House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers says an article in The New York Times on Benghazi doesn’t square with intelligence assessments about last year’s attacks on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city.

 Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” 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.

 “I find the timing odd,” Rogers said. “I don’t want to speculate on why they might do it.”

 In a story published online Saturday, The Times said it had “turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault” and that the attacks were, in fact, “fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”

 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 “adds some valuable insights.”

 “It is a complex picture,” he said.

 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

 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 “turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.”

 “There is a group that was involved that claims an affiliation with Al Qaeda,” the California Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” insisting that he was accurate in his past assertion that Al Qaeda was involved in the attacks.

 Issa’s committee has been investigating last year’s assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the congressman has repeatedly slammed the Obama administration for its handling of the issue.

 (Also on POLITICO: Rogers knocks NYT over Benghazi)

 On Sunday, “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked Issa to respond to The Times story, which was published online Saturday. The story also said the Benghazi attacks were “fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”

 “We have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi,” Issa said Sunday. “People from this administration … have said under oath there was no evidence of any reaction to a video.

 “What we know, David, is the initial reports did not name this video as the prime cause,” he added.

 Issa also commended The Times for doing “some very good work” in its reporting on the issue. ||||| Lieberman stands by Obamacare vote

 Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday that, knowing what he knows today, he still would have voted for Obamacare.

 “The rollout of Obamacare has been bad,” Lieberman acknowledged on “Fox News Sunday.” But, he said, the status quo before Obamacare was also bad.

 “The best thing that could happen now is for both parties to sit down and figure out how to fix the current system,” he said.

 Lieberman, a former Democratic vice presidential candidate, retired from the Senate as an independent.

 Austin Wright is a defense reporter for Politico. ||||| Dean predicts more Obamacare problems

 Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean acknowledged on Sunday that Obamacare would suffer additional setbacks as it continues rolling out next year — but, he said, ultimately the health care overhaul “will work.”

 “There are going to be problems,” Dean said on “Fox News Sunday,” explaining that the Obama administration was having trouble getting young, healthy people to sign up for health care plans — an issue that could drive up costs.

 “The data does show that less healthy people are signing up,” he said. “Younger people are signing up less frequently than hoped.”

 Dean, a physician who formerly chaired the Democratic National Committee, also defended Obamacare and knocked its critics, accusing them of “hyperbole” and saying they “look incredibly partisan.”

 “I think the first year is going to be more successful than most people think,” he said.

 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 “very, very narrow” and “exclude a lot of specialists.” ||||| Navarro: Senate GOP won't get 'Lugared' again

 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."

 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.

 "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."

 "They see it coming now," said host Candy Crowley.

 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 — and low expectations — for the government shutdown earlier this year.

 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 “whirlwind” first year as a senator.

 “This is a city where it’s all politics all the time. And I’m trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems,” the Texas Republican said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

 “Really,” interjected ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl, who did the interview.

 “I know it’s hard to believe,” Cruz went on, “because no one in this town does that. This is a time for people to step up and do the right thing. And that’s what I’m trying to do.”

 Read more about: Ted Cruz, Jonathan Karl

Summary: – 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 … 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’t 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’s all politics all the time. And I’m trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems. I know it’s 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’s what I’m 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."


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.

 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.

 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.

 The results provide evidence that people who constantly check and use their mobile devices throughout the day are less apt to delay gratification.

 "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.

 "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.

 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.

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 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.)

 Impatient undergrads — the ones least interested in waiting more than a day to get a hypothetical amount of money — 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.

 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.)

 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 — to, say, eat the whole pint of ice cream, resist ordering one more round, or flip out at a coworker or friend — it may be time to take a break from your smartphone and start practicing some self-regulation.

 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.

 Keywords Cognitive and attentional control Impulse control Reward sensitivity Technology

 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 “extended cognition” (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—even 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.

 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’s youth—referred to at times in the popular media as the “Now Generation” and “Generation C” (for “Connected”; “Introducing Generation C,” 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’s 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.

 Prior research on intertemporal preference (Kalenscher & Pennartz, 2008; Peters & Büchel, 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’s 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).

 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—texting while driving—is 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.

 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.

 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 “anachronistic” 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.

 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.

 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 “delay discounting” 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.

