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(Sep 20, 2011 6:53 AM CDT) More than a million people in central Japan were urged to evacuate today as a powerful typhoon approached, triggering floods that left two people missing. Public broadcaster NHK said about 1.3 million people have been ordered or advised to leave their homes, including 80,000 people in Nagoya. Heavy rains as the storm approached caused floods and road damage in dozens of locations in Nagoya and several other cities, the Aichi prefectural government said. Television footage showed Nagoya residents wading through water up to their knees. In parts of the city near swollen rivers, rescue workers helped residents evacuate in rubber boats. Police in nearby Gifu prefecture said a 9-year-old boy and an 84-year-old man were missing after apparently falling into swollen rivers. The Meteorological Agency says the typhoon is located off the southern coast of Japan's southwestern main island of Shikoku with winds of 89 miles per hour. It could reach the Tokyo area by tomorrow afternoon, the agency said.

(Jul 23, 2010 1:06 PM CDT) Daniel Schorr, a veteran journalist who brought more than six decades of experience to his gig as senior news analyst for NPR, has died at age 93, NPR reports. Schorr served in intelligence during World War II, then stayed in Europe to cover the postwar reconstruction for the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor. That began a 20-year career as a foreign correspondent, which would later see him join Edward R. Murrow at CBS and reopen the network's Moscow bureau. In 1966, he was assigned to Washington, where he put himself at the center of countless major stories. He was on President Nixon's enemies list and was once dubbed Killer Schorr by CIA director Richard Helms, after reporting on several assassinations. He was sophisticated about the government and how it works, says a colleague. He was a damned vacuum cleaner, is what he was. Schorr earned a host of awards, including a Peabody for a lifetime of uncompromising reporting of the highest integrity.

(Mar 4, 2012 11:50 AM) Blasts rocked the capital of the Republic of Congo this morning after a weapons depot caught fire, officials said, killing at least 206 people and forcing thousands to flee. A morgue in Brazzaville took in 136 bodies this afternoon, as more continued to arrive. A local hospital reported at least 237 patients wounded in the blasts. Today's blasts flattened buildings and shattered windows in the northern part of Brazzaville and sent more than 2,000 fleeing their homes. The munitions depot is near the president's private residence, but he was at his official residence in another part of town and was not hurt. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso later visited the morgue, a hospital and the military hospital. He did not speak publicly. The explosions echoed across the Congo River to Kinshasa, the capital of neighboring Congo. Residents there reported seeing plumes of smoke and feeling buildings shake. Residents in Brazzaville described the scene as apocalyptic. Twisted sheets of metal--some of them formerly walls or roofs--littered the streets. A hospital examination room lay in ruins. It's like a tsunami passed through here, said student Christine Ibata. Defense minister Charles Zacharie Boawo appeared on national television to urge calm in Brazzaville, saying, the explosions you have heard don't mean there is a war or a coup d'etat. It is an incident caused by a fire at the munitions depot.

(Oct 2, 2019 1:24 AM CDT) Providing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos with round-the-clock protection cost $6.24 million in fiscal 2019 and is projected to cost $7.87 million in the new fiscal year that started Tuesday, according to the US Marshals Service. Politico describes the security as highly unusual, noting that the Education Department's own security force protected DeVos' last four predecessors. NBC reported last year that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the protection in Feb. 2017, a few days after protesters heckled DeVos at a public school in Washington, DC. The Marshals Service, citing reasons of operational security, declined to disclose the number of employees providing protection or the nature of threats against the secretary.

(May 13, 2019 3:14 PM CDT) Stocks are closing sharply lower as an escalating trade war between the US and China rattles investors, the AP reports. Technology companies, which do a lot of business with China and would stand to lose greatly in an extended trade battle, fell far more than the rest of the market Monday. Apple gave up almost 6%. Industrial stocks including Deere and Boeing also fell sharply. Utilities, a haven for fearful investors, were among the few stocks that rose. Prices for other safe-play assets like bonds and gold also rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 617 points, or 2.4%, to 25,324. The S&P 500 fell 69 points, or 2.4%, to 2,811. The Nasdaq, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, plunged 269 points, or 3.4%, to 7,647, its biggest drop of the year.

(Sep 11, 2016 8:03 AM CDT) The commemoration of the 15th anniversary of 9/11 began at ground zero Sunday with a moment of silence and tolling bells at 8:46am, the time when a terrorist-piloted plane slammed into the World Trade Center's north tower, reports the AP. After the silence, victims' relatives began reading the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed when four hijacked aircraft hit the trade center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. It was the deadliest terror attack on American soil. President Obama will speak at an observance at the Pentagon. Hundreds of people also are expected at a ceremony at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump are attending the anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center. Family members of those lost on Sept. 11 earlier began arriving at ground zero, with some going to National September 11 Museum, which is open only to victims' families until Sunday afternoon, when the public will be allowed to enter. As it has every year, the remembrance will mainly focus on the reading of the names of those killed in the attacks. Organizers have planned some additional music and readings to mark the milestone anniversary at ground zero. But they are keeping traditions that have made the ceremony a constant in how America remembers Sept. 11, even as ground zero and the nation changes. This idea of physical transformation is so real here, Sept. 11 memorial President Joe Daniels said. But on this Sept. 11 itself, bringing the focus back to why we did all this--which is to honor those that were lost--is something very intentional.

