathering around the body and Olayres laying Siaron down on the pavement and weeping. \n \n Another report came\u2014a body was found in Leveriza, Pasay City, the fourth on that shift. Many of my colleagues and I hurried off but we all had a heavy heart. \n \n We were not able to take pictures of the male victim\u2014the fourth in \u201cPatay City\u201d (a play on Pasay City, meaning city of the dead), as a radio reporter jokingly said\u2014as the body had been removed from the crime scene. The victim, a mute, was shot and killed by a motorcycle-riding gunman, who also left a cardboard message near his body. \n \n We were quiet as we went back to the Manila Police District, the office of graveyard-shift media workers. I lighted a cigarette to calm my nerves. Another photographer took deep breaths. Together, we recounted moments from the scene at Pasay Rotunda. \n \n Another veteran photographer said, while shaking his head, \u201cI no longer want to be a photographer.\u201d We all had the same feeling of guilt. \n \n We were unsure whether to submit the pictures for publication because we felt guilty for not being able to help the victim and his partner. We only took photographs. \n \n I remember shaking my head, wiping off my sweat and processing what had just transpired in my head. \n \n I told my colleagues: \u201cLet\u2019s file this. It\u2019s our work.\u201d \n \n We may not have helped the victim and his partner but it is our job to show these pictures. We have to show reality as it is and perhaps, get people to react and even take action. \n \n Read Next ||||| Human rights groups call on UN to denounce killings of suspected users and dealers since Rodrigo Duterte won presidential election in May \n \n More than 700 suspected drug users or dealers have been killed by police or vigilantes in the Philippines in less than three months, say human rights campaigners, who are calling on the UN to denounce the violence. \n \n Human Rights Watch, Stop Aids and International HIV/Aids Alliance are among more than 300 civil society groups that have signed joint letters to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), calling on them to break their silence over the crackdown. \n \n \n \n \u201cWe are calling on the UN drug control bodies to publicly condemn these atrocities in the Philippines. This senseless killing cannot be justified as a drug control measure,\u201d said Ann Fordham, executive director of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), which coordinated the letter. \n \n Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte urges people to kill drug addicts Read more \n \n \u201cTheir silence is unacceptable, while people are being killed on the streets day after day.\u201d \n \n Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, won an electoral landslide in May after pledging to fill funeral parlours with drug dealers. He told Filipinos on the day of his inauguration last month: \u201cIf you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.\u201d \n \n Since 10 May \u2013 the day Duterte was announced the winner of the presidential poll \u2013 at least 704 people have been killed because they were suspected to have been involved with drugs, according to monitoring by journalists at ABS CBN News, a Filipino news network. \n \n One influential Philippine senator has called for an investigation into the killings. In a speech before the senate, Leila de Lima, a former justice minister, said: \u201cWe cannot wage the war against drugs with blood. We will only be trading drug addiction with another more malevolent kind of addiction. This is the compulsion for more killing.\u201d \n \n De Lima, who has also headed the Philippines\u2019 national human rights body, said police were summarily killing even innocent people, using the anti-drugs campaign as an excuse. \n \n A statement issued last week by the citizens\u2019 council for human rights accused Duterte and his officials of abandoning due process and human rights in their zeal to fight the war on drugs. \u201cUnits of the Philippine national police, under the command of his close associate General Ronald \u201cBato\u201d de la Rosa, have turned many low-income neighbourhoods in the country into free-fire zones,\u201d it said. \n \n \u201cThe bloody encounters taking place daily have polarised the country between those who support the president\u2019s quick and dirty methods of dealing with drugs and crime, and those who regard them as illegal, immoral, and self-defeating.\u201d \n \n The killings appear to have been carried out by police, who attribute the violence to suspects who \u201cresisted arrest and shot at police officers\u201d, and vigilante groups emboldened by Duterte\u2019s promises of impunity. \n \n In one case last month, eight suspected \u201cdrug personalities\u201d, including a woman, were shot dead by police in a pre-dawn raid in the town of Matalam, about 900km (559 miles) south of Manila. On the same day in Manila, police said they found a man lying dead with his head wrapped in packaging tape and his torso covered with a cardboard sign reading: \u201cI Am A Pusher.\u201d \n \n Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jennelyn Olaires, 26, cradles the body of her husband, Michael Siaron, who police said was killed on a street by a vigilante group in Pasay city, Metro Manila. The cardboard sign near his body reads: \u201cPusher Ako\u201d, which translates to \u201cI am a drug pusher.\u201d Photograph: Czar Dancel/Reuters \n \n On another night in the capital, six people were killed by gunmen on motorcycles. One of the victims\u2019 wives was photographed cradling his dead body in an image that has become emblematic of the Filipino drugs war. \n \n Jennelyn Olaires, the wife of Michael Siaron whom police said was killed by a vigilante group, told Reuters her husband had not been a drug dealer but that he was addicted to drugs. She said the 29-year-old made money by riding a pedicab \u2013 a bicycle with a sidecar \u2013 and did odd jobs. He even voted for Duterte in the 9 May election. \n \n \u201cI don\u2019t need the public\u2019s sympathy. I don\u2019t need the president to notice us,\u201d Olaires said. \u201cI know that he doesn\u2019t like this kind of people. But for me, I just hope that they get the true offenders.\u201d \n \n The IDPC\u2019s letters ask the UNODC and the INCB to call on Duterte to immediately end all his incitements to kill people suspected of dealing drugs and act to fulfil all international human rights obligations, including rights to life, health, due process and a fair trial. \n \n Philippines' 'Duterte Harry': the would-be president accused of using vigilante squads Read more \n \n Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said: \u201cInternational drug control agencies need to make clear to Philippines\u2019 president Roderigo Duterte that the surge in killings of suspected drug dealers and users is not acceptable \u2018crime control\u2019, but instead a government failure to protect people\u2019s most fundamental human rights. \n \n \n \n \u201cPresident Duterte should understand that passive or active government complicity with those killings would contradict his pledge to respect human rights and uphold the rule of law.\u201d \n \n A spokesman for the INCB said that a response to the IDPC\u2019s open letter would be considered over the next few days. The UNODC said that it had received the letter and that it would be reviewed. \n \n The most widely abused drugs in the Philippines are methamphetamine hydrochloride, known locally as shabu, and cannabis, which can easily be grown in the country\u2019s rural areas. In 2014, 89% of drug seizures involved shabu while 8.9% involved cannabis, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. \n \n Before he was elected president, Duterte was a lawyer who earned a reputation as an authoritarian figure while he mayor of the southern city of Davao. His campaign pledges included the reintroduction of the death penalty by hanging, as well as offering bounties for the bodies of drug dealers. \n \n During the campaign, Duterte said 100,000 people would die in his crackdown, with so many dead bodies dumped in Manila Bay that fish there would grow fat from feeding on them. After his election win, Duterte also launched a seemingly unprovoked attack against the UN. \n \n \u201cFuck you UN, you can\u2019t even solve the Middle East carnage ... couldn\u2019t even lift a finger in Africa [with the] butchering [of] the black people. Shut up all of you,\u201d he said. \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appears to be making progress in the war on crime he promised when he took office a month ago\u2014as long as murder isn't considered a crime. The Guardian reports that more than 700 people suspected of dealing or using drugs have been killed since Duterte, nicknamed \"the Punisher,\" was elected after vowing to kill tens of thousands of criminals. Critics including Sen. Leila de Lima, a former justice minister, say police and vigilantes are using an anti-drugs campaign as an excuse to kill innocent people. \"We cannot wage the war against drugs with blood. We will only be trading drug addiction with another more malevolent kind of addiction,\" she told lawmakers recently. \"This is the compulsion for more killing.\" Rights groups believe the rate of killing has reached dozens a day. A group of Filipino human rights advocates issued a statement last week condemning the killings and accusing police of \"turning low-income neighborhoods in the country into free-fire zones.\" \"The bloody encounters taking place daily have polarized the country between those who support the president's quick and dirty methods of dealing with drugs and crime, and those who regard them as illegal, immoral, and self-defeating,\" the statement said. Reuters reports that one recent victim was Michael Siaron, a 29-year-old pedicab driver shot dead in Manila by men on motorcycles. After photos of Siaron being cradled by his widow went viral, Duterte said the pictures were \"melodramatic.\" The widow admitted that Siaron used drugs but said he was far too poor to have been a dealer\u2014and that he voted for Duterte."}
{"document": "Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Netflix Inc. dropped the most in seven years after the video-rental service said it lost 800,000 U.S. subscribers in the third quarter, more than expected, and predicted more cancellations over a price increase. \n \n Netflix plunged 37 percent to $75.28 at 9:39 a.m. New York time, for the biggest intraday decline since October 2004. The stock closed at an all-time high of $298.73 on July 13, according to Bloomberg data. \n \n The outlook suggests Netflix has been unable to contain a subscriber revolt over a price increase and aborted plan to force subscribers into separate streaming and DVD services. The company now forecasts losses in 2012 because of costs to offer content in the U.K. and Ireland, and will delay further expansion until profitability is restored. \n \n \u201cPausing is a good thing from an investor standpoint,\u201d Chief Executive Officer Reed Hasting said in an interview. \u201cWe are going to pause and restore our global profitability.\u201d \n \n Hastings, responding to questions, said he has no plans to step down and declined to comment on discussions with Netflix directors. \n \n Domestic subscribers fell to 23.8 million as of Sept. 30 from 24.6 million three months earlier, a bigger decline than the company projected in September, according to a website statement yesterday. This quarter, U.S. customers will fall short of the 24.9 million analysts were predicting. \n \n Subscriber Fallout \n \n Investors are trying to gauge the extent of the fallout from the price increase and aborted plan to put DVD customers on a new service called Qwikster. \n \n \u201cTo show even modest U.S. subscriber growth in the fourth quarter will require significant ramp-up in Netflix's marketing spending,\u201d said Paul T. Sweeney, director of research for Bloomberg Industries. \n \n Hastings downplayed the likelihood of a big increase in marketing efforts. \n \n \u201cOur streaming marketing has been very effective in the past two years,\u201d Hastings said. \u201cWe are going to work on improving the user interface, expanding to more platforms and delivering more content. There's no grand gestures, there's just a lot of steady and intense efforts.\u201d \n \n Domestic streaming subscriptions are forecast to decline this month, level off in November and rebound in December to end at 20 million to 21.5 million, Netflix said. DVD subscriptions will fall \u201csharply\u201d to 10.3 million to 11.3 million customers. \n \n Fourth-Quarter Outlook \n \n Fourth-quarter profit will be $19 million to $37 million, or 36 cents to 70 cents a share, on revenue of as much as $875 million, the company said. Analysts were projecting profit of $1.10 a share on sales of $919 million, according to Bloomberg data. The company earned $47.1 million, or 87 cents a share, on sales of $595.9 million, a year earlier. \n \n Domestic subscriber growth is particularly important because Netflix has used its wide lead over U.S. rivals to finance growth in its streaming business and expand overseas. \n \n Netflix had projected a loss of 600,000 users on Sept. 15 to end the third quarter at 24 million. The actual results were in line with the average loss of 780,000 customers seen by 10 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. \n \n Domestic churn, a measure of subscriber turnover, jumped to 6.3 percent in the third quarter from 4.2 percent in the prior three months. The company's total subscriber count, including service in Canada and Latin America, fell to 25.3 million from 25.6 million \n \n For the third quarter, Netflix reported net income rose 65 percent to $62.5 million, or $1.16 a share. Analysts projected 95 cents, the average of 25 estimates. Sales rose 49 percent to $821.8 million, beating expectations of $812.8 million. \n \n --Editors: Rob Golum, Anthony Palazzo ||||| Reed Hastings was soaking in a hot tub with a friend last month when he shared a secret: his company, Netflix , was about to announce a plan to divide its movie rental service into two \u2014 one offering streaming movies over the Internet, the other offering old-fashioned DVDs in the mail. \n \n \u201cThat is awful,\u201d the friend, who was also a Netflix subscriber, told him under a starry sky in the Bay Area, according to Mr. Hastings. \u201cI don\u2019t want to deal with two accounts.\u201d \n \n Mr. Hastings ignored the warning, believing that chief executives should generally discount what their friends say. \n \n He has since regretted it. Subscribers revolted and many dropped the service. The plan further tarnished a once widely respected Internet service that had already been wounded by an unpopular price increase in the summer. Mr. Hastings was forced to reverse the planned split \u2014 but not the price increase \u2014 three weeks later and apologized. \n \n On Monday, the company revealed the damage that had been done. It told investors that it ended the third quarter of the year with 800,000 fewer subscribers in the United States than in the previous quarter, its first decline in years. The stock plummeted more than 25 percent in after-hours trading. [In regular trading Tuesday, the stock fell more than 30 percent.] \n \n Despite the decline in subscribers, the company did well financially in the quarter. It reported net income of $62.5 million, or $1.16, a share, compared with $38 million, or 70 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue rose 49 percent to $822 million. Both revenue and income topped analysts\u2019 expectations. \n \n Like many other companies built in Silicon Valley, Netflix prides itself on its analytical, data-driven approach to making decisions. But it made a classic business misstep. In its reliance on data and long-term strategy, the company underestimated the unquantifiable emotions of subscribers who still want those little red envelopes, even if they forget to ever watch the DVDs inside. \n \n Mr. Hastings said in an interview last week, his most detailed discussion yet of the bruising period, that he had been guilty of overconfidence and of \u201cmoving too quickly.\u201d But he said he still believed \u2014 as do nearly all investors and analysts \u2014 that Netflix\u2019s future lay not in DVDs but in streaming over the Internet. \u201cWe still need to move quickly in streaming,\u201d he said. \n \n Twice in the interview, Mr. Hastings linked the hostility toward Netflix\u2019s price change and proposed breakup to the angry mood of the country, even citing the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement by name. \n \n He said \u2014 and repeated it on a conference call for investors on Monday evening \u2014 that subscribers had been bothered more by the summer price shock than by the breakup plan. Until September, a combination of video streams and DVDs cost as little as $10 a month; now, that same package costs $16. \u201cWe are done with pricing changes,\u201d Netflix said Monday in a letter to shareholders. \n \n Mr. Hastings said he was not sure whether the plan to split the company had been presented to customer focus groups before it was made public. Mr. Hastings said he assumed it had been. But he said he did not recall what those focus groups had said about the plan. \n \n He said Netflix was now trying to slow its decision-making to ensure that there was more room for debate about major changes at the company. \n \n How Netflix came to be so out of touch with its customers is a cautionary tale for other companies that try to transform to new media from old. As the company\u2019s streaming Internet service caught on with consumers, subscriber numbers soared and, with them, the company\u2019s stock, rising ninefold from the start of 2009 to peak above $300 in July. \n \n Last year, Fortune magazine put Mr. Hastings, 51, on its cover as the businessperson of the year after he seemed to pull off the rare feat of finessing the \u201cinnovator\u2019s dilemma\u201d by navigating Netflix to the digital future from its DVD rental business. \n \n A key to its success was the way it blended its new and legacy businesses. While the library of material available for streaming was relatively sparse because of Hollywood licensing restrictions, Netflix customers could find many of those missing movies, especially new releases, in the company\u2019s far larger DVD selection. \n \n But Netflix needed to spend more money to license additional material for its streaming service. Collecting $10 a month from subscribers was insufficient as costs ballooned. Mr. Hastings defended the increase last week and again on Monday, but he said it was \u201ctoo big a price change all at once.\u201d Hubris played a big role in the errors, he said.", "summary": "\u2013 The horror movie isn't over for Netflix shareholders. The company, facing a customer revolt over price hikes, posted third-quarter results that were even worse than expected, Bloomberg reports. The company has lost around 800,000 subscribers since June, leaving it with 23.8 million, when it had predicted that numbers would swell to 25 million. The company's stock, which peaked just short of $300 a share in July, plunged 27% to $87 after the results were announced. Netflix warned that it will probably make a loss in 2012 because of the costs of expansion into UK and Ireland. CEO Reed Hastings says the company is guilty of \"moving too quickly,\" but he has no plans to resign, the New York Times reports. Hastings says he blames the hostile reaction to Netflix's price hikes on the angry mood sweeping the US, citing the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. (And speaking of Occupy Wall Street...)"}
{"document": "Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com ||||| The U.S. government is abandoning a legal battle to require that cigarette packs carry a set of large and often macabre warning labels depicting the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit. \n \n FILE - This file combination photo made from file images provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration shows two of nine cigarette warning labels from the FDA. On Tuesday, March 19, 2013, the U.S.... (Associated Press) \n \n Instead, the Food and Drug Administration will go back to the drawing board and create labels to replace those that included images of diseased lungs and the sewn-up corpse of a smoker, according to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder obtained by The Associated Press. The government had until Monday to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court decision upholding a ruling that the requirement violated First Amendment free speech protections. \n \n \"In light of these circumstances, the Solicitor General has determined ... not to seek Supreme Court review of the First Amendment issues at the present time,\" Holder wrote in a Friday letter to House Speaker John Boehner notifying him of the decision. \n \n Some of the nation's largest tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., sued to block the mandate to include warnings on cigarette packs as part of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that, for the first time, gave the federal government authority to regulate tobacco. The nine labels originally set to appear on store shelves last year would've represented the biggest change in cigarette packs in the U.S. in 25 years. \n \n Tobacco companies increasingly rely on their packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers _ one of the few advertising levers left to them after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV. They had argued that the proposed warnings went beyond factual information into anti-smoking advocacy. \n \n The government, however, argued the images were factual in conveying the dangers of tobacco, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths in the U.S. a year. \n \n The nine graphic warnings proposed by the FDA included color images of a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat, and a plume of cigarette smoke enveloping an infant receiving a mother's kiss. These were accompanied by assertions that smoking causes cancer and can harm fetuses. The warnings were to cover the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back, and include the phone number for a stop-smoking hotline, 1-800-QUIT-NOW. \n \n In a statement on Tuesday, the FDA said it would \"undertake research to support a new rulemaking consistent with the Tobacco Control Act.\" The FDA did not provide a timeline for the revised labels. \n \n \"Although we pushed forcefully ... (the) ruling against the warning labels won't deter the FDA from seeking an effective and sound way to implement the law,\" Dr. Howard Koh, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in an blog post Tuesday afternoon. \n \n Floyd Abrams, a noted First Amendment lawyer who represented Lorillard Tobacco Co. in the challenge said he wasn't surprised by the Justice Department's decision not to appeal. \n \n \"The graphic warnings imposed by the FDA were constitutionally indefensible,\" he wrote in an email. \n \n Warning labels first appeared on U.S. cigarette packs in 1965, and current warning labels that feature a small box with text were put on cigarette packs in the mid-1980s. \n \n The share of Americans who smoke has fallen dramatically since 1970, from nearly 40 percent to about 19 percent. But the rate has stalled since about 2004, with about 45 million adults in the U.S. smoking cigarettes. It's unclear why it hasn't budged, but some market watchers have cited tobacco company discount coupons on cigarettes and lack of funding for programs to discourage smoking or to help smokers quit. \n \n In recent years, more than 40 countries or jurisdictions have introduced labels similar to those created by the FDA. The World Health Organization said in a survey done in countries with graphic labels that a majority of smokers noticed the warnings and more than 25 percent said the warnings led them to consider quitting. \n \n Joining North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds, owned by Reynolds American Inc., and Lorillard Tobacco, owned by Lorillard Inc., in the lawsuit were Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc. \n \n Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation's largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, which makes the top-selling Marlboro brand, was not a part of the lawsuit. \n \n The case is separate from a lawsuit by several of the same tobacco companies over other marketing restrictions in the 2009 law. Last March, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the law was constitutional. The companies in October petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review that case. \n \n ___ \n \n Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum .", "summary": "\u2013 Big Tobacco can breathe easier: The Food and Drug Administration has scrapped a series of graphic warning labels for cigarettes after deciding not to challenge a court ruling that said the shocking images violated free-speech protections, the Wall Street Journal reports. The labels included images such as diseased lungs and the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and carried stern warnings like, \"Smoking can kill you.\" The FDA now plans to come up with a different set of warning labels, but the process is likely to take years. A separate court ruling last year upheld a 2009 ruling that gave the federal government the authority to regulate tobacco and to add stronger warnings on cigarette packets. Dozens of countries have introduced similar graphic warnings on tobacco products in recent years, and a World Health Organization survey found that they caused around a quarter of smokers to consider quitting, the AP reports."}
{"document": "Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| ESPN's Chris Fowler posts on his Twitter account that he needed broadcast partner Jesse Palmer to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him during halftime of the Pinstripe Bowl to avoid choking on a chicken sandwich. \n \n \"Never before needed a Heimlich at halftime. (Or any time)!\" Fowler posted Saturday. \"thanks Jesse Palmer! He saved me from death by dry chicken sandwich. Really.\" \n \n Fowler was doing play-by-play for the game at Yankee Stadium between Notre Dame and Rutgers. Palmer, the former Florida and New York Giants quarterback, was the analyst. Both live in New York, so the Pinstripe Bowl is home game for them. \n \n Fowler also posted: \"Not bad to have quick thinking, ex-NFL player around when Heimlich needed. I'll take bruised ribs to avoid choking!\" ||||| Tweet with a location \n \n You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more", "summary": "\u2013 At times the losing team is accused of choking. This time ESPN announcer Chris Fowler admits he choked, literally, during yesterday's Pinstripe Bowl, the AP reports. Fowler tweeted that he was choking on a chicken sandwich at halftime when fellow broadcaster Jesse Palmer gave him the Heimlich maneuver. \"Never before needed a Heimlich at halftime. (Or any time)!\" he posted. \"Thanks Jesse Palmer! He saved me from death by dry chicken sandwich. Really.\" He soon added that it was \"not bad to have a quick-thinking, ex-NFL player around\" in a time of need."}
{"document": "Got parasites? The American Society of Parasitologists is interested. We invite you to share with us your observations, ideas and questions about parasites. Our members and The Journal of Parasitology represent a wide range of research interests including ecology, evolution, systematics, immunology, biochemistry and molecular biology. Please post any aspect of parasitology you wish to share with us on our Facebook Group Page. Please go to our home page at \n \n http://asp.unl.edu/ \n \n and look for the ASP on Facebook link. \n \n \n \n \n \n We look forward to hearing from you soon. \n \n \n \n \n \n The Membership Committee of ASP \n \n \n \n Marius Fuentes \n \n Spain \n \n Hugo Mejia-Madrid \n \n Mexico \n \n Mike Moser ||||| | 4 \n \n The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. \n \n \n \n Email Print \n \n In 1922, a scientist named F.W. Edwards published a paper describing a remarkable thing: a flying, biting midge collected from the Malay Peninsula in southeast Asia that he named Culicoides anophelis. What made the midge was remarkable was the thing it bit: mosquitoes. \n \n Yet in the years since, relatively little work has been done on these potentially important blood-sucking midges, even though their geographic range encompasses the mosquito hotbeds of India, China, and southeast Asia. Recently, however, a team of scientists in China managed to capture one of them on film. \n \n Using a tasty cow as bait, the Chinese scientists trapped mosquitoes and took them back to the laboratory. Among their catch was a single mosquito with a midge clinging tenaciously to its backside. The next day, they repeated the procedure and again netted a midge-bearing skeeter. This time they chloroformed the pair \u201clightly\u201d and placed them under a dissecting microscope and appear to have recorded a video by sticking a camera up to the lens. \n \n After about three minutes, the midge decided it had had enough and attempted to de-deploy \u2014 with somewhat comical results \u2014 at about 1:30. In order to uncork itself, it has to do a 180 and pull like hell, bracing itself against its victim for leverage. After nearly a minute of struggle, it finally pops free. The midge\u2019s mouthparts seem designed to keep it securely harpooned to their new bestest friend whether they\u2019re feeding, flying, or silently cursing evolution\u2019s ironies. Some midges have been observed attached to their mosquitoes for up to 56 hours. One poor mosquito was found flying like a drunkard on the southeast Asian island of New Britain in 1945. The mosquito was ornamented by an engorged midge and was apparently woozy from blood loss. Both were preserved, and even in death the midge remained steadfastly attached to its host. Culicoid midges, apparently, have to decide they\u2019ve really had enough blood, thank you, to leave. \n \n Although it\u2019s oh-so-satisfying to hear mosquitoes have their own blood-sucking winged pests (though ponder for a moment that, scaled to our size, their parasites would be about the size of dinner plates, and unlike us, mosquitoes have nothing to whack them with), we may ultimately be losers in the business as well. The host range of C. anophelis, like its geographic range, is enormous. It has been found to parasitize at least 19 species of mosquito, but it has also been collected sucking blood directly from buffaloes and cattle. \n \n Culicoides midges are known carriers of bluetongue virus, Oropouche virus and Schmallenburg virus while mosquitoes they parasitize carry Dengue, West Nile, and Japanese encephalitis viruses. If mosquitoes are flying dirty syringes that spread disease among humans, parasitic midges may further scramble the disease load, introduce new viruses to new vectors, and generally add another order of magnitude to disease transmission calculus. But no one really knows. The studies, as authors of this paper point out, have yet to be done. \n \n ____________ \n \n The idea for this post came from an excellent post written by student Sarah Prammer over at the Parasite of the Day blog. Thanks guys! \n \n Reference \n \n Ma Y., Zhenzhou Yang, Xiaohua Wang, Zhongling Lin, Wei Zhao, Yan Wang, Xiangyu Li & Hua Shi (2013). A video clip of the biting midge Culicoides anophelis ingesting blood from an engorged Anopheles mosquito in Hainan, China, Parasites , 6 (1) 326. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-6-326", "summary": "\u2013 Next time you're annoyed by a tenacious mosquito, you can take solace in the fact that it, too, has to deal with parasites who want to suck its blood. And, as Jennifer Frazer points out in Scientific American, the mosquito has no way of slapping the tiny creature known as a Culicoid midge. And while a mosquito bite doesn't last too long, the flying midges have been known to lock onto mosquitoes for days at a time: One bit its host for 56 hours. \"The midge\u2019s mouthparts seem designed to keep it securely harpooned to their new bestest friend whether they\u2019re feeding, flying, or silently cursing evolution\u2019s ironies,\" writes Frazer. As many as three have been seen on one host, reports Parasite of the Day. Worse yet: Scaled to human size, they're about the size of a dinner plate. The midges were noted in 1922, but they haven't been studied much since then. Recently, however, some Chinese scientists caught one and filmed it, apparently through a microscope; viewers can see the creature hang onto a mosquito for three minutes before letting go. They live in a vast area including India, China, and southeast Asia, Frazer notes. But just because they torment our tormentors doesn't mean they're good news for humans. The midges also bite cattle directly, and they can carry a number of viruses, as can the mosquitoes they bite. (If you're sick of mosquitoes bothering you, you might try an anti-mosquito newspaper.)"}
{"document": "WikiLeaks publishes the Saudi Cables \n \n Today, Friday 19th June at 1pm GMT, WikiLeaks began publishing The Saudi Cables: more than half a million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry that contain secret communications from various Saudi Embassies around the world. The publication includes \"Top Secret\" reports from other Saudi State institutions, including the Ministry of Interior and the Kingdom's General Intelligence Services. The massive cache of data also contains a large number of email communications between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and foreign entities. The Saudi Cables are being published in tranches of tens of thousands of documents at a time over the coming weeks. Today WikiLeaks is releasing around 70,000 documents from the trove as the first tranche. \n \n Julian Assange, WikiLeaks publisher, said: \"The Saudi Cables lift the lid on a increasingly erratic and secretive dictatorship that has not only celebrated its 100th beheading this year, but which has also become a menace to its neighbours and itself.\" \n \n The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a hereditary dictatorship bordering the Persian Gulf. Despite the Kingdom's infamous human rights record, Saudi Arabia remains a top-tier ally of the United States and the United Kingdom in the Middle East, largely owing to its globally unrivalled oil reserves. The Kingdom frequently tops the list of oil-producing countries, which has given the Kingdom disproportionate influence in international affairs. Each year it pushes billions of petro-dollars into the pockets of UK banks and US arms companies. Last year it became the largest arms importer in the world, eclipsing China, India and the combined countries of Western Europe. The Kingdom has since the 1960s played a major role in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) and dominates the global Islamic charity market. \n \n For 40 years the Kingdom's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headed by one man: Saud al Faisal bin Abdulaziz, a member of the Saudi royal family, and the world's longest-serving foreign minister. The end of Saud al Faisal's tenure, which began in 1975, coincided with the royal succession upon the death of King Abdullah in January 2015. Saud al Faisal's tenure over the Ministry covered its handling of key events and issues in the foreign relations of Saudi Arabia, from the fall of the Shah and the second Oil Crisis to the September 11 attacks and its ongoing proxy war against Iran. The Saudi Cables provide key insights into the Kingdom's operations and how it has managed its alliances and consolidated its position as a regional Middle East superpower, including through bribing and co-opting key individuals and institutions. The cables also illustrate the highly centralised bureaucratic structure of the Kingdom, where even the most minute issues are addressed by the most senior officials. \n \n Since late March 2015 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been involved in a war in neighbouring Yemen. The Saudi Foreign Ministry in May 2015 admitted to a breach of its computer networks. Responsibility for the breach was attributed to a group calling itself the Yemeni Cyber Army. The group subsequently released a number of valuable \"sample\" document sets from the breach on file-sharing sites, which then fell under censorship attacks. The full WikiLeaks trove comprises thousands of times the number of documents and includes hundreds of thousands of pages of scanned images of Arabic text. In a major journalistic research effort, WikiLeaks has extracted the text from these images and placed them into our searchable database. The trove also includes tens of thousands of text files and spreadsheets as well as email messages, which have been made searchable through the WikiLeaks search engine. \n \n By coincidence, the Saudi Cables release also marks two other events. Today marks three years since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London seeking asylum from US persecution, having been held for almost five years without charge in the United Kingdom. Also today Google revealed that it had been been forced to hand over more data to the US government in order to assist the prosecution of WikiLeaks staff under US espionage charges arising from our publication of US diplomatic cables. ||||| An undated file photo shows al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. (EPA/STR) \n \n According to a recently leaked document, the son of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, Abdullah bin Laden, sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia to ask for his father's death certificate. \n \n In response, the embassy wrote to Abdullah to inform him that there was no death certificate issued for the older bin Laden. \n \n The letter went on to suggest other ways that the al-Qaeda leader's death could be officially confirmed. \n \n The remarkable exchange has come to light thanks to the latest release from WikiLeaks, the controversial secret sharing organization helmed by Julian Assange. On Friday, the organization released what it said was the first part of more than a half-million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, which it had dubbed \"The Saudi Cables.\" \n \n The U.S. Embassy's response to Abdallah was included within the release. It is dated Sept. 9, 2011, approximately four months after bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his hideout in Pakistan. U.S. officials have said that bin Laden was later buried at sea. Requests to publish photographs of bin Laden's body or his burial have been denied and any photographs taken are suspected to have been destroyed. \n \n In the letter to Abdullah bin Laden, Glen Keiser, a consul general at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, explains that the lack of a death certificate for bin Laden is \"consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations.\" \n \n Keiser goes on to suggest that the criminal case against Osama bin Laden had effectively been dropped due to his death since June 2011, and describes a process for requesting the order of \"nolle prosequi\" (which literally means \"unwilling to pursue\") from the court, which could act as proof of death. \n \n It's unclear why Abdullah bin Laden had requested the death certificate. \n \n In 2012, the Department of Defense responded to an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act request and said that it was unable to find a death certificate for bin Laden. \n \n You can see the full letter below: \n \n More on WorldViews \n \n The bin Laden library the U.S. government doesn\u2019t want you to see: The porn stash. \n \n Chomsky, Woodward and 9/11 conspiracy theories: Bin Laden\u2019s English-language bookshelf \n \n The Saudi king gave a prize to an Islamic scholar who says 9/11 was an \u2018inside job\u2019", "summary": "\u2013 WikiLeaks released a boatload of new documents today, this time from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, and one item in particular caught the eye of the Washington Post. It involves an exchange between a son of Osama bin Laden and the US government over the al-Qaeda leader's death certificate. Abdullah bin Laden asked for the certificate in the aftermath of the raid that killed his father, but a general counsel at the American embassy in Riyadh informed him that he was out of luck. Glen Keiser wrote that no death certificate existed, as is \"consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations.\" But he suggested an alternative: Noting that the US had closed the criminal case against bin Laden because he was dead, Keiser wrote that Abdullah bin Laden could request the order making that closure official, something called an order of \"nolle prosequi\" (\"we shall no longer prosecute\"). That would be the closest thing to proof of death. He even provided the necessary request form, adding, \"I hope that these U.S. Government documents are of assistance to your and your family.\" It's not clear whether bin Laden's son followed through on the suggestion."}