 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’ 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’ response to a single question, “How often do you post public status updates?” Phone-checking behavior was determined by the average response of participants’ answers to three Likert-style questions: “How often do you check your phone for new activity?”, “How often do you find yourself checking your phone when you have a few moments to spare?”, and “How often do you find yourself checking your phone during conversations or when hanging around with friends?” The study sample indicated acceptable internal reliability for this construct (α = .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’Brien, 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—the 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’s 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’Brien 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’s 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 (“I like to have new and exciting experiences and sensations, even if they are a little frightening,” “I like doing things just for the thrill of it,” “I sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening,” “I’ll try anything once,” “I sometimes do ‘crazy’ things just for fun,” and “I like wild and uninhibited parties”). 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 (α = .70; Steinberg et al., 2008). In the current sample, the internal consistency was similarly good (α =.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 (α = .73; Carver & White, 1994). The present sample indicated acceptable internal consistency (α = .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 (α = .73). In the current sample, the internal consistency was similarly good (α = .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).

 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’s 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’ discounting rate (logk) and their self-reported technology engagement (r = .240, p = .023). Next, we confirmed that the correlation was driven by participants’ 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’ 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.

 I admit it — 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 “ding” that signals an update. Me and my phone are best buds, and if anything happened to it, I’d be devastated (and that's not just because I can’t 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.

 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.

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 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.

 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.

 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.

 Great, now I've made myself hungry again.

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 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."

 Perhaps it's finally time to fight my smartphone addiction with a little digital detox?

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 Images: Pexels; Giphy

Summary: – There's no denying that humans are mad for their cellphones, but some are clearly more attached than others—and 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—in other words, they were impatient—were 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—to, say, eat the whole pint of ice cream, resist ordering one more round, or flip out at a coworker or friend—it may be time to take a break from your smartphone and start practicing some self-regulation." (Some people have "ringxiety.")


Charlie Sheen gets standing ovation in Chicago's 'Torpedo of Truth' show after Detroit's bombed show

 Kersey/AP Charlie Sheen waves to fans as he leaves the Chicago Theatre after getting a standing ovation.

 Charlie Sheen got the audience on his side Sunday night as he took his "Torpedo of Truth" tour to Chicago.

 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.

 He ended up getting a standing ovation.

 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!"

 When an audience member yelled, "Train wreck," Sheen shot back, "Go back to Detroit, dude."

 The 45-year-old sobriety-challenged actor pleaded with the crowd not to boo him. They didn't.

 Someone in the crowd instead shouted, "Get naked!" prompting Sheen to trade shirts with him.

 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.

 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.

 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."

 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.

 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'

 Email This After an

 The "winning" actor said he stayed up until 4:30 Sunday morning re-working his live show, which debuted to

 "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 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.

 Looks like the second time's the charm for Sheen because the packed show ended as it began -- with a standing ovation from crowd.

 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

 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: – 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—which looked doomed after Saturday—a 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.


A 73-year-old Vietnam veteran paid a high price for a free muffin.

 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.

 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.

 “It's a rule. They legally can do this because I did break the rule." - Joe Koblenzer

 Cracker Barrel, however, says the muffin giveaway was Koblenzer’s fifth violation of company policy, which includes not giving away food and not consuming food without paying for it.

 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.

 “He said he was going to cook fish,” Koblenzer told the station.

 Koblenzer said he got the man the condiments, and added a corn muffin to the bag as he handed it over.

 The kindness cost the Vietnam vet his job, but he understands why he was fired.

 “It'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.

 “I’m not casting doom and gloom on the company. They did their thing, and now people know about it,” Koblenzer told Fox News.

 Was the gesture worth it?

 “Yes, 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.

 Cracker Barrel released the following statement on the matter:

 “Mr. Koblenzer has worked as a host at Cracker Barrel’s Sarasota store since April 2011. During the time he was employed, he violated the Company’s 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’s policies and the consequences associated with violating them. On the fifth occasion, again per Company policy, Mr. Koblenzer was terminated.

 Cracker Barrel is grateful for and honors Mr. Koblenzer’s service to our country as we honor all service men and women and their families.”

 Koblenzer says he is looking for a new job, but is unsure what he will do next.

 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: – A 73-year-old Vietnam veteran has lost his job for giving a needy man a muffin—and 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."


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.

 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.

 "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.

 "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.

 "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."

 "You're safe," he added.

 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.

 "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.

 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.

 "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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 Next year would need careful political footwork from both governments, said Biden.