(Sep 22, 2016 10:03 AM CDT) The image of a Syrian boy covered in blood after an airstrike in Aleppo touched many--including 6-year-old Alex. In a letter to President Obama, Alex asks that the president please go get 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh and bring him to his family's home in New York. We will give him a family and he will be our brother, he writes. In my school, I have a friend from Syria, Omar, and I will introduce him to Omar and we can all play together. The letter, which Obama read at the Leaders Summit on Refugees this week, has gone viral since it was posted to the White House's Facebook page, with 5.6 million views, 163,000 likes, and 106,000 shares in just 12 hours. Those are the words of a 6-year-old boy--a young child who has not learned to be cynical, or suspicious, or fearful of other people because of where they come from, how they look, or how they pray, reads the post. We should all be more like Alex. Imagine what the world would look like if we were. Commenters seem to agree. Alex has more humanity, love, and understanding than most adults, one user writes, per CNN. Another who was brought to tears says neither of these sweet little boys, someone's sons, are Skittles. As of August, the US had taken in 10,000 Syrian refugees. Obama says another 110,000 will be accepted in the 2017 fiscal year, per the BBC.

(Mar 24, 2010 8:15 PM CDT) Jim Marshall, whose iconic photography captured many of the stars of rock and roll's 1960s heyday, died in his sleep last night at 74, Rolling Stone reports; cause of death is still unknown. Marshall shot everyone from Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis to the Beatles, Janis Joplin to the Rolling Stones; images from his collection can be seen here. Marshall's connection with the stars he photographed was illuminated in an interview last year with the magazine. Speaking of Joplin, he said, You could just call her at home and be like, 'We have to take some pictures,' and she'd say, 'OK! Come over!' She trusted me and knew I had her best interests at heart. I only wanted to make her look good.

(Jun 23, 2009 6:28 AM CDT) Rescuers are hot on the track of signals picked up deep in the Atlantic that could be from one of Air France Flight 447's black boxes, Le Monde reported today, but a French official denied that the signals could be originating from the doomed plane's flight recorder. The black boxes have not been detected, the official tells the AP. While Le Monde says a submarine was sent to investigate, a source tells Reuters it wasn't the first time sounds had been heard.

(Sep 23, 2016 2:35 PM CDT) The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is demanding a full-scale investigation into the rape of at least 11 women at the hands of Mexican police during a crackdown on protesters in 2006--a crackdown ordered by now-President Enrique Pena Nieto. Fox News Latino reports Pena Nieto was the governor of the state of Mexico when hundreds of people took over a town square to protest police stopping vendors from selling flowers at a nearby market. More than 40 women--vendors, students, and activists--were violently arrested, according to the New York Times. The commission found that at least 11 women were raped, beaten, penetrated with metal objects, robbed, and humiliated, made to sing aloud to entertain police. The government initially accused the women of making it up but eventually acknowledged the rape and abuse. Regardless, no police were ever prosecuted. Instead, the women were prosecuted, with five of them spending more than a year locked up on minor charges, such as blocking traffic. One woman tells the Times the experience haunts her. While Pena Nieto was not directly accused of wrongdoing by the commission, any thorough investigation would involve looking into his involvement in ordering the crackdown. It's yet another scandal for a president whose approval ratings have been tanking amid accusations of corruption and violence. In total, two protesters were killed and another 207 were victims of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in the 2006 incident.

(Oct 2, 2011 1:17 PM CDT) A government warplane mistakenly bombed an army position in southern Yemen, killing at least 30 soldiers and wounding many more, military and medical officials said today. The officials said the bombing, which took place last evening in the southern Abyan province, targeted an abandoned school used as shelter by soldiers of the army's 119th Brigade. The school is located just east of Abyan's provincial capital Zinjibar, where militants linked to al-Qaeda have been in control since May. Heavy fighting has been raging in the area for days as part of the army's monthslong campaign to seize back Zinjibar from the militants. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there were unconfirmed reports that militants arrived at the school soon after the airstrike and killed an unspecified number of wounded troops. The airstrike may raise questions about whether the bombing was a mistake since the troops that were hit had sided against President Ali Abudullah Saleh in the country's political crisis.

(Nov 8, 2017 4:03 PM) I want to sincerely apologize to each and every one of our users, Reuters quotes former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer as saying. Mayer testified in front of the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday regarding two massive data breaches at Yahoo. In 2013, all 3 billion Yahoo accounts were hacked in what CNN reports was the largest data breach in history. Mayer says Yahoo, which originally said only 1 billion accounts were affected, didn't find out about the hack until it got data from the government in 2016 and still hasn't figured out how it happened, though she says Russian intelligence officers have launched attacks on Yahoo systems. A breach in 2014 affected 500 million Yahoo accounts and, in a first, led to the US government criminally charging two Russian spies for cyber crimes. One senator calls Wednesday's testimony, which also featured Equifax executives, discouraging because the companies don't appear to believe there's anything they can do to truly protect their users, CNBC reports. The threat from state-sponsored attacks has changed the playing field so dramatically that today I believe all companies, even the most well defended ones, could fall victim to these crimes, Mayer says. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut says enforcing punishments for data breaches on executives like Mayer could motivate companies to protect users' data. Mayer left Yahoo over the summer with nearly $260 million in stock and severance. You harm consumers and you walk away with the amount of money that a small city or county uses for their annual operating budget, Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii says, calling it unfathomable.

(Feb 11, 2014 12:41 AM) An explosion yesterday rocked a small-town New Hampshire plant that manufactures ball bearings, shaking walls, shattering windows, and sending at least 15 people to the hospital, but a company spokeswoman says none of their injuries appeared to be life-threatening. Hazardous-materials teams responded after the blast at the New Hampshire Ball Bearings Inc. plant in Peterborough, but firefighters said there didn't appear to be any environmental damage. The blast blew out windows on the three-story building's ground floor, a fire department spokesman says. There was heavy explosion damage, and the first arriving firefighters saw a column of smoke. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, but all indications were that it was an industrial-related incident, the spokesman says. At the time of the blast, around 450 people were working in the plant, which manufactures high-tech parts for the aerospace industry.