{"document": "Gwyneth Paltrow, the actress and founder of online lifestyle brand Goop, thinks that nasty, anonymous online commenters should take a look at themselves first before they post. \n \n \u201cThe Internet is an amazing opportunity, socially. We have this opportunity to mature and learn, which is the essence of being on earth \u2014 to being the closest person we can be to our actual, real, truest self,\u201d she said ahead of her surprise appearance at the Code Conference today. \u201cBut the Internet also allows us the opportunity to project outward our hatred, our jealousy. It\u2019s culturally acceptable to be an anonymous commenter. It\u2019s culturally acceptable to say, \u2018I\u2019m just going to take all of my internal pain and externalize it anonymously.'\u201d \n \n Of all the celebrities out there, Paltrow receives a particularly curious reception online, and she\u2019s well aware of it. She is beloved and obsessed-over (the success of her Goop project comes largely from people wanting to live like her, have lunch in Paris or moisturize their bodies like she would). \n \n At the same time, there seems to be some frustration and even aggression aroused by her lanky-blonde-perfect-frittata persona. Consider a recent headline: \u201cGwyneth Paltrow Joins Instagram, Will Probably Do This Better Than the Rest of Us, Too.\u201d \n \n In February, the newly hired editor of anonymous image-sharing site Whisper promoted one of his company\u2019s user-submitted posts that included a picture of Paltrow\u2019s face overlaid with text alleging that she was having an affair, an image that then went viral. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s taken me a long time to get to the point where I can see these things and not take it as a personal affront and a hurt. I see myself as a chalkboard or a whiteboard or a screen, and someone is just putting up their own projection on it,\u201d she said. \n \n \u201cIt has nothing to do with me. They have an internal object, and they\u2019re putting it on me. I kind of look at it as, \u2018Wow this is an interesting social experiment.\u2019 You\u2019re talking about a blind stranger having feelings about you. It can only be projection.\u201d \n \n The conversation about celebrity and the Internet, she said, is part of a larger one about \u201ccontainment and self-regulation\u201d online. \n \n \u201cOur culture is trying to wrestle with the idea that everybody has a voice, and how it\u2019s unimportant and really important at the same time,\u201d said Paltrow. \u201cWe\u2019re in this very adolescent phase. It\u2019s dangerous, [because] we lack the capacity to say, \u2018Why does this matter to me, and who am I in this?\u2019 \u2018Why am I having opinions about Angelina Jolie\u2019s operation?\u2019 \u2018What is unhealed in me?\u2019 \u2018Why am I using the Internet to do this?'\u201d \n \n She compared the experience of living through vitriolic Internet commenters to surviving a war. \n \n \u201cYou come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it\u2019s a very dehumanizing thing. It\u2019s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it,\u201d she said. \u201cMy hope is, as we get out of it, we\u2019ll reach the next level of conscience.\u201d \n \n This year may be a tipping point for Internet trolls, she hopes: \u201cIt\u2019s almost like we\u2019re being given this test: Can you regulate yourself? Can you grow from this? Can you learn? You can make it as bloody as you want to, but is that the point?\u201d \n \n And yet, for Paltrow, the Internet can also be a source of great good. Though the Goop team won\u2019t disclose specific details, Paltrow said her e-commerce business is profitable, and that the \u201copen rate\u201d (meaning subscribers that actually open Goop emails) for the Goop newsletter, which reaches people in 120 different countries, is more than double the industry average. \n \n \u201cI started it across all those categories kind of by accident. But it set me up really well to have a lifestyle brand,\u201d she said. \u201cI have big goals in mind for what I want it to be. I finally have been able to find the self-confidence that I really can do this, and I\u2019m doing it.\u201d \n \n Paltrow said she was initially hesitant about speaking at the Code Conference, where she would be onstage among tech CEOs. \n \n \u201cAt first, I thought, wow, I don\u2019t belong in this group. But, you know, I\u2019m really excited about my Web business and where we are with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we\u2019re achieving a new or newish paradigm \u2014 and we\u2019re actually achieving it \u2014 this mix of content and commerce.\u201d \n \n Her goal for Goop this year is to \u201cdo more of it, and do it better,\u201d she said. So far, Paltrow has not yet taken venture capital for her site, where posts are signed \u201cLove, gp.\u201d Instead, she said she has used her own money, as well as \u201cmy blood, sweat and tears.\u201d \n \n \u201cWhen I look at new companies, we\u2019re kind of the opposite of, let\u2019s just build it, build it quick and sell it,\u201d said Paltrow. \u201cBecause my name is so attached to it \u2014 because it really is mine \u2014 it\u2019s important that it be something real.\u201d ||||| BEImages/Matt Baron \n \n Well, this could all get a bit meta if any of you leave comments that are in any way negative on this post, but\u2014here goes! Last night, Gwyneth Paltrow\u2014Goop Overlord, Conscious Uncoupler\u2014made a surprise appearance at the inaugural Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, alongside the likes of Sergey Brin and Satya Nadella. (The conference is co-run by Vanity Fair contributing editor Kara Swisher.) \n \n Paltrow has had great success with her weekly Goop newsletter (its \u201copen rate\u201d\u2014that is, the percentage of subscribers who actually open her missives\u2014is, according to Paltrow, \u201cmore than double the industry average\u201d), and her e-commerce business is currently turning a profit. But while Paltrow sees the great opportunities available thanks to the Internet, and has clearly reaped the benefit of such, she told Re/code, the tech-news site hosting the conference, that she was also keenly aware of the Internet\u2019s dark underbelly: comment threads. \n \n \u201cThe Internet is an amazing opportunity, socially. We have this opportunity to mature and learn, which is the essence of being on Earth\u2014to being the closest person we can be to our actual, real, truest self,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the Internet also allows us the opportunity to project outward our hatred, our jealousy. It\u2019s culturally acceptable to be an anonymous commenter. It\u2019s culturally acceptable to say, \u2018I\u2019m just going to take all of my internal pain and externalize it anonymously.\u2019\u201d \n \n Does this mean Gwyneth actually reads the thousands of posts written about her each week? Gwyn, are you reading this right now!??!? (If so, hi! Uh, that \u201cGwyneth Responds to Chris Martin Lyrics\u201d post from last week was all in good fun! Also, want to meet up for some bruschetta and white wine? You can pick the place and time. Do you eat bruschetta?! Is bruschetta healthy?! We know you won\u2019t answer these questions in the comments, clearly, but e-mail us, maybe?) \n \n Paltrow went on to say that she has become somewhat immune to the onslaught of comments. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s taken me a long time to get to the point where I can see these things and not take it as a personal affront and a hurt. I see myself as a chalkboard or a whiteboard or a screen, and someone is just putting up their own projection on it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has nothing to do with me. They have an internal object, and they\u2019re putting it on me. I kind of look at it as, \u2018Wow this is an interesting social experiment.\u2019 You\u2019re talking about a blind stranger having feelings about you. It can only be projection.\u201d \n \n The experience of reading about herself online over the years is analogous to what it\u2019s like for veterans of war, she reportedly said. \n \n \u201cYou come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it\u2019s a very dehumanizing thing. It\u2019s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it,\u201d she said. \u201cMy hope is, as we get out of it, we\u2019ll reach the next level of conscience.\u201d \n \n So, the next time you\u2019re about to leave an anonymous, caps-lock comment on a Kim Kardashian photo post, imagine a mini-Gwyneth on your shoulder, drinking a mini-kale smoothie, shaking her head. We\u2019ll all be on that next level of conscience in no time. ||||| Gwyneth Paltrow isn't who you'd expect to speak at a big tech conference featuring Microsoft and Google honchos. But on Tuesday, she gave a short and impassioned speech about the dark side of the Internet. \n \n The actress was the surprise guest at Re/Code's Code Conference outside of Los Angeles. She spoke about the anonymity of the Internet \u2014 and its ability to allow \"objectification and dehumanization\" of others, especially celebrities. \n \n \"It's like the scabs from your high-school wounds being ripped off on a daily basis,\" Paltrow said. \n \n Actress Gwyneth Paltrow was a surprise speaker at the Code Conference on Tuesday. Asa Mathat / Re/code \n \n A visibly nervous Paltrow started off self-deprecating \u2014 she promised that she wouldn't talk about Javascript or Ruby On Rails \u2014 but she relaxed as she went on about the effect Internet trolls have had on her life and those of her celebrity friends. \n \n Paltrow acknowledged that some abuse goes along with being a public figure: \"When you go back through history, it's always happened. From a spiritual leader to Katharine Hepburn ...\" \n \n But the nature of the Internet adds a disturbing layer, she said. Paltrow gave one chilling example: A celebrity friend who posted a \"normal photo\" on Instagram received a comment from a user who expressed a desire to \"rape and disembowel\" her. \n \n Paltrow, who specifically slammed Facebook for its \"foundation of objectification,\" didn't go into many details about the online abuse she herself has taken. \n \n But in February, a user of the anonymous secrets-sharing app Whisper posted a message alleging that Paltrow was cheating on husband Chris Martin \u2014 a claim that her rep quickly denied. The following month, Paltrow earned Internet scorn for calling her separation from Martin a \"conscious uncoupling.\" \n \n \"At a certain point when you've been made fun of and excoriated and dragged through the mud ... for 20 years ... you realize it's not really about you,\" Paltrow said. \n \n Instead, Paltrow said, she has accepted she \"cannot be more than an external representation\" of whatever hurts the trolls keep inside themselves. \n \n Paltrow said she thinks about how her children will grow up in an online world, and wonders: \"Perhaps the Internet has been brought to us as a test of our own emotional evolution.\" \n \n Paltrow hopes that evolution will bring changes to the Internet and the way we live online. \n \n \"It's no accident that as the Internet grows, and the voices get softer and softer because there are so many of them ... we're drawn to authenticity.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Gwyneth Paltrow ... tech expert? The actress spoke at the Code Conference yesterday, rubbing elbows with tech CEOs, thanks to her Web business, Goop. Before her surprise appearance, she talked to re/code (the tech news site hosting the conference, Vanity Fair notes) about Goop (it's profitable, though she won't give exact numbers, and the \"open rate\" for her newsletter emails is more than double the industry average), but she also spoke quite a bit about mean online commenters on the Internet. One quote that's getting her some negative attention: \"You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it\u2019s a very dehumanizing thing. It\u2019s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it. My hope is, as we get out of it, we\u2019ll reach the next level of conscience.\" The quote, of course, led to headlines like \"Gwyneth Paltrow: Celebrities Who Have Dealt with Mean Internet Comments Are Almost Like War Veterans.\" (Even re/code acknowledged that Paltrow \"compared the experience of living through vitriolic Internet commenters to surviving a war.\") NBC News notes that her actual speech focused on the same themes, but her comparison there wasn't as dramatic: She said reading mean comments was like having \"the scabs from your high-school wounds being ripped off on a daily basis.\" (Paltrow's last ill-advised comment had to do with working moms.)"}
{"document": "If the notion of any current country performer labeling himself an outlaw was ever laughable, it would never be more so when considering David Allan Coe. In reform school by the age of nine, and charged with such offenses as armed robbery and auto theft, Coe would be in and out of various correctional facilities for the next two decades and would serve three years at the Ohio State Penitentiary. \n \n Related Merle Haggard: 'Prison Is the Biggest Business in America' Country music's most famous ex-con speaks out on the number of Americans in prison and changes his stance on marijuana \n \n While he was behind bars, Coe penned several songs that would be released on his 1969 debut album, the dark and crudely recorded Penitentiary Blues, which resurfaced in 2005 getting its first CD release. Coe was encouraged to write the songs, which detail stark prison life in such songs as \"Death Row,\" \"Oh Warden\" and \"Cell #33,\" by the man in the cell next to him, soul singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins. After he was released in 1967, Coe released those tracks via Shelby Singleton's SSS International label, and began touring with B.B. King and the Staples Singers. A subsequent deal with Columbia Records yielded The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, a hardcore country effort co-produced by Billy Sherrill and Ron Bledsoe, which failed to chart. \n \n The next album from Coe, Once Upon a Rhyme, would give him the first of his three Top Ten hits. \"You Never Even Called Me By My Name\" was a stone-country, semi-novelty song written by Steve Goodman (\"City of New Orleans\") and John Prine (who refused a writer's credit but was gifted a jukebox by Goodman for his contribution). In the second verse of the tune, Coe namechecks \u2013 and does some pretty spot-on imitations of \u2013 Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride and Merle Haggard. In the third verse, there's a little nod to Faron Young's \"Hello Walls,\" penned by Willie Nelson, and Coe even namechecks himself. The fourth and final verse has Coe explaining, in a spoken intro, how Goodman wrote to him telling him he felt he had written \"the perfect country and western song\" with this one. Coe further explains that he wrote back to Goodman and protested that the song was missing key elements that would make it perfect: Mama, trains, trucks, prison and getting drunk. Goodman then rewrote the tune, resulting in one of the most iconic \u2013 and hilarious \u2013 verses in country music history. \n \n Recorded on August 20th, 1974, \"You Never Even Called Me By My Name,\" would debut on the Billboard country chart in July 1975, eventually peaking at Number Eight. Although he wrote much of his own material, ironically, Coe's only Number One hit came in 1978 as the writer of Johnny Paycheck's Number One smash, \"Take This Job and Shove It.\" He would score another pair of Top Five hits as an artist with songs he didn't write: \"The Ride\" in 1983, and his biggest solo hit, \"Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile,\" which just missed the top spot, peaking at Number Two. \n \n Coe, who appeared in the 1981 film based on \"Take This Job and Shove It,\" would later tour with Kid Rock, writing \"Single Father\" for him in 2003. He also worked with members of the metal band Pantera on an LP released in 2006, and he remains notorious for several X-rated songs he recorded while reportedly riding as a member of an outlaw biker gang. \n \n This rare clip [above] of \"You Never Even Called Me By My Name,\" from the year the single was released, was certainly not radio-friendly, with the singer spitting out an F-bomb during the last verse, but it's vintage Coe and certainly another notch in the gun that is his well-deserved outlaw reputation. \n \n If there's any doubt that the \"perfect country and western song\" has stood the test of time, this 2010 all-star performance, featuring Darius Rucker, Easton Corbin, Montgomery Gentry, Vince Gill, Jason Aldean and the Band Perry should put that notion to rest. ||||| David Allan Coe in 1983 (Photo: AP file/Rudolph Faircloth) \n \n Country music singer-songwriter David Allan Coe pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Cincinnati to income tax evasion and owes the IRS more than $466,000, officials said. \n \n Coe, 76, who wrote the song, \"Take This Job And Shove It,\" has owed the Internal Revenue Service for outstanding taxes since at least 1993, court documents say. \n \n Between 2008 and 2013, officials said, he either failed to file his individual income tax returns -- or when he did, he failed to pay the taxes due. Coe faces up to three years in prison. The nearly half a million dollars owed includes taxes, interest and penalties. \n \n According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, instead of paying the taxes in full, Coe spent the money earned from live concert performances \"on other debts and gambling.\" \n \n The case is in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati. Court documents say Coe received multiple MoneyGram transfers of income in Cincinnati in 2011 and 2012. He also used a Cincinnati-based accounting firm to prepare his taxes, and in 2009 filed his taxes from Cincinnati. \n \n His Memphis-based attorney, Michael Stengel, could not be reached for comment. \n \n Coe, who performs at least 100 times a year, arranged to be paid primarily in cash, the news release said. Coe didn't allow $50 bills, the news release said, because \"he believed they were bad luck and would not gamble with them.\" \n \n He stopped using a personal bank account in 2009. \n \n \"Coe's arrangement to be paid primarily in cash was also in an effort to impede the ability of the IRS to collect on the taxes owed,\" the news release said. \n \n The case was investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office and special agents with the IRS's criminal investigations unit. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1FadW1Y", "summary": "\u2013 Well, this is about what you'd expect from the guy who wrote the song \"Take This Job and Shove It\": David Allan Coe owes the IRS more than $466,000 in back taxes. The country music singer-songwriter, 76, pleaded guilty to income tax evasion in federal court in Cincinnati yesterday, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. He faces up to three years in prison\u2014precisely the amount of time he spent in the Ohio State Penitentiary in his younger days, reports Rolling Stone. The US Attorney's Office says Coe arranged to get much of his payment in cash when he performed, which was partially \"an effort to impede the ability of the IRS to collect on the taxes owed.\" He then spent that cash \"on other debts and gambling,\" the office says in a press release. Perhaps the quirkiest detail in that release: Coe apparently refused payment in $50 bills, because he considered them bad luck and \"would not gamble with them.\""}
{"document": "The deal only extends three weeks. But it seems less likely that congressional Republicans who didn't ask for this fight will support another one. ||||| CONCORD, N.H.\u2014Conservative attorney Ovide Lamontagne and former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte were still waiting Wednesday to learn which of them will be New Hampshire's Republican U.S. Senate nominee. \n \n Paula Penney, elections assistant at the Secretary of State's office, said returns were still coming in and that staff had been working on counting them throughout the night. \n \n Ayotte held a slight lead -- close enough for Lamontagne to legally request a recount if the margin held -- with 257 of 301 precincts reporting, or 85 percent. Ayotte had 46,331 votes, or 38 percent, while Lamontagne had 45,352, or 37 percent. \n \n Multimillionaire businessman Bill Binnie, who spent more than $5 million out of his own pocket pushing his jobs agenda, received 16,960 votes, or 14 percent, and conceded along with millionaire businessman Jim Bender, who got 10,507 votes, or 9 percent. \n \n Lamontagne, who painted himself as the only true conservative in the race, held a slight advantage in early returns over Ayotte -- former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's pick for the seat. But as Tuesday night wore on, Ayotte took a slight lead. \n \n The winner hopes to win retiring GOP Sen. Judd Gregg's seat and face Democratic nominee Paul Hodes, who was unopposed. \n \n Losers in state primary elections can ask for a recount if the losing margin is within 1.5 percent of the total votes cast in a race. Penney said no recount request had been made yet; candidates have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to make the request. \n \n Hodes said Tuesday night the Republican agenda is \"extreme, radical and right wing.\" He said Republicans would take the country backward into the hole from which the nation is struggling to dig out. \n \n \"I'm running for the people of New Hampshire. I don't have to run against anyone,\" Hodes said. \n \n Ayotte, 42, of Nashua, won the blessing from Palin, who calls her a \"Granite Grizzly.\" Ayotte spent more than $2 million on her anti-Democrat, anti-federal spending campaign. \n \n Lamontagne closed fast in the final days of the race despite spending only $400,000. Lamontagne, 52, counted on conservative groups, not money, to win the nomination. \n \n \"It's not how much money you have, it's the message,\" Lamontagne said Tuesday night. \n \n In a fight over who is the most conservative, Ayotte won Palin's endorsement in July over Lamontagne, who courted tea party activists. Palin, the former vice presidential nominee, recorded telephone messages to voters that started Sunday praising Ayotte as \"the true conservative\" -- a mantle Lamontagne had tried to claim as his throughout his campaign. \n \n Lamontagne's two previous election bids were unsuccessful. His late surge was similar to his victory over former U.S. Rep. Bill Zeliff for the 1996 GOP gubernatorial nomination, but Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen beat him to capture the first of her three two-year terms as governor. Lamontagne failed in a GOP primary bid in 1992 to unseat Zeliff in the 1st District. \n \n The Republicans spent more than $9.5 million for the chance to face Hodes, 59, of Concord. Despite being unopposed, Hodes spent $2.5 million to line up support to try to win the seat. The spending totals will rise after final primary campaign finance reports are filed with the Federal Elections Commission. \n \n \u00a9 Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.", "summary": "\u2013 The final round of primaries before the midterms delivered some big wins for the Tea Party and there's still a prize to claim in New Hampshire. The state's seven-way Republican US Senate primary is down to two candidates and it's still too close to call between attorney Ovide Lamontagne and former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, the Boston Globe reports. The New Hampshire race is another one seen as Tea Party versus establishment, though this one's not as clear cut, notes Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post. Lamontagne billed himself as ultra-conservative and played up his connection to Tea Party groups in the final weeks of the rice, but Sarah Palin and other top conservatives backed Ayotte, who currently holds a lead narrow enough for Lamontagne to legally call for a recount."}
{"document": "Hey Friends. As many of you know, I am a teacher at Pittsburgh Perry High School. Each day, I am fortunate enough to hang out with some of Pittsburghs most amazing young people. If these young folks are the future of Pittsburgh, we are a very lucky city. Seriously, they are great. Every teacher knows that there are some students who stand out along the way and over the years.Kevonna is one of those students.I met Kevonna two years ago when she was in an AP Language class I was teaching. It didn't take me long to realize that Kevonna was the kind of person who pushed through anything to make the most of her opportunities. And unfortunately, as life goes, she had to push through more than some others. Half way through that year, her house burnt to the ground. Her family lost everything and was forced to move across the city. She barely blinked. She would get on a bus for an hour each day, traverse the city in time to arrive at Perry by 7:11 for first period. She kept smiling, kept being a good friend to her classmates, and kept getting good grades. In fact, her grades were good enough toand an acceptance to Temple University.For her, the hard work was paying off.Somewhere in the midst of that 11th grade year, I started telling Kevonna that. She asked what I meant, and I told her that she always seems to rise to the top. There has been plenty of reasons for her to give in to the weight and sink, but she continues to rise up. In fact, on our school talent night, Kevonna sang \"Rise Up\" by Andra Day and it almost made me tear up. She really will keep rising, and she'll do it \"1000 times again\" as the song says.Kevonna's financial aid at Temple covers all but $3500 of her semester's tuition ($7000 per year). Temple will not let her sign up for her Spring classes until she can pay $3500 dollars. In fact, they will not even release her first semester's transcripts without that money. She has lived at the financial aid office over the last month trying to exhaust every option, and it seems that there are none. We called everyone we knew who might be able to help, but we are learning that it is late to get that kind of money. She needs to get a private loan to cover the rest of her tuition. Unfortunately, no one in her amazing family has the positive credit to co-sign for a loan. She has all \"A's\" and \"B's,\" which is pretty remarkable for a first generation college student in a new city. She is succeeding in every way that she can. I am too much of an optimist to allow Kevonna to come home midway through her freshman year over $3500.I asked Kevonna how personal she wanted me to be in this appeal. She said this:I wish I could cut a check for $7000 and help Kevonna figure out her scholarships for next year. She is that kind of person. She will not fail. I'm confident of that. In fact, she has overcome harder things than tuition bills. She will find a way to overcome this.But I don't want her to have to do this one on her own. She'll float, but this time I would like for all of us to show Kevonna that we can throw her a life jacket. We have the chance to help her ease the load a little.Temple is fortunate to have such an amazing young person on their campus. Pittsburgh should be proud of Kevonna. Her Perry family certainly is.If you can help, it would be great. Our first goal is to raise the $3500 needed to register for Spring classes. When we get there, we will keep going to try to pay the $7000 for the whole year. We are hoping to transfer the money from here directly to Temple. Help us tell Kevonna that we believe in her. And that we are all cheering. ||||| 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": "\u2013 Kevonna Stevens graduated as valedictorian of her class and became the first of her family to head to college, thanks in part to teacher Jason Boll, who helped her apply. Now Boll is stepping up for Stevens again, in an even bigger way. The 18-year-old told the Pittsburgh teacher in October that while she was getting good grades, she might not be able to afford to stay in college at Philadelphia's Temple University, Boll's alma mater. With Stevens' OK, Boll started a GoFundMe campaign that passed its $7,500 fundraising goal in just about a week, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Boll closed the fundraiser when $8,500 had been raised, since that covers what Stevens needs for the rest of the school year, but he encourages backers to share any scholarships or other financial assistance they knew of for students. Stevens lived in Las Vegas, North Carolina, and New York before arriving in Pittsburgh her freshman year of high school; she moved multiple times even once she'd settled there, including when her father moved across the country after her parents split up, and then after the family home burned down. None of this seemed to faze her, Boll wrote on the GoFundMe page. She got a job to pay for bus fare, and \"she would get on a bus for an hour each day, traverse the city in time to arrive at [school] by 7:11 for first period. She kept smiling, kept being a good friend to her classmates, and kept getting good grades,\" Boll tells the Post-Gazette. When he heard about her financial troubles, he says, \"I thought, there's no way that this is the end of the story.\" Most of Stevens' college costs are covered with grants, student loans, and scholarships, but a housing mix-up led to the financial issue."}
{"document": "DENVER, March 24, 2015 -- Chocolate has many health benefits -- it can potentially lower blood pressure and cholesterol and reduce stroke risk. But just as connoisseurs thought it couldn't get any better, there's this tasty new tidbit: Researchers have found a way to make the treat even more nutritious -- and sweeter. \n \n They will describe their research here today at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 11,000 reports on new advances in science and other topics. It is being held here through Thursday. \n \n Cocoa undergoes several steps before it takes shape as a candy bar. Workers cut down pods from cocoa trees, then split open the pods to remove the white or purple cocoa beans. They are fermented in banana-lined baskets for a few days and then set out to dry in the sun. Roasting, the next step, brings out the flavor. But some of the healthful polyphenols (antioxidants) are lost during the roasting process, so the researchers wanted to figure out a way to retain as much of the polyphenols and good flavors as possible. \n \n \"We decided to add a pod-storage step before the beans were even fermented to see whether that would have an effect on the polyphenol content,\" says Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa, Ph.D., who is at the University of Ghana. \"This is not traditionally done, and this is what makes our research fundamentally different. It's also not known how roasting affects polyphenol content.\" \n \n Afoakwa's team divided 300 pods into four groups that were either not stored at all or stored for three, seven or 10 days before processing. This technique is called \"pulp preconditioning.\" After each storage period passed, fermentation and drying were done as usual. He reports that the seven-day storage resulted in the highest antioxidant activity after roasting. \n \n To assess the effects of roasting, the researchers took samples from each of the storage groups and roasted them at the same temperature for different times. The current process is to roast the beans for 10-20 minutes at 248-266 degrees Fahrenheit, he explains. Afoakwa's team adjusted this to 45 minutes at 242 degrees Fahrenheit and discovered that this slower roasting at a lower temperature increased the antioxidant activity compared to beans roasted with the conventional method. \n \n In addition, the beans that were stored and then roasted for 45 minutes had more polyphenols and higher antioxidant activity than beans whose pods were not stored prior to fermentation, says Afoakwa. He explains that pulp preconditioning likely allowed the sweet pulp surrounding the beans inside the pod to alter the biochemical and physical constituents of the beans before the fermentation. \"This aided the fermentation processes and enhanced antioxidant capacity of the beans, as well as the flavor,\" he says. He adds that the new technique would be particularly useful for countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America where cocoa beans produce a chocolate with a less intense chocolate flavor and have reduced antioxidant activity. \n \n Looking to the future, he says the team will be studying in more detail the effects of roasting on the flavor of freshly picked compared to stored cocoa beans. They will be testing different temperatures and roasting and storing times to determine if even higher amounts of antioxidants can be retained through the process. \n \n The researchers acknowledge funding from the Belgium Government under the VLIR TEAM Cocoa Project between Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, and the University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana. \n \n A press conference on this topic will be held Tuesday, March 24, at 11 a.m. Mountain time in the Colorado Convention Center. Reporters may check-in at Room 104 in person, or watch live on YouTube http://bit. ly/ ACSLiveDenver . To ask questions, sign in with a Google account. \n \n ### \n \n The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 158,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. \n \n To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org. \n \n Note to journalists: Please report that this research is being presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. \n \n Follow us: Twitter | Facebook \n \n Title \n \n Roasting effects on phenolic content and free-radical scavenging activities of pulp pre-conditioned and fermented cocoa (Theobroma cacao) beans \n \n Abstract \n \n Polyphenols are phytochemicals responsible for the astringency, bitterness, green flavours and antioxidant activities in cocoa (Theobroma cacao) beans. These are degraded during fermentation, drying and roasting affecting the antioxidant activity of the beans. However, the extent of degradation of phenolics during roasting remains unknown. This work was aimed at investigating the changes in total polyphenols, anthocyanins, o-diphenols and antioxidant activity (free-radical scavenging activities) during roasting of pulp pre-conditioned and fermented cocoa. A 4\u00d74 full factorial design with the principal experimental factors as pod storage and roasting time were used. Samples were analyzed for total polyphenols, o-diphenols, anthocyanins and antioxidant activity using standard analytical methods. Variable decrease in total polyphenols, o-diphenols and anthocyanins were observed with increase in pod storage and roasting durations. However, variable trends were observed for the % free-radical scavenging activities. The total polyphenols, anthocyanins and o-diphenols in the cocoa beans after 45 minutes roasting decreased from 132.24 to 57.17 mg/g, 6.71 to 1.07 mg/kg and 15.94 to 8.25 mg/g respectively for 0, 3, 7 and 10 days pod storage treatments. The total polyphenols for the fermented, dried and unstored cocoa beans was 132.25 mg/g which reduced to 122.14 mg/g (7.642% degradation), 116.721 mg/g (11.7% degradation) and 92.22 mg/g (30.3% degradation) for pod stored for 3, 7 and 10 days respectively. Increasing roasting time caused continuous decreases in the % free-radical scavenging activity from 89.10% to 74.31% after 45 minutes for the unstored pods. Pulp pre-conditioning by pod storage and roasting duration could be used to reduce the astringency and bitterness caused by polyphenols, o-diphenols and anthocyanins in cocoa beans whilst increasing the antioxidant activity imparted by cocoa. ||||| Polyphenols are phytochemicals responsible for the astringency, bitterness, green flavours and antioxidant activities in Theobroma cacao beans. Polyphenols degradation in cocoa beans during roasting is crucial to the flavour outcome and it is influenced by factors such as temperature, time and pod storage. Antioxidants are compounds that help to inhibit oxidation reactions caused by free radicals such as singlet oxygen, superoxide, peroxyl radicals, hydroxyl radicals and peroxynitrite thereby preventing damage to the cells and tissues. Their mechanisms of action include scavenging reactive oxygen and decreasing localised oxygen concentration thereby reducing molecular oxygen\u2019s oxidation potential, metabolising lipid peroxides to non-radical products and chelating metal ions to prevent generation of free radicals in humans. The study aimed at investigating changes in total polyphenols, anthocyanins, o-diphenols and antioxidant activity (free-radical scavenging activities) after roasting of pulp preconditioned and fermented cocoa beans using standard analytical methods. A 4\u00d74 full factorial design with the principal experimental factors as pod storage time (0, 3, 7 and 10 days) and roasting duration (0, 15, 30 and 45 minutes) at 120oC were used to study the changes in the total polyphenols, anthocyanins, o-diphenols and % free-radical scavenging activities of the cocoa beans. Variable decrease in total polyphenols, odiphenols and anthocyanins were observed with increase in pre-conditioning (pod storage time) and roasting duration. However, variable trends were observed for the % free-radical scavenging activities. The total polyphenols, anthocyanins and o-diphenols in the cocoa beans after 45 minutes roasting decreased in the range 132.24 to 57.17 mg/g, 6.71 to 1.07 mg/kg and 15.94 to 8.25 mg/g respectively at all pod storage treatments. The total polyphenols of the fermented, dried and unstored (freshly harvested) cocoa beans was 132.25 mg/g which reduced to 122.14 mg/g (7.6% degradation), 116.721 mg/g (11.7% degradation) and 92.22 mg/g (30.3% degradation) after storage for 3, 7 and 10 days, respectively. The optimum decrease in the % freeradical scavenging activity was 7 days and above of pods storage. Increasing roasting time caused a continuous decrease in the % free-radical scavenging activity from 89.10% to 74.31% after 45 minutes for beans from the unstored (freshly harvested) pods. However, pod storage caused an increase in the % free radical scavenging activities during roasting. Pulp pre-conditioning (pod storage) and roasting duration could be used to reduce the astringency and bitterness caused by polyphenols, o-diphenols and anthocyanins in cocoa beans as well as increase the antioxidant activity imparted by cocoa. \n \n Key words: Cocoa, pod storage, roasting, polyphenols.", "summary": "\u2013 One of your vices could one day be a little more virtuous: Scientists are today announcing that they've figured out how to make chocolate healthier. The findings will be detailed by researchers from Belgium's Ghent University and the University of Ghana at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver, and center around how antioxidant-rich the sweet is. As a press release explains, it all comes down to tweaking the process. Cocoa beans are removed from pods, fermented in baskets, sun-dried, and then roasted. It's during that last step, the roasting, that polyphenols, which act as antioxidants, are partially lost. In a bid to up the polyphenol content, researchers added a nontraditional step that \"makes our research fundamentally different,\" explains Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa: pulp preconditioning. That simply means they stored the pods\u2014in the case of their experiments, for zero, three, seven, or 10 days\u2014before removing the beans and beginning the fermentation process. A sweet pulp rests between the pod and the beans, and Afoakwa believes the preconditioning gives the pulp time to affect those beans. Indeed, the researchers found that those stored for a week showed the highest antioxidant activity after roasting\u2014which they also adjusted. Rather than heat the beans for the typical 10 to 20 minutes at 248-266 degrees, they lowered the temp to 242 and upped the roasting time to 45 minutes, and discovered that slower and lower was also best in terms of antioxidant activity. The researchers' abstract notes another benefit: \"Pulp preconditioning and roasting duration could be used to reduce the astringency and bitterness,\" improving chocolate's flavor. (Also presented at the ACS meeting: what's really in your pot.)"}