 "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.

 "NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT"

 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.

 With 80 million people, Sichuan enjoyed economic growth of 15.1 percent last year, according to government statistics.

 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.

 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.

 In Sichuan, Biden raised human rights in general terms.

 "Liberty unlocks a people's full potential, and in its absence, unrest festers," he told the university audience.

 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.

 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.

 Biden will fly to Mongolia on Monday morning for a day before heading onto Japan.

 (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)

 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)

 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.

 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.

 "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.

 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.

 "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."

 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.

 "Asia and the United States are not separated by this great ocean. We are bound by it," he said.

 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.

 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."

 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.

 "We're the two biggest engines in the world to be able to do that," he said.

 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: – 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."


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.

 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.

 "@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.

 McDonald's later said in a statement that the account was hacked and apologized.

 "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’s account," spokeswoman Terri Hickey said.

 Twitter notified us that our account was compromised. We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this. — McDonald's (@McDonaldsCorp) March 16, 2017

 oh my it’s even pinned pic.twitter.com/tGv6EdpZEm — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 16, 2017

 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.

 Celebrating 1237! #Trump2016 A post shared by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on May 26, 2016 at 2:29pm PDT

 --This report was updated at 11:04 a.m. ||||| The interactive transcript could not be loaded.

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Summary: – 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.


Mariah Carey’s ex-husband Tommy Mottola urges the singer to seek “more seasoned and respected professionals” to guide her career after her disastrous New Year’s Eve performance. He also blasts the singer’s decision to do a reality show in a letter exclusively given to Page Six.

 “MC 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’ve happened to anyone! Yes, her technical people should’ve helped pay more attention to all of it so that there was no chance of that happening.”

 Mottola launched Carey’s career in 1990 with “Vision of Love.” They wed in 1993, but divorced in 1998. Still, he continues to criticize her management and reality show, “Mariah’s World.”

 “My 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’t get it!!” Mottola wrote, adding, “That 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!”

 Mottola, now a producer of Broadway’s “A Bronx Tale,” believes there’s still hope for Carey. “It 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’s never about the fall, it’s all about the recovery.”

 Meanwhile, Carey’s manager Stella Bulochnikov fired back, “Really? Tommy is a relic. Did he give you that statement from a rotary phone?” ||||| Tommy Mottola Blames Mariah Carey's Professional Team For Botched NYE Performance

 Mariah Carey should ditch her advisers and “hire more seasoned and respected professionals” in light of her disastrous New Year’s Eve performance. That’s the line according to her ex-husband, Tommy Mottola.

 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.

 Describing Carey as a “global icon and a treasure with incredible talent,” Mottola admits the snafu “could’ve happened to anyone.” And it should never have happened in the first place. And nor should her participation in the reality TV show Mariah’s World.

 “My only advice is that she should hire more seasoned and respected professionals to surround her and help her with her career,” he wrote in a letter to the New York Post’s Page Six column.

 Carey made global headlines with her headlining set which, leading up to midnight, went careening downhill as she got to “Emotions" and “We 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, “I’m trying to be a good sport here.”

 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."

 Dick Clark Productions issued its own statement claiming, “To suggest that dcp ... would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd,” and insiders previously told Billboard that Carey’s tech team had her in-ears “set to the wrong frequency” and that she had used a body double for rehearsals earlier in the day.

 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’s World was an unnecessary distraction which “does absolutely nothing for her integrity, her credibility, or her massive talent.”

 He added, “She should take a step back, think carefully and figure out what to do next.”

 Carey’s manager Stella Bulochnikov reportedly fired back: “Really? Tommy is a relic. Did he give you that statement from a rotary phone?”

 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.

 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.

 "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."

 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."

 Shit happens 😩 Have a happy and healthy new year everybody!🎉 Here's to making more headlines in 2017 😂 pic.twitter.com/0Td8se57jr — Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) January 1, 2017

 WATCH: Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve Performance: Dick Clark Productions Denies Sabotage, Ryan Seacrest in Shock

 "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.'"

 While Bulochnikov made it clear that she doesn't believe DCP intentionally sabotaged Carey's performance, she still insisted that "it happened!"

 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."

 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.

 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."

 WATCH: Jenny McCarthy Says It's 'Completely Unfair' for Mariah Carey to Blame Others for 'Train Wreck' NYE Performance

 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."