(Apr 28, 2010 10:23 AM CDT) China was stripped of a bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics today for fielding an underage female gymnast, with the women's team medal now going to the US. The International Olympic Committee acted after investigations by the sport's governing body determined that Dong Fangxiao was only 14 at the 2000 Games. Gymnasts must turn 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible. Dong's results from Sydney were nullified in February by the International Gymnastics Federation. Because her scores contributed to China winning the team bronze, the FIG recommended the IOC take the medal back. As expected, the IOC executive board upheld the request and formally stripped the medal on the first day of a two-day meeting in Dubai. Questions about Dong's eligibility arose during the FIG's investigation into the ages of China's team that won the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games.

(Oct 21, 2011 1:00 PM CDT) An estimated 8 million adults in the United States contemplated suicide over the course of one year, while 2 million formed plans to take their own lives and 1 million actually made the attempt, according to a new federal study. The most likely groups to consider suicide were women, Caucasians, and people under 30. The survey was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using data from 2008-2009. One in 15 adults in Utah reported suicidal thoughts, the highest in the nation, while one in 50 reported suicidal thoughts in Georgia, the lowest. We are trying to find out where the most vulnerable populations are, explains a CDC epidemiologist. Every year, around 35,000 Americans kill themselves, according to Reuters, meaning the vast majority of attempts are unsuccessful.

(Aug 10, 2011 12:32 PM CDT) Little is known about the Navy's vaunted SEAL Team 6, but not much more is known about the 17 members killed in a helicopter crash last week in Afghanistan, reports the LA Times in a look at how the secretive unit even grieves under the radar. The widow of one SEAL deleted hundreds of messages of condolence left by friends on her Facebook page. And the Navy has asked other family members not to reveal any more information, saying the tiny bits of news that have been revealed already has become a threat. There was a lot about him we didn't know, says the father of one SEAL. We just trusted the fact that he loved what he did. The Navy has about 2,500 SEALs, but only 200 in SEAL Team 6, which is more properly known as the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU). The Navy drags its feet even on the release of the names of the SEALs who perished, but makes no bones about the scope of the devastation. It's hard to put it in civilian terms, says a special operations officer. It's like an entire NFL football team wiped out. It's like the department of surgery at Cornell medical school wiped out.

(Oct 11, 2014 8:35 AM CDT) This week's flurry of court rulings made it a little tricky to keep track of which states allow gay marriage. The upshot is that the Supreme Court's moves added seven more states to the yes column: Idaho, Indiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin, bringing the total number of states that allow same-sex marriage to 26, reports the New York Times. (That doesn't include DC, which also allows them.) But things gets a little complicated because more states were affected by the rulings, those that happened to be in the same federal circuits as other states that appealed. The Times' take: The legal ripple effects from the various appeals court rulings the Supreme Court tacitly sustained should soon raise that number to 35. Reuters, too, goes with that number, reporting that legal weddings for gay couples could soon be extended to 35 states. AP, meanwhile, settles for an answer of about 30, give or take. It will take a little time for those legal ripple effects to play out. In North Carolina, for instance, a federal district judge struck down the state's ban on gay marriage yesterday, and couples immediately started getting married, reports AP in a separate story. North Carolina is in the same district covered by Virginia, and when the Supreme Court decided this week that it wouldn't hear an appeal of a ruling that struck down Virginia's ban as unconstitutional, that paved the way for yesterday's ruling in Raleigh. Even before this I was happy, but I think now that it's on paper and it's legal--it's a commitment between two people, says a male sheriff's deputy in Wake County who wed a fellow male deputy.

(May 12, 2008 3:05 AM CDT) A major 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked central China today, with shaking felt a thousand miles away in Beijing, and in Thailand and Vietnam. Exact damage or injuries were not known, but the quake hit about 60 miles from Chengdu, a city of 10 million in China's Sichuan province, reports CNN. This is a very dangerous earthquake, said a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey. Five people are reported dead, with 100 injured. President Hu Jintao called for all-out efforts to rescue victims, and both troops and the Chinese premier Wen Jibao were en route to direct recovery efforts from the area. There do not seem to be major damages. Some building are cracked, but nothing major, from what we can see, a BBC correspondent reported. The quake was really strong, continuous. Two aftershocks could be felt. Many people on the street.

(Mar 14, 2018 6:59 PM CDT) We're putting a for sale sign on everything, the Wall Street Journal quotes CEO David Brandon as telling Toys R Us employees Wednesday. The company, which started as a baby furniture store following WWII, will be closing or selling its over 700 US stores, putting up to 33,000 jobs at risk. NPR reports the writing has been on the wall for Toys R Us for some time, despite accounting for around 20% of all US toy sales in 2017. The toy-seller has been unable to put much of a dent in the nearly $8 billion of debt it largely acquired in a 2005 buyout, according to the Washington Post. It filed for bankruptcy in September and announced it was closing 182 stores in January. The last six months have been pure hell, the Journal quotes Brandon as saying. Toys R Us has been hurt by competitors with better deals like Amazon and Walmart, and Brandon says sales during the most recent holiday season were no short of devastating. Brandon says shoppers who failed to support Toys R Us in the past year will all live to regret what's happening here. A group of toy makers--to which Toys R Us owed over $21 million when it filed for bankruptcy--is seeking to buy up to 400 stores to continue operating under the Toys R Us name. Brandon says all anyone has to do is offer one dollar more than what liquidation firms are offering. Employers were told store closures would be spread out over months. Toys R Us will reportedly pay employees at least 60 days of salary and benefits.

(Jun 11, 2009 11:47 PM CDT) Kobe Bryant is one win from an NBA title to call his own, and Derek Fisher got him there. Fisher forced overtime with a 3-pointer with 4.6 seconds left in regulation and then drilled another one with 31.3 seconds to go in overtime as the Los Angeles Lakers outlasted the Orlando Magic 99-91 in Game 4 to open a 3-1 lead in the NBA finals. It was the first time since 1984, when Magic Johnson's Lakers and Larry Bird's Celtics hooked up, that two games in a finals have gone to overtime. When the clock expired, Bryant looked at Tiger Woods and wiped sweat from his brow in relief. Fisher, who has bailed out the Lakers in plenty of big games before, thrust both arms in the air in triumph.