{"document": "Americans have a favorable early impression of the Obama administration\u2019s nuclear deal with Iran and feel strong skepticism toward the prospect of military action against the Islamic state, according to private Democratic polling shared with POLITICO. \n \n In a survey taken for the liberal group Americans United for Change and conducted by the firm Hart Research, a 34-percent plurality of respondents who had heard at least \u201ca little\u201d about the deal said they favor the White House arrangement with Iran. A total of 22 percent said they oppose the deal and 41 percent said they had no opinion or didn\u2019t know enough to answer. \n \n Text Size - \n \n + \n \n reset \n \n After hearing a clinically worded description of the deal \u2014 stating that it requires Iran to \u201cfreeze its nuclear development program\u201d and admit international inspectors, while reducing some U.S. economic sanctions and continuing negotiations for a six-month period \u2013 a full 63 percent of respondents favored the deal. \n \n The survey, which tested 800 voters from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1 \u2014 but did not include calls on Thanksgiving and the day after \u2014 may bolster the case President Barack Obama and his allies will make to Congress, as they ask the legislature to hold off on placing new sanctions on Iran as the administration seeks to make the Iran deal work. \n \n There are also indications that the argument over Iran is far from over: While many voters are \u201csomewhat\u201d inclined to back the deal or find Obama\u2019s arguments \u201cfairly convincing,\u201d there is not yet a majority solidly set behind the administration\u2019s position. \n \n Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who conducted the survey, said the straightforward takeaway is that voters \u201cclearly want to give negotiations a chance to work if there is a possibility negotiations can prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon without a military strike.\u201d \n \n \u201cAmericans do not want to get involved in another war in the Middle East,\u201d Garin said. \u201cThe public is reassured by the fact that most sanctions remain in place and Iran has agreed to intrusive inspections, and Americans understand tougher sanctions can be imposed if and when negotiations for a permanent resolution do not succeed.\u201d \n \n Offered a choice between two congressional approaches to the Iran deal, 68 percent of voters said they would prefer to see Congress \u201cclosely monitor\u201d the implementation without taking \u201cany action that would block the agreement.\u201d Twenty-one percent of voters said Congress should pass new Iran sanctions \u201ceven if doing so would break the agreement \u2026 or might jeopardize the negotiations.\u201d \n \n In a sign of the country\u2019s continuing war weariness, only 27 percent of respondents said they would take a favorable view of a lawmaker who backed \u201cmilitary action against Iran to destroy its nuclear development program.\u201d Fifty-two percent said they would take a somewhat unfavorable or strongly unfavorable view of such a position. \n \n And two thirds of respondents said they would prefer a member of Congress who \u201cwants to give the new agreement and further negotiations a chance,\u201d as opposed to 25 percent who\u2019d rather support a lawmaker who wants to hand down new sanctions at the risk of undermining negotiations. \n \n That divide isn\u2019t merely a partisan one: Obama\u2019s Iran deal has drawn flak from Democrats such as New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, as well as an array of leading Republicans, who have voiced concern that Iran is merely playing for time with the deal and has no real intention of abandoning its quest of atomic weapons. \n \n Garin maintained: \u201cThe clear majority of voters do not want Congress to impose more sanctions at this point if doing so might jeopardize the agreement and ongoing negotiations.\u201d \n \n AUC president Brad Woodhouse said the group would be briefing congressional Democrats and \u201cother interested parties\u201d on the Iran poll in the coming days. \n \n Update: This story has been updated to clarify that the poll did not test voters on Thursday and Friday of the Thanksgiving holiday. ||||| Iran's Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, center, speaks to journalists prior to the start of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at their headquarters... (Associated Press) \n \n Iran indirectly challenged OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, announcing that it plans to pump as much oil as it can once sanctions on its crude exports are lifted, even if its extra output drives prices into the basement. \n \n The comments by Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh reflected Tehran's determination to regain its global role as an oil power as soon as it is freed of the sanctions under any nuclear deal with six world powers meant to ensure that it cannot make atomic weapons. \n \n The Saudis produce about a third of OPEC's output now, and Zanganeh, in comments ahead of a meeting of OPEC's 12 oil ministers, said his country was determined to regain its share `'under all circumstances.\" \n \n `'We will produce 4 million even if the price drops to $20,\" he told reporters. Benchmark Brent crude on international markets now sells for nearly six times as much, and a drop to anywhere near $20 would spark a crisis among oil exporters by leaving production costs far outstripping sales revenue. \n \n Iran's agreement to limit its nuclear program is still only a preliminary one. Sanctions on its oil exports are likely to stay in place until a final deal is reached, which is unlikely before mid-2014. But the Iranian challenge reflected potential problems ahead for OPEC, unless the Saudis and others are prepared to cut back on their production and make room for a resurgent Iran. \n \n Bitter regional rivals with Iran, the Saudis may not be ready to cede much ground. \n \n Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi sought to ease concerns, telling reporters he did not see a price war on the horizon. \n \n \"I hope Iran comes back (and) produces all it can,\" he said. But he gave no sign that his country was ready to reduce output, saying it remains `'prepared to supply our customers with what they need.\" \n \n Naimi and other oil ministers came to Wednesday's meeting saying the market is well balanced and expressing happiness with present prices. That means that ministers on Wednesday will probably opt to keep the present OPEC output target at around 30 million barrels daily. \n \n But a major uptick in Iranian exports _ and attempts by Iraq and Libya to increase their own output _ could result in an oil glut. OPEC has had little success in the past at asking member countries to respect individual targets. \n \n Zanganeh on Tuesday suggested oil sanctions may be incrementally relaxed even earlier than mid-2014. In a nod to the Saudis, he said he hoped OPEC members understand that `'when a member country comes back ... they should open the doors for him and not fight with him.\" \n \n Strong U.S. shale oil production could add to internal OPEC pressures beyond political tensions caused by Sunni Saudi Arabia vying with Shiite-led Iran and Iraq. \n \n All three countries have put forward candidates for the post of OPEC secretary general, who acts as the voice of the organization between meetings. But with their rivalries strong and potentially harmful to OPEC unity, the meeting is expected to skirt the issue and extend Libya's Abdullah Al-Badry's term for another year. \n \n ___ \n \n Margaret Childs contributed to this report. ||||| VIENNA: OPEC was expected to stick by its oil output limit at a meeting here even as Iraq and Iran eye higher crude exports amid slashed Libyan production. \n \n The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries does not see a need to alter the cartel\u2019s crude production ceiling of 30 million barrels per day, member nations led by the world\u2019s biggest oil producer Saudi Arabia said in Vienna ahead of the meeting. \n \n Pumping about one third of the world\u2019s crude, OPEC will decide also on whether to replace Abdullah El-Badri as secretary general. \n \n \u201cWe know demand is good, economic growth is good, supply is good,\u201d Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi told reporters at OPEC headquarters in the Austrian capital. \n \n OPEC members Nigeria and Venezuela each said they believed the cartel would agree to maintain its crude oil production ceiling. \n \n Oil market analysts were meanwhile not expecting any surprises from OPEC, whose dozen member nations from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America are together producing slightly below its output target. \n \n \u201cIt is unlikely that OPEC will adjust its official notional production ceiling as it is unlikely that either Iran and Iraq can contribute incrementally in any significant manner to the group\u2019s supply next year,\u201d Harry Tchilinguirian, BNP Paribas\u2019 global head of commodity markets strategy, told AFP. \n \n OPEC is facing also demand strains as consumers turn to cheaper oil and gas extracted from shale rock, particularly in North America. \n \n At the same time, Iraq and Iran are seeking to increase their production after sizable falls to output in recent years. \n \n Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members argue that benchmark crude oil prices, currently averaging $100 per barrel, provide acceptable income for producers without weighing too heavily on consumers. \n \n \u201cThe price of oil is acceptable and there will be some additional oil coming to the market from OPEC and outside OPEC,\u201d Qatar\u2019s Energy Minister Mohammed Al-Sada said. \n \n \u201cWhat is more important is that this additional oil will be needed for the signs of economic recovery.\u201d \n \n Al-Sada added: \u201cThe current (output) situation seems to be comfortable... 30 million barrels seems to do justice to the current economic situation.\u201d \n \n Iran\u2019s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh this week said that the country would be able to \u201cimmediately\u201d export 4.0 million barrels per day (bpd) once sanctions are lifted in the wake of the international deal to roll back its nuclear program. \n \n Iranian crude oil exports have been slashed to about 1.2 million bpd from 2.5 million bpd in 2011, according to Zanganeh. \n \n At the same time, Iraq\u2019s Oil Minister Abdelkarim Al-Luaybi said his country hoped to export 3.4 million bpd of crude oil next year, including 400,000 bpd from Iraqi Kurdistan, as it looks to recover from years of bloodshed. \n \n This compares with exports of 2.38 million bpd in November. \n \n The market though doubts how quickly new production can come on board. \n \n \u201cOPEC will find it very hard to come to an agreement to cut production given a significant number of its members \u2014 Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria \u2014 are suffering from constrained production,\u201d said Thomas Pugh, commodities analyst at Capital Economics consultants. \n \n Libya\u2019s output has plunged to about 250,000 bpd amid deadly fighting between radical fighters and the army, but oil minister Abdelbari Al-Arusi said he hoped production would be back to its normal level of 1.5 million bpd within two weeks. \n \n Nigeria is meanwhile facing regular acts of sabotage to its oil pipelines. \n \n Saudi Arabia is battling against Iraq and Iran for the position of succeeding El-Badri, who has steered the cartel through the financial crisis in the role of administrative head since 2007. \n \n OPEC voted in December last year to re-appoint the Libyan for another year after members failed to agree on a new secretary general. ||||| This player has full sharing enabled: social, email, embed, etc. It has the ability to go fullscreen. It will display a list of suggested videos when the video has played to the end. \n \n House Republicans are considering various legislative options that would either tacitly or explicitly rip the Obama administration\u2019s nuclear deal with Iran. \n \n A handful of House GOP lawmakers told The Hill that the party is debating how best to express disapproval of the multilateral agreement, which was struck shortly after Congress left for Thanksgiving recess. \n \n ADVERTISEMENT \n \n House Majority Leader(R-Va.) on Tuesday was adamant during a closed-door meeting with Republicans that the White House explain the details of the agreement, a source in the room told The Hill. \n \n Noting that Cantor is \u201cvery concerned with where the president is leading us,\u201d the source said the No. 2 GOP House leader intended to work closely with Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) to produce a legislative response. \n \n Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), said, \u201cThe overwhelming sentiment [among House Republicans is] this was an agreement that was foolish, dangerous, and that we need to do something and push forward.\u201d \n \n Many Republicans and some Democrats have criticized the nuclear pact because it does not insist that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment. \n \n Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has asserted Iran got more than it gave up, saying it \u201cdoes not seem proportional.\u201d \n \n Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper said, \u201cThe leader does not believe the interim agreement the White House negotiated with Iran was in our nation\u2019s best interests, so he will work with members on both sides of the aisle to determine that any final deal definitively addresses serious congressional concerns.\u201d \n \n According to several participants at the Tuesday morning meeting, House Republicans focused on several possible responses to the six-month agreement endorsed by the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran. Under the deal, Iran agreed to enrich less uranium and allow nuclear weapons inspections in exchange for the elimination of nearly $7 billion in sanctions. \n \n One option would be pressuring the Senate to consider new sanctions on Iran. The House this summer passed a bill with bipartisan support to do just that, 400-20. \n \n Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has repeatedly noted that the House passed an Iran sanctions bill and that it is sitting in the Senate. \n \n Contrary to the wishes of the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Schumer have indicated the upper chamber will tackle a companion bill next week. \n \n The other option for House Republicans would be a resolution to formally disapprove of the interim deal. \n \n \u201cI think that we should have a sense of the House that we oppose the deal,\u201d said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a senior Foreign Affairs Committee member. \n \n Some Democrats would likely vote for such a measure, though Rohrabacher suspects \u201cthere are a lot of people on the Democratic side of the aisle who seem to feel compelled to support the administration on anything they possibly can, and this might fall within that range because you\u2019ve got a Democratic president under attack.\u201d \n \n More than a few Republicans, including Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (Texas), have suggested the Iran agreement was timed to distract from the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare. \n \n It is unclear when the House will act on an Iran resolution; the lower chamber is scheduled to adjourn for the year at the end of next week. \n \n Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday will appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss the deal.", "summary": "\u2013 Following an initial nuclear deal between Tehran and the West, Iran is planning to ramp up its oil production, its oil minister says. \"We will produce 4 million even if the price drops to $20,\" says Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. That's about a sixth of the current price, and it would leave production costs far higher than revenue, the AP notes. Saudi Arabia, which produces about a third of OPEC's supply, doesn't plan to reduce production for Iran's benefit, and OPEC doesn't look likely to raise its 30-million-barrel daily production limit, Arab News notes. Still, the Saudi oil minister doesn't appear worried about any potential export crisis. \"I hope Iran comes back (and) produces all it can,\" he says, per the AP. But the nuclear deal itself may face a challenge, with Republican lawmakers on the attack; some Democrats, including Charles Schumer, have also expressed doubts. \"The overwhelming sentiment (among House Republicans is) this was an agreement that was foolish, dangerous, and that we need to do something and push forward,\" says Rep. Tom Reed. The House could push the Senate for new Iran sanctions, or it could pass a resolution officially expressing disapproval, the Hill reports. The public apparently feels differently. A poll shows that a plurality of Americans who know at least \"a little\" about the agreement\u2014some 34%\u2014back it. That's compared to 22% who are against it, and 41% who either don't have an opinion or know too little to give one, Politico reports."}
{"document": "KIEV, Ukraine \u2014 In an effort to stabilize Ukraine and extend its authority, the interim government has set a deadline of Friday for turning in the illegal firearms that are now carried openly by so-called self-defense groups in Independence Square, the politically important plaza in the center of the capital. \n \n The order was seconded on Thursday by the French ambassador to Ukraine, Alain R\u00e9my, who said the disarmament of the militias that helped overthrow the former government is a central requirement for the European Union to begin disbursing financial aid, along with the government fighting corruption. \n \n Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who was a staunch supporter of the protesters but never condoned violent tactics, set the deadline for Friday, the day Ukraine is scheduled to sign the political articles of an association agreement with the European Union. \n \n \u201cFor those who want to defend their country with an assault rifle in their hands, welcome to the National Guard or the Army,\u201d Mr. Yatsenyuk said in a speech this week. \n \n Photo \n \n Members of the self-organized defense groups that formed to defend Independence Square and other protest sites during the uprising have been reluctant to comply. Like gun owners in countries like the United States and Switzerland where ownership of firearms is widespread, they contend that the weapons are needed to defend the country against a possible foreign invasion and to defend their freedoms from potential government abuse. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s not normal to ask people to hand in their weapons in the situation we have now,\u201d Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of a right-wing paramilitary group, Right Sector, said in an interview this week. His organization opposes the request to surrender its weapons, but will comply with the law, he said. \n \n Mr. Yarosh said lawyers with his group were drafting a bill for consideration in Parliament that was modeled on Swiss notions of firearms possession, in which an armed population is seen as a quick deterrent against a foreign invasion. \n \n \u201cAllow people to keep weapons at home,\u201d Mr. Yarosh said, describing the logic of gun ownership in the context of Ukraine. \u201cThen, when the enemy walks down the streets of your country, you can shoot him right from your own window.\u201d \n \n Members of Right Sector have not just hunting rifles but also military weapons that were seized from an Interior Ministry arsenal in western Ukraine in the final days of the uprising. \n \n The hunting weapons are legal, if the owner has a permit. In Ukraine, people 21 and older may apply for a license to own a shotgun for hunting, and those 25 and older may apply for a permit to own a rifle. \n \n Pistols that fire nonlethal plastic or rubber bullets are also legal for citizens who can demonstrate a risk of assault because of their profession, which in Ukraine can include law enforcement officers for off-duty use, civil servants and journalists. \n \n The self-defense units have been reluctant to describe in detail the seized military weapons, which were from an arsenal outside the city of Lviv. Mr. Yarosh said Right Sector helped move the weapons to the capital in late February. Today, he said of his supporters, \u201cin part they handed in these weapons, in part they keep them.\u201d \n \n The military weapons reached the capital too late to play a role in the street fighting, protest leaders have said. \n \n Continue reading the main story Advertisement \n \n Most of the opposition street fighters who clashed with the police in Kiev in February carried only baseball bats and other improvised bludgeons, like lead pipes or table legs with nails driven through the ends. But analysts said it was the size of the crowds, rather than weaponry, that was the pivotal political factor. \n \n The interim government is now seeking to integrate the loosely organized militias into a newly formed national guard, though several hard-line groups, including Right Sector, have declined to join. \n \n At the group\u2019s headquarters in the Dnipro Hotel here, where men in jeans and military fatigues guarded the hallways this week, some of them with black-and-red bandannas over their faces, a man with a submachine gun stood guard outside the office of Mr. Yarosh. \n \n \u201cWe are ready to become partisans, and are preparing for this role,\u201d Mr. Yarosh said. \u201cPatriots with guns are the best protection.\u201d \n \n Hryhoriy Nemyria, a Parliament member and a former deputy prime minister who supports the government\u2019s position on collecting firearms, said in an interview that far from discouraging a Russian intervention, the widespread distribution of illegal firearms could just as easily be used to justify one. \n \n \u201cArms out of control of the state are of course a factor in instability, and should not be allowed to drift by inertia,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the context of Russian agents crossing the border, the guns are a catalyst for disorder. Arming the population is not our policy.\u201d ||||| MOSCOW (AP) \u2014 President Vladimir Putin has signed bills making Crimea part of Russia, completing the annexation from Ukraine. \n \n Members of the State Duma, lower parliament chamber, applaud for their voting during a plenary session in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, March 20, 2014. The Kremlin-controlled State Duma voted Thursday to... (Associated Press) \n \n A soldier in an unmarked uniform stands guard at APC outside the Ukrainian Military Prosecutor's Office in Simferopol, Crimea, Thursday, March 20, 2014. The lower house of Russian parliament voted Thursday... (Associated Press) \n \n Pro-Russian soldiers check the traffic entering the Ukrainian navy headquarters, after taking control Wednesday, in Sevastopol, Crimea, on Thursday, March 20, 2014. Pro-Russian forces seized three Ukrainian... (Associated Press) \n \n A child gives fruit to a Ukrainian officer at the Ukrainian Military Prosecutor's Office in Simferopol, Crimea, Thursday, March 20, 2014. The lower house of Russian parliament voted Thursday to make Crimea... (Associated Press) \n \n Putin hailed the incorporation of Crimea into Russia as a \"remarkable event\" before he signed the bills into law in the Kremlin on Friday. \n \n Russia rushed the annexation of the strategic Black Sea peninsula after Sunday's hastily called referendum, in which its residents overwhelmingly backed breaking off from Ukraine and joining Russia. Ukraine and the West have rejected the vote, held two weeks after Russian troops had taken over Crimea. \n \n The U.S. and the European Union have responded by slapping sanctions on Russia. ||||| Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte meet at the start of the second day of a European leaders summit in Brussels March 21, 2104. \n \n BRUSSELS The European Union and Ukraine signed the core elements of a political association agreement on Friday, committing to the same deal former president Viktor Yanukovich rejected last November, a move which led to his overthrow. \n \n Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, EU leaders Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso, and the leaders of the bloc's 28 nations signed the core chapters of the Association Agreement on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels. \n \n The deal commits Ukraine and the EU to closer political and economic cooperation, although more substantial parts of the agreement concerning free trade will only be signed after Ukraine has held new presidential elections in May. \n \n Van Rompuy, the European Council president, said the agreement would bring Ukraine and its 46 million people closer to the heart of Europe and a \"European way of life\". \n \n \"(This) recognizes the aspirations of the people of Ukraine to live in a country governed by values, by democracy and the rule of law, where all citizens have a stake in national prosperity,\" he said. \n \n Two sets of the documents were passed around the table for the EU's leaders and Yatseniuk to sign in a solemn atmosphere. Van Rompuy and Yatseniuk then shook hands and exchanged the documents to applause, witnesses said. \n \n Coinciding with the signing in Brussels, Russia's upper house of parliament unanimously approved a treaty annexing Ukraine's Crimea region, clearing the way for President Vladimir Putin to sign it into law. \n \n Yanukovich turned his back on signing the EU agreement last November in favor of closer ties with Moscow, prompting months of street protests that eventually led to his fleeing the country. Soon afterwards, Russian forces occupied Crimea, drawing outrage and sanctions from the United States and EU. \n \n As well as the closer political ties, the European Commission has agreed to extend nearly 500 million euros worth of trade benefits to Ukraine, removing customs duties on a wide range of agricultural goods, textiles and other imports. \n \n Once Ukraine has held presidential elections on May 25 and a new administration is in place, the EU plans to move ahead with signing a free-trade agreement with Ukraine, giving the country unfettered access to the EU's market of 500 million consumers. \n \n That has far more potential to strengthen Ukraine's shattered economy, but also runs the risk of provoking retaliatory steps from Russia, which has already imposed stricter customs checks on trade with Ukraine. \n \n The other burden for Kiev is meeting the obligations that come with EU political association, including instituting changes to the rule of law and justice, and adopting business and environmental standards that will require hard work and long-term investment to meet. \n \n (Reporting by Adrian Croft and Luke Baker; editing by Luke Baker) ||||| Vladimir Putin has mocked US sanctions imposed on Russia, saying he will open an account at US-sanctioned Rossiya Bank. During a meeting with the country's senior security officials he added that he won\u2019t introduce a visa regime with Ukraine. \n \n Putin treated with irony the recent sanctions imposed on certain Russian lawmakers. \n \n \u201cYes, these are those so-called \u2018polite people in camouflage with guns\u2019,\u201d ironically said Putin hinting at Western accusations that Russian soldiers have taken bases in Crimea. \n \n \u201cLook at them, typical Moskals [pejorative term for Russians \u2013 ED.],\u201d he added, pointing at US sanctioned prominent businessmen Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko, head of the Volga Group and Yury Kovalchuk, the owner of Rossiya Bank. \u201cI need to avoid these citizens as they are \u2018compromising the country\u2019.\u201d \n \n On Thursday the US expanded its sanctions list by adding 20 more names. US President Barack Obama announced a new executive order imposing further sanctions on top Russian officials and businessmen. \n \n Aleksey Gromov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration; Sergey Ivanov, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office; and Sergey Naryshkin, Speaker of the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament, are among those mentioned. Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin is also on the list. \n \n The order also allows for measures against Russian energy, mining, defense, and engineering sectors. \n \n Putin also commented on the latest sanction of the US authorities that concerned Russia\u2019s Rossiya Bank, to which international payment systems Visa and MasterCard stopped serving clients on Friday. \n \n The Russian president said he will get his salary via the sanctioned bank. \n \n \u201cI\u2019ve already said that I was going to open an account in this bank, more than that I asked for my salary to be transferred to this account,\u201d he said. \n \n Putin added that Russian authorities should provide any possible support for the clients of the blocked Rossiya Bank, as this \u201cfinance establishment has nothing to do with Ukraine crisis.\u201d \n \n \u201cThe clients of the bank must be taken under our protection. We also should make sure that neither clients nor the bank will sustain any negative outcome from this situation,\u201d he added. \n \n Putin assured that Russia will refrain from retaliatory sanctions against the US and introducing a visa regime with Ukraine. \n \n Putin believes that millions of innocent Ukrainian would suffer should Russia introduce a visa regime with Ukraine. \n \n \u201cThese people are not rich. They work in Russia to provide for their families. We shouldn\u2019t do this,\u201d he added. \n \n Putin also said Russia will continue leading a project to repair helicopters in Afghanistan, which is run by NATO and Russia. \n \n \u201cWe should continue this cooperation despite our NATO partners vow to freeze our partnership,\u201d he said. \n \n The so-called helicopter project, financed by both Russia and Western countries, aims at helping Afghanistan repair helicopter equipment produced in Russia and training special personnel to operate this equipment. \n \n Putin\u2019s statement about the visa regime came after reports this week that Ukraine might introduce a visa regime for Russians, but Ukraine\u2019s coup-appointed PM, Arseny Yatsenuk, said the authorities are in no hurry to impose it. ||||| Story highlights \"Russia needs Europe more than Europe needs Russia,\" Cameron says \n \n Russia's President Vladimir Putin signs law allowing joining of Crimea to Russia \n \n EU leaders and Ukraine's PM sign the political part of a Ukraine-EU trade deal \n \n Tough U.S. and EU sanctions have been imposed on members of Putin's inner circle \n \n Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed the political elements of a trade pact with the European Union on Friday, even as Russian lawmakers finalized annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region. \n \n The signing in Brussels signals Europe's solidarity with Ukraine -- and carries additional symbolic force because it was the decision by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in November to ditch the trade pact in favor of closer ties with Russia that triggered the protests that led to his ouster in February and spiraled into the current crisis. \n \n It also comes a day after the European Union and the United States slapped sanctions on Russian lawmakers and businessmen; Russia responded with its own list of sanctions against a number of U.S. lawmakers and officials. \n \n In another sign of defiance, Russian President Vladimir Putin, flanked by the speakers of both houses of Parliament, signed a treaty Friday finalizing the accession to Russia of the Crimea region and its port city of Sevastopol. \n \n JUST WATCHED New sanctions 'will be noticed' in Moscow Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New sanctions 'will be noticed' in Moscow 00:30 \n \n JUST WATCHED Ukraine volunteers train to fight Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ukraine volunteers train to fight 01:27 \n \n JUST WATCHED EU announces new round of sanctions Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH EU announces new round of sanctions 02:09 \n \n JUST WATCHED Obama hits Russia with more sanctions Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama hits Russia with more sanctions 03:16 \n \n JUST WATCHED EU announces new round of sanctions Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH EU announces new round of sanctions 02:09 \n \n The upper house unanimously approved ratification of the treaty a day after Russia's lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, passed it by an overwhelming margin. \n \n The political crisis has been the biggest blow to Russia's relations with the West since the Cold War. \n \n In a sign that Western sanctions are already weighing on Russian authorities, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Friday in Moscow that the government will have to pay more to borrow money, state news agency ITAR-Tass said. \n \n Russia \"will look at our oil and gas revenues. If the situation is like it is now, we will probably have to give up external borrowings and cut domestic ones,\" Siluanov said. \n \n Yatsenyuk: EU speaking in one voice \n \n Moscow has doggedly pursued its own course even as Western leaders have denounced its actions as violations of Ukraine's sovereignty and a breach of international law. \n \n Though Russia insists that its actions are legitimate, Ukraine's interim government has said Kiev will never stop fighting for Crimea. \n \n Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday that it has concluded that the international law of occupation applies to Russian forces in Crimea. \"The occupying party is ultimately responsible for violations of international law committed by local authorities or proxy forces,\" it said. \n \n While in Brussels, Yatsenyuk held talks with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. \n \n He said Russia's ratification of the treaty annexing Crimea is less important than the EU trade pact he has signed with EU leaders. \n \n \"Frankly speaking, I don't care about Russia signing this deal; I care about Ukraine, Ukrainians and our European future,\" he said. \"This deal covers more existential and most important issues, mainly security and defense cooperation.\" \n \n Yatsenyuk said the European Union would \"speak in one single and strong voice\" to protect its values and defend Ukraine's territorial integrity. \n \n Van Rompuy said the deal \"shows our steadfast support for the course the people of Ukraine have courageously pursued.\" \n \n EU travel bans, asset freezes \n \n The European Union confirmed details of the sanctions against 12 Russian officials agreed to late Thursday at the EU Heads of State or Government summit. \n \n Those targeted with travel bans and asset freezes include Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, as well as the chairwoman of the Russian upper house, Valentina Matvienko, and two Putin advisers. \n \n \"Sanctions are not a question of retaliation; they are a foreign policy tool,\" Van Rompuy said. \"Our goal is to stop Russian action against Ukraine, to restore Ukraine's sovereignty, and to achieve this, we need a negotiated solution.\" \n \n He said the European Union expected soon to finalize approval of the remaining parts of the deal, particularly its economic provisions. \n \n British Prime Minister David Cameron said the European Commission will draw up further sanctions -- in finance, military and energy -- for use if the situation escalates. \n \n \"Europe is, I think, 25% or so reliant on Russian gas,\" he said. \"But if you look at Gazprom's revenues, something like 50% of them come from Europe. So, you know, Russia needs Europe more than Europe needs Russia.\" \n \n Cameron said the measures agreed to in Brussels will carry a cost for Crimea, whose goods would face heavy penalties and tariffs in Europe if they are shipped through Russia, not Ukraine. \n \n EU leaders want to see an international observer mission in Crimea, preferably under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe but, if not, sent by the European Union, Cameron said. \n \n Ban: 'Deeply concerned' \n \n A day after speaking with Putin in Moscow, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Friday in Kiev with acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, then told reporters he was \"very deeply concerned\" by the tensions in parts of Ukraine and between Kiev and Moscow. \"These are some of the most traumatic and difficult times in the history of Ukraine,\" he said. \n \n Ban urged a peaceful, diplomatic resolution to the crisis and said all parties should refrain from inflammatory actions and rhetoric. \n \n U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic arrived Friday in Crimea for a two-day visit aimed at laying the groundwork for a U.N. human rights monitoring mission, the United Nations said. \n \n He and a team were to meet with Crimean leaders, the head of the Crimean Tatar minority and others, including the families of Ukrainian servicemen, the United Nations said. \n \n The United Nations and other organizations stand ready to assist with the country's elections, slated to be held May 25, Ban said. While in Kiev, he was also planning to meet with Yatsenyuk and other ministers and lawmakers. \n \n In another sign of solidarity with Ukraine, France is offering to strengthen a NATO air-policing mission in the Baltic area by sending four jets, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday. \n \n The offer, accepted by the Baltic states, was extended Friday as French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian traveled to Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, said Sacha Mandel, the minister's communication adviser. \n \n His trip followed a visit to the Baltics this week by Vice President Joe Biden. \n \n Putin's inner circle \n \n JUST WATCHED The deadly day that changed Kiev Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH The deadly day that changed Kiev 03:35 \n \n The U.S. sanctions announced Thursday target 20 people seen as close to Putin, as well as a bank, Rossiya, believed to serve the President and senior Russian officials. \n \n Putin rejected the putative link. \"I personally didn't have an account there, but I'll definitely open it on Monday,\" he said Friday, according to the Kremlin. \n \n The individuals named by the U.S. Treasury include Putin allies in the Kremlin and in business. Among the 16 government officials are Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov; the speaker of the State Duma, Sergey Naryshkin; and Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the Security and Defense Committee of the Russian Parliament's upper house. \n \n Four others were named as members of the government's inner circle. They are financier Yuri Kovalchuk, labeled Putin's personal banker by a senior U.S. administration official; magnate Gennady Timchenko, whose activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin, according to the Treasury; and businessmen Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. \n \n Washington aid \n \n In Washington, the House Foreign Affairs Committee introduced a bill Friday that provides aid to Ukraine. \n \n \"The United States must stand with the people of Ukraine in the wake of Russia's attack on and occupation of Crimea,\" said ranking member Eliot Engel, D-New York, in a statement. \"It sends a clear message to President Putin and his corrupt cronies that we will not tolerate Russian aggression.\" \n \n The House had passed a loan-guarantee bill and a non-binding resolution calling for sanctions, but Friday's legislation proposes statutory language to put those sanctions into law. \n \n President Barack Obama is to meet next week with other leaders of the so-called G7 group of industrialized nations, on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in the Netherlands. Russia has been excluded from the talks. \n \n Obama signed an executive order that authorizes further sanctions on key sectors of the Russian economy if Moscow does not act to deescalate the situation. \n \n Sanctions affect Russian markets \n \n Washington had already announced sanctions Monday on 11 individuals; the European Union had imposed travel bans and asset freezes on 21 people. \n \n Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the new round of U.S. sanctions would be \"significantly more powerful than the first one.\" \n \n The latest round \"hits significant economic interests that are fairly close to the ruling circles in Moscow,\" he said. \"It will be noticed.\" \n \n Markets were down Friday in Moscow, amid uncertainty in the business community. \n \n The Moscow Interbank Curency Exchange, or MICEX index, fell more than 2% -- bringing its 2014 losses to 14%. The ruble rebounded after falling early in the day; it has lost about 10% since the start of the year. \n \n In contrast, the markets and ruble had risen Monday, when the first round of sanctions was announced and did not appear to target those in Putin's inner circle. \n \n The business community now appears to fear that Putin is on a collision course with the West, and that that could undermine its interests. \n \n Russia's Foreign Ministry said Friday that it had asked Putin to draft countermeasures in response to the expanded Western sanctions. \n \n On Thursday, Moscow imposed measures against nine U.S. officials and lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. John McCain, Robert Menendez, Daniel Coats and Mary Landrieu, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. ||||| SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) \u2014 Ukraine has joined two weeks of multinational military exercises that involve troops from 12 NATO member and partner nations, and demonstrate that cooperation continues between the alliance and the crisis-torn former Soviet republic. \n \n The drills, dubbed Saber Guardian, began Friday at the Novo Selo training facility in eastern Bulgaria and will include some 700 troops from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States, as well as representatives from NATO. \n \n The exercise, planned before the current East-West standoff over Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, is aimed at increasing regional flexibility, preserving and enhancing NATO interoperability, and facilitating multinational training, U.S. Army Europe spokesman Jesse Granger said. \n \n It follows joint exercises by U.S., Romanian and Bulgarian naval forces in the Black Sea.", "summary": "\u2013 Vladimir Putin officially signed the bills completing Russia's annexation of Crimea today, hailing the move as a \"remarkable event,\" the AP reports. It was one of the day's two auspicious signings; earlier, interim Ukrainian President Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed on to what Reuters refers to as a \"landmark\" political association agreement with the European Union. It was ousted president Viktor Yanukovich's opposition to the pact\u2014in favor of closer ties to Russia\u2014that started the protests that began the crisis. The deal calls for greater political and economic cooperation, and eventually free trade once a new president is elected in May. Yatsenyuk said the deal indicated that the EU would \"speak in one single and strong voice\" to support the Ukraine, CNN reports. As for that other signing? \"Frankly, I don't care about Russia signing\" the annexation bill, Yatsenyuk said. \"I care about Ukraine, Ukrainians, and our European future.\" In other Ukraine news: Ukraine set today as the deadline for the militias patrolling Independence Square in Kiev to turn in the illegal weapons that they openly carry, the New York Times reports. Europe is insisting the groups disarm before any financial aid flows to Ukraine. Ukrainian troops will today join NATO training exercises in Bulgaria, the AP reports. The exercises were planned before the crisis broke, but take on an extra significance now. Vladimir Putin laughed off US sanctions, RT reports. Referring to the targeted lawmakers he derisively said, \"Yes, these are those so-called 'polite people in camouflage with guns.' ... I need to avoid these citizens as they are 'compromising the country.'\" He also said that he'd open an account at the sanctioned Rossiya bank. But Russia won't issue retaliatory sanctions, he said, and it will keep repairing NATO helicopters in Afghanistan. Apparently retaliatory visa bans are another matter."}