 The songstress added that she would be wary of working with external crews on future performances.

 "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."

 WATCH: Mariah Carey Plagued by Technical Difficulties During Live New Year’s Eve Performance

 Related Gallery

Summary: – 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.)


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’s office in El Paso County, Colo. Mr. Kelley was charged with animal cruelty, pleaded guilty and received a deferred sentence, records show.

 Image Devin P. Kelley Credit via Texas Department of Public Safety

 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. “In his eyes, he looked like there was intense anger,” Mr. Moody said. “Something didn’t seem right with him.”

 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.

 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’s grandmother was among those killed.

 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’s cellphone, reviving an issue that received national attention after another mass shooting two years ago.

 “Unfortunately, at this point in time, we are unable to get into that phone,” Christopher H. Combs, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s 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.

 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 “back door” 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’s deadly rampage in Sutherland Springs.

 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.

 READ: Incident report on Devin Kelley

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 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.

 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 “suffered from mental disorders and had plans to run to from Peak Behavioral Health Services” by purchasing a bus ticket out of state.

 NBC News spoke with Alvarez, who according to the police report, said he informed officers that Kelley “was a danger to himself and others as he had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force base,” located approximately 100 miles from the bus terminal. The report further states that Kelley “was attempting to carry out death threats” he had made on his military superiors.

 Alvarez told NBC News Kelley was ordered to Peak Behavioral Health Services by the military.

 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.

 "He jumped a fence," he said.

 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."

 "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.

 Alvarez called Sunland Park and El Paso police and El Paso police created a perimeter around the Greyhound station.

 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."

 "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.

 He noted Kelley was wet.

 "He thought he was going to be tracked and he went through the river to cover these tracks."

 "He was very quiet, but he did mention that given the opportunity he would try to go for the [officers'] guns," Alvarez said.

 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.

 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."

 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.

 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."

 He said that after Kelley was identified as the suspect, one of his former colleagues contacted him. The message? "We stopped the first one."

 El Paso police officers spoke with Kelley after finding him at the terminal. The report states he did not make threatening comments.

 Kelley was released to police officers from Sunland Park Police Department in New Mexico, located just across the state line.

 The report states there was an entry submitted to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database.

 READ: Military Discharges Explained

 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.

 Kelley was also charged with unlawfully striking his child on various occasions between April 27, 2011, and June 16, 2011. Records indicate Kelley plead “G” (guilty) to assault on a child and the assault on his wife. Records show he pleaded “NG” (not guilty) on the others that were “withdrawn and dismissed with prejudice” after Kelley’s arraignment.

 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.

 The sentence came exactly five months to the day after the attempted escape from the behavioral facility in southern New Mexico.

 An Air Force spokesperson told Channel 2 Investigates that they cannot comment on the 2012 report, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

 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.

 “It would be a normal course of negotiation that he had been in behavioral health in advance of going to court," he said.

 Rousseau also added that if the move was a preventative measure by Kelley and his team that it probably would have been revealed.

 “At a minimum the defense attorney may have told the prosecutor," Rousseau said.

 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.

 / Updated By Tracy Connor and Daniel Arkin

 The gunman accused of the worst mass murder in Texas history escaped from a mental health hospital during his stint in the Air Force — after making death threats against his superiors, according to a 2012 police report.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 He "was attempting to carry out death threats" he had made against his military superiors, the report said.

 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."

 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.

 Alvarez said he had a strong relationship with all the service members in the military wing at Peak Behavioral — but Kelley was an exception. "This kid — he was hollow," Alvarez said. "I could never reach him."

 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.

 "This kid — he was hollow. I could never reach him."

 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.

 "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."

 Alvarez, joined by police, said he spotted Kelly getting out of a cab at the bus station, where he "quickly restrained him."

 "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."

 Kelley was taken back to the facility but eventually discharged for his court-martial.

 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.

 Related: Senators Call for Probe After Military Error Let Texas Gunman Buy Weapons

 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 — a mistake that is now under investigation by the Air Force.

 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

 And in Comal County, Texas, the local sheriff is investigating another apparently missed opportunity to take action against Kelley.

 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.

 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."

 Police believed Kelley had moved to Colorado, but made no apparent attempt to contact or arrest him there, Reynolds said.

 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.

 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.

 "Why didn't someone put two and two together?" Reynolds said. "That's what my office is trying to investigate."

Summary: – 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—he 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.