(Jun 12, 2012 11:00 AM CDT) Bill and Melinda Gates want to ensure kids are engaged in the classroom--so their foundation is plunking down $1.1 million on testing futuristic bracelets that measure engagement physiologically, based on galvanic skin response levels. The Gates' Measuring Effective Teachers project is testing all kinds of teacher evaluation methods across the US. Which is just ridiculous, writes Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post. If this tells us anything, it is that the obsession with measurement and data in school reform has reached new nutty heights, Strauss notes. The money could have been spent on things that schools actually need, such as books, teachers, librarians, etc. What's more, what if a student is galvanized by a friend's whispering, and not the lesson at hand? Here's another option: How about simply asking students what they thought of the class?

(Nov 19, 2009 4:36 AM) Researchers have discovered that women who bare 40% of their body are the most effective at attracting males. Female scientists studied women at a popular nightclub, and placed percentage values on how much skin they exposed. A bare arm counted for 10%, a leg 15% and so on. They found that women who bared 40% of their bodies were twice as effective at attracting men than women who covered up. Women who bared more flesh also fared much worse at attracting men, reports the Telegraph. Researchers theorized that showing too much flesh may alienate men because it suggests infidelity. Any more than 40 per cent and the signal changes from 'allure' to one indicating general availability and future infidelity, warned the lead researcher.

(May 21, 2012 12:05 PM CDT) After declining to speak on his own behalf, Dharun Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail today for spying on and allegedly outing gay roommate Tyler Clementi. Ravi stared wide-eyed at the judge as the sentence was read, but had no other reaction, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Ravi must report to jail on May 31, but in the meantime may return home. Judge Glenn Berman also said he would recommend Ravi not be deported. It could have gone much worse for Ravi, who faced up to 10 years in prison, but Berman made clear he wasn't happy with Ravi's refusal to speak. I heard this jury say guilty 288 times: 24 questions, 12 jurors, that's the multiplication, Berman said. And I haven't heard you apologize once. Ravi's parents did speak, however, and they were defiant. No one cared about the more truthful side of the story because it was not sensational, his father, Ravi Pazhani, complained. We are not a homophobic family.

(Aug 11, 2016 10:00 AM CDT) Michael Phelps will try to break an ancient Olympic record this week. The swimmer has won 21 Olympic gold medals, 12 of them in individual events--and those dozen personal medals mean Phelps has tied an Olympic record that had been held for 2,168 years, Deadspin reports. Olympic historian Bill Mallon was first to report that Phelps had tied the record held by Leonidas of Rhodes, a sprinter who won multiple events at the 154th Olympiad in 164 BCE, and then at the next three Games, ultimately winning 12 individual titles. But, as Deadspin notes, he got wreaths instead of medals to mark his victories. Phelps could potentially overtake Leonidas: He competes in the 200m individual medley Thursday and the 100m butterfly Friday. (Check out this picture of 9-year-old Katie Ledecky getting Phelps' autograph a decade ago.

(Oct 17, 2010 9:46 AM CDT) Gunmen have killed at least 21 Pakistanis in Karachi today in a hail of bullets that accompanies a special election to replace a lawmaker who was slain two months ago. The violence may be linked to the city's two main political parties, both of which are seeking the open seat, and the gangs they control, reports the AP. One party announced its withdrawal from the race last night as the shootings began. We cannot say whether all the killings were politically motivated or some gangs were involved because the killings took place in different parts of the city and were not confined to the area where the elections were being held, Karachi's police chief said.

(Aug 26, 2015 10:37 AM CDT) If you're stuck in traffic for a few minutes today, look on the bright side: Those few minutes are nothing compared to the 42 hours the average rush-hour commuter spent in traffic last year--or the 6.9 billion hours American drivers squandered while bumper-to-bumper--at a cost of $960 in wasted fuel. A new study from Texas A&M Transportation Institute and INRIX finds drivers are spending more time in traffic than ever before. In 2009, drivers wasted about 6.3 billion hours on the road, reports ABC News. The average delay has actually doubled since 1985 and it's only going to get worse: By 2020, the study authors predict the average driver will face 47 hours of delays for a combined 8.3 billion hours nationwide, reports USA Today. That number will probably look good to anyone who drives in Washington, DC, though. The capital had the worst traffic in the country, with drivers wasting 82 hours of their time. Los Angeles (80), San Francisco (78), New York (74), and San Jose (67) rounded out the top five. The study notes Cleveland, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Tampa fared well for their size, but Baton Rouge and Austin had worse traffic than some much larger cities. More roads can ease congestion but that strategy alone isn't enough. This problem calls for a classic all-hands-on-deck approach, a co-author says. Businesses can give their employees more flexibility in where, when, and how they work, individual workers can adjust their commuting patterns, and we can have better thinking when it comes to long-term land use planning.

(Sep 26, 2016 8:30 AM CDT) Another mass shooting: Six people were shot and wounded at a strip mall in Houston Monday morning, reports the Houston Chronicle. Police shot the gunman, who appears to have been acting alone, they announced via Twitter. There are no reports of other suspects. The AP is now reporting that the gunman was killed, citing a police tweet that listed him as DOA. The conditions of the hospitalized victims have not been released, nor have police speculated about a motive. The shootings were reported about 6:30am local time.

(Aug 19, 2018 8:19 AM CDT) The hits just keep on coming for Kevin Spacey, but they're not of the box-office hit variety: Spacey's latest film, which wrapped well before he was accused of sexual assault, was released on video on demand last month and whimpered into theaters on Friday. Specifically, 10 theaters and to the tune of $126, which the Hollywood Reporter notes is a per location average of $12.60, which doesn't even equal two tickets. The tally appears to include what amounted to a private screening for one moviegoer each in Antioch, Calif., and Minneapolis, while a theater in Middletown, Conn., racked up the day's high of $45. The movie also stars Ansel Elgort, Taron Egerton, Emma Roberts, and Cary Elwes.