{"document": "An LED fixture, bottom, is displayed next to an older streetlight, top, in Las Vegas, Nev. on Aug. 3, 2011. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images) \n \n If people are sleepless in Seattle, it may not be only because they have broken hearts. \n \n The American Medical Association issued a warning in June that high-intensity LED streetlights \u2014 such as those in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Houston and elsewhere \u2014 emit unseen blue light that can disturb sleep rhythms and possibly increase the risk of serious health conditions, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. The AMA also cautioned that those light-emitting-diode lights can impair nighttime driving vision. \n \n Similar concerns have been raised over the past few years, but the AMA report adds credence to the issue and is likely to prompt cities and states to reevaluate the intensity of LED lights they install. \n \n Nearly 13 percent of area and roadway lighting is now LED, according to a report prepared last year for the Department of Energy, and many communities that haven\u2019t yet made the switch plan to do so. LEDs are up to 50 percent more energy-efficient than the yellow-orange high-pressure sodium lights they typically replace. They last for 15 to 20 years, instead of two to five. And unlike sodium lights, the LEDs spread illumination evenly. \n \n [Blue light from electronics disturbs sleep, especially for teenagers] \n \n The Energy Department released this video in 2012 explaining the difference between various types of lightbulbs and the energy costs associated with each option. (U.S. Department of Energy) \n \n Some cities say the health concerns are not convincing enough to override the benefits of the first-generation bright LED lights that they installed in the past three to eight years. New York is one of them, although it has responded to resident complaints by replacing the high-intensity, white LED bulbs with a lower- \n \n intensity bulb that the AMA considers safe. \n \n Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Lights, which is responsible for the city\u2019s exterior illumination, dismissed the health concerns about bright-white LED lights, noting that they emit less of the problematic blue wavelengths than most computers and televisions. \n \n After a year and a half of discussion and sampling, Lake Worth, Fla., is replacing its sodium streetlights with about 4,150 LED lights with an amber glow. \u201cWe found a color that made sense for the health of our city, and we\u2019re proud of the choice we\u2019ve made,\u201d Michael Bornstein, the city manager, said. \n \n Mark Hartman, Phoenix\u2019s chief sustainability officer, said the city might go with a mix of the intense lights for major intersections and ballpark areas that need very bright light and a softer light for residential areas. He said the city would consider the health arguments, although he, too, mentioned the glow from computers and televisions. \u201cNobody says don\u2019t watch television or use your computer after 9 p.m. because of blue lights,\u201d he said. \n \n The first generation \n \n Almost as soon as outdoor LEDs were made available, the federal government encouraged states and municipalities to use them, calling LEDs highly efficient for such applications as traffic lights and exit signs. But critics say federal authorities were too quick to endorse LEDs. \n \n [What you need to know about OLED lighting] \n \n The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency \u201cput a lot of push into them,\u201d said Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California at Davis. \u201cI call it a rush.\u201d \n \n Las Vegas replaced 6,600 existing lights with the new energy-efficient LEDs. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images) \n \n Siminovitch said the light from early-generation LEDs \u201creally negatively impacts people\u2019s physiological well-being.\u201d \n \n Lighting is measured by color temperature, which is expressed in \u201ckelvin,\u201d or \u201cK.\u201d The original LED streetlights had temperatures of at least 4000K, which produces a bright white light with a high content of unseen blue light. \n \n Now, LEDs are available with lower kelvin ratings and roughly the same energy efficiency as those with higher ratings. They don\u2019t emit as much potentially harmful blue light, and they produce a softer, amber hue. \n \n When 4000K and 5000K LEDs were installed, they drew mixed responses. Police and traffic-safety officials and many motorists liked them because they created a bright light that sharply illuminated the ground they covered. \n \n But in many places, including New York City and Seattle, residents complained that the bright white light was harsh, even lurid. People described them as invasive, cold and unflattering. \n \n Even before the AMA warning, some researchers raised health concerns. Some noted that exposure to the blue-rich LED outdoor lights might decrease people\u2019s secretion of the hormone melatonin. Secreted at night, melatonin helps balance the reproductive, thyroid and adrenal hormones and regulates the body\u2019s circadian rhythm of sleeping and waking. \n \n \u201cAs a species, we weren\u2019t designed to see light at night,\u201d Siminovitch said. \n \n Meanwhile, the \u201cdark sky\u201d movement criticizes LEDs as a major contributor to what it calls the \u201clight pollution\u201d that humans cast into the night sky. \n \n Effect on sleep cycles \n \n In its warning, the AMA cited the melatonin issue, noting that studies have linked bright LEDs to reduced sleep time, poor sleep quality and impaired daytime functioning. \n \n It referred to evidence that exposure to high-intensity light at night might increase the risk of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. And it cautioned that intense LEDs have been associated with \u201cdiscomfort and disability glare,\u201d which might impair nighttime vision for drivers. \n \n [Nobel Prize in physics goes to three men who gave us blue LEDs] \n \n Finally, the AMA cautioned about the harmful effects of bright LEDs on wildlife, particularly nocturnal animals, birds and insects. \n \n \u201cThese lights aren\u2019t just bad for us,\u201d said Mario Motta, one of the authors of the AMA report, \u201cthey\u2019re bad for the environment, too.\u201d \n \n The AMA did commend LEDs for their energy efficiency and effectiveness, but it urged cities to minimize blue-rich outside lighting and recommended the use of LEDs no brighter than 3000K. \n \n Tony Dorsey, a spokesman with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said that the organization\u2019s environmental committee is studying the AMA\u2019s report but that association members haven\u2019t seemed concerned about the use of 4000K LEDs on roadways. \n \n The Department of Energy said LEDs should be used with \u201cprudence\u201d but praised their overall performance. It said the AMA had added \u201canother influential voice\u201d to the issue. \n \n Others, including the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., said the lights pose less risk than the AMA suggests. The research center pointed out that the AMA report is based on extended exposure to high-intensity LEDs and said the blue-light hazard of LEDs \u201cis probably not a concern to the majority of the population in most lighting applications.\u201d \n \n Motta stood by the AMA\u2019s concerns about high-intensity LEDs and said there is no downside \u2014 either in cost or efficiency \u2014 to choosing a lower-intensity light. \n \n Sleeping in Seattle \n \n Some cities are satisfied with their higher-intensity LED streetlights. \n \n In Seattle, which has installed about 41,000 new lights since 2010, Thomsen, the spokesman for Seattle Light, attributed the early complaints to residents\u2019 surprise at the sharp difference in brightness between the old sodium lights and the new LEDs. \n \n [What to order when you\u2019re buying new (and pricey!) eyeglasses] \n \n Light from the new fixtures is comparable to moonlight and provides excellent visual acuity for drivers, Thomsen said. Police especially like them, he said, because they enable people to distinguish colors at night. \u201cThe police say they get much better witness descriptions,\u201d Thomsen said. \n \n Thomsen also noted that even though the Seattle LEDs are rated at 4100K, that is significantly lower than most computer screens, laptops and televisions. \n \n But Pete Strasser, technical director at the International Dark-Sky Association, said moonlight contains far less blue light than do high-intensity LED lights. \n \n A little more than a year ago, Gloucester, Mass., was on its way to replacing its sodium streetlights with 4000K LEDs. But then city planner Matt Coogan began reading about health and environmental warnings. He also had residents sample the 4000K lights against 3000K models. \n \n Next month, the city is expected to finish installing its LEDs, but they will be 3000K rather than 4000K. \n \n Coogan knows the debate over the health risks of LEDs rages on. But he doesn\u2019t want to be on the wrong side of history. \n \n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to get 10 or 15 years down the road and find out we had exposed our people to a health risk,\u201d Coogan said. \n \n \u2014 Stateline \n \n Read more from health and science: \n \n Pain kept this young woman from eating for 5 years, and doctors didn\u2019t know why \n \n We\u2019re about to learn something exciting about Europa (even if it\u2019s not aliens) \n \n That horrible morning sickness you\u2019re having? It\u2019s actually a good sign for the baby. \n \n A key part of Obama\u2019s climate legacy finally gets its day in court ||||| Advertisement \n \n Cities in the United States are likely to reconsider the use of LED streetlights after a health organization's warning in June suggested a link to increased risk for serious medical conditions. \n \n In June, the American Medical Association (AMA) issued a report saying high-intensity LED streetlights emit invisible blue light that can supposedly interrupt sleep rhythms and up risk for heart disease and cancer. \n \n The group also warned that such light-emitting devices \u2014 which are used in Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, New York and other cities \u2014 can damage drivers' nighttime vision. \n \n Such concerns have been raised in the past, but the AMA report [PDF] will likely prompt more states and cities to reevaluate the intensity of LED lights they install. \n \n Roadway Lighting \n \n A report by the Department of Energy revealed that almost 13 percent of roadway lighting in the country works on LED, and many communities that have not made the switch yet will do so in the future. \n \n LEDs are considered 50 percent more energy-efficient compared to sodium lights they usually replace. Unlike typical sodium lights, LEDs spread illumination evenly and last for 15 up to 20 years instead of just two to five years. \n \n Effects On Health \n \n In its June warning, the AMA explained that bright LEDs have been linked to poor sleep quality, impaired daytime functioning and reduced sleep time. \n \n According to the AMA, evidence suggests that exposure to very bright LED lights at night might increase the risk for diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer. Such lights might also be linked to disability and discomfort glare, which can impair nighttime vision for drivers. \n \n 'Not Convincing Enough' \n \n However, others believe the AMA warning is not convincing enough to override the benefits of bright LED lights installed in cities in the past eight years. \n \n New York is among them, but it has responded to complaints by replacing high-intensity LED bulbs with lower-intensity lights that AMA considers as safe. \n \n Scott Thomsen, a spokesperson for Seattle City Lights, dismissed the concerns about high-intensity LED lights, saying that these bulbs emit less of the problematic blue wavelengths than most televisions and computers. \n \n Still, some experts believe that such LED lights should be regulated the same way \"classic\" pollutants are controlled. \n \n \"[T] here should also be regulations and rules for the pollution stemming from artificial light at night,\" said Professor Abraham Haim from University of Haifa. He conducted a study on the effects of \"light pollution\" on health in 2011. \n \n Meanwhile, the AMA asserts that authorities should consider the use of moderate-intensity lighting rather than high-intensity LED bulbs. \n \n Photo: Robert Ashworth | Flickr \n \n \u00a9 2016 Tech Times, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.", "summary": "\u2013 Many US cities have been making the move from sodium street lights to LEDs\u2014the bulbs are not only up to 50% more energy efficient than their predecessors, but they last for as many as 20 years and distribute light more evenly. Unfortunately, numerous studies suggest that the levels of blue light in the high-intensity LED bulbs could have health ramifications, including sleep problems and even increased risk for cancer and heart disease. The evidence is apparently strong enough to prompt the American Medical Association to issue a warning in June that LED street lights can impair and even damage nighttime vision, reports Tech Times. Problem is, almost 13% of roadway lighting now uses LEDs, with many places planning a switch, reports the Washington Post. Seattle has been downright dismissive of any health concerns, while New York has gone so far as to switch to lower-intensity LED bulbs the AMA considers safe when residents complain. Lake Worth, Fla., meanwhile, has plans to replace its sodium street lights with more than 4,000 LED lights that have less of the potentially harmful blue light and more of an amber hue, while Gloucester, Mass., has consulted its own residents and decided to play it safe and go with less blue in their LEDs, which they'll finish installing next month. But not everybody's convinced the danger is real: \"Nobody says don\u2019t watch television or use your computer after 9pm because of blue lights,\" grouses one Phoenix official to the Post. (This major company is making the switch to LEDs.)"}
{"document": "The Secret Service is currently investigating how fameballs Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed Obama's first state dinner, Bravo camera crew in tow. We have a theory: Their polo buddy, Indian ambassador Arun K. Singh, got them in on the DL. \n \n In the photo album Michaele Salahi posted on her Facebook page after the event, one photo stands out among all those of the crashers smiling next to famous media personalities, politicians and Joe Bidens: A picture with one \"Ambassador Singh\": \n \n \n \n \n \n This is Arun K. Singh, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Indian Embassy, and he has chilled with the Salahis before. Here they are drinking wine at a September 9th event hosted by the Indian Embassy to announce America's Polo Cup, a 2010 India Vs. USA polo match organized by Tareq Salahi and co-sponsored by Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar: \n \n \n \n A (terribly reproduced) picture of the three even made October edition of the Indian Embassy's newsletter. Ambassador Singh is quoted in the Indian Express as saying \"the polo match between India and the US next year to be played at the National Mall reflects another dimension of the growing relationship between the two countries.\" In that same article, Michaele Salahi is quoted as saying the match \"aspires to bring the love of the game to a wider audience and bring international cultures together...\" So, Singh and the Salahis are polo buddies. They go way back. \n \n Furthermore, Tareq Salahi's only statement to the Washington Post's Reliable Source blog after crashing the state dinner was \"India is the challenger in the America's Polo Cup World Championships June 11/12 2010, and they are very excited in this first ever cultural connection being hosted on the DC National Mall since Polo is one of the primary sports in India.\" This suggests a polo-motivated party crashing. \n \n Based on this knowledge, here are a couple theories of how Singh helped the Salahis crash the White House. \n \n 1) Singh invited the Salahis to the dinner as a reward for their work on the India Vs. USA polo match, but for some reason their names didn't make it on the official guest list. When they showed up and were turned away (Brian Williams told the Times the couple's car was turned away by the first ring of Secret Service, after which they \"hopped out\") they called up Arun K. Singh: \"Dude, you said we were on the list!\" Singh spoke to the Secret Service and got them in. \n \n 2) The Salahis showed up uninvited, confident that they could use their Singh connection to get in the party. After being turned away, they either name-dropped Singh or got him to vouch for them to the Secret Service. \n \n Either way, the Salahis weren't just some randos who showed up at the White House and schmoozed their way past the Secret Service with their fancy clothes. The Salahis knew somebody; they likely leveraged their connection to Arun K. Singh\u2014the Indian Embassy's polo liaison\u2014to crash the state dinner and successfully roll their way to immortal fameball-dom. \n \n The Salahis will be appearing on Larry King Live Monday, where they will maybe prove our theory correct. Stay tuned! \n \n UPDATE: Talking Points Memo has a statement from the Indian Embassy: \"Neither the embassy nor anyone from the embassy was involved in any way in their getting into the White House. Nor did we request any invitation for them.\" ||||| The White House has released a photo showing that the couple who crashed President Barack Obama's first state dinner actually shook hands and talked to him \u2014 contradicting earlier Secret Service claims that Obama was never endangered by the security breach. \n \n As the White House was disclosing that the couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, met Obama in the receiving line, a \"deeply concerned and embarrassed\" Secret Service on Friday acknowledged that its officers never checked whether the two were on the guest list before letting them onto the White House grounds. \n \n The White House released a photo showing the Salahis in the receiving line in the Blue Room with Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held. Obama and reality TV hopeful Michaele Salahi are smiling as she grasps his right hand with both of hers and her husband looks on. Singh is standing to Obama's left. \n \n The Secret Service had said previously that the president was not in danger because the couple \u2014 like others at the dinner \u2014 had gone through magnetometers. But in light of their close proximity to the president, no such claim was made Friday. \n \n \"This incident compromised the safety and security of the president and undermined our confidence in the protection we expect of the Secret Service,\" said Rep. Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. \n \n 'Embarrassed' \n \n Disturbed by the agency's failure \"to follow basic security procedures,\" the New York Democrat said in a statement Saturday he wants a review of Secret Service practices and has asked for a briefing next week. \n \n Video: Charges looming? The Salahis were not on the guest list and should have been barred from entering last Tuesday's dinner on the White House South Lawn for the prime minister of India, said Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan. \n \n Sullivan said the agency that protects the president is \"deeply concerned and embarrassed\" that procedures were not followed. \n \n \"As our investigation continues, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure this is not repeated,\" Sullivan said in a written statement. \n \n \"The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list,\" Sullivan said. \"Although these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of screening, they should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely. That failing is ours.\" \n \n Agency spokesmen declined comment Saturday on reports that agents had visited the Salahis' vineyard in Hume, Virginia, in search of the couple. Voice mail messages left Saturday at two separate telephone numbers for the Oasis Winery, south of Washington, were not immediately returned. \n \n Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said officers at the checkpoint had a clipboard with names of the invited guests. Even though the Salahis names weren't on it, they were allowed to proceed. The officers should have called someone on the White House staff or Secret Service personnel before allowing them past the checkpoint, Mackin said. \n \n Earlier, Mackin said the Secret Service may pursue a criminal investigation of the Salahis. \n \n Sullivan said it wasn't good enough that his agency screened more than 1.2 million visitors last year to the White House complex and protected more than 10,000 sites for the president, vice president and others. \n \n 60 years of White House state dinners\"Even with these successes, we need to be right 100 percent of the time,\" he said. \n \n It is unclear what the couple told officers at the checkpoint that allowed them to go through the security screening. Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully falsify statements on matters within the federal government's jurisdiction. \n \n \"As this moves closer to a criminal investigation there's less that we can say,\" Mackin said. \"We're not leaving any option off the table at this point.\" \n \n The Salahis lawyer, Paul Gardner, posted a comment on their Facebook page saying, \"My clients were cleared by the White House, to be there.\" He said more information would be forthcoming. Several messages left at Gardner's law firm on Friday and Saturday were not returned. \n \n Bravo Media has confirmed that Michaele Salahi is being considered as a participant in the upcoming \"The Real Housewives of D.C.\" program and on the day of the dinner was being filmed by Half Yard Productions, the producer of the program.", "summary": "\u2013 The state dinner crashers got in on pure chutzpah, conning a Secret Service agent into giving them access without verifying their names in the White House computer even though they weren't on the guest list. A law enforcement official tells MSNBC that rumors an administration official \"waved in\" Tareq and Michaele Salahi are false. And the Secret Service said it may open a criminal investigation into the incident. The Salahis' lawyer said his \"clients were cleared by the White House\" to be at the party. Amid rampant speculation that includes reports they penetrated security to improve their chances of being selected for a reality show, \"we're being intentionally vague on that,\" a Secret Service rep told the Washington Post. \"All we are saying is that procedures we have in place weren't followed.\" Gawker posits that the couple used their ties to an Indian diplomat to gain entry."}
{"document": "At least seven loud blasts were heard in Tripoli early Friday morning as bombs fell in the vicinity of Moammar Gadhafi's main compound of Bab al-Aziziya. \n \n RETRANSMISSION TO ADD BYLINE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2011 photo, a Libyan rebel fighter carries a rocket-propelled grenade in Sabratha, 50 miles (75 kilometers) west of Tripoli, Libya. (AP Photo/Giulio... (Associated Press) \n \n RETRANSMISSION TO ADD BYLINE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2011 photo, a Libyan rebel fighter enters an incomplete mosque that has been used as shelter during the shelling from Moammar Gadhafi's forces... (Associated Press) \n \n An Associated Press correspondent staying in a hotel in the capital said he heard the explosions and saw flames in the air as bombs struck the ground. NATO jets were heard circling the sky above. \n \n Residents in Tripoli also told The Associated Press that at least three blasts were heard on the road leading to the airport in the capital. \n \n NATO has been bombarding military targets in Libya since a no-fly zone was instituted in March. That includes areas near and in Gadhafi's sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound, which is the Libyan leader's main headquarters and acts as a military barracks. \n \n Just 30 miles (48 kilometers) to the west of the capital, opposition fighters in Libya's western mountains claimed control Thursday of the country's last functioning oil refinery, a blow to Moammar Gadhafi's regime in a week of stunning rebel advances that could turn the tide of the 6-month-old civil war. \n \n The refinery is located in the strategic city of Zawiya, where rebels have made great strides in battles with government forces since their initial assault on Saturday. \n \n A rebel victory in Zawiya could leave Gadhafi nearly cornered in his increasingly isolated stronghold of Tripoli, the capital, just 30 miles (50 kilometers) to the east along the Mediterranean coast. \n \n Rebel fighters are now closing in on the capital from the west and the south, while NATO controls the seas to the north. The opposition is in control of most of the eastern half of the country and has declared Benghazi, 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Tripoli, as its de facto capital. \n \n Families fleeing their homes to avoid a possible rebel assault on Tripoli described growing tensions and deteriorating living conditions in the capital: Security forces have blanketed the city with checkpoints, gun battles are heard after nightfall and power outages last days. \n \n ___ \n \n Laub reported from Zintan, Libya. ||||| Moammar Gadhafi is making preparations for a departure from Libya with his family for possible exile in Tunisia, U.S. officials have told NBC News, citing intelligence reports. \n \n One official suggested it was possible that Gadhafi would leave within days, NBC News reported. \n \n The information obtained by NBC News follows a series of optimistic statements this week from U.S. officials that Gadhafi would soon give up the five-month-old fight and and leave Libya. \n \n In an on-camera forum at the National Defense University this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, \"I think the sense is that Gadhafi's days are numbered.\" \n \n The officials could provide no further details as to conditions or precise timing for Gadhafi's departure, NBC said, and the news report emphasized that there was no guarantee that Gadhafi would follow through on any plans to flee. \n \n Gadhafi is becoming more isolated in the capital, Tripoli. \n \n Rebel fighters are closing in from the west and the south while NATO controls the seas to the north. The opposition is in control of most of the eastern half of the country and has declared Benghazi, 620 miles east of Tripoli, as its de facto capital. \n \n Rebel forces have managed to surround Tripoli and appear to be attempting to cut off supplies and fuel to trigger a collapse, NBC News reported. Families were seen driving away from the city. \n \n Refinery taken \n \n The intelligence reports were revealed as opposition fighters in Libya's western mountains claimed control Thursday of the country's last functioning oil refinery, a blow to Gadhafi's regime in a week of stunning rebel advances. \n \n The refinery is located in the strategic city of Zawiya, where rebels have made great strides in battles with government forces since their initial assault on Saturday. \n \n \"We have full control over the Zawiya oil refinery and we have liberated the whole city except two main streets,\" Col. Ali Ahrash told The Associated Press. \n \n The capture of the 120,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Zawiya is not expected to have a major impact on Gadhafi's ability to secure fuel. \n \n The flow of crude to the refinery from fields in the southwest of Libya had largely been halted since midsummer. The refinery was believed to be running at about one-third of its normal capacity, drawing mainly on crude oil that was in its storage tanks. Zawiya mostly produced fuel oil, not gasoline. \n \n The BBC reported that one of its news crews were taken around the refinery by rebels and that there was no sign of pro-Gadhafi troops. \n \n Zawiyais is just 30 miles to the east of Tripoli, along the Mediterranean coast. \n \n A Libyan rebel fighter carries a rocket-propelled grenade in Sabratha, 50 miles west of Tripoli, on Wednesday. \n \n Ahrash, who was in Benghazi, said rebels have control of the cities of Surman, Sabratha and Zwara, as well as the road to Tunisia from Tripoli. \n \n Families fleeing their homes to avoid a possible rebel assault on Tripoli described growing tensions and deteriorating living conditions in the capital: Security forces have blanketed the city with checkpoints, gun battles are heard after nightfall and power outages last days. \n \n Explosions in Tripoli \n \n Early Friday morning explosions rocked Gadhafi's main compound of Bab al-Aziziyah. \n \n Seven thunderous blasts could be felt at a Tripoli hotel where foreign journalists stay. \n \n An Associated Press correspondent watched flames from the bombs fall from the sky as NATO jets circled over the compound. \n \n Five loud explosions also shook the center of Tripoli on Thursday afternoon, possibly striking near Gadhafi's compound. NATO jets flew overhead minutes after the blasts. It wasn't immediately clear what was hit or if there were civilian casualties. NATO has bombarded military targets all over Libya since March when a no-fly zone was instituted. \n \n Besides the seizure of the refinery, Ahrash told the AP that rebels were making progress in taking Zawiya, a city of 200,000 people. \n \n He said Gadhafi troops were still in control of Gamal Abdel-Nasser Street and were hiding in the hospital there. Ahrash said Omar Mokhtar Street was still under Gadhafi forces control and that a few more troops were patrolling in eastern Zawiya. \n \n Since the rebels entered Zawiya last week \u2014 their most dramatic advance yet after months of stalemate \u2014 Gadhafi's troops have been pounding homes, mosques and streets with rockets and mortar fire. \n \n \"In the past three days we have lost 70 fighters and more than 55 were injured,\" he said.", "summary": "\u2013 Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year rule may be entering its final days, US officials tell NBC, citing intelligence reports. The dictator has made preparations to flee with his family to exile in Tunisia, according to the sources. The rebels seeking to end his rule have made dramatic advances in recent days, leaving Tripoli increasingly isolated. At least seven blasts were heard near Gadhafi's compound this morning as NATO jets pounded Tripoli, according to an AP reporter staying in a hotel in the city. Residents fleeing the city to avoid the expected rebel attack say living conditions have been deteriorating rapidly, with power outages lasting days and gun battles heard after nightfall."}
{"document": "JERUSALEM \u2014 Three Israeli teenagers were missing in the West Bank and were presumed to have been kidnapped, Israeli military officials said on Friday. The episode added a new layer of tensions to Israel\u2019s already strained relations with the Palestinians after the collapse this year of American-brokered peace talks and Israel\u2019s rejection of the newly formed Palestinian government. \n \n Although occasional violence in the West Bank has continued to claim victims on both sides, the successful abduction of Israelis has been rare in recent years. But the Shin Bet, Israel\u2019s internal security agency, said it had foiled more than 60 planned abductions in the West Bank since the beginning of 2013, arresting suspected Palestinian perpetrators before they could carry out their plans. \n \n The Israeli military was conducting intensive searches in the West Bank, focused on the Hebron area. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was consulting with the defense minister and other top security officials, according to a statement from his office. It added that Israel considers the Palestinian Authority responsible for the safety of the missing youths. \n \n After hours of rumors and a news blackout of the episode imposed by Israeli security services, the chief military spokesman announced shortly after 5 p.m. that Israeli forces had been searching for the three boys since before dawn. Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz gave few details, citing security concerns. \n \n According to initial reports the three teenagers were last heard of on Thursday night as they made their way to a hitchhiking station at Alon Shvut in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem. \n \n This episode comes at a delicate time, less than two weeks after the establishment of the new Palestinian government that resulted from a reconciliation pact between the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is dominated by the mainstream Fatah movement, and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza. Israel refuses to negotiate with the government, which is made up of politically independent ministers, on the grounds that it is backed by Hamas. The militant group, which also has a presence in the West Bank, refuses to recognize Israel and is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe. \n \n Israel has said it would maintain contact with the Palestinian Authority on security issues and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to continue security coordination with Israel. It was not immediately clear whether the sides were working together on the case of the missing youths. \n \n Palestinian militant leaders have called for the abduction of Israeli soldiers as hostages to be traded for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel\u2019s Army Radio routinely broadcasts announcements warning soldiers against hitchhiking. \n \n Last September an Israeli soldier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, 20, was killed by a Palestinian man with whom the sergeant worked at a restaurant in Israel. Security officials said the Palestinian man had lured the sergeant to the West Bank and killed him in the hope of trading his body for a brother imprisoned in Israel. ||||| Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that the three teenage yeshiva students missing since Thursday night were kidnapped by terrorists. \n \n In his first on-camera statement since Eyal Yifrah, 19, from Elad, Gilad Shaar, 16, from Talmon and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, from Nof Ayalon went missing, Netanyahu said he could not elaborate on the search, but that the kidnapping shows the real results of the Hamas-Fatah unity government, and held the Palestinian government responsible for their fates. \n \n Earlier, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that the security forces' working assumption is that the three are still alive. The IDF thinks the kidnappers may be attempting to leave Israeli territory, via Jordan. Security forces are investigating whether a stolen Israeli vehicle, which was found burnt near the West Bank city of Hebron, is linked to the kidnapping. Palestinian firefighters were alerted about the burning car at 3 A.M. on Friday. \n \n Two of the teens, students at the Makor Chaim yeshiva in the religious kibbutz of Kfar Etzion, were thought to be hitchhiking to Modi'in, a city halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. When they did not arrive home or make contact with their families, the yeshiva informed the authorities. The third was a student at the Shavey Hevron yeshiva in Hebron. Naftali Fraenkel is an American citizen, according to Channel 10. \n \n Live updates: \n \n 11:12 P.M. IDF strikes Gaza targets in response to rockets Saturday evening. \n \n 10:42 P.M. Prayer rally for the safety of the kidnapped teens to be held overnight Saturday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. \n \n 10:40 P.M. Mohammad Madani, a member of Fatah's Central Committee and the chairman of the Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society, denounced what he called Netanyahu's cynical attempt to place responsibility for the abduction on the PA and Abbas. Madani emphasized that the kidnapping took place in Area C, which is under exclusive Israeli control and completely out of the jurisdiction of the PA security forces. \"Netanyahu is trying to pass the trouble of the government in Israel to the Palestinian Authority, crying crocodile tears over the peace process that he himself suspended,\" Madani said. \n \n 10:37 P.M. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau sends message to Pope Francis, asking him to urge Palestinian Authority leaders to help release the missing teens. \n \n 10:04 P.M. One of the missing teenagers, Gilad, called his parents on Thursday night and told them that he was on his way home. The family says that after he failed to get home, they thought that his phone probably run out of battery and assumed that he is staying with his grandparents. When they realized that no one had knowledge of his whereabouts, they tried looking for him and eventually notified the authorities at about 3 A.M. \n \n 9:50 P.M. Netanyahu is blaming Palestinian President Abbas for the suspected kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, but the fact remains, writes Haaretz analyst Zvi Bar'el, that Abbas is Israel's only strategic asset. \n \n 9:00 P.M. In his first on-camera statement, Netanyahu says Israel will do everything in its power to locate the three missing teens. Due to the nature of the situation, the prime minister says he cannot elaborate on the search, but adds that he \"can only say that our boys were kidnapped by a terrorist organization.\" \n \n Netanyahu says he expects the Palestinian Authority to do whatever it can to help locate them. \"This is the PA's responsibility. We hold the PA responsible for any attack coming from its territory, either the West Bank or Gaza\u2026 the terrorists originated from Palestinian territory and the PA is responsible.\" \n \n The prime minister says that this incident demonstrates what he was saying in recent months, \"that the deal with Hamas brings about serious consequences.\" He also says that contrary to what some in the international community are saying, \"the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the PA will not bring peace. \" \n \n In face of the regional turmoil, Netanyahu adds: \"Time and time again we find that we can only rely on ourselves.\" \n \n Defense Minister Ya'alon says, \"We won't accept a kidnapping attempt.\" He also says he wants to strengthen the families of the kidnapped teens, and added that Israel will \"use any means as we do in order to prevent terror attacks.\" \n \n IDF chief Benny Gantz says the military will do everything to bring the three youths back, while also keeping an eye of Israel's other fronts, whether in Gaza or Lebanon and Syria. \n \n 8:36 P.M. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issues a statement condemning the suspected kidnapping. \u201cCanada is deeply concerned by reports that three Israeli teenagers may have been kidnapped in the West Bank, and condemns those aiming to instigate conflict. We urge the Palestinian security authorities, who have been trained through Canadian and U.S. leadership, to make every effort to investigate this incident and work diligently to ensure the safe return of these children to their families. We call for the immediate release of the three Israeli teenagers. Whoever has taken this action must be found and brought to justice.\u201d \n \n 8:33 P.M. \"Once we realized that Gilad was nowhere to be found, the mood became heavy\u2026 We held a prayer, adults and children, and laid tefillin (hoping) for the situation to end well,\" Gilad's uncle, from Talmon, told Channel 10. \n \n 7:32 P.M. Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas' politburo, says that if in fact the three Israelis were kidnapped, the Palestinians should make it a national issue in order to get the best result, and not let just a small faction negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners on its own. Hamdan is the highest-ranking Hamas official to speak about the suspected kidnapping. Haaretz correspondent Jack Khoury stresses that most of those in Hamas to speak on the matter are political figures based outside of Gaza. \n \n 7:01 P.M. Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said in a Facebook post that Israel's policy of trading abducted soldiers for terrorists only encourages more hostage-taking. In an implied criticism of Minister Naftali Bennett and his Habayit Hayehudi party, the former top security service official says Israel is better off freezing construction in the settlements than freeing Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism. \n \n 6:30 P.M. A rocket fired from Gaza exploded in Hof Ashkelon Regional Council's jurisdiction, no injuries or damage reported. \n \n 5:29 P.M. GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon issues an order declaring the Beit Guvrin area, located west of Hebron, a closed military zone. \n \n 5:01 P.M. Netanyahu will visit the Shin Bet security service's situation room and the Kiryah, the IDF's Tel Aviv headquarters, for a security briefing. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ya'alon and IDF chief Benny Gantz will then give an on-camera statement about the suspected kidnapping. The statement is scheduled for Saturday at 8:45 P.M. \n \n 4:55 P.M. Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Government coordinator in the territories, notified the Palestinian Authority that Palestinian residents of Hebron between the ages of 20 and 50 will not be allowed to enter Jordan through the Allenby Bridge crossing. \n \n 3:35 P.M.: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convene the security cabinet tonight to discuss the three missing teens. \n \n 3:05 P.M.: IDF releases the names of the teens. They are Eyal Yifrah, 19, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and Gilad Shaar, 16. \n \n 1:50 P.M.: The working assumption is that the kidnapped boys are alive, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon tells reporters. \"The occurrence of kidnapping attempts is not new. We managed to prevent over 30 such efforts in 2013, and 14 to date in 2014. This incident managed to slip through our radars. But we will not rest until we get our hands on the terrorists behind this.\" Ya'alon did not take any questions. \n \n 1:10 P.M.: Top IDF brass end meeting in Hebron, decide to call in entire Paratroopers brigade, along with several other units, to area being sweeped. \n \n 11:27 A.M. IDF strikes south Gaza strip in response to morning's firing of rocket toward Israel. \n \n 11:36 A.M.: There is no indication of whether the teens who are thought to be kidnapped are alive or dead, a senior IDF officer says. Speaking to reporters, the officer adds,\"We are heading toward a lengthy event, not an event that will last hours.\" The officer confirms that several arrests were made overnight in the Hebron area. \"There are several leads being investigated following the arrests, but it is still very early.\" \n \n 11 A.M.: PM Netanyahu will shortly hold a meeting with Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, Shin Bet security service head Yoram Cohen, and other top security officials, sources in the PM's office say. \n \n 10 A.M.: The IDF is reinforcing its presence in the Hebron region. Battalions from the paratroopers and Kfir divisions have been transferred to the area. IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, head of operations directorate Yoav Har Even, and GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon are conferring in Hebron. \n \n 8:30 A.M.: Palestinian civilians report that IDF forces have been conducting intensive sweeps throughout the Hebron region overnight, including several neighborhoods in the city of Hebron and in the villages of Tufah, Bnei Naim, Yata, Halhul, Beit Ayoun, and Doura. According to Palestinian sources, several arrests have been made in connection to the supposed kidnapping. \n \n Several locations named by the Shin Bet security services as places the boys might be kept at have been discounted by the military overnight. \n \n \"Everything we are doing now, and in the coming hours, is an attempt to go back and retrace what happened there in that area, and understand where they are now and what happened to them,\" says a senior IDF official. \n \n IDF Spokesman Moti Almoz said during a press briefing that forces have been searching for the teens since Friday morning, and cautioned against speculation and rumors that have been circulating all day on Israeli social media. \n \n 'PA responsible for well-being of the kidnapped' \n \n Prime Minister Netanyahu held an emergency meeting Friday afternoon at the Kirya, the IDF's Tel Aviv headquarters. Among the officials taking part in the meeting were Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharanovich, Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen and IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. \n \n According to an official statement from the Prime Minister's Office, \"Israel sees the PA as responsible for the well-being of the kidnapped,\" adding that Netanyahu spoke with the families of the three missing teens and pledged he would do all in his power to locate them. \n \n Social Banners - Twitter \n \n \"I know you are suffering,\" Netanyahu told the families. \"Be strong, the State of Israel will make every effort for your sons, and I promise to remain in contact with you.\" \n \n Netanyahu orders government ministers not to give interviews on the matter. \n \n The Palestinian Authority responds to Netanyahu's statement, saying the PA \"is not responsible for the security of settlers.\" \n \n Adnan Dmeiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority security services, notes that the three are believed to have been kidnapped from Gush Etzion, an area \"under Israeli security control,\" the Palestinian news agency Maan reports. \n \n A senior Fatah official tells Haaretz the Palestinian security services will do everything they can to help find the missing Israelis. \n \n \"The three were kidnapped in Area C, which is under full Israeli security control. The Palestinian Authority returned in recent years dozens of Israeli citizens who entered Authority territory by accident or deliberately to prove the principle of the sanctity of life,\" said Mohamed Almadani, and adds: \"I wish the Israeli government would show responsibility and commitment to human rights on the issue of the hunger-striking detainees.\" \n \n Yeshiva forbids hitchhiking \n \n Students at Mekor Chaim told Haaretz that the yeshiva has a clear policy forbidding hitchhiking. \"The administration is very strict on this topic, it's a red line that every student knows. Students are forbidden from leaving without permission, and it is absolutely not allowed to catch rides outside of the Kibbutz's gate.\" Pupils caught hitching rides risk expulsion from the yeshiva, they said. \n \n Some 300 pupils study at the yeshiva, which is a leading educational institution for Israel's national-religious public. Several rabbis and public figures send their boys there. \n \n U.S. citizenship \n \n U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro has also been briefed that one of the missing teens reportedly holds U.S. citizenship. \n \n An official from the U.S. State Department said, \"We hope the three teens will be returned to their families safely.