(May 27, 2008 1:00 AM CDT) In the second game of the Stanley Cup finals last night, the Red Wings had made eight shots and scored two goals before the Penguins attempted their first shot, and the lopsidedness continued throughout the game, writes the Detroit News. After a 3-0 loss last night, Pittsburgh has yet to score, as experience appears to be trumping youth. The Red Wings have played faster and with more fire, and their defense has kept goalie Chris Osgood far from busy. Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby has looked ineffective, while Detroit's Tomas Holmstrom has finally been able to get uncontested goals. With a 14-1 record in the finals since 1997, the Red Wings are looking indomitable.

(Sep 15, 2008 3:07 PM CDT) Casey Anthony was rearrested today during a routine visit to the official administering her home confinement, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The mother of missing 3-year-old Caylee Anthony is charged with theft and check fraud; the new counts appear to go above and beyond previous theft and fraud charges that saw Anthony's second arrest last week. She will go before a judge tomorrow.

(Apr 18, 2012 12:52 AM CDT) Some people decide not to quit their jobs after a lottery win. Amanda Clayton apparently decided not to stop collecting welfare. The 25-year-old Michigan woman, who won a $1 million jackpot last year, has been charged with felony welfare fraud for failing to report her winnings while receiving $5,475 in food and medical assistance, ABC reports. It's simply common sense that million-dollar lottery winners forfeit their right to public assistance, Michigan's attorney general said. Clayton caused outrage last month when she told a local TV reporter that she felt entitled to collect public assistance. I feel that it's OK because, I mean, I have no income, and I have bills to pay. I have two houses, she said, explaining that she had only taken home some $500,000 after taxes and a reduction for taking the money in a lump sum. Michigan has now introduced a law that alerts authorities overseeing public assistance whenever a resident wins more than $1,000 in the state lottery.

(Apr 7, 2009 12:45 PM CDT) A special tribunal convicted former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori of murder and kidnapping today and sentenced him to 25 years in prison related to death-squad activities during his autocratic 10-year rule. The judge told a hushed courtroom there was no question the 70-year-old Fujimori authorized the creation of a military outfit that killed some 50 people in a struggle to crush a Maoist insurgency. Lawyers said Fujimori plans to appeal. Outside the Lima police base where the trial was being held, pro- and anti-Fujimori activists fought each other with sticks, fists, and rocks after the verdict was announced, with chants of Fujimori innocent! and Fujimori killer! shouted by rival bands. Riot police broke up the melee and no injuries were immediately reported.

(Oct 8, 2019 5:10 AM CDT) A relative who arrived at a home in a Boston suburb Monday morning to take children to school made a horrifying find downstairs: The body of their mother, 40-year-old Deirdre Zaccardi. After the relative called 911, police found the bodies of the family's three children--11-year-old Alexis and 9-year-old twins Nathaniel and Kathryn--elsewhere in the Abington home, along with that of father Joseph Zaccardi, 43, the Boston Globe reports. All five had been shot. At a press conference Monday, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz did not disclose whether the deaths were a murder-suicide, but said the community is not in danger. The family did not have any known history of domestic issues, Cruz told reporters. A crime occurred in that building and three little children are gone forever as a result of this, Cruz said. This is a horrible, horrible event, he added. I think when something like this, unimaginable like this happens, there's always going to be more questions than there are going to be answers. The New York Post reports that Joseph Zaccardi was a struggling children's book author, whose books included All Mixed Up and Sammy the Once Sad Caterpillar. On Facebook, he listed his employment status as Unemployed and Going Crazy, according to the Post. People reports that Deirdre Zaccardi worked as an office manager for a Boston marketing consulting firm. A spokesperson for relatives said they wanted to be left alone to grieve their unfathomable loss.

(Feb 6, 2013 6:46 PM) One consequence of Chicag's rising murder rate: City police are now responding to fewer 911 calls in person to focus on gun violence. Dispatchers will reroute calls deemed less serious--car thefts, for example--to desk officers who will deal with them entirely by phone, reports the Wall Street Journal. The city hopes to handle about 151,000 police reports, about 30% of the total, over the phone this year, double last year's total. The shift to the controversial strategy, already employed to some degree by other big cities around the nation, comes as Chicago defied the national trend by racking up more than 500 homicides last year and more than than 40 in January of this year. The latter total includes the high-profile shooting of a teen girl who had performed at President Obama's inauguration.

(Jul 9, 2008 4:26 PM CDT) BMW will roll out an electric model of its iconic Mini in California, which has mandated that automakers in the state must offer no-emission alternatives, reports Automotive News. The cars will be mostly assembled in BMW's England plant, but sent to Munich for electric powertrains. The initial 500 electric Minis will be leased and are the brain child of BMW's new division, Project i, which is developing low-emission city cars.

(Aug 26, 2015 8:21 PM CDT) Gizmodo writer Annalee Newitz had seen hackers' claims that thousands of female user profiles on infidelity site Ashley Madison were fake, with some news stories claiming as few as 5% of the site's 5.5 million registered female users were real. So she decided to comb through the leaked data herself to find out. What she discovered wasn't pretty. It's like a science fictional future where every woman on Earth is dead and some Dilbert-like engineer has replaced them with badly designed robots, Newitz writes. As near as she could figure, as few as 10,000 of the female user profiles belonged to real women who had ever done anything with their account. The overwhelming majority of men using Ashley Madison weren't having affairs, she writes. They were paying for a fantasy. While hunting for fake profiles within the leaked data, Newitz looked at things like email and IP addresses and last names. These turned up a potential 80,000 likely fake female user accounts. She then looked at what the women were doing on the site--or weren't. Of the 5.5 million female users, fewer then 10,000 had ever responded to a message and fewer than 1,500 had ever checked their inbox. That's an activity rate of near 0%. Perhaps the truest sign of human female activity Newitz could find was the 12,108 female user accounts that someone had paid to delete. All in all, Newitz writes the numbers suggest Ashley Madison is a site where tens of millions of men write mail, chat, and spend money for women who aren't there. For much more on her findings, read the full story here.