\" \n \n Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the U.S. is working with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to help resolve the crisis. Earlier on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on the phone with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. \n \n On Friday evening, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni informally met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. At the meeting, Livni asked Kerry to approach Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in order to bring about the release of the teens. \n \n Livni is in London for the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, an international conference on war crimes and violence against women in conflict areas. \n \n Netanyahu additionally spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, and told him that Abbas is responsible for the well-being of the missing teens. \n \n \"What has happened on the ground since the inclusion of Hamas in the Palestinian government is detrimental. This is the result of letting in a murderous terror organization,\" Netanyahu said. \n \n Shin Bet warnings \n \n The Shin Bet security service has warned in recent weeks of increasingly frequent attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers and citizens in the West Bank. According to Shin Bet data, in the past nine months there have been 11 cases of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel making contact with operatives in the West Bank in an attempt to carry out kidnappings. \n \n In September, Israeli soldier Tomer Hazan was kidnapped and killed by two Palestinians who had invited him to the West Bank. Prosecutors say the kidnapping was part a plan to bring about the release of the killers' brother, in prison in Israel. ||||| \n \n A Palestinian Authority spokesman denounced Israel for \n \n \n \n Adnan Dmeiri said the PA was not responsible for the safety of settlers and had no way to prevent the possible kidnapping of the teenagers. \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n The PA \u201cis used to accusations from [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu\u2019s arbitrary government, which does not want to commit to any agreement and wants to damage all relations with Palestinians,\u201d he was quoted as saying. \n \n \n \n Earlier on Friday, Israeli government officials said they were holding Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas \n \n \n \n \n \n Israeli soldiers patrol the West Bank City of Hebron June 13, 2014. (photo credit: REUTERS) An Israeli soldier (R) stands guard next to Palestinians near the West Bank city of Hebron June 13, 2014.. (photo credit: REUTERS) Palestinians hurl stones at Israeli troops near the West Bank City of Hebron June 13, 2014. (photo credit: REUTERS) An Israeli security officer walks next to a truck carrying a burnt car in the West Bank City of Hebron June 13, 2014.. (photo credit: REUTERS) Israeli forces searching for three Jewish teenagers who went missing. (photo credit: REUTERS) Israeli forces searching for three Jewish teenagers who went missing. (photo credit: REUTERS) Israeli forces searching for three Jewish teenagers who went missing. (photo credit: REUTERS) A Palestinian Authority spokesman denounced Israel for blaming the new Fatah-Hamas unity government for the disappearance of three settlers in the West Bank, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Friday night.Adnan Dmeiri said the PA was not responsible for the safety of settlers and had no way to prevent the possible kidnapping of the teenagers.The PA \u201cis used to accusations from [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu\u2019s arbitrary government, which does not want to commit to any agreement and wants to damage all relations with Palestinians,\u201d he was quoted as saying.Earlier on Friday, Israeli government officials said they were holding Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the fate of the three students. They also said they were holding the unity government responsible for the students' well-being. Dmeiri was quoted as saying that the PA had no information about the missing settlers, noting that Gush Etzion, the settlement from which the teenagers are believed to have disappeared, \u201cis under Israeli security control.\u201d \n \n \n \n He added that, \"the PA is not responsible for the security of settlers.\u201d \n \n \n \n Dmeiri also told Ma'an he was unaware of any cooperation with Israel in the search for the settlers. \n \n \n \n Netanyahu convened senior defense officials for a second meeting late Friday hours after authorities launched a frantic search for three yeshiva students who went missing in the West Bank on Thursday. \n \n \n \n Israeli defense officials probing the disappearance of three Jewish teens in the West Bank are operating under the working assumption that Palestinian militants kidnapped the youths in order to trade them for terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons, Channel 2 reported on Friday. \n \n \n \n According to the report, defense officials are waiting for intelligence leads or indications from the alleged captors in order to determine the next steps. \n \n \n \n An extremist Salafist organization in the West Bank claimed responsibility for kidnapping three missing Israeli youths, Channel 10 is reporting. \n \n \n \n The organization, Dawlat al-Islam, released a statement saying that the abductions were aimed at taking revenge against Israel for the killing of three of their operatives in the West Bank months ago. There has been no official confirmation of the claim's veracity. \n \n \n \n Security forces fear that three teenage yeshiva boys, all 16 years of age, were kidnapped in the West Bank after they went missing from a hitchhiking spot in the Gush Etzion area Thursday night. \n \n \n \n The youths went missing during the course of Thursday night and security forces are conducting sweeping searches of the area. \n \n Share on facebook Share on twitter \n \n Israel says it holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the well-being of the missing youths.The Jerusalem Post has learned that one of the three is an American citizen. US Ambassador Dan Shapiro has been briefed on the situation.The army said on Friday that it was seeking intelligence leads that could shed light on the fate of the missing youths. The IDF said that it was holding routine situational assessments with other security arms in order to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing yeshiva students.While they do strongly fear the boys were kidnapped, security forces have not yet been able to rule out all other possibilities police said.Meanwhile, security forces have also placed roadblocks on roadways leading to the border with Egypt and the Gaza Strip for fear that this event is a kidnapping by Islamist extremists who may seek to transfer the three Israelis to Gaza.According to reports, the IDF and the Shin Bet security service are in touch with their counterparts in the Palestinian Authority security apparatus in an effort to advance the search.A torched car that was found alongside a highway in the vicinity of the search. Investigators towed away the car and will begin examining the remains in an effort to determine whether there is any connection to the missing students search.Police were in touch with the families and said that they have no reason to believe that the teenagers decided to go missing on their own, or run away from home or their yeshiva.A spokesman for one of the families, said that the missing teen was with a friend when he disappeared. He was making his normal trek home for Shabbat from his high-school yeshiva, Makor Chaim in Kfar Etzion, as he does every week.He called his father around from the hitching post and said he had already left school. Initially his father did not worry, because his son often took his time coming home and sometimes did not arrive until late at night.But after midnight, the father called his son's phone. When he could not reach him by 2 a.m. he personally went to the police station. Until morning, the father held out hope, that his son had gone to a friend's home to sleep. A series of SMS message in the morning, revealed that this was not the case.Palestinian media on Friday reported that a large number of Israeli forces had been deployed to the Hebron vicinity in search of the boys who went missing earlier in the morning.Palestinian news agency Ma'an cited sources in the vicinity as saying Israeli forces had raided various home in the city of Dura, located southwest of Hebron, in search of the missing boys.", "summary": "\u2013 Israeli forces are conducting an intense search in the West Bank for three male teenagers they think were kidnapped by Palestinian militants, reports the Jerusalem Post. One of the teens is a US citizen, but not much else is known about him. Two of the teens are age 16 and the third is 19, and they were reportedly hitchhiking home last night when snatched near Hebron, reports Haaretz. The best guess is that militants will try to use them in a swap for prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israeli police got a cell phone call from one of the youths about 10pm yesterday, and though he didn't speak, the noise in the background suggested they were in trouble, reports the New York Times. The only lead is the discovery of stolen, burnt car in the area. Benjamin Netanyahu, who has met with his senior leaders on the case, says he holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the boys' safety. The development comes less than two weeks after Palestinians formed a new government, though Israel thinks it's controlled by Hamas and refuses to negotiate on anything beyond security issues."}
{"document": "These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported \"No More 404\" sites.", "summary": "\u2013 Charles Manson is back behind bars, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson confirmed to the Los Angeles Times on Friday. \"He is at the prison,\" Terry Thornton says. \"I don't know how much plainer it can be.\" Manson, currently serving a life sentence, was transported from Corcoran State Prison to a hospital in Bakersfield on Tuesday for a serious medical issue. Officials aren't giving out details, but the New York Daily News reports the 82-year-old Manson had gastrointestinal bleeding but was too weak for surgery. His current condition is unclear. Hospital visits are likely the only time Manson will get beyond prison walls; he's already been denied parole 12 times."}
{"document": "Croatia swastika: Hosts apologise for Nazi pitch symbol \n \n The Croatian Football Federation has apologised after a swastika symbol was marked on to the pitch ahead of their Euro 2016 home qualifier against Italy. \n \n \"This is sabotage and a felony,\" said Tomislav Pacak, a Croatian Football Federation (HNS) spokesman. \"We expect police to identify the perpetrators. \n \n \"This is a disgrace not just for the HNS but for the whole of Croatia.\" \n \n The game was played behind closed doors after Croatia were punished for racist chants by fans against Norway in March. \n \n Pacak added that Uefa had been told about the incident, which overshadowed the 1-1 draw between the two sides who are vying for top spot in Group H. \n \n The swastika - widely recognised as the symbol of Nazi Germany - was seen during the first half and although ground staff at the stadium in Split tried to cover it up at half-time they were not successful. \n \n It is unknown whether the symbol was mowed or painted into the grass, or who is responsible. \n \n \"As far as we have learned, the symbol was imprinted into the pitch between 24 and 48 hours before the match so that it could be visible during the game,\" added Pacak. \n \n \"We apologise to all fans watching the game on television, to both teams and to our guests from Italy for the Nazi symbol.\" \n \n November's reverse fixture in Milan was stopped twice for crowd trouble, with riot police involved. \n \n Croatia were forced to close part of their stadium for March's game against Norway as a punishment for their fans' behaviour at the San Siro. \n \n But the supporters who did attend the Norway game caused more problems, leading to the Italy game to be played in an empty stadium. \n \n \"It's one of our problems and we are working to fix it,'' said Davor Suker, the president of the Croatian football association. \"We'll speak about it on Saturday, but I'm very angry.\" ||||| ? \n \n A Brentwood homeowners association that threatened to sue a family over their wheelchair ramp has apologized. \n \n Last summer, Michael Broadnax, a popular Nashville pastor, suffered a debilitating stroke. A few months later, his family learned he could come home for rehabilitation, but they would need to install a wheelchair ramp in a few days before rehab officials would clear the move. \n \n The family hired a legal contractor and had the ramp installed at the front of their home at the Woodlands at Copperstone in Brentwood. For the last several months, they thought everything was fine. But last week, their homeowners association threatened to sue if they didn't remove the ramp because the family didn't get permission and approval first. \n \n Charlotte Broadnax, Michael Broadnax's wife, said since Channel 4's story first aired on Monday, she has received dozens of calls and letters expressing support for her and her husband. \n \n \"I've had several people come to my door in support,\" Charlotte Broadnax said. \n \n Wednesday, Michael Broadnax came out of intensive care after his latest brain surgery. His wife has continued to battle her homeowners association, which mailed two letters demanding the wheelchair ramp be removed. \n \n \"I called to let them know I am trying to work this out,\" Charlotte Broadnax said. \"I am trying to work with them and I want them to work with me.\" \n \n After making several calls Wednesday to Ghertner and Company, which manages the HOA, Charlotte Broadnax received a hand-delivered letter of apology from the Woodlands at Copperstone Homeowners Association and its attorney, Alvin Harris. \n \n \"Please accept the apologies from my previous letter, which should not have been sent,\" said Charlotte Broadnax, reading from the letter. \"It was not approved by all board members of the association and did not contain all the information that the board had previously discussed.\" \n \n The letter explained the board's original intent was to bring to the Broadnaxes attention the ramp required a permit from the city of Brentwood and needed approval by the homeowners association's architectural review committee. \n \n The homeowners association manager Elecia Lewis explained that board members noticed a lot of visitors on Sundays and thought the ramp might be for guests. \n \n \"She said, 'we did not know the owner of the house was the one that was in need,'\" Charlotte Broadnax said. \"I asked, 'Why didn't you come to the house and ask why the ramp was up instead of waiting seven and a half months?'\" \n \n The Federal Housing Act \"makes it unlawful for any person to refuse to permit at the disabled person's expense, reasonable modifications of existing premises or to be occupied by a person if such modifications may be necessary to afford that person full enjoyment of the premises.\" \n \n Beverly Watts, director of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, reached out to make sure the family was protected legally. \n \n \"The homeowners association is responsible for contacting the individuals,\" Watts said. \"The letter was a bit harsh, in our opinion. So they had already made a decision that there was no need to interact, that there was no need to talk with the homeowner about an accommodation. And that's what we were concerned about because that, in and of itself, is a violation of the law.\" \n \n Tracey McCartney with the Tennessee Fair Housing Council said in an emailed statement: \"Homeowners or renters who are trying to modify their unit for the use of a person with a disability and who are running into roadblocks are welcome to call the Tennessee Fair Housing Council at 615-874-2344.\u201d \n \n Charlotte Broadnax said she will be filling out the proper paperwork for the ramp. For now, her top priority is her husband's recovery. \n \n \"My focus is on [going] from the hospital to rehab and from rehab back home,\" she said. \n \n The Broadnaxes no longer have a two-week deadline and will be working with the Brentwood Codes Department to make sure the ramp is in compliance. \n \n The Tennessee Human Rights Commission and Tennessee Fair Housing can both assist people with disabilities work are seeking legal or anti-discrimination help. Both services are free. \n \n For more information on housing modifications for disabled persons, click here. \n \n Copyright 2015 WSMV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved. ||||| \n \n Tim Hunt, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, made troubling comments at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File) \n \n Earlier this week at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Tim Hunt laid this on the audience during his remarks: \u201cThree things happen when they are in the lab.... You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry.\" \n \n Hunt, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on cell division and now works for Cancer Research UK, wasn't talking about whiny, distracting lab puppies. He was talking about women. \n \n He went on to say that he thought people should work in gender-segregated labs but that he hoped such sentiment wouldn't \"stand in the way of women.\" \n \n The reaction in the science and science journalism community has been, well, about what you'd expect. I'm not going to embed any tweets, but my favorite lighthearted takes on the subject have been to the effect of well to be fair, most female scientists have a 'no Tim Hunt' policy in their labs and but where will we get that male co-author we're supposed to have if the lab is all female?! \n \n [Sexism in science: Peer editor tells female researchers their study needs a male author] \n \n Outside the Twittersphere, the Royal Society distanced itself from Hunt's remarks, reiterating its commitment to help women succeed in the sciences. \n \n And why are Hunt's feelings so troubling? Well, there's this problem we've got where women are underrepresented in the sciences, math, technology and engineering. In fact, in Britain (Hunt's home country) only 13 percent of people working in STEM are women. In science academia, 84 percent of full-time professors in the field are men. The situation in the United States is perhaps a bit better, with women getting a share of science doctorates that hovers just above 25 percent. One recent study claimed the problem had been solved, but other scientists were quick to dismantle the flaws in its methodology and cast doubt on its conclusions. \n \n [Gender gap: Women welcome in \u2018hard working\u2019 fields, but \u2018genius\u2019 fields are male-dominated, study finds] \n \n This isn't to say that Hunt is the first Nobel laureate to use his elevated status to share some problematic remarks. James Watson is known for having some real zingers (of the racist and sexist variety) up his sleeve. What punishment did the politically correct hordes inflict on that soul? Well, he sold his Nobel Prize for $4 million, then had it returned to him by the Russian billionaire who'd bought it, as a gift. Rough, I know. \n \n Hunt has since apologized via the BBC, but he seems to be as much in need of a lesson on proper apologies as he is on one in gender equality. From the BBC: \n \n Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today program, he said he was \"really sorry that I said what I said,\" adding it was \"a very stupid thing to do in the presence of all those journalists.\" The British biochemist, who became a Royal Society fellow in 1991, said the remarks were \"intended as a light-hearted, ironic comment\" but had been \"interpreted deadly seriously by my audience.\" He went on to say he stood by some of the remarks. \"I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,\" he said. \"It is true that people -- I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it's very disruptive to the science because it's terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field. I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I'm really, really sorry I caused any offense, that's awful. I certainly didn't mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually.\" On his remarks about women crying, he said: \"It's terribly important that you can criticize people's ideas without criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth. \"Science is about nothing but getting at the truth and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.\" \n \n Honesty is obviously important, but -- really? These remarks were only troublesome because journalists were there to be offended by them? Obviously no one can force Hunt to be repentant for his personal belief that women are emotional time bombs, but a non-apology is never the answer. What's a non-apology? Here's a good summary from Pacific Standard Magazine: \n \n The term \u201cnon-apology\u201d first appeared in 1971, but it wasn\u2019t commonly used until the late '90s and then on into today. It\u2019s when you apologize ... if you\u2019ve offended anyone. \u201cI\u2019m sorry ... if you felt this way.\u201d Or when you say you\u2019re sorry because you didn\u2019t mean to do whatever terrible thing you ended up doing. It\u2019s a conditional apology. It\u2019s an apology, plus more some words that make it into something that\u2019s not an apology. \n \n As the PS Mag piece goes on to explain, a non-apology is the aggressive version of an apology. To not apologize is passive, but to come out with one of these non-apologies shows an active refusal to admit your wrongdoing. \n \n I've come under fire for being like \"nah, that's sexist,\" before, so I decided to check my facts this time. \n \n So, okay: Hunt is revealing that he has trouble dealing with women. There are probably a lot of older male scientists who feel this way. I know, I know, we ladies totally crashed the party! We're so cheeky. \n \n If Hunt said he wanted single-sex labs because he couldn't help falling in love with female lab scientists -- well, that's kind of icky, too. But it's his insistence -- even in his apology -- that women, as a group, cry to get what they want that really sticks the landing. \n \n [Science columnist tells student bothered by breast-ogling prof: \u2018Put up with it\u2019] \n \n Maybe Hunt is guilty of hiring the wrong people all-around, if it's just inter-lab affairs and the howling lamentations of women in there 24/7. If Hunt has an HR problem, he should go ahead and fix it -- not use it as the basis for proposing that labs be segregated. (Also, how would that even work? Where would people outside the gender binary go? Would labs full of non-heterosexuals descend into the same weepy, chaotic interpersonal jumble that Hunt fears? I HAVE QUESTIONS.) \n \n But let's call this what it really is: Just the inescapable truth for countless women working in science. They have colleagues -- bosses in position of great power, even, with globally recognized accolades -- who seem to genuinely believe they just can't help but cry when they're criticized. They can't help it, mind, it's a lady problem. And that's no way to do science now, is it? \n \n [Sexism often comes with a smile, study finds] \n \n When men believe women are inherently less capable of handling the rigors of science and working professionally without falling over themselves to date their colleagues, they're not going to be considered for the jobs they should be considered for. They're not going to perform as well in those labs. They're not even going to make it to those labs, because someone earlier in their career pipeline has already hit them with this roadblock. \n \n No one expects another apology from Hunt: He's at peace with what he said. And that's the problem. Hunt's views are not outside the norm. They will not have him booted from his institution. No one wants his head on a platter. They just really really wish he could stop having these views, because they're incredibly harmful to women in a field that's already making women run up the down escalator. \n \n In some ways, Hunt is right in apologizing only for saying these things in front of an audience that took offense. If he said them in his lab, it's safe to say, none of the women under fire would disagree with him. That would just be a bad career move. \n \n Read More: \n \n Men (on the Internet) don\u2019t believe sexism is a problem in science, even when they see evidence \n \n Cards Against Humanity releases science-themed expansion to benefit women in STEM \n \n Can science make you less sexist while you sleep? \n \n Sexism often comes with a smile, study finds \n \n Sexism in science: Peer editor tells female researchers their study needs a male author ||||| Follow @marymitchellcst \n \n Sen. Mark Kirk, 55, is a good example of why it never pays to try to keep up with the younger generation. \n \n Instead of looking cool, you wind up saying stupid stuff that makes you look lame. \n \n Kirk was caught on a live microphone Thursday referring to his Republican colleague and presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham as a \u201cbro with no ho.\u201d \n \n I didn\u2019t even know what that meant. My adult son had to fill me in. \n \n \u201cIt just means he\u2019s a single man,\u201d my son explained. \n \n OPINION \n \n Follow @marymitchellcst \n \n In my day, a \u201cbro\u201d was a black man with a \u2018fro. As for \u201cho,\u201d well, the definition of that slur hasn\u2019t changed. Coming from the senator, the \u201cbro with no ho\u201d comment is an embarrassment. \n \n But what was especially offensive was Kirk also saying, \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019d say on the South Side.\u201d \n \n Wait a minute. Since when did Kirk become a South Sider? \n \n You can\u2019t just proclaim yourself a South Sider. You\u2019ve got to pay your dues by riding those overcrowded buses and trains, living in food deserts, traveling impossible distances to shop and navigating dangerous neighborhoods. \n \n Kirk is from Highland Park \u2014 the land of plenty. \n \n I know some people falsely claim to be from this side or that side of Chicago, when you\u2019re really from the suburbs. That\u2019s OK. \n \n But Kirk has repeatedly pretended to have a grasp on what\u2019s going on in these communities. \n \n In 2013, he clashed with U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Illinois, when he called for the mass arrests of the Gangster Disciples, a gang he said numbered 18,000. \n \n Rush called Kirk\u2019s proposal \u201ca middle-class, elitist white-boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about.\u201d \n \n The senator put his foot in his mouth again in an interview about economic development when he declared that black neighborhoods are the ones that people driver through faster. \n \n I have no doubt that some white people are afraid to drive through black neighborhoods. But there are a lot of white people who work, live and play in black neighborhoods, and I would argue that they are safer in those neighborhoods than the young black males who live there. \n \n A spokesman for Kirk dismissed his boss\u2019 comments Thursday as a joke. \n \n Maybe he should have added that was a joke that was in poor taste and which could prove costly. \n \n The senator was engaging in the kind of bawdy banter some \u201cbros\u201d engage in when women aren\u2019t a part of the conversation. That shows he really doesn\u2019t get it. \n \n Kirk is up for re-election. And two fierce women \u2014 U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, and Andrea Zopp, the former head of the Chicago Urban League \u2014 are seeking the Democratic nomination to face him. \n \n Either one of these accomplished women could benefit from Kirk\u2019s gaffe. I can\u2019t wait to see how the \u201cbro with no ho\u201d soundbite ends up being used in campaign commercials. \n \n Meantime, Kirk owes the South Side an apology. \n \n While some African-American aldermen are still making an ugly fuss over New York filmmaker Spike Lee calling a movie he\u2019s making in the city \u201cChiraq,\u201d what Kirk\u2019s doing is worse. \n \n He\u2019s stereotyping the black community, casting it in a negative light and then crowing about it. \n \n Follow Mary Mitchell on Twitter: @MaryMitchellCST ||||| Diane Rehm, a Washington radio host whose show is widely syndicated on National Public Radio, apologized Wednesday for saying presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has Israeli citizenship, which Sanders repeatedly denied. \n \n \"On today\u2019s show, I made a mistake,\" read \"An Apology From Diane\" on the episode's website. \"Rather than asking Senator and Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders whether he had dual U.S./Israeli citizenship, as I had read in a comment on Facebook, I stated it as fact.\" \n \n \"I want to apologize as well to all our listeners for having made an erroneous statement. I am sorry for the mistake. However, I am glad to play a role in putting this rumor to rest.\" \n \n \u201cI am glad to play a role in putting this rumor to rest.\u201d Diane Rehm \n \n Sanders, an independent Vermont senator who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, had talked about a variety of topics on Rehm's Wednesday's show, including foreign policy, when she declared, \"Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel.\" \n \n Sanders, who was raised Jewish, interrupted her. \n \n Sanders: No I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I'm an American. That\u2019s\u2014I don't know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. No, I'm an American citizen, period. Rehm: I understand from a list we have gotten that you were on that list. Forgive me if that is\u2026 Sanders: No, that\u2019s some of the nonsense that goes on in the internet\u2014 Rehm: Interesting... Sanders: But that is not something that\u2019s true. Rehm: Are there members of Congress that do have dual citizenship, or is that part of the fable? Sanders: I honestly don't know. \n \n Sanders then said he was \"offended a little bit by that comment,\" and said, \"I do not have any dual citizenship.\" \n \n Rehm apologized on the show again on Thursday, saying she had \"made an erroneous statement,\" according to Poynter.org, a media blog. \n \n \"This is an issue that has come up over the years in American politics,\" she said, according to Poynter. \"One of our listeners suggested by Facebook that I ask Senator Sanders about Internet speculation that he has dual citizenship with Israel. But instead of asking it as a question I stated it as fact and that was wrong.\"", "summary": "\u2013 Public apologies making headlines this week include a scientist and a senator trying to show how funny they are: Prize winner: \"I'm really, really sorry I caused any offense, that's awful. I certainly didn't mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually.\"\u2014Tim Hunt, Nobel-winning scientist, after he made light of \"girls\" working in labs. He added that it was a \"stupid\" thing to say in front of journalists, which is partly why a writer at the Washington Post calls this the \"non-apology of the year.\" New name, please: \"We are sorry that wording which could be considered offensive has been used, as this has not been our intention at all.\"\u2014Lego, after it described a strange-looking new Lego model as a \"window-licker,\" a derogatory term for people with learning disabilities. If it's on Facebook, it must be true: \"I want to apologize as well to all our listeners for having made an erroneous statement. I am sorry for the mistake. However, I am glad to play a role in putting this rumor to rest.\"\u2014Diane Rehm of NPR, after she informed Bernie Sanders that he had Israeli citizenship during an interview. He doesn't. She had seen it on Facebook. Unsportsmanslike: \"We apologize to all fans watching the game on television, to both teams and to our guests from Italy for the Nazi symbol.\"\u2014Tomislav Pacak, a Croatian Football Federation spokesman, referring to the faint but unmistakable imprint of a large swastika on a soccer field. He's a what? \"(He) was joking with his colleague and immediately apologized to anyone offended by his remark.\"\u2014Spokesperson for Sen. Mark Kirk, after he described his bachelor colleague Lindsey Graham as a \"bro with no ho.\" (A Sun-Times columnist thinks he owes a specific apology to residents of Chicago's South Side.) All business: \"Please accept the apologies from my previous letter, which should not have been sent.\"\u2014Homeowners association in Brentwood, Tenn., after threatening to sue a family for putting up a wheelchair ramp. The homeowner, a pastor, just had brain surgery. The HOA had second thoughts when the story went public."}
{"document": "Story highlights Lego tower in Budapest confirmed as world's tallest by Guinness World Records \n \n Tower reaches 34 meters over city's St. Stephen's Basilica \n \n Local school children helped build the structure, which was topped by a Rubik's cube -- a Hungarian invention \n \n Imagine the size of the box this one came in -- a Lego tower stretching 36 meters into the sky above the Hungarian capital Budapest. \n \n The 34.76- meter (114 feet) tower, which was completed on Sunday, has been certified as the world's tallest toy brick structure by Guinness World Records. \n \n It beat the previous record holder, a 34.4-meter structure constructed last year with the help of U.S. students from a school in Delaware. \n \n A spokesman for Guinness World Records confirmed that the tower qualified as the \"tallest structure built with interlocking plastic bricks.\" \n \n He said the record was officially registered to Lego Store Budapest on May 25. \n \n The Budapest tower, topped by a Rubik's cube -- a Hungarian invention -- was also built with the help of Hungarian primary school children, according to local news websites. \n \n The structure, built in front of the city's St. Stephen's Basilica, used hundreds of thousands of blocks. \n \n MORE: Budapest's escape games go global ||||| Hungarian enthusiasts set a new Guinness world record for the world's tallest Lego tower. Standing at 36 metres, the tower was constructed in front of Saint Stephen's basilica in Budapest. School children helped to build the structure, and the mayor of the city's fifth district put the final block in place. The previous record was 34.43 metres", "summary": "\u2013 Lego lovers will be stoked by this news: Budapest, Hungary, is now home to a 114-foot-tall Lego tower to rival the city\u2019s most picturesque architecture, CNN reports. The Guinness Book of World Records has put its official stamp on the project, declaring the multi-colored structure\u2014which features a profile of Pac-Man and is topped by a Rubik\u2019s cube (Hungary's contribution to pop culture)\u2014the \"tallest structure built with interlocking plastic bricks.\" The Lego Store Budapest will be listed as the record holder. And for a too-cute spin on the story, the Guardian reports that school kids helped snap together some of the hundreds of thousands of blocks needed to build the tower. Sadly, somewhere in Delaware a bunch of students may be weeping\u2014they held the previous record of nearly 113 feet, CNN notes. (More quirky Lego news: Lego people will outnumber real people by 2019.)"}
{"document": "Citation: Lipsitch M, Galvani AP (2014) Ethical Alternatives to Experiments with Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens. PLoS Med 11(5): e1001646. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001646 Published: May 20, 2014 Copyright: \u00a9 2014 Lipsitch, Galvani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by awards from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, number 5U54GM088558 to ML and U01 GM087719 to AG. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences or the National Institutes of Health. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: ML reports consulting income or honoraria from the following sources within the past five years: Novartis, Pfizer (pharmaceutical companies); AIR Worldwide, i3 Innovus, and Outcome Sciences (risk assessment and consulting companies). None of these relationships is ongoing. He has research grants with Pfizer (active) and PATH Vaccine Solutions (pending). AG reports consulting income from Vitality (a health insurer) and AIR Worldwide (a risk assessment company). ML is a member of the Editorial Board of PLOS Medicine. Abbreviations: BSL, biosafety level; DURC, dual use research of concern; HHS, US Department of Health and Human Services; PPP, potential pandemic pathogen Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed. \n \n Summary Points \u201cGain of function\u201d experiments involving the creation and manipulation of novel potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs) deserve ethical scrutiny regarding the acceptability of the risks of accidental or deliberate release and global spread. \n \n The Nuremberg Code, a seminal statement of clinical research ethics, mandates that experiments that pose a risk to human life should be undertaken only if they provide humanitarian benefits that sufficiently offset the risks and if these benefits are unachievable by safer means. \n \n A novel PPP research program of moderate size would pose substantial risks to human life, even optimistically assuming a low probability that a pandemic would ensue from a laboratory accident. \n \n Alternative approaches would not only be safer but would also be more effective at improving surveillance and vaccine design, the two purported benefits of gain-of-function experiments to create novel, mammalian-transmissible influenza strains. \n \n A rigorous, quantitative, impartial risk\u2013benefit assessment should precede further novel PPP experimentation. In the case of influenza, we anticipate that such a risk assessment will show that the risks are unjustifiable. Given the risk of a global pandemic posed by such experiments, this risk assessment should be part of a broader international discussion involving multiple stakeholders and not dominated by those with an interest in performing or funding such research. \n \n Two recent publications reporting the creation of ferret-transmissible influenza A/H5N1 viruses [1],[2] are controversial examples of research that aims to produce, sequence and characterize \u201cpotential pandemic pathogens\u201d (PPPs) [3], novel infectious agents with known or likely efficient transmission among humans, with significant virulence, and for which there is limited population immunity. There is a quantifiable possibility that these novel pathogens could be accidentally or deliberately released. Exacerbating the immunological vulnerability of human populations to PPPs is the potential for rapid global dissemination via ever-increasing human mobility. The dangers are not just hypothetical. The H1N1 influenza strain responsible for significant morbidity and mortality around the world from 1977 to 2009 is thought to have originated from a laboratory accident [4]. Risk evaluations surrounding biomedical research have not kept pace with scientific innovations in methodology and application. This gap is particularly disconcerting when research involves the construction of PPPs that pose risks of accidental release and global spread. We argue here that accepted principles of biomedical research ethics present a high bar to PPP experiments, requiring that risks arising from such experiments be compensated by benefits to public health not achievable by safer approaches. Focusing on influenza, the object of most current PPP experimentation, we further argue that there are safer experimental approaches that are both more scientifically informative and more straightforward to translate into improved public health through enhanced surveillance, prevention, and treatment of influenza. \n \n Influenza \u201cGain of Function\u201d Experiments: Prototypical Examples of Potential Pandemic Pathogen Studies Although several pathogens may be categorized as PPPs (see Box 1), \u201cgain of function\u201d experiments involving influenza strains modified to be PPPs are expanding [5]\u2013[7] (Box 2), and hence of immediate concern. In addition to the two controversial studies recently published, studies with H5N1 [8], H7N9 [9], and H7N1 [10] have used similar ferret passage protocols, while still others have created mammalian-transmissible strains in vitro, followed by in vivo analysis [11],[12]. Related studies have genetically combined less pathogenic zoonotic avian viruses, such as H9N2, with human seasonal influenza viruses to generate strains that exhibit enhanced transmissibility, and to which humans would be immunologically susceptible [13]\u2013[15]. Box 1. Scope for Heightened Ethical Scrutiny of Potential Pandemic Pathogen Experiments This article describes the responsible ethical scrutiny that should be applied to experimental studies creating or employing PPPs. We define PPPs as infectious agents with four characteristics: Having known or likely efficient transmission among humans Significantly virulent Unmitigated by preexisting population immunity Genetically distinct from pathogens currently circulating These criteria define pathogens on which experimentation would pose a risk of sparking a pandemic, placing the human population at risk of morbidity or mortality, over and above the background risk of a naturally occurring pandemic. The paradigm case is the creation of variants of influenza A/H5N1 that are readily transmissible between ferrets, a model for human transmission. Such criteria would likely be applicable to experimentation with human isolates of smallpox or SARS, since these pathogens are no longer known to be circulating naturally. In the future, the list may expand [57]. We do not advocate the necessity of heightened scrutiny for isolation and characterization of naturally occurring pathogens, such as wild-type H5N1 or H7N9, consistent with the HHS framework for evaluating gain-of-function studies of H5N1 viruses, which exempts characterization of naturally occurring viruses [33]. Box 2. Gain of Function: What's in a Name? The recent ferret transmission experiments with influenza A viruses have been termed \u201cgain of function\u201d experiments because they involve engineering viruses that gain transmissibility in ferrets. Gain of function is a common and important approach in biological experimentation, and is not by itself cause for concern [58]. However, the elevated concern over these experiments arises from the particular function that is gained. Ferret transmission is thought to be a good [59],[60] (albeit imperfect [61],[62]) model for human-to-human transmission. Consequently, strains resulting from selection for heightened ferret transmission are likely to be similarly transmissible by humans via respiratory droplets, a prerequisite for pandemic spread. In combination with demonstrated virulence for humans, this particular gain of function presents unique risks and raises special ethical issues. These studies have typically been conducted in biosafety level (BSL) 3 or 3+ containment facilities. Laboratory-associated infections in BSL3 facilities are conservatively estimated to occur at a rate of two per 1,000 laboratory-years [3],[16] in the United States, where protocols and enforcement are relatively stringent. Globally, high-containment laboratories have variable standards and enforcement [17]. Experimentation in less-regulated or unregulated laboratories, with the attendant risks of accidental or deliberate release, is facilitated by the publication of sequence and functional data on PPPs, even if the original research was conducted with state-of-the-art safety and security [18]. From the conservative estimate of the rate of laboratory-associated infections of two per 1,000 laboratory-years [3],[16], it follows that a moderate research program of ten laboratories at US BSL3 standards for a decade would run a nearly 20% risk of resulting in at least one laboratory-acquired infection, which, in turn, may initiate a chain of transmission. The probability that a laboratory-acquired influenza infection would lead to extensive spread has been estimated to be at least 10% [19]. Simple branching process models suggest a probability of an outbreak arising from an accidental influenza infection in the range of 5% to 60% [20],[21]. Such probabilities cannot be ignored when multiplied by the potential devastation of an influenza pandemic [22],[23], even if the resulting strain were substantially attenuated from the observed virulence of highly pathogenic influenza A/H5N1 [24], the subject of much of the published PPP work to date. We advocate a dispassionate review of pertinent evidence and calculations of the probabilities and magnitudes of potential risks parameterized for specific PPP research programs. \n \n Ethical Frameworks for Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens Thus far, experiments with novel PPPs have been assessed in the context of \u201cdual use research of concern\u201d (DURC), a designation for \u201cresearch that could be used for good or bad purposes\u201d [25]. Within the broader category of DURC, PPP experimentation raises ethical issues that deserve more extensive evaluation than other DURC, because the scale of risk posed by PPPs is much greater. While DURC by definition presents a risk of malevolent use, the impact of the accidental release of many agents involved in DURC\u2014anthrax, hemorrhagic fever viruses, and, most recently, a novel Clostridium botulinum toxin [26],[27] \u2013is constrained by transmission mode or limited host susceptibility. The magnitude of accidental risk for a novel PPP is much greater. The Nuremberg Code, a seminal document in clinical research ethics, specifies that in research conducted on human participants, \u201cthe degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.