(Jul 29, 2013 8:32 AM CDT) If his first wife had listened to doctors' advice in 1985, most people might never have heard of Stephen Hawking. In the new documentary Hawking, the famed British physicist reveals that he was so ill during a bout of pneumonia in Switzerland that doctors offered to turn off his life support machine, but Jane Hawking insisted that he be returned to England, the Telegraph reports. After weeks of intensive care that he describes as the darkest [time] of my life, he survived--though the treatment robbed him of what remained of his voice--and went on to complete his bestseller, A Brief History Of Time. (The Guardian notes that Hawking said his hopes of finishing my book seemed over during those dark weeks. In the documentary, which will be released this fall to coincide with the publication of his memoirs, Hawking speaks candidly about his failed marriages and his constant health struggles. Because every day could be my last, I have a desire to make the most of every single minute, says the 71-year-old, who was given just two years to live when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21. An Investor's Business Daily editorial once memorably claimed Hawking would never have survived under the British health system.

(Nov 17, 2014 3:46 AM) A 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy who accidentally shot himself in the face with his father's handgun is still alive thanks to two police officers who arrived minutes after a 911 call. The boy was lifeless at the time we arrived, the chief of police in Darby Township tells CBS. One officer drove, one officer performed CPR in the back of the car. They got him to the nearest trauma center ... and he actually was revived. The boy, who found the .357 magnum in his father's car, shot himself in the jaw and I believe the exit wound was actually on the back of his head, the chief says. Police say the boy and his sister were in the car waiting for their father to finish work late Saturday night when the boy found the handgun; their mother had reportedly dropped them off. After he was revived at the local hospital, he was airlifted to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in extremely critical condition; his condition is now listed as stable but guarded. The police chief says there's no sign of foul play, but interviews are still being conducted and there is a chance charges could be filed, reports the Delco Times. (A 4-year-old Ohio boy recently accidentally shot his 3-year-old sister.)

(Sep 10, 2012 7:15 PM CDT) Turkey put 44 Kurdish journalists on trial today, accusing them of fomenting armed rebellion against the state--possibly the first of many trials against more than 900 indicted reporters, the Guardian reports. Officials say today's defendants are terrorists, yet some are accused of writing articles about prison abuse, war casualties, and sexual harassment. This trial is clearly political, says a journalist whose charges were dropped last year. The government wants to set an example; it wants to intimidate. At issue is the Kurds' 28-year struggle against Turkey, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives--most of them Kurdish--since 1984, reports Reuters. Turkey has responded by jailing thousands of Kurds over the past few years. That roiling conflict imbued today's courtroom, where proceedings were delayed for hours by raucous behavior. Even after things settled, the court refused to let defendants speak in Kurdish. Using your mother language is like breathing, a defendant said. Should permission be sought when taking a breath?

(Jul 1, 2011 12:08 PM CDT) The date for what may or may not be financial doomsday is now July 22. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times say the White House has figured that to be the do-or-die day to hammer out a deal with Republicans to avoid an unprecedented default on the national debt. The government has enough funds to keep operating under the debt ceiling until August 2, but it will take time to get legislation through the House and Senate before then to raise the borrowing limit. Hence the July 22 deadline. Democrats say the stakes are enormous: If we didn't pay our bills, it would plunge the United States not into a recession, not into the so-called double-dip recession, but into a full-blown depression, maintains Harry Reid, who canceled the Senate's July 4 recess. Republicans say those claims are exaggerated: Fears of a catastrophic collapse of the markets are ridiculous, says Sen. Pat Toomey.

(May 2, 2013 4:01 AM CDT) Kenneth Bae was first accused of a takeover plot in North Korea; now the country's top court has sentenced him to 15 years' hard labor for serious crimes, CNN reports, per the country's state news. The US State Department, which called for Bae's release on humanitarian grounds, isn't aware of the exact charges against him, says an official, noting that Bae had visited the North using a valid tourist visa. This was somebody who was a tour operator who has been there in the past and has a visa to go to the North, the official says. It's possible he was arrested for photographing starving North Korean kids, according to activists in South Korea. Pyongyang may also be holding Bae as leverage amid international tensions, the BBC notes.

(Dec 2, 2011 11:36 AM) Americans may be worried about the economy, but they still need to get where they're going. Auto sales beat expectations last month, rising 14% to 994,721, their fastest sales pace since August 2009, reports the AP. Chrysler led the pack: The automaker's sales jumped 45%, Reuters reports. Close behind was Volkswagen, whose sales soared 41%; Hyundai, Nissan, and Ford also saw double-digit gains. Sales at both General Motors and Toyota inched up 7%; it was Toyota's first gain since April. How to explain the improvement? Pent-up demand, says an expert. With the average car on the road clocking in at 11 years old, analysts have been expecting such growth as consumers' car repairs get more costly. Still, not everyone has had a great month: At Honda, still reeling from the earthquake in Japan, sales fell 6%, continuing a downward trend since May.

(Dec 1, 2008 5:47 PM) Meryl Streep is starring in summer blockbuster hits and banking big money at age 59--and isn't a bit surprised. ''I've worked hard, so this is what I expect,'' she tells Entertainment Weekly. Hollywood wisdom says female stars fall off the map at 40, to compete for the few eccentric mom roles. But with Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia!, Streep has shattered an old belief: that men won't pay to watch a film about a woman. ''She's the hottest actress in America,'' says Nora Ephron, who directed Streep's film, Julie and Julia, slated for release next year. Streep endured bad press for starring in mainstream flicks like She-Devil in the late 1980s, and admits that criticism still hurts my feelings.'' But the unrepentant feminist is now bigger than ever. And in so many ways, she laughs, leaning to one side to slap her backside.

(May 12, 2009 2:25 PM CDT) Five men were convicted today of plotting to join forces with al-Qaeda to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an anti-government insurrection. A jury in Miami acquitted one member of the so-called Liberty City Six. Ringleader Narseal Batiste was the only one convicted of all four terrorism-related conspiracy counts, and faces 70 years in prison. The four others also face decades in prison. The men were arrested in June 2006 on charges of plotting terrorism with an undercover FBI informant they believed was from al-Qaeda. Defense attorneys said terrorist talk recorded on dozens of FBI tapes was not serious and the men wanted only money. Two previous trials ended in mistrials.

(Sep 23, 2009 6:54 PM CDT) A gigantic addition to the Las Vegas Strip is a one-stop stimulus package for a city and state walloped by the recession and an $8.5 billion bet that happy days are near again. With 12,000 jobs, the CityCenter project--a kaleidoscope of condominiums, boutique hotels, shopping, and, of course, gambling--is the single biggest hiring opportunity in the history of the US, a rep tells Time, and with Nevada's 13.2% unemployment, its December opening can't come soon enough. MGM Mirage has seen plenty of bad luck, including worker deaths and questions about CityCenter's financing. It says that's squared away, though, and that half the 2,440 condos are spoken for. In any case, the credit climate makes another such project unlikely anytime soon. It's one of the nicest hotels, not only in Las Vegas but in the country, says one new hire. Regardless of the rough economy, I think we'll still be successful.

(May 29, 2018 6:57 PM CDT) They didn't want cheese on their Quarter Pounders. They claim they had to pay for it anyway--a cost of up to $1--and now want $5 million for the trouble. That's according to a new lawsuit filed by two Florida residents against McDonald's, which should be used to such fights by now. It came after Leonard Werner says he realized McDonald's was repeatedly charging him for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, but giving him a cheese-less sandwich, as he requested. I started talking with some lawyer friends, saying, 'What's the deal? They can charge for something I didn't get?' It's not right, Werner says, per the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. According to Werner, McDonald's restaurant menus no longer feature a cheese-less Quarter Pounder, but its app menu does, at a reduced cost of 30 cents to $1. Restaurant customers are therefore being forced to pay for two slices of cheese, which they do not want, order, or receive, to be able to purchase their desired product, the suit says. One of the attorneys who filed the suit, which is seeking class-action status, explains people who order a Big Mac with items left off are not entitled to a credit against the purchase price because the burger is trademarked according to its ingredients, per the Miami Herald. He says that's not the case with the Quarter Pounder, since a cheese-less option is sold. Another lawyer involved says up to 25 million customers may have been overcharged and could be eligible to receive $10 and a free sandwich should a judge side with the plaintiffs. McDonald's doesn't expect that to happen, claiming the suit is without legal merit. (Read about another person who had a problem with McDonald's.)

(Feb 24, 2018 2:09 PM) A 141-year-old painting worth nearly $1 million turned up on a bus outside of Paris this month--over eight years after being stolen from a museum, the New York Times reports. According to the BBC, The Chorus Singers by Edward Degas, a French Impressionist master, was stolen from a museum in Marseille in December 2009 while on loan from Paris' Musee d'Orsay. There was no sign of a break-in at the museum, and a museum guard was released by police after a brief detention. We had all the reasons to be worried about its fate, the head of the Musee d'Orsay says. On Feb. 16 customs officers were conducting a random search of a bus' luggage compartment at a highway stop outside Paris--long-distance buses are used by criminals to transport drugs--when they found The Chorus Singers in a suitcase. None of the passengers claimed ownership of the suitcase, and no arrests were made. Reuters reports it's as yet unclear why the painting was on the bus or who left in there. The Musee d'Orsay confirmed its authenticity and states it's delighted about the return of the painting, which did not appear damaged. The French culture minister says the discovery of The Chorus Singers corrects what had been a heavy loss for French Impressionist heritage.

(Jan 2, 2019 4:44 PM) Daryl Dragon, the cap-wearing Captain of The Captain and Tennille who teamed with then-wife Toni Tennille on such easy listening hits as Love Will Keep Us Together and Muskrat Love, died Wednesday at age 76, the AP reports. Dragon died of renal failure at a hospice in Prescott, Arizona, according to spokesman Harlan Boll. Tennille was by his side. He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly. I was at my most creative in my life, when I was with him, Tennille said in a statement. Dragon and Tennille divorced in 2014 after nearly 40 years of marriage, but they remained close and Tennille had moved back to Arizona to help care for him. Dragon and Tennille met in the early 1970s and soon began performing together, with Tennille singing and Dragon on keyboards. (He would later serve as the Captain and Tennille's producer.

(Dec 8, 2008 5:28 AM) The once moribund dollar has soared 20% against foreign currencies since July, one of the few bright spots in a grim financial landscape. The dollar traded against the euro at $1.28 this morning, down from a high of over $1.60 this summer. But the dollar's rally is expected to stall in 2009, as low interest rates and the pain of a recession catch up with the greenback. Despite America's economic woes, risk-averse investors flocked to the dollar while dumping smaller, more volatile currencies. But foreign exchange analysts warn that the dollar's advance has been artificial, and that the buck may face a rapid sell-off in the first quarter of 2009 before stabilizing. Foundations for the dollar's recent rally have not been solid, said one strategist. We are bound for a correction.

(Jan 1, 2021 1:00 PM) Authorities in Belgium say a 27th elderly person has died in an outbreak at a nursing home from a superspreading St. Nick party last month, but they hope the situation is now under control. The Hemelrijck home in the northern Belgium city of Mol had organized an early December visit from actors playing St. Nicholas and his helper, reports the AP. Days later, however, residents started exhibiting COVID symptoms, and now, nearly a month later, there are at least 88 infections among residents and 42 among staff. The death of the 27th person from the virus was announced Thursday. The city and families of some of the deceased are complaining that the nursing home should never have organized the party when restrictive measures on events were in place throughout the country to contain the pandemic.