\u201d More broadly, 74 national academies of science have stated: \u201cScientists have an obligation to do no harm. They should always take into consideration the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their own activities\u201d [28]. The ethical principles underlying both guidelines would seem to apply a fortiori to research that imposes far-reaching risk to the public [29]. Given the global nature of influenza transmission, and thus implications beyond a country's borders, international agreement regarding acceptable risks is needed. Ethical constructs and risk evaluations must be tailored to scientific advances in methodology and application. Limited attention has been paid to the ethics of scientific experiments that pose risks beyond identified human participants [30]\u2013[32]. On a practical level, however, the spirit of the Nuremberg Code's \u201chumanitarian importance\u201d criterion is embodied in the recent frameworks for evaluating PPP experiments from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the primary sponsor of such experiments to date. The HHS frameworks for studies anticipated to create mammalian-transmissible H5N1 [33] and H7N9 [34],[35] viruses specify that the risks and benefits should be weighed. The Nuremberg Code's second point states: \u201cThe experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.\u201d When projecting the benefits of experiments that put human life at risk, therefore, it is critical to compare against alternatives. What unique public health benefits do PPP experiments offer relative to the benefits of investing equivalent resources in alternative research strategies? If there are unique benefits to novel PPP experiments, do they justify the risks entailed? This concept, too, is partially incorporated in the HHS frameworks, which permit funding of H5N1 [33] or H7N9 [34],[35] transmissibility gain-of-function experiments only if \u201cthere are no feasible alternative methods to address the same scientific question in a manner that poses less risk than does the proposed approach\u201d [33]. The Nuremberg Code suggests a broader criterion: that PPP experiments should be performed if the public health benefits envisaged cannot be obtained by safer methods. We argue that alternative scientific approaches are not only less risky, but also more likely to generate results that can be readily translated into public health benefits. \n \n Challenges in Translating Understanding of Influenza Transmission into Public Health Practice Proponents of PPP experimentation cite two main benefits of such studies: improving our interpretation of surveillance data to detect dangerous viruses and facilitating vaccine development against future natural pandemics. Both claims have been disputed. The vaccine claim has been denied by vaccine developers, who note that many, if not all, vaccines have been developed without a detailed molecular understanding of transmission [36]. Advocates of PPP experimentation further argue that creating potentially pandemic strains of a particular virus, e.g., A/H5N1, could facilitate the production and stockpiling of vaccines against that variant. However, given that PPP experiments inevitably consider only a few possible genetic pathways to transmissibility, and that the precise correspondence between transmissibility in the ferret model and human transmissibility remains uncertain, we can never know whether PPP experimentation would hit upon the antigenic composition of the next pandemic strain that will emerge from nature. Indeed, as described below, it is clear that there is no one-to-one mapping between a few genetic changes in a virus and its transmissibility. By contrast, universal influenza vaccines currently in preclinical and clinical trials [37] may, with further development, prove to be more worthwhile to stockpile for the purposes of pandemic preparedness than an assortment of vaccines targeting antigenic variants manufactured via PPP experimentation. Current surveillance is likely inadequate to detect an emerging pandemic strain before it is too late [29],[38], regardless of any warnings that PPP experimentation might generate about potentially worrisome mutations. Between 2008 and 2013, over 1,580 highly pathogenic avian influenza (almost all H5N1) outbreaks, involving over 5 million birds, were reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health [39]. The US National Center for Biotechnology Information Influenza Virus Resource [40] received about 1,400 complete or partial avian H5N1 virus sequences over this period [41]. Most of these sequences were over eight months old by the time they were publicly available in the Influenza Virus Resource. Similar considerations apply to GISAID's EpiFlu Database, the other major influenza virus sequence database [42]. Given that birds [43], like humans [44], harbor a genetically diverse quasispecies of influenza variants, it is highly unlikely that such limited surveillance could detect a pandemic viral sequence and, furthermore, spur effective mitigation actions, before the worrisome variant was already widespread in birds. As an example of the limited public health response even when a dangerous virus has been observed, consider the global response to H7N9 avian influenza, which has proven zoonotic potential and has probably been repeatedly transmitted from human to human [45]. Isolates from human cases reveal efficient binding to human sialic acid receptors and airborne transmission in ferrets [9] and guinea pigs [46]. These indicators of pandemic potential are much stronger than sequence comparisons with engineered viruses could provide, yet most live bird markets in China remain open, and human cases continue to emerge [47]. Given these realities, it is difficult to envision how a surveillance signal alone would prompt swifter actions than these existing warning signs for H7N9 have. In short, the benefits for public health of the scientific findings from PPP experimentation are speculative at best. \n \n Alternative Approaches: Safer and More Promising The prominent role of epistasis in influenza biology suggests that alternative approaches to studying the phenotypic impact of mutations on mammalian transmissibility would be not only less risky, but also more informative. In vivo replication and transmission of influenza in humans depend on myriad interdependent factors, including the binding affinity between hemagglutinin and human sialic acids, the ability of the virion to fuse with the endosomal membrane at the appropriate pH and temperature, as well as the stability of various viral proteins [11],[51],[53],[54]. Each of these traits, in turn, is not simply determined by the presence or absence of individual amino acids at particular sites, but by biophysical properties arising from the interaction of many sites within and between proteins [50],[51]. Consequently, the challenge of predicting transmissibility hinges on understanding the genetic determinants of each trait, coupled with the interactions of the traits from which the higher-level phenotype of transmissibility arises. An array of safer approaches (Table 2) to studying influenza pathogenesis and transmission focus on dissecting these interactions. Some approaches start with sequence analysis and molecular dynamics modeling, which are intrinsically safe. The experimental evaluation of hypotheses raised by such studies may use viral components rather than the entire infectious virus, making these experiments simultaneously safer and more precise and mechanistic than engineering PPPs. Furthermore, these approaches are typically less costly than PPP experimentation, facilitating phenotypic evaluation of a greater diversity and abundance of genetic variants. Ultimately, studies with intact viruses will be necessary for a full understanding of human transmissibility, a phenotype of a whole virus. Elucidating the evolutionary trajectory through which existing seasonal (former pandemic) viruses became transmissible from avian precursors is safer than PPP experimentation, given that there is preexisting population immunity to seasonal strains, the products of such evolution. PPT PowerPoint slide \n \n PowerPoint slide PNG larger image ( ) \n \n larger image ( ) TIFF original image ( ) Download: Table 2. Safer approaches to studying human adaptation of influenza A viruses, and more generally to improving vaccines and therapeutics. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001646.t002 More generally, it should be remembered that the public health goal is to curtail influenza pandemics and seasonal transmission [55],[56]. Exploring basic biology is just one scientific means to this end. Other approaches, such as developing universal influenza vaccines and novel antiviral drugs and strategies to enhance host responses, as well as improving technologies for rapid vaccine manufacture, are being pursued without risks of PPP release (Table 2). \n \n Paths Forward We urge that proposals for any future experiments on PPPs be evaluated according to quantitative risk\u2013benefit analysis guided by the principles of the Nuremberg Code. Indeed, HHS frameworks require a risk\u2013benefit analysis to approve gain-of-function experimentation on H5N1 and H7N9 [33]\u2013[35] viruses, yet no such analysis has been made public, if it has been conducted. Other funding and regulatory agencies, which have not yet called for a risk\u2013benefit analysis, should require one as well. In biomedical grant review processes, proposals compete for limited funding, and most proposals that could advance science are never supported, because of budget constraints or because funding agencies conclude that there are more promising, safer, more humane, or otherwise superior ways to achieve scientific goals. PPP experimentation poses a significant risk to public health, arguably the highest level of risk posed by any biomedical research. Such experiments should be assessed on the basis of their marginal benefits, compared to those of safer approaches. In the case of influenza, given the higher throughput and lower cost of alternatives, we believe the benefits of alternative approaches will be greater than those of novel PPP experimentation, yet without the risks\u2013thereby negating the justification for taking such risks. Similarly, careful consideration should be given to analyses of novel PPP experiments beyond the study of influenza, as these are proposed. Funders and regulators should evaluate the balance of risks and benefits before further novel PPP experiments are undertaken. \n \n Acknowledgments The authors thank Ilaria Capua, Sarah Cobey, Norman Daniels, Dylan George, Yonatan Grad, James Hammitt, Meira Levinson, Katrina Lythgoe, Richard Malley, Daniel Markovits, Jonathan Moreno, Michael Osterholm, Steven Riley, and Colin Russell for helpful discussions and comments on earlier drafts. ||||| Public health experts have warned that controversial experiments on mutant viruses could put human lives in danger by unleashing an accidental pandemic. \n \n Several groups of scientists around the world are creating and altering viruses to understand how natural strains might evolve into more lethal forms that spread easily among humans. \n \n But in a report published on Tuesday, researchers at Harvard and Yale universities in the US argue that the benefits of the work are outweighed by the risk of pathogenic strains escaping from laboratories and spreading around the world. \n \n They calculate that if 10 high-containment labs in the US performed such experiments for 10 years, the chance of at least one person becoming infected was nearly 20%. If an infected person left the laboratory, the virus might then spread more widely. \n \n \"We are not saying this is going to happen, but when the potential is a pandemic, even a small chance is something you have to weigh very heavily,\" said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard School of Public Health, who wrote the report with Alison Galvani, an epidemiologist at Yale. \n \n The report threatens to reignite a crisis in science that erupted in 2012 when a US biosecurity panel ruled that two separate studies on mutant bird flu were too dangerous to publish. They described the creation of new mutant strains that spread among ferrets \u2013 a proxy for humans \u2013 held in neighbouring cages. One fear was that the recipe for the pathogens might fall into the hands of bioterrorists. \n \n Those studies, led by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin-Madison respectively, were eventually published after months of delays. Other researchers have now begun similar experiments. \n \n Both Fouchier and Kawaoka criticised the latest report, published in Plos Medicine, and said their work had full ethical, safety and security approval, with the risks and benefits taken into account. \n \n Last year, the US government, which funds most of the controversial work, revised its guidelines for \"dual-use research of concern\", or DURC. Under the new rules, work can be funded if the potential benefits are substantial and the risks considered to be manageable. \n \n But Lipsitch said there was no evidence that the risks and benefits had been weighed up properly. \"To my knowledge, no such thing has been done, but funding for these experiments continues,\" he said. \n \n Lipsitch said that the US government and other funding bodies must commission comprehensive risk assessments from independent experts before deciding which studies to support. \n \n Lipsitch and Galvani are most concerned about what are called gain-of-function studies, which aim to create highly virulent strains of viruses in secure laboratories so their genetic codes can be studied. Mutations that make a respiratory virus lodge in the throat, for example, can make the virus more transmissible through coughing. \n \n The rational for gain-of-function studies is twofold. If scientists can work out which mutations make a virus more dangerous to people, they can improve surveillance by looking out for those mutations in natural strains. The work might also help to steer vaccine development. But Lipsitch argues that neither justification stands up: surveillance is not good enough to use the information, and vaccine developers can do without it, he says. \n \n Rather than creating dangerous viruses in high-containment laboratories, Lipsitch and Galvani urge scientists to pursue alternative routes, for example, comparisons of seasonal human flu strains and other respiratory viruses that have jumped from animals into humans. These are not only safer, the authors claim, but the studies are scientifically sound, because they do not rely on small numbers of animals. \n \n The report was roundly rejected by Fouchier and Kawaoka, two of the leading scientists in gain-of-function studies. Fouchier said the authors were wrong on both points they made \u2013 that alternative experiments could provide answers about the transmissibility of viruses, and that the risk of an outbreak or pandemic was high. \n \n \"The research agenda they propose is important and currently ongoing, but alone will never lead to solid conclusions about mammalian adaptation and transmission: the proof of the pudding will need to come from gain-of-function studies using infectious viruses. This is why the department of health and human services has approved our research, taking into account all ethical, safety and security issues, and weighing the risks of the research against the benefits,\" Fouchier said. \n \n He said the authors had misinterpreted published data to arrive at their risk of someone picking up a virus in the laboratory. \"The truth is that scientific research has never triggered a virus pandemic.\" Lipsitch and Galvani point out that a flu strain that spread around the world from 1977 to 2009 was probably released in a laboratory accident. \n \n Kawaoka was similarly unimpressed with the report. \"The authors imply that gain-of-function studies are going on without proper reviews. This is not so and suggests they do not understand how highly regulated this work is and the approvals and planning required to conduct this research,\" he said. \"This commentary lists many experiments they think we should be doing. We are doing many of those experiments already.\" \n \n Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said that scientists working on the controversial virus studies should be less defensive. \"There are times when we have to open up and face our critics. Marc is articulating what many of us feel is obvious,\" he said.", "summary": "\u2013 Scientific testing is great\u2014except when it has the potential to unleash a global pandemic. That's the word from a new study that warns experiments on mutant viruses could do more harm than good. Scientists around the world are creating new viruses or changing existing ones to better understand how strains evolve and spread, but that's a big problem, say Harvard and Yale researchers. If 10 labs in the US performed high-containment experiments for 10 years, they estimate about a 20% chance that at least one person would become infected and a 1% chance that it would escape the lab, USA Today reports. \"We are not saying this is going to happen, but when the potential is a pandemic, even a small chance is something you have to weigh very heavily,\" says a Harvard epidemiologist as quoted in the Guardian. Scientists who study bird flu immediately criticized the study, saying their research provides insights that would be otherwise impossible. Two of those quoted created an airborne strain of avian flu in 2012 that was transmissible to mammals, a controversial feat whose details were published only after much debate."}
{"document": "Documenting Hate Tracking Hate Crimes and Bias Incidents \n \n The California man accused of killing a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student earlier this month is an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of one of the most notorious extremist groups in the country, according to three people with knowledge of the man\u2019s recent activities. \n \n The man, Samuel Woodward, has been charged in Orange County, California, with murdering Blaze Bernstein, who went missing in early January while visiting his family over winter break. Prosecutors allege that Woodward stabbed Bernstein more than 20 times before burying his body in an Orange County park where it was eventually discovered. The two men had attended high school together. \n \n Woodward, 20, is set to be arraigned on Feb. 2 and has not yet entered a plea. Orange County prosecutors say they are examining the possibility that the killing was a hate crime \u2014 Bernstein was Jewish and openly gay \u2014 and some recent news reports have suggested that the alleged killer might hold far-right or even white supremacist political beliefs. \n \n Now, three people with detailed knowledge of Woodward\u2019s recent past have been able to shed more light on the young man\u2019s extremist activities. They said Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division, an armed Fascist group with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the U.S. government through the use of terrorism and guerrilla warfare. Stay Informed Get ProPublica\u2019s Daily Digest. \n \n The organization, which celebrates Hitler and Charles Manson, has been tied to four other murders and an elaborate bomb plot over the past eight months. Experts who study right-wing extremist movements believe Atomwaffen\u2019s commitment to violence has made it one of the more dangerous groups to emerge from the new wave of white supremacists. \n \n Two of the three people who described Woodward\u2019s affiliations are friends of his; the other is a former member of Atomwaffen Division. \n \n ProPublica\u2019s revelations about Woodward\u2019s background add a new element to a murder case that has attracted considerable local and national news coverage. But they also raise fresh concerns about groups like Atomwaffen Division, shadowy outfits of uncertain size that appear capable of genuine harm. \n \n Woodward joined the organization in early 2016 and later traveled to Texas to attend Atomwaffen meetings and a three-day training camp, which involved instruction in firearms, hand-to-hand combat, camping and survival skills, the former member said. ProPublica has obtained photographs of Woodward at an outdoor Atomwaffen meeting in the scrubby Texas countryside. One of the photos depicts Woodward and other members making straight-armed Nazi salutes while wearing skull masks. In other pictures, Woodward is unmasked and easily identifiable. \n \n The young man is proficient with both handguns and assault rifles, according to one person who participated in the Texas training and watched him shoot. That person also said that Woodward helped organize a number of Atomwaffen members in California. \n \n Social media posts and chat logs shared by Woodward\u2019s friends show that he openly described himself as a \u201cNational Socialist\u201d or Nazi. He \u201cwas as anti-Semitic as you can get,\u201d according to one acquaintance. \n \n ProPublica contacted Orange County prosecutors regarding Woodward\u2019s alleged neo-Nazi activities. Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokesperson for the District Attorney\u2019s Office, said she couldn\u2019t comment directly on the case, but said the investigation is ongoing, with detectives exploring all possible leads. \n \n Woodward told police Bernstein had tried to kiss him while they were in the park, according to a sealed affidavit obtained by the Orange County Register. \n \n Woodward\u2019s defense lawyer, Edward Munoz, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. \n \n On Wednesday, Bernstein\u2019s parents spoke to reporters about the loss of their son, but said they were not interested in talking about any information they had on the investigation of his death. Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville State police and National Guardsmen watched passively for hours as self-proclaimed Nazis engaged in street battles with counter-protesters. ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson was on the scene and reports that the authorities turned the streets of the city over to groups of militiamen armed with assault rifles. \n \n The Los Angeles Times quoted his mother, Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, as saying she had worried during her son\u2019s life that he might be a target \u2014 because he was small, and Jewish, and gay. \n \n \u201cI was concerned sending him out into the big world,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at some point you have to let go and they leave the nest and fly. I couldn\u2019t protect him from everything.\u201d \n \n Atomwaffen started in 2015 and is estimated to have about 80 members scattered around the country in small cells; the former member said the group\u2019s ranks have grown since the lethal and chaotic \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally last summer in Charlottesville, Virginia. \n \n While many of the new white extremist groups have consciously avoided using Nazi imagery, Atomwaffen has done the opposite. The name can mean \u201cAtomic Weapons\u201d in German, and the organization embraces Third Reich iconography, including swastikas, the Totenkopf, or death\u2019s head insignia, and SS lightning bolts. The group frequently produces YouTube videos featuring masked Atomwaffen members hiking through the backcountry and firing weapons. They\u2019ve also filmed themselves burning the U.S. Constitution and setting fire to the American flag at an Atomwaffen \u201cDoomsday Hatecamp.\u201d \n \n Atomwaffen\u2019s biggest inspiration seems to be James Mason, a long-time fascist who belonged to the American Nazi Party and later, during the 1970s, joined a more militant offshoot. During the 1980s, Mason published a newsletter called SIEGE, in which he eschewed political activism in favor of creating a new fascist regime through murder, small \u201clone wolf\u201d terror attacks, and all-out war against the government. Mason also struck up a friendship with the late Charles Manson, who has become another hero for Atomwaffen. \n \n The organization first gained a measure of national attention in May of last year, when 18-year-old Devon Arthurs, one of Atomwaffen\u2019s founding members, was charged in state court in Tampa, Florida, with murdering two of his roommates, Andrew Oneschuk, 18, and Jeremy Himmelman, 22. Both victims were Atomwaffen loyalists. \n \n The murders allegedly occurred after Arthurs traded Nazism for radical Islam. When police took Arthurs into custody, according to news accounts based on police reports, he claimed he had shot his former comrades because they had taunted him about his Muslim faith and plotted violent attacks to further their fascist agenda. Arthurs told investigators he killed Onsechuk and Himmelman \u201cbecause they want to build a Fourth Reich.\u201d \n \n While Arthurs initially confessed to the killings, he has pleaded not guilty and the case is ongoing. In early January, a judge ordered a psychiatrist to determine whether Arthurs is mentally competent to stand trial. \n \n When law enforcement searched the apartment in Tampa, Florida, where Arthurs and the others lived, they found firearms, a framed photograph of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, rifles, ammunition, and a cooler full of a highly volatile explosive called HMTD. Investigators also discovered radioactive material in the home. \n \n The bomb-making material belonged to a fourth roommate, Atomwaffen leader Brandon Russell, a Florida National Guardsman. Arthurs told authorities that Russell had been planning to blow up a nuclear power plant near Miami. Earlier this month Russell pleaded guilty in federal district court in Tampa to illegal possession of explosives and was sentenced to five years in federal prison. \n \n Atomwaffen surfaced again in connection with a double homicide in Reston, Virginia, in December 2017. A 17-year-old neo-Nazi allegedly shot to death his girlfriend\u2019s parents, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker and Scott Fricker, who had urged their daughter to break up with him. The accused, who shot himself as well but survived and remains hospitalized, was charged as a juvenile in state court in Virginia with two counts of homicide. \n \n The 17-year-old was a big fan of Atomwaffen and James Mason, according to reporting by the Huffington Post, which examined his social media trail. \n \n The former Atomwaffen member in contact with ProPublica said that the teen was more than a fan: He was in direct communication with the group. \n \n \u201cTheir rhetoric is some of the most extreme we have seen,\u201d said Joanna Mendelson, a senior researcher at the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Center on Extremism. The group, she said, views itself as the radical vanguard of the white supremacist movement, the frontline soldiers of an imminent race war. ||||| Documenting Hate Tracking Hate Crimes and Bias Incidents \n \n Late last month, ProPublica reported that the California man accused of killing a gay and Jewish University of Pennsylvania student was an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of Atomwaffen Division, one of the country\u2019s most notorious extremist groups. \n \n The news about the murder suspect, Samuel Woodward, spread quickly throughout the U.S., and abroad. Woodward was accused of fatally stabbing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein and burying his body in an Orange County park. \n \n The report, it turns out, was also taken up in the secretive online chats conducted by members of Atomwaffen Division, a white supremacist group that celebrates both Hitler and Charles Manson. \n \n \u201cI love this,\u201d one member wrote of the killing, according to copies of the online chats obtained by ProPublica. Another called Woodward a \u201cone man gay Jew wrecking crew.\u201d \n \n More soon joined in. \n \n \u201cWhat I really want to know is who leaked that shit about Sam to the media,\u201d a third member wrote. \n \n At least one member wanted to punish the person who had revealed Woodward\u2019s affiliation with Atomwaffen. \n \n \u201cRats and traitors get the rope first.\u201d \n \n Encrypted chat logs obtained by ProPublica \u2014 some 250,000 messages spanning more than six months \u2014 offer a rare window into Atomwaffen Division that goes well beyond what has surfaced elsewhere about a group whose members have been implicated in a string of violent crimes. Like many white supremacist organizations, Atomwaffen Division uses Discord, an online chat service designed for video gamers, to engage in its confidential online discussions. \n \n In a matter of months, people associated with the group, including Woodward, have been charged in five murders; another group member pleaded guilty to possession of explosives after authorities uncovered a possible plot to blow up a nuclear facility near Miami. Lucas Waldron/ProPublica \n \n The group\u2019s propaganda makes clear that Atomwaffen \u2014 the word means \u201cnuclear weapons\u201d in German \u2014 embraces Third Reich ideology and preaches hatred of minorities, gays and Jews. Atomwaffen produces YouTube videos showing members firing weapons and has filmed members burning the U.S. Constitution and setting fire to the American flag. But the organization, by and large, cloaks its operations in secrecy and bars members from speaking to the media. \n \n The chat logs and other material obtained by ProPublica provide unusually extensive information about the group\u2019s leaders, wider makeup, and potential targets, indicating: \n \n The group may have as many as 20 cells around the country, small groups of indeterminate size in Texas, Virginia, Washington, Nevada and elsewhere. Members armed with assault rifles and other guns have taken part in weapons training in various locations over the last two years, including last month in the Nevada desert near Death Valley. \n \n Members have discussed using explosives to cripple public water systems and destroy parts of the electrical power grid. One member even claimed to have obtained classified maps of the power grid in California. Throughout the chats, Atomwaffen members laud Timothy McVeigh, the former soldier who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168, including numerous children. Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist who massacred 77 people, also come in for praise. \n \n Woodward posted several messages in the days after Bernstein\u2019s murder, but before he was arrested and charged. In one thread, he told his fellow Atomwaffen members that he was thinking about the \u201cpassing of life\u201d and was \u201ctruly grateful for our time together.\u201d An Atomwaffen propaganda flier \n \n Woodward, 20, has pleaded not guilty in the Bernstein case. Prosecutors have said they are exploring whether the murder constituted a hate crime and detectives are now investigating what role, if any, Atomwaffen might have played in the homicide. Woodward and Bernstein had known each other in high school in California, and appear to have reconnected somehow shortly before the killing. \n \n Law enforcement, both federal and state, have said little about what they make of Atomwaffen. But organizations dedicated to tracking and studying hate groups have been calling attention to what they regard as the group\u2019s considerable threat. \n \n \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen anything like Atomwaffen in quite a while,\u201d said Keegan Hankes, a researcher who tracks the group for the Southern Poverty Law Center. \u201cThey should be taken seriously because they\u2019re so extreme.\u201d \n \n Jeffrey Kaplan, a historian, has studied racial extremists for decades and edited the Encyclopedia of White Power. In an interview, he suggested that Atomwaffen is dangerous, but that talk in their propaganda and private conversations of aims such as toppling the U.S. government amounted to what he called a kind of \u201cmagical thinking.\u201d Kaplan said such groups often contain a handful of diehards who are willing to commit crimes and many more wannabes who are unwilling to do much more than read fascist literature. \n \n \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to go from talking about violence to looking a guy in the eyes and killing him,\u201d said Kaplan, a professor of national security studies at King Fahd Defense College in Saudi Arabia. \n \n Where We\u2019ve Identified Atomwaffen Division Members Through interviews and internal records, ProPublica was able to identify Atomwaffen members in at least 23 states. Lucas Waldron and Rob Weychert/ProPublica \n \n \u201cPolitics are useless. Revolution is necessary.\u201d \n \n ProPublica has identified five key Atomwaffen members through information provided by law enforcement investigators, internal Atomwaffen records, outside experts and a former group member. \n \n Those records and interviews make clear that John Cameron Denton is the leader of Atomwaffen. Denton, 24, grew up in Montgomery, Texas, a small town about 30 miles north of Houston. Public records show Denton currently lives in the nearby town of Conroe, a few miles to the south of Montgomery. \n \n ProPublica has obtained several photos of Denton. In one, Denton, who is short and wiry, has a bulky combat shotgun slung over his shoulder. He seems to favor camouflage pants and black T-shirts emblazoned with the logos of National Socialist Black Metal bands, a fringe subgenre of heavy metal music that mixes Satanic and Nazi themes. \n \n \u201cPolitics are useless. Revolution is necessary,\u201d Denton said in a chat post expressing the Atomwaffen worldview. \n \n Records and interviews show Denton goes by the name Rape in the online conversations, and he appears to be involved in nearly every aspect of the organization. He shapes Atomwaffen\u2019s ideology, chooses designs for its distinctive black-and-white posters and online propaganda, and selects the books that new recruits must study as part of their initiation, said a former Atomwaffen member interviewed by ProPublica. Denton\u2019s younger brother, Grayson Patrick Denton, 19, is also a member, according to the chat logs and interviews; within the group, he goes by Leon, an homage to a Belgian fascist who fought with the SS. John Cameron Denton Alias: Rape John Cameron Denton is the leader of Atomwaffen Division. The 24-year-old grew up in Montgomery, Texas, and lives outside Houston. \n \n The leader\u2019s identity was first revealed last month in a report by the Anti-Defamation League. Afterward, Denton was seething. \u201cThey think they can stop RAPE!? THEY THINK THEY CAN STOP ME!?!,\u201d Denton wrote in one chat message. \n \n Neither Denton brother responded to messages seeking comment. \n \n Just how many people belong to Atomwaffen is unknown. The ex-member told ProPublica that the group has enlisted about 80 members across the country, many of whom joined after the deadly events in Charlottesville last summer. \n \n An internal Atomwaffen document obtained by ProPublica shows members scattered across 23 states and Canada. The group\u2019s largest chapters are based in Virginia, Texas and Washington, according to a message posted in the chats by an Atomwaffen recruiter last summer. \n \n \u201cEach chapter operates independently,\u201d wrote the recruiter. \u201cWe want men who are willing to be the boots on the ground. Joining us means serious dedication not only to the Atomwaffen Division and its members, but to the goal of Total Aryan Victory.\u201d \n \n A review of the chat logs shows messages posted by people using more than 100 different user names. Access to the discussions is tightly controlled, and it is unclear if some members post under multiple usernames. \n \n Denton has helped build the organization around the ideas expressed in an obscure, hyper-violent book: \u201cSiege.\u201d The 563-page book collects and organizes the monthly newsletters produced during the 1980s by an old-line neo-Nazi activist named James Mason. It is required reading for all Atomwaffen members and serves as the backbone for the organization\u2019s ideology, worldview and training program. \n \n When Mason began publishing his newsletter in 1980, he was bitter and deeply dismayed. He had devoted his life to the fascist cause, joining the American Nazi Party in the mid-1960s, at the age of 14. But the movement had completely failed. \n \n For Mason, the way forward was obvious: He no longer wanted to convince the masses of the rightness of Nazism. They would never get it. Now was the time for true believers to go underground and launch a clandestine guerrilla war aimed at bringing down \u201cThe System.\u201d \n \n \u201cSiege\u201d is essentially a long string of essays celebrating murder and chaos in the name of white supremacy. In Mason\u2019s view, Dan White, the local politician who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk, was a hero. \n \n Mason proposed the creation of a White Liberation Front composed of small armed squads that would \u201chide in wilderness areas,\u201d moving frequently from location to location while striking out in a string of \u201chit-and-run engagements.\u201d Mason based this proposed organization on the short-lived National Socialist Liberation Front, a small splinter group of the American Nazi Party that formed in 1969 and espoused the strategic use of political terrorism. Grayson Patrick Denton Aliases: Nazgul, Leon Grayson Patrick Denton is the 19-year-old brother of Atomwaffen leader John Cameron Denton. He is a member of the Texas cell. \n \n The chat logs show that Denton and other Atomwaffen figures are in contact with Mason, who is 65 and is said to be living in Denver, Colorado; in one online conversation, Samuel Woodward wrote about meeting with Mason face to face along with other Atomwaffen members. In chats, members frequently post pictures of Mason and revere him as a brilliant, under-appreciated thinker. \n \n ProPublica was unable to contact Mason. \n \n Jeffrey Kaplan, the academic at King Fahd Defense College in Riyadh, interviewed Mason in the 1990s and spoke to ProPublica about Mason\u2019s outlook and the groups he inspires, such as Atomwaffen. \n \n He describes Mason as \u201ca true believer.\u201d \n \n \u201cNow he\u2019s got a following, which he didn\u2019t have for the last 30 years,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cHe\u2019s got some kids who\u2019ve rediscovered him. He must be in heaven.\u201d \n \n As Kaplan sees it, groups such as Atomwaffen \u2014 would-be Nazi guerrillas devoted to white revolution in the U.S. \u2014 are \u201cakin to cults,\u201d and are propelled by a quasi-religious faith that they will ultimately prevail. He continued, \u201cWhat else would sustain you when everyone hates you?\u201d \n \n John Cameron Denton, based on interviews and the material obtained by ProPublica, comes across as something of a cult leader. Lately he has been pushing for Atomwaffen members to pool money and purchase land in rural areas so they can \u201cget the fuck off the grid,\u201d and begin implementing their revolutionary agenda. The former member said Denton envisions using this network of Atomwaffen compounds to launch attacks against targets in the U.S. \n \n The leader is already girding for a confrontation with law enforcement. \u201cI do expect that one day I'll get raided,\u201d wrote Denton in one chat message. \u201cI'm not gonna have a shoot out or anything stupid like that, but I just dont rule out possibilities because I know the govt doesnt play by the rules.\" \n \n \u201cYou would want to target things like substations, water filtration plants, etc.\u201d \n \n Late last month, Atomwaffen held a three-day training session \u2014 or \u201cHate Camp\u201d in the group\u2019s parlance \u2014 deep in the Nevada desert. The event was organized by an Atomwaffen leader, Michael Lloyd Hubsky, who calls himself Komissar, according to the chat logs. Michael Lloyd Hubsky Alias: Komissar Hubsky, 29, lives in Las Vegas and leads Atomwaffen\u2019s Nevada cell. In online chats he discussed blowing up the U.S. power grid and natural gas lines. \n \n A 29-year-old resident of Las Vegas, Hubsky holds both a concealed weapons permit and a security guard license, and is a big fan of high-powered military-style firearms. In one post he discussed a favorite weapon: a Czech-made rifle called a CZ Scorpion that, Hubsky said, he\u2019d converted to fully automatic and equipped with a flash suppressor. \n \n In another message, Hubsky wrote that he was planning on getting an \u201cFFL\u201d \u2014 federal firearms license \u2014 so he could \u201cmanufacture\u201d guns. \n \n \u201cI can literally become our armory in the event we need it,\u201d Hubsky bragged. \n \n The former member said Atomwaffen has a rule: Don\u2019t talk about the group\u2019s terrorist ambitions in online chats or on social media. Those sorts of conversations are only supposed to happen in person. But Hubsky, at times, has been less than discreet outside the group\u2019s confidential chats. \n \n \u201cSo in any war, you need to cut off your enemy\u2019s ability to shoot, move and communicate,\u201d Hubsky wrote in a September 2017 message posted in a discussion on white nationalism that occurred in a non-Atomwaffen chat room. \u201cYou would want to target things like: Substations, water filtration plants, etc.\u201d ProPublica has obtained Hubsky\u2019s statements from that online conversation. \n \n Hubsky wrote that he had \u201ca map of the US power grid.\u201d \n \n \u201cWest-coast only,\u201d he added in the message. \u201cClassified map. Had someone with special permissions get it.\u201d John Cameron Denton, left, in an undated photograph with other white supremacists \n \n Hubsky also discussed blowing up natural gas lines. \n \n \u201cYou put a home-made thermite grenade on those,\u201d he wrote. While other types of infrastructure \u2014 like water lines \u2013 figured in Hubsky\u2019s discussions, hitting the power grid was, in his view, the most devastating and effective attack possible. Destroying electricity infrastructure, Hubsky wrote, \u201cwould by default take out the internet because it relies on power to operate.\u201d \n \n In a telephone conversation and subsequent series of text messages with ProPublica, Hubsky at first denied being a member of Atomwaffen. But he later offered to discuss the group at length if his name was not made public, an arrangement ProPublica declined. Hubsky acknowledged that he owns a CZ Scorpion assault rifle \u2014 even sharing a picture of the weapon \u2014 but said it was not fully automatic. He concluded the exchange by saying he had retained a lawyer. \n \n Hubsky\u2019s organization of the three-day Hate Camp in Nevada began with a proposal to the group late last year. He offered to arrange it so the group could hone its combat skills. There would be shooting and hand-to-hand sparring at a secret location on the edge of Death Valley. \n \n Atomwaffen had already held a Hate Camp in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois during the fall of 2017. At least 10 members from different states attended, with some driving in from as far away as Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Jersey. In the Pacific Northwest, cell members had converged on an abandoned cement factory, known as \u201cDevil's Tower\u201d near the small town of Concrete, Washington, where they had screamed \u201cgas the kikes, race war now!\u201d while firing off round after round from any array of weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle with a high capacity drum magazine. \n \n The training sessions were documented in Atomwaffen propaganda videos. Kaleb J. Cole Alias: Khimaere Atomwaffen\u2019s Washington chapter leader is Kaleb J. Cole. Cole, who owns an AK-47 assault rifle with a large-capacity magazine, helped organize arms training sessions in Washington and Nevada. He also works on the group\u2019s visual propaganda. \n \n Members had also organized smaller training sessions, such as the one last year in Texas that had drawn Blaze Bernstein\u2019s alleged murderer, Samuel Woodward. The Texas training attended by Woodward took place in the countryside outside San Antonio and involved 10 members of the Texas cell who took part in firearms, survival and weapons instruction. \n \n Hubsky scheduled his training camp during the last weekend in January. Atomwaffen\u2019s Washington chapter leader Kaleb J. Cole, who uses the alias Khimaere, agreed to help organize the desert training session in Nevada, which the group started calling the Death Valley Hate Camp. \n \n \u201cBring your uniform, rifle/sidearm, and whatever camping gear you need,\u201d he wrote. Cole, who is 22 and lives close to the Canadian border in the town of Blaine, is a National Socialist Black Metal enthusiast who holds a concealed firearms permit and owns an AK-47. In 2015, while Cole was living in Bellingham, police responded to a report that he had \u201cNazi memorabilia\u201d in his residence, according to Lt. Danette Beckley of the Bellingham Police Department; he was also reported to police in the island town of Anacortes for allegedly harassing a Jewish grocery store owner by a waving a Nazi flag in front of the business, according to two law enforcement sources. \n \n The former Atomwaffen member told ProPublica that Cole wields a significant degree of influence over the organization\u2019s propaganda, recruitment and organization. ProPublica could not reach Cole for comment. \n \n When the group got out to the desert, Hubsky made sure they shot photos and videos to be used in Atomwaffen recruiting clips. In one picture obtained by ProPublica, an Atomwaffen member is standing at the base of a sand dune showing off a military-grade weapon \u2014 an MCX Virtus rifle made by Sig Sauer \u2014 while holding a flag bearing the Atomwaffen insignia, a black shield bearing the symbol for radioactivity. Another member, clutching an assault rifle, is also in the photo. \n \n Hubsky returned from Death Valley enthused and eager to do more training. He uploaded a memo to the Atomwaffen chat. Members would now be required to join Front Sight, a \u201cprivate combat training facility\u201d outside of Las Vegas in the small desert town of Pahrump. Front Sight, the memo said, could provide classes in \u201cUzi and full auto M16 combat, as well as knife fighting, hand to hand combat,\u201d and instruction in climbing and rappelling. \n \n \u201cI don't know anything about this group,\u201d Bill Cookston, Front Sight\u2019s director of operations, said this week. \u201cIf anyone were to be doing something against the law or in a radical manner, we would look into that.\u201d \n \n Shortly afterward, Michael Meacher, Front Sight\u2019s CEO, said the training center had sent Hubsky a letter refunding his membership fees and informing the Las Vegas resident that he was banned from the facility for life. \n \n \u201cNot that the faggot kike didn\u2019t deserve to die.\u201d \n \n Before Samuel Woodward was jailed on charges of murdering Blaze Bernstein, he frequently participated in the Atomwaffen chats. First he used the handle Saboteur. Later he posted under the name Arn. \n \n Often, Woodward sounded like a typical 20-year-old. He enthused about video games (BioShock, Skyrim) and TV shows (he liked the early seasons of \u201cTrailer Park Boys,\u201d a Canadian comedy series). He complained about not having a girlfriend. Read More About Woodward California Murder Suspect Said to Have Trained With Extremist Hate Group The 20-year-old man charged in Orange County with killing a gay Jewish college student earlier this month is said to have belonged to Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group. \n \n But Woodward also railed at \u201cmongrels and jews\u201d and gays. \n \n He praised Mein Kampf and seemed to regard \u201cSiege\u201d as something akin to divine revelation; from his perspective, violence and society-shaking mayhem were the only options for a true Nazi. \n \n That orientation attracted him to outlaw groups like the National Socialist Underground, a German organization that carried out a massive terror spree between 2001 and 2011, robbing 14 banks, planting bombs and murdering 10 people, most of them immigrants. \u201cThe NSU was pretty cool,\u201d Woodward wrote. \n \n In one conversation, Woodward discussed the Bosnian Civil War of the 1990s, during which Serbian soldiers and paramilitary fighters raped thousands of Bosnian Muslim women as part of an infamous campaign of ethnic cleansing. \u201cThe only acceptable case of miscegenation is what the serbs did to captured bosniak women,\u201d he wrote in November 2017. \n \n Woodward liked the idea of using rape to terrorize women of color, whom he saw as his foes. \u201cForce them to carry around the spawn of their master and enemy,\u201d he wrote. \n \n ProPublica sought comment on the chats from Woodward\u2019s lawyer, Edward Munoz, but did not get a response. \n \n On Jan. 26, ProPublica published a story revealing Woodward\u2019s belief in Nazism and exposing his involvement with Atomwaffen. \n \n While the article attracted the attention of Atomwaffen members, who promptly posted it to their online chats, no one in the group expressed any sympathy for Bernstein, the young man Woodward allegedly murdered. They made jokes about his slaying and used slurs to describe him. If there was worry, it was about Woodward possibly having to do time behind bars for the murder. \n \n \u201cSam did something stupid,\u201d wrote one member. \u201cNot that the faggot kike didn\u2019t deserve to die. Just simply not worth a life in prison for.\u201d \n \n Sean Michael Fernandez, an Atomwaffen leader in Texas, even saw an upside for the group. Fernandez, who used the alias Wehrwolf, believed that Atomwaffen actually stood to benefit from the increased notoriety stemming from Woodward\u2019s affiliation with the neo-Nazi group and the Bernstein murder. \n \n \u201cWe\u2019re only going to inspire more \u2018copycat crimes\u2019 in the name of AWD. All we have to do is spread our image and our propaganda,\u201d Fernandez wrote on Jan. 30. Sean Michael Fernandez Alias: Wehrwolf Sean Michael Fernandez is a leader of the Texas cell. \n \n He continued: \u201cThe growing fear is what we set out to do and it\u2019s working EXACTLY how I wanted it to since we took over \u2018leadership.\u2019 I couldn't have planned this better, seriously.\u201d \n \n For his part, Denton, the national Atomwaffen leader, felt betrayed. ProPublica had interviewed a former member for the story; still, Denton believed that someone currently within the ranks was sharing information with the media. \u201cLooks like AWD needs another purging,\u201d he wrote. \n \n Members began speculating about who was talking to outsiders. Was it a current member? Was it someone they\u2019d kicked out recently? \n \n Members also directed their rage toward the media. As they saw it, Woodward was the one being victimized. Now that his involvement with Atomwaffen had spilled out into the public sphere, Orange County prosecutors might hit him with hate crimes charges \u2014 charges that could potentially add years to a prison sentence. \n \n \u201cWe really owe those jews at ProPublica,\u201d wrote one member. \n \n Woodward posted many hundreds of messages to the Atomwaffen chats. But on Jan. 5, he typed out a few lines that are quite distinct from all the rest. In them, the raging young man suddenly became highly sentimental. Two days earlier, according to prosecutors, he had buried Bernstein\u2019s lifeless body in a park in Lake Forest, California. \n \n Now Woodward explained that he was reflecting on mortality. \n \n \u201chey everyone,\u201d he wrote. \u201ci just wanted to let you all know i love you so much.\u201d ||||| It\u2019s fact, not fantasy. In the last four years, at least 13 young men have inflicted tragedies after steeping their psyches in hate forums, websites and across social networking apps. \n \n Some have scythed into cultural consciousness. Millions know the name Dylann Storm Roof. But many millions more have never heard of neo-Nazi hate group Atomwaffen Division (AWD) and the Iron March forum \u2014 the online race-hate incubator where AWD met, recruited and congregated. \n \n Nevertheless, that forum and this group exemplify recent trends in the more youthful strains of online extremism and radicalization. Many eventual recruits appear to be joining online social networks before becoming members of an established hate group. \n \n And as organized hate groups recruit and centralize in relative obscurity online before ever manifesting \u201cirl\u201d (\u201cin real life\u201d), the void of domestic efforts to counter radicalization grows as fast as young potential recruits move across the web and transition between apps. \n \n In less than a year, AWD has proven how young men, some in their teens and early 20s, can steepen the arc of their own radicalization when they gather together. The group has also attracted peers via slick, sophisticated digital propaganda, much of which directed traffic to Iron March (IM) before that forum was taken offline in the fall of 2017. \n \n Though it has been in existence since at least October 2015, AWD is only now grabbing headlines, as five murders have been linked to either members, like Devon Arthurs, 18; alleged members, like Samuel Woodward, 20; or individuals, like Nicholas Giampa, 17, who associated closely with the group online. \n \n Giampa stands accused of executing his girlfriend\u2019s parents, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker, 43, and Scott Fricker, 48. The pair intervened to remove Giampa from their daughter\u2019s life when the depths of his support of violent race-hate became apparent. According to Huffington Post, his Twitter feed shows, \u201ca 17-year-old who\u2019d drifted beyond the trolling of his teenage peers on the internet far-right and was fully in thrall to the racist, apocalyptic fantasia of white nationalism ... [who] tweeted about his hatred of transgender people and his admiration for Adolf Hitler. He tweeted about using Jews as target practice.\u201d \n \n But what nurtured these young men\u2019s propensity for violence? In the case of AWD, much has been made of the group\u2019s fetishizing of Charles Manson and their cherishing of an obscure neo-Nazi polemic called SIEGE, a work that stridently promotes terrorism. \n \n Behind such references stands James Mason, who produced SIEGE as a newsletter from 1980 until the summer of 1986. Mason\u2019s presence in the organized neo-Nazi movement in this country stretches back to the mid-1960s, when he was just 14 years old. \n \n For AWD members, it\u2019s not about \u201cHelter Skelter\u201d or the gory details of the Manson Family murders alone. It\u2019s about racial terrorism, The Family and its murders \u2013 and their broader cultural impact. Here Mason serves as a philosophical totem and provides a template for action. \n \n To miss the significance of Mason\u2019s influence in the dark, sensational luster of Manson is to lose a vital recognition; SIEGE and AWD are obsessed with a racial revolution, not a cultural one like Manson\u2019s. \n \n AWD has only recently begun associating itself so synonymously with Mason and SIEGE, and that\u2019s a dangerous development. Mason and his writings preach the praxis of leaderless, cell-structured terrorism and white revolution. Furthermore, there is a plethora of terrorists and fringe texts beyond Mason\u2019s that motivate and inspire the group. Many of these texts are valued in other sectors of the far-right. Importantly, Mason \u201cachieved\u201d much within neo-Nazism before he was out of his 20s: This is important for young men who, sometimes literally, are gathering around Mason and steeping themselves in his revolutionary philosophy and polemics. \n \n They, too, hope to \u201cachieve,\u201d but understanding what that means is equally challenging and vital. \n \n \u201cGTK! RWN!\u201d: Iron March begins \n \n T he Daily Stormer\u2019s creator, Andrew Anglin, recently claimed that his target demographic includes children as young as 11. \n \n Certainly, without the aesthetic, slang and meme-laden milieu of the Daily Stormer, the IM forum would not have developed the way it did. The forum is an extension of, and reaction to, how neo-Nazi influencers built a contemporary movement online over the last several years. Launched in September 2011 and July 2013 respectively, IM and Daily Stormer did not develop as counterpoints, but as complements to one another. \n \n IM\u2019s slogan, \u201cGas the Kikes! Race War Now! 1488! Boots on the Ground!\u201d was designed to inflame. \n \n \n \n The Iron March crest. \n \n IM became home base for those who were personally invested in neo-Nazism, fascism and organized white extremism on a global scale. There, they debated, debased and denigrated, sometimes even each other, and plotted securing a future for whites and their children \u2013\u2014violently if necessary. There, the canonical works of global fascism evolved into active discussion threads: \u201cFor My Legionaries/ Corneliu Z. Codreanu,\u201d \u201cThe Doctrine Of Fascism/ Benito Mussolini,\u201d \u201cExcerpts From Speeches/ Jos\u00e9 Antonio Primo De Rivera.\u201d One early thread was titled, \u201cFascist Bookstores, Blogs, Resources.\u201d \n \n The creator of the thread \u201cWhat is this Forum for?,\u201d put forth the following: \n \n This forum exists for discussing human psychology and two specific issues that are very relevant to our political interests: \n \n 1. Propaganda, manipulation and influence. Giving speeches, making allies and turning enemy against enemy. The art of psychological warfare. 2. Miscommunication, Confirmation Bias and other afflictions that stand in the way of progressing our interests and how to overcome them. Knowing your enemy in order to destroy him and knowing your ally in order not to offend him because you understand the same word as different things. Other topics that still relate to both psychology and politics will also be welcome. \n \n Another thread, \u201cAmerican Futurism Workshop,\u201d was dedicated to the exploration of how best to inject the tenets of Italian Futurism \u2014 an important social and artistic movement that helped inspire the rise of fascism in Italy \u2014 into contemporary American society. The fact that much of the \u201cFuturism\u201d thread has been reproduced on the SIEGE-Culture web site, one of AWDs new online hubs, evidences how the forum\u2019s influence endures. \n \n IM was the incubator for U.S.-based hate groups like American Vanguard, formed in 2015, which eventually birthed Vanguard America in 2017. James Fields, before he allegedly killed Heather Heyer and injured many others, held one of Vanguard America\u2019s shields in Charlottesville, Virginia. \n \n The United Kingdom-based neo-Nazi National Action (NA), whose youth-oriented aspirations and aesthetic helped inspire the founding of other groups internationally, including AWD and arguably Vanguard America, was also connected to IM. In December 2016, around three years after NA\u2019s formation, it became the first-ever neo-Nazi group outlawed as a terrorist organization by the U.K. government. That was five months before the first Atomwaffen-linked murders occurred. \n \n Beyond Anglin and Andrew \u201cWeev\u201d Auernheimer \u2014 the hacker and dedicated neo-Nazi involved with Daily Stormer who encourages the mass-downloading of White Supremacy 2.0 into the minds of the young recruits \u2014 there are individuals like \u201cCharles Zeiger.\u201d \n \n \u201cZeiger\u201d is the alias of a prolific writer at Daily Stormer and head editor of IM\u2019s webzine, NOOSE, formerly hosted at ropeculture.org. Zeiger\u2019s work was also featured on NA\u2019s Wordpress blog. \n \n Amongst the aforementioned influencers and dozens of texts presented on IM, James Mason and his SIEGE found a new, young, niche audience, particularly among AWD members and sympathizers. \n \n After languishing in obscurity for decades, Mason has been rediscovered. \n \n By the time it was taken offline on September 24, 2017, 1,653 unique usernames had been registered on IM. The forum\u2019s legacy demonstrates that for those who have moved on from the forum and are putting boots on the ground, memes are no longer their preferred ammunition \u2014 now, it\u2019s bullets. \n \n \u201cPowered by Hate\u201d: Building the SIEGE-Pill Mill \n \n On May 19, 2017, Devon Arthurs allegedly murdered two other members of Atomwaffen Division, Andrew Oneschuk, 18, and Jeremy Himmelman, 22, in the suburban Tampa, Florida, apartment they shared with the group\u2019s leader, Brandon Russell, 21. Russell was recently convicted of charges related to explosive materials found on the premises, and Arthurs awaits trial. \n \n Since Russell\u2019s imprisonment, AWD and James Mason have become nearly synonymous. The result is an even more terrorist-minded version of the group than what existed under Russell, a cadre that fetishizes violence as its core doctrine. \n \n In late June, barely a month after the Tampa murders, AWD launched a new website and YouTube page. In December much of the same content was uploaded to a Bitchute account \u2014 a peer-to-peer video service favored by individuals and organizations banned from conventional video hosting services. \n \n Under Russell, AWD had announced itself primarily via fliering and stickering college and university campuses at night, mostly between December 2015 and April 2017. \n \n However, a new phase of AWD is now underway. Only one fliering incident has occurred since May 19. That\u2019s when their YouTube page shifted away from campus exploits to footage of tactical training with assault rifles and other weapons, urging viewers to step out from behind their computer screens and take action. \n \n On October 24, 2017, another new website was registered and hosted via Cloudflare: SIEGE-Culture (S-C). \n \n With Russell in prison, AWD\u2019s most influential member goes by the handle \u201cRape\u201d in online forums, and calls himself \u201cVincent Snyder on the S-C site, Rape publishes under the pen name \u201cVincent Snyder.\u201d On its \u201cStaff\u201d page, five of the eight individuals pictured evidence allegiance to, or membership in, AWD. Snyder\u2019s photo appears next to Mason\u2019s. \n \n Mason\u2019s influence is evident on that site\u2019s \u201cWorldview\u201d page: \n \n \u201cWhat we are creating here is something that James Mason attempted to put into form but because of circumstance it never was implimented [sic] until the year of 2017 when Atomwaffen Division discovered and met James Mason. Ryan and Vincent Snyder both agreed to help him publish his works, but through the development of the website we have decided to take the proper course of action with SIEGE. Too long has the movement trapped people into a mindset of chasing their own tail. Those of you who are in here, perhaps, will create history. That is our intention.\u201d \n \n The page\u2019s banner features Mason and Charles Manson\u2019s faces flanking either side of the Universal Order\u2019s (UO) logo. UO is the terroristic neo-Nazi philosophy Mason launched in 1982 under the tutelage of Manson. As Mason describes in SIEGE and elsewhere, the ideas behind the Universal Order would not have been possible without his years of correspondence with Manson, who suggested the UO name and logo. \n \n \n \n James Mason, seated, with \"Vincent Snyder.\" \n \n Mason\u2019s association with Manson, and his interpretation of Manson\u2019s ideas, developed after Mason spent years in the organized neo-Nazi movement. During that time, he gravitated toward increasingly radical, terroristic-minded figureheads and efforts. \n \n Mason wrote in SIEGE that his correspondence with the imprisoned Manson could be construed as cheap, mere shock value. But as the 560-pages of Mason\u2019s text suggest, Manson is not the skeleton key for understanding AtomWaffen. Mason\u2019s own neo-Nazi influences and beliefs in chorus with the Universal Order philosophy offer a more accurate portrait. \n \n Mason began reconfiguring his own sustained belief in the need for neo-Nazi terror cells willing to strike at American culture under the control of Jewish influences, which he dubs \u201cthe System.\u201d Mason had already been moving toward that conclusion on his own for the better part of 15 years. \n \n During that time, Mason began networking. As an adolescent he idolized George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party (ANP), which he first tried to join at just 14. Through Rockwell, Mason also met William Pierce \u2014 the eventual founder of the National Alliance, author of The Turner Diaries and this country\u2019s most influential neo-Nazi to date. Pierce also helped shepherd young Mason into the ANP. After Rockwell was murdered by a former Nazi Party member in August 1967, Pierce and Mason joined its successor, the National Socialist White People\u2019s Party (NSWPP). There, Mason came into contact with another Pierce prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Joseph Tommasi. \n \n Tommasi was still in his teens when Pierce convinced him to pilot a youth effort within the NSWPP, one that would flier college campuses, fight with leftists and liberals and mount a foreboding challenge to the radical left on campus. Although Pierce soon left the NSWPP, disgusted by leader Matt Koehl\u2019s propensity for costume-oriented activism and pageantry, Tommasi and Mason stayed on. Despite Tommasi\u2019s youth, his profile and influence grew and Koehl began to view him as a potential rival for party leadership. \n \n Tommasi\u2019s speeches and writing, ideas about propaganda and desire for street-level confrontation further influenced Mason. In SIEGE, he calls Tommasi\u2019s 1974 leaflet, \u201cPOLITICAL TERROR,\u201d a \u201cwork of the most incredible genius.\u201d \n \n In 1973, Tommasi was ejected from the NSWPP. Convinced that mass movement-oriented neo-Nazism was useless, he founded the National Socialist Liberation Front (NSLF) in March 1974. The Front modeled its name (taken from the Vietnamese Liberation Front), aesthetics, personality and doctrine on radical leftist groups, like the terrorist Weather Underground. \n \n The NSLF sought to announce itself above ground through its actions only, while existing otherwise as an underground, revolutionary terrorist cell, the first of its kind in American neo-Nazism. Mason eventually followed Tommasi out of the NSWPP, but Tommasi was murdered in August 1975 by an NSWPP party member standing guard at its headquarters in El Monte, California. \n \n After Mason started the SIEGE newsletter in 1980, he was increasingly adopting Manson\u2019s ideas and perfecting the ideas Tommasi first catalyzed. \u201cIn the manner prescribed by Tommasi,\u201d he writes, \u201c\u2018Our most eloquent statements will not be made in courtrooms, but in the streets of Jew-Capitalist America.\u2019\u201d He continues elsewhere in the text, underscoring that \u201cTommasi's secret was that he essentially stopped talking and started doing. He said that all talk, all discussion, was counter-revolutionary. The situation has been talked to death and still they go on talking! Tommasi also knew the real difference between useless effort and effective action practically applied.\u201d \n \n \n \n Political propaganda. \n \n After making his first Manson-centered propaganda poster while piloting a one-man effort, the National Socialist Movement, Mason decided to reach out to the Manson Family. He first wrote to Family members Sandra Good and Lynette, after learning they were imprisoned in Alderson, West Virginia. With their endorsement, Mason eventually made contact with Manson himself. Through this correspondence, Mason was convinced he had discovered a supreme template for a white supremacist revolution. He described the Manson Family and their captivating exploits as a model for the white race\u2019s survival. \n \n By 1982, Mason fully embraces such ideas, introducing the Universal Order philosophy via the pages of SIEGE. \n \n Mason believed the Universal Order could encourage others to enact a Tommasi-esque program of terror with the level of notoriety that the Manson family achieved and enjoyed for decades. Only through such infamy could neo-Nazi terror cells accelerate the collapse of \u201cthe System.\u201d After that, Mason and his acolytes could institute a balance and order by instituting a version of National Socialism that eschews left/right political binaries. This would solidify the existence of the white race over its enemies. \n \n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to \u2018hurt\u2019 the System, we want to KILL IT [sic]!,\u201d he writes. \n \n Thus, Mason installed Manson and the Manson Family into his canon of idols, alongside Rockwell, Tommasi and, to a lesser-but-important extent, William Pierce. Following after those \u201cCrazy Men of Destiny,\u201d Mason regarded Manson as \u201cthe more current and up-to-date\u201d version of Tommasi\u2019s terrorist doctrine. \n \n \u201cManson represents the great divide between those persons who imagine there are still are choices to be made casually on the basis of Establishment mores and those who have a profound, individual sense of \u2018no going back.\u2019 I believe it is this - and not the abstract idea of \u2018realism\u2019 - that is the great sustainer and inner-flame of all true revolutionaries.\u201d \n \n Like Mason\u2019s other idols, Manson represents equal parts philosopher and revolutionary, with an irrepressible desire for violent action. \n \n Mason recognized the Manson Family as a \u201cracial-socialist colony\u201d \u2014 a collective of like-minded individuals from the same race who coalesced for survival within and against a nation riddled with disorder. In Manson, Mason cultivates a totem for the revolutionary potential of the individual and the collective, where both disappear into one another. \n \n Throughout SIEGE, Mason is driven by an urgency rooted in one hope \u2014 if only National Socialists could come together like The Family and captivate the nation through action, which in practice means lone wolf racial terrorism. \n \n This is the danger that Atomwaffen Division poses, whether members act as individuals or as cells; forget the shock value of Manson. Behind Mason is an entire canon of terrorist doctrine. \n \n \u201cTimothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City fame\u201d: Distributing the SIEGE-Pill \n \n The SIEGE-Culture website presents a future for neo-Nazism through the lens of James Mason, in the hope that others will see the future the way he does. \n \n As Ryan Schuster, publisher of SIEGE\u2019s second edition, writes in his introduction: \n \n SIEGE is to be used as a cookbook and guide. It is sincerely hoped this edition will prevail the vigilant(e) [sic] intelligence to heed a clarion call, wage battles of attrition, and act in a manner commensurate to Timothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City fame. \n \n With its \u201cLibrary\u201d page, S-C extends that guide through a trove of texts on racial terror. Many present ludicrous visions of the white race fighting epic battles against immense opposition. Texts from V\u00f6lkisch and Nazi esotericists, like Guido von List and Savitri Devi, sit alongside the Bhagavad Gita, valued for its predictions of the Kali Yuga, or the \u201cAge of Vice.\u201d \n \n In online neo-Nazi circles, satanic texts are providing the most fodder for debate. Many are unsure and others angry about what Atomwaffen now represents. \n \n Two of the three texts in question are The Devil\u2019s Notebook by Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, and Hostia: Secret Teachings of the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), a three-volume collection of manuscripts penned by O9A members. They comprise codices of O9A\u2019s beliefs and practices. \n \n Decades ago, the O9A allegedly came under the control of infamous British neo-Nazi David Myatt, who converted to radical Islam, but renounced his conversion eight years later and returned to esoteric spirituality. The group holds an important position in the niche, international nexus of occult, esoteric, and/or satanic neo-Nazi groups. \n \n The third book is Iron Gates, written by a member of the U.S.-based Tempel ov Blood, a sub-sect of O9A describing itself as \u201ca hybrid between a traditional satanic coven and a (religious) militant order.\u201d The novel\u2019s description on Amazon reads as follows: \n \n \u201cIRON GATES is a sci-fi horror / post-apocalyptic novel, detailing a bleak view of the spiritual horrors of the world-to-come. Set seventy years after a worldwide nuclear conflagration, IRON GATES allows the reader a sight into a nightmarish landscape populated by even more nightmarish characters in a hideous future which leaves little to the imagination. Brutal and unsparing, it is not suitable for readers under 18. Readers should be advised of extreme graphic content.\u201d \n \n \n \n Atomwaffen member with Iron Gates graffiti. \n \n One Amazon reviewer writes, \u201cThis is a great book. I'm glad my good comrade Ryan wrote this book. Give it a read if you're into Rape [sic] stories and post-apocalyptic child stabing [sic].\u201d \n \n AWD\u2019s turn to the occult and promotion of the hyper-sadistic is disturbing. Why would AWD push its members toward brutal, dehumanizing violence? \n \n Though many in organized neo-Nazism are not convinced their turn toward the occult is sincere, others are reaching for their long knives. Some are accused of being \u201cNoctulains,\u201d O9A-devotees who claim to infiltrate fringe political groups, neo-Nazis among them, to reorient them toward satanism. \n \n Whether AWD is morphing or being infiltrated is unclear. AWD\u2019s turn, though, resembles occult neo-Nazi groups before them, like the O9A, that meld religious and political extremism \u2014 two powerful conduits for violence. With such a turn, AWD is moving beyond the quotient of the culturally forbidden, of fliers broadcasting hate and offensive memes, and down a path toward tragedy. \n \n \u201cThe future awaits\u2026\u201d: The Torch is Passed \n \n Charles Manson holds a certain appeal to those who are attracted to such forbidden ideas. That\u2019s particularly true for young people who revel in transgressing against society\u2019s restrictions. It\u2019s not surprising that Atomwaffen Division \u2014 under the stewardship of Mason \u2014 courts those who embrace cultural taboos beyond neo-Nazism to pinpoint new recruits. \n \n In a 1987 videotaped interview with AMOK Press, Mason characterized his fascination with \u201cthe forbidden\u201d as crucial to his own recruitment into neo-Nazism and acceptance of Manson\u2019s influence: \n \n \u201cI won\u2019t try to deny, especially in connection with the current Manson connection, that there was the element of the forbidden, or the rebellious, involved there, and to me at that time [during his teen years] Commander Rockwell and certainly the image of Adolf Hitler embodied the furthest extreme of that. And so that just pulled me in like a magnet.\u201d \n \n In SIEGE, Mason makes clear his intention to recruit youth, and acknowledges Manson\u2019s magnetic power in such a capacity: \n \n \u201cAnd YOUTH is the name to be applied to the group of people among whom you will find a majority of those who DEMAND RESULTS, not Right Wing bullshit. Manson explains that the older a person becomes, the more frozen they are in the programmed ways the System has inculcated them with. [....] The most adept social and political movers of all times have known that, in order to have a successful movement, you must get 'em [sic] while they are YOUNG! [....] It is Youth that has the most to lose, that has traditionally been the most idealistic and action-minded. Charles Manson exerts a fascination over Youth today, in the en- tire West, more so by far than anyone else even remotely attuned to what we're trying to do.\u201d \n \n He also noted that \u201cYoung, wild, American, anti-Establishment\u201d individuals might be more easily attracted to Manson than Hitler. \u201cManson scares people,\u201d he writes, \u201cbut he does so in the way they LIKE [sic] to be scared. There is no huge, vague, ugly \u2018thing\u2019 attached to Manson as there is to Hitler.\u201d He writes similarly about Tommasi as an emblem, whose revolutionary praxis he describes as \u201cthe very same thing as Adolf Hitler.\u201d \n \n \u201cIn Joseph Tommasi I see represented a number of things. All of the martyred comrades I can see in Tommasi. The young, especially, from the rank-and-file. In him I can still see the hope for the future arising out of the ashes and the dust of the former Movement for which he served as a soldier. He represents the clearness of mind and hardness of spirit to not only abandon the past for lost but to attack the present as the only means for achieving a future. And that future is entirely in the hands of those National Socialists serious enough to be called revolution.\u201d \n \n AWD members are getting SIEGE-pilled through total immersion in Mason\u2019s teleology. Now, they are challenging the established far-right and far-left with their eagerness to perpetrate violence. \n \n Accused killer Nicholas Giampa submerged himself in this dark pool. Whatever his other troubles, his exposure to AWD\u2019s fetishizing of mass murder and promotion of racial terrorism should provoke grave concern. \n \n Since his journey in organized white supremacy began, Mason is, perhaps more than ever, seeing his ideas realized \u201cirl.\u201d He has witnessed SIEGE-pilled young men push themselves to action through his designs. This new generation of men might remind Mason of his younger self. And they, in turn, are idolizing him, his writings and his actions with uncanny devotion \u2014 just as Mason himself idolizes Charles Manson. \n \n \n \n The logo for the Universal Order philosophy. \n \n Late in SIEGE, Mason expressed that, perhaps, he could push his philosophy of terroristic neo-Nazism no further: \n \n \u201cI have done what I could to inject - subtlely [sic] and overtly - as many of Manson's ideas into Movement thought as possible. I have had limited success. But having accomplished this much, I can only hope that the seeds have been planted and the torch passed\u2026.\u201d \n \n Among those who seeded Mason\u2019s extremism, Rockwell and Tommasi were both killed by fellow white supremacists, years before Mason assumed lone control of the SIEGE newsletter. In the years since he ceased its publication and its first book edition was published, both William Pierce and Charles Manson have died. \n \n But Mason is alive. And with the inception of SIEGE-Culture and his collaboration with the young cell members that comprise Atomwaffen Division, his hands are on the torch along with theirs. \n \n An ouroboros wreaths the Universal Order\u2019s logo (above), which Manson helped Mason conceive and design. With AWD and Mason\u2019s discovery of one another, the snake is no longer eating its tail. Its tail and head have virtually disappeared into one another.", "summary": "\u2013 The body of a 19-year-old U of Penn student was found last month in a California park, and as details of Blaze Bernstein's murder continue to emerge, so, too, does a disturbing picture of suspected killer Sam Woodward, 20, and the white supremacist group he's said to belong to. ProPublica dives deep into Atomwaffen Division (\"Atomwaffen\" means \"nuclear weapons\" in German), whose internal message boards lit up after Bernstein's killing. Members both celebrated Woodward as a \"one man gay Jew wrecking crew\" and raged that one of their own may have leaked Woodward's AWD affiliation. Although the group is open about their hatred of minorities, Jews, and gays\u2014and their love of Hitler and Charles Manson\u2014it's a notoriously secretive bunch that doesn't take kindly to \"rats and traitors.\" ProPublica got its hands on about 250,000 AWD messages from encrypted logs on Discord, a chat platform meant for gamers but popular with white supremacist groups, with startling revelations. The messages offer a frightening glimpse into the group's leaders, where members are located (as many as 20 cells may exist in several US states), and what \"potential targets\" may be, including water and electric utilities. \"We haven't seen anything like Atomwaffen in quite a while,\" a Southern Poverty Law Center researcher says. \"They should be taken seriously because they're so extreme.\" Others, though, think while some members may be dangerous, most just indulge in \"magical thinking\" about government overthrows and spend their time reading fascist lit. \"It's very hard to go from talking about violence to looking a guy in the eyes and killing him,\" one expert says. ProPublica's in-depth take also includes details on AWD's supposed leader, who goes by the nickname \"Rape,\" and the ire ProPublica itself received after it tied Woodward to AWD in a Jan. 26 article. \"We really owe those jews at ProPublica,\" one member wrote in a chat message. More on AWD here."}
{"document": "SOCHI, February 6 (RIA Novosti) \u2013 Organizers of the Sochi Winter Olympics are hoping a spectacular opening ceremony will get the criticism-beleaguered Games off to a flying start Friday at the Fisht stadium. \n \n Millions of dollars have been spent on the ceremony orchestrated by Konstantin Ernst, the influential director of Russia\u2019s Channel One, and participants have been sworn to secrecy. \n \n The benchmark for opening ceremonies is that of the 2012 London Summer Games, directed by filmmaker Danny Boyle, which won plaudits from critics and fans alike and surprised spectators by keeping a lid beforehand on what and who would appear in the show. \n \n Russian organizers have also maintained a tight grip on information about the ceremony. \n \n One Olympics volunteer who had attended the final rehearsal gave a thumbs-up sign and smiled when asked about the ceremony, and said: \u201cIt was amazing, great, but I can't say anything about it.\u201d \n \n The only leak in the last week was from faux-lesbian Russian pop duo tATu, who said they were reforming for the ceremony, only to later delete a tweet and an announcement on Facebook. Britain\u2019s Spice Girls famously reformed for the London ceremony. \n \n But with less than 24 hours to go until the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Games, some details have slipped out. \n \n After all, rehearsing in a stadium with a capacity of 45,000 in a city of 340,000 means that a lot of people have seen some of Friday\u2019s show. \n \n \u00a9 RIA Novosti. Winter Olympics: Facts and Figures \n \n Indeed, of six people fairly randomly approached Thursday, four had been to the final rehearsal on February 4, all of them said they loved it and three were willing to talk about what they had seen. \n \n \u201cIt was simply fantastic,\u201d said housewife Yekaterina Andreyeva. \u201cI had high hopes, but it exceeded my expectations.\u201d \n \n The rehearsal only covered part of the real show that will be beamed live around the world. \n \n We were told that they had kept some secrets from us, said one Olympic Park worker who declined to give her name, but judging by the rehearsal there will definitely be a run-through of Russian history. \n \n \u201cIt shows all of Russian history, apart from the revolution,\u201d said a smiling Yury, another Olympic Park worker, who declined to give his surname. \u201cThere is no Lenin or Stalin.\u201d \n \n Among the scenes depicted are the 14th-century Battle of Kulikovo that saw Russians defeat their Golden Horde rulers for the first time, the epic war with Napoleon's forces and World War II. \n \n Izvestia newspaper previously reported that Peter the Great and a Gogolesque troika would also make an appearance. \n \n However, two of the three spectators willing to comment also said there was a section dedicated to the industrialization of the country in the 1930s under Stalin, a section likely to cause controversy if it depicts the positive side of the country's new industry but fails to show the human cost. Millions of people died during Stalin's push to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial power. \n \n \u0412\u0430\u0448 \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0443\u0437\u0435\u0440 \u043d\u0435 \u043f\u043e\u0434\u0434\u0435\u0440\u0436\u0438\u0432\u0430\u0435\u0442 \u0434\u0430\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0444\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0430\u0442 \u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043e. \u00a9Marina Spirina 2014 Winter Olympic Medals Delivered to Sochi Zoom InAdd to blog Add video to blog You may place this material on your blog by copying the code. <object width=\"480\" height=\"360\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" data=\"http://static-c.rian.ru/i/swf/riavideocv2.swf\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://static-c.rian.ru/i/swf/riavideocv2.swf\" /><param name=\"scale\" value=\"noorder\" /><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"window\" /><param name=\"devicefont\" value=\"true\" /><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"file=http%3A%2F%2Fnfw.aurora-video.ru%2Fflv%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fid%3D243559%2526fmt=xml%2526adv=0%2526img=http%3A%2F%2Fen.ria.ru%2Fimages%2F18726/37/187263714.jpg%26amp%3B\u00a9right=%C2%A0RIA%20NovostiMarina%20Spirina&info_url=http://en.ria.ru/services/media/187262751-info.html&videofilesize=13.57Mb&videolen=127 s.&blog_url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.ria.ru%23blogcode&video_url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.ria.ru%2Fvideo%2F&skin_locale=eng\"/></object> \u0412\u0430\u0448 \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0443\u0437\u0435\u0440 \u043d\u0435 \u043f\u043e\u0434\u0434\u0435\u0440\u0436\u0438\u0432\u0430\u0435\u0442 \u0434\u0430\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0444\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0430\u0442 \u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043e. ( 2:07 / 13.57Mb / \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0441\u043c\u043e\u0442\u0440\u043e\u0432 \u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043e: 3282) RIA NovostiMarina Spirina 2014 Winter Olympic Medals Delivered to Sochi Zoom Out \n \n The opening ceremony of the London Games famously showed the British industrial revolution as a rolling sea of countryside replaced by factories and steam engines. \n \n Those who had seen the final rehearsal in Sochi said there were a lot of special effects and that some of the action took place above the audience, with performers flying past on wires. \n \n \u201cI had to crane my neck to see,\u201d said Andreyeva. \n \n One of Andreyeva's favorite parts, she said, was a scene in which a soldier danced a waltz from the iconic 1970s Soviet movie \u201cA Hunting Accident.\u201d \n \n \u201cThat waltz is part of our culture,\u201d said Andreyeva. \u201cIt is so powerful.\u201d \n \n At the rehearsal, extras filled in for the athletes and dignitaries. \n \n \u201cInstead of the president there was some other guy,\u201d said the female Olympic Park worker. \n \n \u00a9 RIA Novosti. Sochi 2014: Winter Olympics venues \n \n Few of the musicians and groups that will play on the night were there, though Yury did say that Na-Na, a famous 1990s boy band, made an appearance. None of the others interviewed remembered that part. \n \n There was one hint that tATu may take part after all. When the Russian Olympic athletes were introduced, one of tATu\u2019s best known hits \u2013 \u201cNot Gonna Get Us\u201d \u2013 blasted around the stadium, said the female Olympic employee. \n \n There are also some clues as to who the other special guests will be. \n \n The team in London had a somewhat easier job of concealing the identities of the stars due to appear in the opening ceremony. \n \n Paul McCartney or the Spice Girls could have been in London in August 2012 for any number of reasons, but if you spot a Russian star in Sochi on the eve of the Games then there is a good chance that come Friday evening, you will see them in the Fisht stadium. \n \n It only took a short walk around Sochi on Wednesday to bump into tennis champ Maria Sharapova and former heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuev. \n \n A crowd of young kids flocked around Sharapova on Thursday at the tennis school where she first played the game that has made her famous \u2013 and made her millions. She is also in town to commentate on the Olympic Games for US broadcaster NBC. \n \n \u0412\u0430\u0448 \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0443\u0437\u0435\u0440 \u043d\u0435 \u043f\u043e\u0434\u0434\u0435\u0440\u0436\u0438\u0432\u0430\u0435\u0442 \u0434\u0430\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0444\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0430\u0442 \u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043e. \u00a9Dmitry Makievsky, Petr Kasatkin IOC President Thomas Bach Tries Out Bobsled Simulator in Sochi Zoom InAdd to blog Add video to blog You may place this material on your blog by copying the code. <object width=\"480\" height=\"360\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" data=\"http://static-c.rian.ru/i/swf/riavideocv2.swf\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://static-c.rian.ru/i/swf/riavideocv2.swf\" /><param name=\"scale\" value=\"noorder\" /><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"window\" /><param name=\"devicefont\" value=\"true\" /><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"file=http%3A%2F%2Fnfw.aurora-video.ru%2Fflv%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fid%3D243488%2526fmt=xml%2526adv=0%2526img=http%3A%2F%2Fen.ria.ru%2Fimages%2F18722/64/187226473.jpg%26amp%3B\u00a9right=%C2%A0RIA%20NovostiDmitry%20Makievsky%2C%20Petr%20Kasatkin&info_url=http://en.ria.ru/services/media/187226470-info.html&videofilesize=5.05Mb&videolen=45 s.&blog_url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.ria.ru%23blogcode&video_url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.ria.ru%2Fvideo%2F&skin_locale=eng\"/></object> \u0412\u0430\u0448 \u0431\u0440\u0430\u0443\u0437\u0435\u0440 \u043d\u0435 \u043f\u043e\u0434\u0434\u0435\u0440\u0436\u0438\u0432\u0430\u0435\u0442 \u0434\u0430\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0444\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0430\u0442 \u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043e. ( 0:45 / 5.05Mb / \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0441\u043c\u043e\u0442\u0440\u043e\u0432 \u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043e: 2493) RIA NovostiDmitry Makievsky, Petr Kasatkin IOC President Thomas Bach Tries Out Bobsled Simulator in Sochi Zoom Out \n \n Sharapova lived in Sochi for four years until the age of six, and used to practice against the wall at the club with her father. She remembered how she would play in the cold. \n \n \u201cI was in a fur coat and you had all of those tourists walking by thinking that my father and I were crazy,\" she said. \n \n Sharapova is taking part in the opening ceremony, she told RIA Novosti, but refused to say what she would do. Not even an invitation to mime her role rather than talk about it could persuade her to open up. \n \n On Thursday, Buranovskiye Babushki \u2013 the elderly ethno-pop girl group that was a hit at Eurovision 2012 \u2013 turned up in Sochi and also seem likely contenders to perform at the ceremony. \n \n Andreyeva will not go to the opening ceremony, but said she had fond memories of the rehearsal and of the audience when leaving the stadium. \u201cNobody pushed anyone, everyone smiled,\u201d she said. ||||| 18.54 The flame is lit, the fireworks go off! They're not that... oh wait here we go! OK that was pretty spectacular. And with that, the 2014 Winter Olympics are underway! \n \n 18.53 Well to where the flame is to be lit. You know what I mean. The cauldron. Here we go... \n \n 18.52 One of the six lighting the torch is a Russian ice hockey goalie. The size of that guy is absurd! Right they're all running out of the stadium towards the flame. \n \n 18.49 Here's the Olympic flame and it's being delivered by the hometown girl Maria Sharapova. Suddenly every teenage boy reading this liveblog wishes they'd watched this rather than leaving it to me. \n \n 18.46 Each sport is represented by a 3D action figure made of projected stars. It's a very cool effect and presents Hazel Irvine with her 243rd opportunity of the night to describe something as \"a powerful sequence.\" Hazel just doesn't miss and gobbles the chance up once again. \n \n 18.43 But now we have rollerbladers skating around over projections of stars that appear on the floor of and, somehow, above the stadium. That's quite impressive it has to be said. \n \n 18.42 The oaths are taken as we wait for... \n \n 18.39 Sorry, that one was a bit full-on for my ears. \n \n 18.36 The Russian flag is raised and is followed, to the strains of more opera, by the Olympic one. Fun fact: I live above an opera singer, which is surprisingly pleasant in the mornings. \n \n 18.34 If you're looking for a pithy summary of the big parade bit earlier: it was quite spectacular, as you'd expect at the price, but exactly what Danny Boyle did, only with Russia. \n \n 18.27 Rather than the traditional release of doves of peace, we've got Swan Lake. It looks more like jellyfish to me. \n \n 18.26 Thomas Bach is now urging fans to enjoy the games before handing over to Vladimir Putin. Putin will not be happy when he realises he's been duped by his TV (see below), is he? \n \n 18.22 Wait, WHAT? \n \n 18.18 Praxis: Russia is wonderful. \n \n 18.16 Thomas Bach, the IOC President, takes to the podium. He spends a whole minute saying \"welcome\". \n \n 18.15 Suit #1 switches to English: \"Our games will be cool\" he says. \"When we all come together in all our diversity-\" and then he's remarkably not drowned out with a massive \"eff off\" for that disingenuous nonsense. \n \n 18.14 Give me an ECB press conference. \n \n 18.10 Time for the speeches now. When someone says something interesting and denounces Russia's homophobic policies I'll let you know. In the meantime, have a look at the photos linked to up above while I sit through the platitudes. \n \n 18.09 Now a video montage of the journey of the torch. It went into space! Space! As well as the bottom of the world's deepest lake; I don't know that works. In conclusion from this montage though, Russia (and space) is pretty. \n \n 18.06 A few moments ago some giant stone heads went floating through the stadium. I would have mentioned it earlier but for the paroxysms of terror. Now the little girl from the beginning is back... excpet is that the same little girl? I'm sure she had different hair before. She's floating up into the sky on a red balloon. \n \n 18.04 The BBC commentary is very earnestly explaining the symbolism of each performance art piece. I don't have a producer researching these things myself, so I'm refusing to cheat and copy what they say. \n \n 18.01 It goes dark and spotlights roam the stadium. Now blueprints are being projected on to the floor and the sound of industrial machinery. This apparently represents the formation of the iron curtain, then we move on to the space race. Sadly they don't launch an actual rocket, which they probably could have done with their \u00a330bn+ budget. It's backed by some lovely new wave music though. \n \n 18.00 Right now that's ov- THE RED MACHINE HAS ROLLED TO A STOP! I GET IT NOW! \n \n 17.55 Now there are giant girders floating about along with geometric shapes and, er, a train or a rocket. It's all drenched in red light. There's what appears to be... you know what you figure out what this is meant to be. I think it has something to do with Russia. \n \n 17.51 Things your liveblogger knows inside and out: 1. The history of Northampton Saints Rugby Club in the professinal era, 2. Radiohead's back catalogue, 3. The first nine seasons of The Simpsons. Things your liveblogger knows nothing about: 1. Ballroom dancing, 2. Classical music. Guess what I'm liveblogging right now. \n \n 17.47 We've now got ballroom dancing. It's incredibly elegant and apparently a representation of War and Peace. Imagine if Strictly Come Dancing had a budget of more than a fiver and wasn't broadcast from a provincial working men's club. And didn't have the bank manager from the Nationwide adverts in it. \n \n 17.45 This all looks great from the GTA-style top-down camera angle, but I'm not convinced that those in the stadium will really appreciate the projections as much, especially those in the lower seats. \n \n 17.42 A cartoon ship with real men marching about on its deck is sailing across the stadium, because of course it is. This actually looks genuinely brilliant, weird as it may be. This is actually a real live thing! \n \n 17.41 If you'd like to get a better idea of what I'm struggling desperately to describe, it's worthwhile looking at The very best pics from the opening ceremony. \n \n 17.38 It's turned into a big carnival now. There are Kossak dancers, gymnasts, dancing enormous chess pieces made of candy, huge inflatable bears chasing huge inflatable teapots and that little girl from the beginning. Now they're all levatating into the sky. What the hell is in my coffee? \n \n 17.34 Now in the stadium the \"snow\" is flooding in as the Troika (three white horses akin to those you might find in a provincial town Christmas display) draw \"the sun\" (a red ring) across the top of the stadium. The \"ice\" melts and we have a fairytale Russian city below! Ta-da! \n \n Actually that Troika/sun combo is 65m long, which is pretty impressive. \n \n 17.31 Now the story of Russia through the ages, told by medium of a lavish historical epic starring apparently-famous Russian actors and with no dialogue. It's also entirely bloodless, so I'm not going to recognise any of the key moments in Russian history that I'm remotely familiar with. Sorry. \n \n 17.30 Uhhh cat? Jaguar? Ocelot? \n \n 17.29 Now for an ice-skating giant bear, rabbit and, uh, cheetah. \n \n 17.28 Serious news alert: Turkish officials are reporting that there was an attempted hijacking on a plane bound for Ukraine with the intention to divert it to Sochi. The situation has now been resolved. \n \n 17.25 They're mixing that song with Daft Punk's 'Harder Better Faster Stronger'. If Daft Punk are actually playing I'll retract every cynical and sarcastic sentiment I've conveyed so far. \n \n 17.24 I've just realised the music Russia are parading to is 'Not Gonna Get Us', Tatu's minor follow-up hit that I'd forgotten about. They don't appear to be performing. \n \n 17.22 Here comes Team Russia. The crowd are a lot more excited about this than you or I, let's be honest. \n \n 17.20 You know I really like the Belarussian flag. But now the biggest cheer of the parade as here come Jamaica's bobsleigh team! \n \n 17.18 My kind editor Mike Adamson has given me a headband to help me get through this. He said it's going to be an effort and if this parade isn't near the end he's going to be right. \n \n 17.15 Finland?! France?! How the eff are we back to F?! \n \n 17.09 Now the largest team ever to appear at a Winter games. YOO ESS A! YOO ESS A! \n \n 17.08 Here are the fireworks from earlier. Pretty cool, eh? \n \n 17.02 Norway emerge wearing shiny grey flatcaps. It's like if The Jetsons were hipsters. \n \n 16.58 The bad, bad dubstep to which the athletes are entering is apparently being mixed by the side of the stage. It sounds like his hands must be really, really cold. \n \n 16.55 Lithuania's green-on-green combo doesn't really work, writes your sartorial expert. Like if Norwich City's kit ran in the wash. \n \n 16.49 Here come Spain, followed by Italy. The athlete's parade is always the worst part of the opening ceremony and this year we have a record 88 bleedin' countries in it. Bah! \n \n 16.45 Wow, that German team kit is something else. Here's Olivia Bergin of this parrish with her take on the weird and not-so-wonderful outfits some of the athletes will be wearing. \n \n 16.42 Here comes Team GB! And they're done. That was fast. Is this really going to take two and a half hours? \n \n 16.38 We're on to the Bs! Oddly the British Virgin Islands emerge ahead of Belarus. As I said, the Cyrillic alphabet is weird. \n \n 16.35 Right so that projection. It seems the satellite zooms in on each particular country and the live picture of said country fills up the entire stadium floor. The middle of said floor opens up and a Close Encounters-esque ramp opens up for the teams to emerge from. Like this, actually. \n \n 16.34 Well that was a brisk opening wasn't it? We're into the endless athletes' parade now, which doesn't impress Twitterer Ben Grier: \n \n <noframe>Twitter: bengrier. - Bringing the athletes on already? That's so boring</noframe> \n \n 16.32 OK that projection of the globe is pretty impressive. It's a live satellite feed from space. Here comes team Greece first up. No chance I'm trying to spell the name of the flag bearer, sorry. \n \n 16.28 As the men dressed as James Bond belt out the anthem, a lot more people in brightly-lit white, red and blue LED suits take to the pitch and form the Russian National flag. It's all very Daft Punk again. Oh and now they're shuffling up and down to make the flag ripple. It's kinda cool, I guess, if you ignore everything you've read about Russia in recent weeks. \n \n 16.26 We'll now have the Russian national anthem while I try to contain my mirth at that. \n \n 16.25 Oh dear. Five giant flakes of snow descend and open up into the Olympic rings. But... \n \n 16.22 Is that an actual wolf? Wait, no it's animatronic. There's now a 180-strong chorus standing in the swirling snow, which is presumably not real. \n \n 16.21 The whole thing is being played out to some lovely opera. I preferred Daft Punk though. Sorry. \n \n 16.19 Through some admittedly impressive tricks of light and strings, the little girl is flying by the moon across Russia's varying landscapes. There are 4km of rails on the roof of the stadium getting these nine landscapes to float across the top of the stadium. Danny Boyle's influence is obvious here. \n \n 16.17 Fireworks come out the top of the stadium! Of the 3,500 available, I'd say there's a good 120 there. Now the little girl is on stage, but has strings coming from her arms. Ahh it is a real little girl, flying a kite, which is now lifting her high into the sky. Crikey that looks terrifying! \n \n 16.16 C sounds like Z, is about the 15th letter and stands for Sputnik. \n \n 16.15 A low-key start as we watch a slideshow of a young Russian girl giving us an A-Z of Russian history. I say A-Z, but it's a Russian alphabet, where H follows M and is for Nabakov. This is going to be hard work. \n \n 16.13 I've just been informed that they've spent in excess of \u00a330bn on these games! This had better be spectacular; you could actually make Game of Thrones for that! \n \n 16.09 With five minutes to go until the start, here's a look inside the Fisht stadium. Fisht, incidentally, is the name of a mountain rather than what Sean Connery punches you with. \n \n 16.02 Matthew Pinsent is giving us his previews of Great Britain's medal hopefuls and is so tough he isn't even wearing gloves! If you're interested in having a look at Team GB's hopefuls then why not have a look at our gallery up the top? \n \n 15.58 I can hear Daft Punk coming from the stadium. 'One More Time', if you're interested. \n \n 15.52 Alternatively, here's Marie Wood, who sends us this photo of her own anti-homophobia protest, one of many we've seen throughout the day. \n \n 15.50 Here's our very own Jonathan Liew with a succinct summary of the BBC's coverage so far. \n \n <noframe>Twitter: Jonathan Liew - Ten minutes into their Sochi coverage and the BBC have already given us gay rights, a</p> <p> <strong>15.34</strong> Comedian <strong>Paul Sinha </strong>has alternative worries about these games: </p> <p> <iframe src=\"https://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/TwitterEmbed/Version1/web19443.html\" width=\"460\" height=\"115\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"tweetframe43181303825434214617384305611391787425\"><noframe>Twitter: Paul Sinha - 98 gold medal events ? Won't somebody please think of the quizzers ?</noframe> \n \n 15.30 Here we go then. The Beeb's opening credits look like they cost a fortune. They do actually look pretty cool. \n \n 15.28 Have you missed these guys? No, me neither. \n \n 15.26 The best song ever to come out of Manchester, hands down. We are going to be watching one of these: \n \n 15.20 Right-o there is apparently a \"pre-show\" going on for those poor, poor folk lucky enough to have tickets. Word has it that this is where Tatu will be playing, rather than at the ceremony itself. So that one Russian pop song you know? You won't hear it. \n \n 15.13 Apparently our LGBT activists have been arrested in St Petersburg for displaying a banner that quoted the sixth \u201cfundamental principle of Olympism\u201d from the Olympic charter (\u201cAny form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement\u201d). Interestingly that forms part of today's Google doodle too, as Claire Carter reports. \n \n 14.55 This is what it looks like outside the park at the moment. Enjoy that while I get coffee. \n \n 14.49 Apparently Konstantin Ernst, made a joke earlier. This amuses me because \"ernst\" is German for \"serious\" and because I am easily amused. Ernst also put together the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow a while back, so this could be stunningly tacky. There will also be 3,500 fireworks used at the Fisht Stadium, which is surprisingly awkward to type. The ceremony is due to last an hour and a half or so. \n \n 14.38 If, like me, you can't wait until the new season of Game of Thrones, you might as well watch the BBC's trailer for their coverage of the Games. It's as unsubtle a nod as you'll see, even featuring Charles Dance. They just stop short of adding \"winter is coming\" in an ominous voice because, as you obviously know, Dance's character wouldn't say that, would he? Anyway, here's Game of Thrones. \n \n 14.00 Afternoon all. Or, if you're reading this from the ceremony in Sochi, \u0434\u043e\u0431\u0440\u044b\u0439 \u0432\u0435\u0447\u0435\u0440! Yes folks, that there's an example of the high-octane, incredibly skilled and utterly thrilling Googling action you can expect to see from me today. The answers to questions like \"Where the hell have tATu been since 'All the Things She Said'?\" and \"how on Earth do you spell that?!\" are at my fingertips. I'm Dan Lucas, and I'll be actually watching an opening ceremony so you don't have to. \n \n The Winter Olympics are thought by many, your liveblogger today included, to be far, far more exciting than their summer counterpart. This the first of Telegraph Sport's liveblogs of the tournament, although this one is unique as we're not going to be talking about sport all that much. Instead we have dancing, costumes, Tatu and a rotating image of the earth to point and laugh gasp in wonder at. \n \n Actually that thing about the rotating image of the Earth intrigues me. To recap: \"We have created a special flooring where there is going to be an image of the earth projected. The earth will be rotating and we are going to project the image of the earth from outer space and every time a country is announced the earth will rotate in such a way so we can see the particular part of the earth where that country is. You are going to fall down on to that country and then there will be a ramp opening, and the athletes will appear from the heart of their country's territory and will walk up on to the stadium.\" \n \n It's going to be fun to see how this works for some of the smaller countries. I imagine Russia have designed this with themselves in mind, not quite figuring how fully-grown human beings are going to emerge out of a scale image of, say, Cyrpus. It'll be like clowns coming out of a car, I guess. \n \n The ceremony gets underway at 20.14 local time (geddit?), which is 4.14pm here in London. The BBC is going to start their coverage at 3.30pm, so in the meantime don't hesitate to get involved. Otherwise I'm going to start thinking about what I'd do if I was in charge of the ceremony and report on that for a couple of hours or so. \n \n ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \n \n Jack Lundy writes... \n \n The ceremony will bring together more than 40 heads of state and delegations. More than 3,000 young talents from schools, as well as professional artistic groups, will take part in many of the scenes, which include professional dance, ballet, acrobatic and circus performances. More than 6000 costumes have been made for the participants of the show. \n \n Russian band t.A.T.u. will perform at the ceremony, producer Konstantin Ernst explaining: \"They are one of the few popular Russian bands that are also known in other countries. The Olympic anthem will be performed in Russian by Anna Netrebko, our famous opera diva.\" \n \n Ernst joked that Vladimir Putin won't be copying the Queen and jumping out of a helicopter, as she did during the London 2012 opening ceremony. But he will welcome spectators and declare the Games open. \n \n Ernst, saying the ceremony will be two hours and 30 minutes and celebrate Russia's history, continued: \"We made the ceremony in such a way that the athletes' march will be more dynamic than before. We have created a special flooring where there is going to be an image of the earth projected. The earth will be rotating and we are going to project the image of the earth from outer space and every time a country is announced the earth will rotate in such a way so we can see the particular part of the earth where that country is. You are going to fall down on to that country and then there will be a ramp opening, and the athletes will appear from the heart of their country's territory and will walk up on to the stadium, which I think is very much in line with ancient Greek tradition. They will arrive at the stadium just like the ancient heroes of Greece, and they will be arriving from the heart of their nation. \n \n \"We made a mental journey back into the history of Russia, bearing in mind that we would be working for billions of viewers across the globe and we want them to experience this love of Russia. We want to carry a very strong emotional message for this unprecedented international audience.\" \n \n The name of the final torchbearer before the lighting of the Olympic cauldron remains a closely guarded secret. ||||| Travelers heading to Sochi for the Winter Olympics on nonstop flights from the U.S. will have to keep their liquids in their checked baggage. \n \n The Department of Homeland Security is temporarily banning all liquids from carry-on bags on nonstop flights from the U.S. to Russia. \n \n \"As always our security posture, which at all times includes a number of measures both seen and unseen, will continue to respond and appropriately adapt to protect the American people from an ever evolving threat picture,\" a DHS official said. \"These measures include intelligence gathering and analysis, deployment of cutting edge technology, random canine team searches at airports, federal air marshals, federal flight deck officers, temporarily restricting certain items and more security measures both visible and invisible to the public.\" \n \n The ban follows a warning from Homeland Security that terrorists could try to hide explosives in toothpaste tubes to detonate at the Olympics, which officially begin tomorrow. \n \n RELATED: Airlines warned of possible Olympics toothpaste bombs \n \n Delta Air Lines posted a notice on its website of the temporary ban: \n \n \"The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has directed that no liquids, gels, aerosols and powders of any size be permitted onboard flights between the United States and the Russian Federation in any passenger cabin of service. These items may be placed in customers' checked baggage. Prescription medications will be allowed. \n \n Russian aviation authorities had already banned liquids in carry-on bags on domestic flights. \n \n Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1dtUBo6 ||||| What time it's on and what to watch out for \n \n Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters Fireworks over the Fisht Olympic Stadium at the Olympic Park during a rehearsal of the opening ceremony in Sochi, on Feb. 4, 2014. \n \n The Sochi Winter Olympics are set to get underway Thursday \u2014 but before the sporting events really start to get heated, there\u2019s a another kind of spectacle to enjoy: The opening ceremony, a time-honored tradition of national pride wherein host countries very literally make a show of one-upping whichever nation held the previous Games. \n \n What time is the opening ceremony? \n \n The opening ceremony will actually happen Friday, Feb. 7 at 11 a.m. EST, but NBC decided it will delay airing the spectacle in the U.S. until 7:30 p.m. Weirdly, this is actually a day after the athletic competitions begin. \n \n How can I watch? \n \n If you\u2019ve got a television, you\u2019ll find the opening ceremony on your local NBC affiliate at 7:30 p.m EST. NBC is live-streaming every single Winter Olympics sporting event on its website and mobile apps, but alas, it\u2019s not streaming the opening ceremony. Aereo, if it\u2019s available in your area, provides an Internet-based option for those sans-TV. Otherwise, call up your local sports bar and see if they\u2019re playing the ceremony. \n \n What\u2019s Russia got planned? \n \n It\u2019s hard to say exactly what\u2019s hiding behind the Iron Curtain. There was a fireworks test this week, so we can safely expect some Putin-approved pyrotechnics. Daniel Ezralow, a Broadway choreographer famous for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, is leading a cast of about 80 professional dancers and hundreds of volunteers in a performance about \u201c20th-century Russia,\u201d he told People, so look out for performers with MAD dance moves, we guess. \n \n Russia\u2019s world-famous for its classical composers, and several top contemporaries are expected to play a role in the opening ceremony. Russian pop band t.A.T.u, two teenagers who semi-pretended to be lesbians and were briefly crazy-popular in the mid-2000s, is rumored to be playing, whatever such a thing might say about Russia\u2019s treatment of gay people. No word on an appearance by Springfield, Missouri indie-pop rockers Somebody Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin \u2014 but we\u2019re crossing our \u043f\u0430\u043b\u044c\u0446\u044b. \n \n What\u2019s up with the Parade of Nations? \n \n The Parade of Nations is one of the best known Olympic spectacles. It\u2019s when all the athletes representing their respective countries in the Games get to walk around an arena decked out in patriotic colors while in alphabetical order by country name. That last part is very important \u2014 if a country leaves alphabetical order, it\u2019s automatically disqualified from the Games. Or so I\u2019m told. \n \n This year there\u2019s a twist: The countries will be introduced in alphabetical order according to their Russian spelling. Per Olympic tradition, Greece goes first, alphabet be damned. In Sochi, thanks to Cyrillic, Ireland is relieved of its typical role as an awkward buffer between Iran, Iraq and Israel. Russia, as the host nation, will go last. \n \n MORE: Game On: Highlights From Day One \n \n Who\u2019s carrying the Stars and Stripes? \n \n That\u2019ll be 36-year old Todd Lodwick, a Nordic combined skier who\u2019s been to the Olympics six times. \n \n And the flame? What\u2019s the deal? \n \n Arguably the most important part of the opening ceremonies is the lighting of the official Olympic flame, which symbolizes Prometheus\u2019 theft of fire from the Greek god Zeus (and the 2012 film Prometheus\u2019 theft of my $12.75). Part of Olympics tradition is that the torch makes a relay trip around the world before it\u2019s used to light the flame at the opening ceremonies. Before this year\u2019s games, the Olympic torch (used to light the flame) went on its longest pre-Games relay in Olympic history, traveling to the North Pole, Europe\u2019s highest mountain peak and the International Space Station. Sadly, one torchbearer died of a heart attack shortly after carrying the torch through a part of western Siberia. \n \n A double-rumor-with-a-twist this year: Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s supposed girlfriend, a former Olympics champion, is rumored to be lighting the Olympic flame this year. This Olympics has more rumors than Fleetwood Mac. \n \n How long will this thing be? \n \n Previous ceremonies have clocked in at around four hours, or about half the length of the average Lord of the Rings Director\u2019s Cut. \n \n Will this be as British as the 2012 opening ceremony? \n \n Not even in the slightest. The opening ceremony for 2012\u2032s Summer Olympics had a distinctly British flavor, with polite nods to British history, jokes about Queen Elizabeth and appearances by famous British rockers The Who. Russia\u2019s show, while still largely under wraps, will be much more, well, Russian. Expect classical music, ballerinas and, who knows, maybe even bears. \n \n Who\u2019s Russia trying to beat? \n \n China. China\u2019s opening ceremony was outstanding. ||||| Fireworks over the Fisht Stadium at the Olympic Park during the rehearsal of the opening ceremony. \n \n Much secrecy surrounds the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony, but we know one thing for certain: If the rest of the Games are any indication, then the scale planned by Vladimir Putin\u2019s Olympic Committee will go unmatched in size and pomp. \n \n You can expect the ceremony to be a grand retrospective of Russia\u2019s history from medieval times to the present, complete with ancient warriors and modern-day Cossacks, tzars and pop idols, golden-domed cathedrals and make-believe space journeys. \n \n What follows is a brief introduction to some of the sights and characters that might make an appearance during Friday\u2019s extravaganza, which airs at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC.", "summary": "\u2013 The Olympics opening ceremony starts at precisely 11:14am Eastern time today\u2014that's 20:14 in Sochi, meant to \"symbolize the year of the first-ever Russian Winter Games,\" the official press release explains. (NBC won't air the ceremony until 7:30pm Eastern, Time notes.) What to expect? RIA Novosti reports that the multimillion-dollar spectacle is top secret, with participants having been sworn to silence, but we already know a good deal: The Olympic anthem will be sung in Russian by opera singer Anna Netrebko. Russian band tATu will also perform, the Telegraph reports. (Amusingly, the ceremony producer explains that tATu is \"one of the few popular Russian bands that are also known in other countries.\") Vladimir Putin will be there, of course, to declare the games open. But he won't be parachuting into the ceremony, the producer jokes. As for the final torchbearer and any other special guests, though, those are still secret. (Putin's rumored girlfriend, a past Olympics champ, is whispered to be the one lighting the flame.) The two-and-a-half-hour extravaganza will celebrate Russia's history, and will include more than 40 heads of state and delegations; more than 3,000 school-age participants; professional dance, acrobatic, and circus performers; and more than 6,000 costumes. \"It shows all of Russian history, apart from the revolution,\" says an Olympic Park worker who saw a rehearsal. \"There is no Lenin or Stalin.\" Expect other Russian traditions, like Matryoshka nesting dolls and troika (a carriage driven by three horses), to somehow make an appearance, the Christian Science Monitor reports. There will be a \"special flooring\" showing a projected image of the Earth that rotates, and athletes will march up \"from the heart of their country's territory,\" the producer says. \"They will arrive at the stadium just like the ancient heroes of Greece.\" The countries are announced in alphabetical order, but this year, they'll be in alphabetical order according to their Russian spelling. Two exceptions: Greece is always announced first, and the host nation last. Needless to say, security at Olympic Park got even tighter today, USA Today reports. No one is allowed in without tickets and credentials, and the number of police and military officers roaming about is rising. And, following a warning about toothpaste explosives, the TSA is banning carry-on liquids on all US-to-Russia flights."}
{"document": "A Missouri father could be headed back to prison for the second time for assaulting his 6-week-old son \u2013 after he died 20 years later from injuries sustained in the attack. \n \n Olin Shane Tannery, 39, was released from prison in 2007 after spending 13 years behind bars following his conviction of attempted first-degree assault for shaking, squeezing and throwing his infant son, Dominick J. Pittsenbarger, on Feb. 19, 1998, the Kansas City Star reports. \n \n Pittsenbarger, who is identified as Tannery\u2019s son in court documents, survived the attack at a home in Kearney and went on to live with his adoptive father in Smithville, but died in April. He was 20. \n \n A jury in Clay County indicted Tannery on Tuesday on second-degree murder charges, alleging that the assault led to Pittsenbarger\u2019s death some two decades later. Prosecutors said at the time of the initial assault that Tannery attacked the boy because he would not stop crying, prompting him to pick up Pittsenbarger and throw him to the ground. \n \n The infant was rushed to a hospital, where doctors didn\u2019t expect him to survive his injuries, including multiple rib fractures, a fractured vertebra, subdural bleeding and head wounds consistent with shaken baby syndrome. \n \n But the boy did survive, although he suffered severe brain damage that lasted his entire life. He was later adopted by Wendell H. Pittsenbarger and took the man\u2019s last name, the Star reported. \n \n \u201cI love that boy and still miss him dearly,\u201d Pittsenbarger told the newspaper. \u201cI think about him all of the time.\u201d \n \n Dominick Pittsenbarger used a wheelchair throughout his childhood and high school years. He graduated from Smithville High School last year and spent countless hours playing basketball on a hoop at his home after falling in love with the sport as a teenager, his father said. \n \n Tannery, meanwhile, is expected to return to court on Friday. He remains in custody on $500,000 bond, court records show. ||||| A Clay County grand jury has indicted a 39-year-old man on a second-degree murder charge for an assault on a six-week-old baby in 1998 that led to the victim\u2019s death 20 years later. \n \n Olin Shane Tannery of Excelsior Springs had pleaded guilty in August 1999 to attempted first-degree assault for shaking and squeezing Dominick J. Pittsenbarger when he was six weeks old. \n \n Tannery, who is identified in court documents as Pittsenbarger\u2019s father, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on those charges. He was released from prison in 2007. \n \n Pittsenbarger survived the attack and grew up in Smithville, but died on April 13. He was 20. \n \n Be the first to know. No one covers what is happening in our community better than we do. And with a digital subscription, you'll never miss a local story. SIGN ME UP! \n \n Dominick J. Pittsenbarger Hixson-Klein funeral home \n \n In the indictment issued Tuesday, prosecutors allege that Tannery assaulted Pittsenbarger on Feb. 19, 1998. \n \n In 1998 Clay County prosecutors accused Tannery of attacking the child because he could not get him to be quiet. Tannery picked up the baby, squeezed, shook him and then threw him down. The incident occurred in a home in Kearney. \n \n Pittsenbarger was taken to Children\u2019s Mercy Hospital, where he was diagnosed with multiple rib fractures, a compression fracture of a vertebra, a series of head injuries that were consistent with shaken baby syndrome, and subdural bleeding. \n \n At the time, doctors at Children\u2019s Mercy did not predict the infant was likely to survive. However, Pittsenbarger lived to adulthood, though he suffered severe, permanent brain damage. \n \n The boy was adopted by Wendell H. Pittsenbarger and took his last name. \n \n Through adolescence and into high school, Dominick Pittsenbarger used a wheelchair. When he was a middle school, a coach taught him how to shoot a basketball. \n \n The teenager fell in love with the sport and spent countless hours shooting baskets on a goal at their home, Wendell Pittsenbarger said. He graduated from Smithville High School in 2017. \n \n \u201cI love that boy and still miss him dearly,\u201d the adoptive father said. \u201cI think about him all of the time.\u201d \n \n Tannery is being held in custody on a $500,000 bond on the second-degree murder charge and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday, according to court records. \n \n \n \n ||||| Dominick Jordan Pittsenbarger, 20, of Smithville, MO passed away April 13, 2018. \n \n He was born on January 8, 1998 in Kansas City, Missouri. Dominick grew up in Smithville and in 2017 he graduated from Smithville High School. \n \n Dominick enjoyed wheeling around the house in his wheelchair and shooting baskets. He loved playing with his noisy firetrucks and ambulances and watching Sesame Street. He especially enjoyed going to school, being around his school friends and being around his family and family friends. \n \n He was preceded in death by his mother Patricia Pittsenbarger and his grandfather Bob Pittsenbarger. \n \n Dominick is survived by his father Wendell Pittsenbarger; brother Brent Pittsenbarger both of the home; his grandmother Doris Pittsenbarger of Kansas City, MO; other relatives and many friends. \n \n Celebration of Life: 5:00-7:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 24th at the Smithville American Legion \n \n Donations may be made in his memory c/o his father Wendell Pisttenbarger. \n \n Arrangements, Hixson-Klein Funeral Home, Smithville \n \n", "summary": "\u2013 Olin Shane Tannery spent years in prison for assaulting his infant son\u2014and now the Missouri father might end up back behind bars after that son died two decades later. The Kansas City Star reports on the 39-year-old's indictment for second-degree murder, almost seven months after his 20-year-old son Dominick J. Pittsenbarger passed away. Per the New York Post, the Clay County jury that handed down the indictment Tuesday believes injuries from the February 1998 attack on baby Dominick\u2014in which Tannery is said to have squeezed, shaken, and thrown the month-old infant to the ground in an effort to stop his crying\u2014ultimately led to Dominick's death in April. Doctors didn't initially think the baby would survive the attack, but he did, although he was left with broken ribs, a fractured vertebra, bleeding on the brain, and other head injuries. He was left severely brain damaged and used a wheelchair for his entire life. Tannery pleaded guilty to a first-degree assault charge in 1999 and was sentenced to 13 years in prison; he was released in 2007. Meanwhile, Pittsenbarger, who graduated from high school in 2017, was adopted by his mom's husband, Wendell Pittsenbarger, and spent his time watching Sesame Street, shooting baskets, and hanging out with friends; his mother died before he did. \"I love that boy and still miss him dearly,\" Wendell Pittsenbarger tells the Star. \"I think about him all of the time.\" Tannery, due in court Friday, is being held on a $500,000 bond. (An Ohio boy shaken as a baby died 12 years later.)"}