(May 15, 2014 12:28 PM CDT) Starting today in select areas, as long as you have mobile phone service through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, or T-Mobile, you can text rather than call 911 in an emergency. The FCC's text-to-911 program will be available across the nation by the end of the year, Gizmodo reports. The text must include your emergency and your location, as locations can't be determined by call centers if you're texting instead of dialing in. The FCC's official recommendation is, Always contact 911 by making a voice call, if you can.

(Nov 15, 2019 1:04 AM) New Jersey is seeking around $650 million from Uber in taxes and penalties, saying the ride-hailing company misclassified its drivers as independent contractors. The decision is the latest setback for Uber and other companies in the so-called gig economy that rely heavily on contract labor to deliver the services at the heart of their popular apps. Worker advocates say that job classification hurts the laborers and the states where they live, which miss out on tax revenues. New Jersey's labor department told Uber that it, along with its subsidiary Rasier, owes $523 million in overdue taxes from the last four years and is also facing fines and interest of $119 million, Bloomberg Law reports.

(Oct 15, 2011 6:29 AM CDT) There's no second stimulus, but that didn't stop the federal deficit reaching $1.299 trillion last year, the second-largest in history, reports the Hill. That's slightly bigger than the $1.293 trillion from fiscal 2010, but less than the $1.412 trillion of 2009. While $1.299 trillion is a huge number, it is still $347 billion less than projected in February, thanks to better than expected revenues. The national debt is now $14.8 trillion, notes ABC News. White House officials called on Congress to pass Obama's budget proposals made last month, which they say would cut $4 trillion from the debt over 10 years. It follows a balanced approach: asking everyone to do their part, so no one has to bear all of the burden, said White House Budget Director Jack Lew. And it says that everyone--including millionaires and billionaires--should pay their fair share.

(Feb 10, 2013 1:11 PM) Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman waltzed off with the weekend box office with a surprising $36.6 million--the year's top opening thus far, notes the Hollywood Reporter, and one of the top five showings ever for an R-rated comedy. Those numbers might have been better yet were it not for the blizzard that slammed the Northeast; experts reckon that without the weather, Identity Thief would've topped $40 million. Warm Bodies was a distant second, with $11.5 million, while Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects snagged $10 million in its debut. Rounding out the top five were Silver Linings Playbook ($6.9 million) and Hansel & Gretal: Witch Hunters ($5.6 million).

(Jul 8, 2017 12:21 PM CDT) World powers lined up against US President Donald Trump on climate change Saturday, reaffirming their support for international efforts to fight global warming. The final statement of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, underlined that the other countries and the European Union supported the Paris climate agreement rejected by Trump, the AP reports. They called the deal to reduce greenhouse gases irreversible and vowed to implement it quickly and without exception. The other countries, from European powers such as Germany to emerging ones such as China and energy producers such as Saudi Arabia, merely took note of the US position, which was boxed off in a separate paragraph that the summit host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made clear applied only to the United States. She said the US position was regrettable but that the summit had achieved good results in some areas, and cited a hard-won agreement on trade that does include Trump and the United States. On climate, summit deputies hashed out a three-part fudge that everyone could sign. That meant a first section with a broad pledge to fight climate change in general; a separate paragraph carved out that acknowledged the US did not support the Paris deal; and a third paragraph in which the other 19 members reaffirmed their support for the deal. Advocates for efforts against global warming expressed relief that the other countries had remained unanimous in support of the Paris accords. Click for more on the climate and trade agreements as well as other deals made at G20.

(Jul 26, 2010 6:59 PM CDT) John Kerry says there's nothing more to say about the PR disaster surrounding his decision to save $500,000 in taxes by keeping his new $7 million yacht in Rhode Island rather than cash-strapped Massachusetts--but taxpayers in the senator's home state think otherwise. Do as I say, not as I do, Howie Carr writes for the Boston Herald, which broke the story in its gossip column. Taxes for thee but not for me. Let's get this very straight, I've said consistently we will pay our taxes, we have always paid our taxes, Kerry told WBZ. It's not an issue period. But it is for plenty of other people, including the American boatwrights fuming because the senator's new ride came from New Zealand. Darn, that would have been a wonderful job for a Maine builder, the head of an industry group tells ... the Herald, again. Carr notes, You can tell how devastating it is by the way the Globe is giving it a good leaving-alone. For more on Kerry, and one pundit's contention that he's partly to blame for the Scott Brown phenomenon, click here.

(Feb 27, 2016 2:29 PM) It takes about 22 hours to reach Florida by car for a person traveling from Wisconsin. But if you're a cat, the 1,484-mile journey likely takes closer to two months. At least that's how long it took Nadia, the Russian blue, to trek from her home on a snowy December day to sunny Naples this week where animal officials helped find her owners, the AP reports. Cheri Stocker adopted the cat nine months ago in Wisconsin, and on Christmas Eve, the cat escaped. How did she get to Florida? I have no clue, Stocker tells the Naples Daily News. We do have a couple of businesses around within a few miles. Maybe she got into a pallet and onto a semi. She was afraid Nadia had died in winter ( She doesn't have the coat for it, says Stocker) until a pet relocation service called her sister. Seems a Naples woman found Nadia and took her to Collier County Domestic Animal Services, where workers found the cat's microchip; Stocker's sister was listed as an emergency contact. Many people offered to drive Nadia home, but ultimately a flight attendant at Allegiant Air brought the cat back on a plane, WTMJ-TV reports. Stocker greeted the 2-year-old feline with tears in her eyes. Oh my god, she says. I didn't think we would ever see her again so it's a miracle.

(Sep 7, 2018 7:30 AM CDT) A man accused of kicking a seagull that tried to eat his cheeseburger at a New Hampshire beach has been fined $124. Police investigated the report from a bystander at Hampton Beach earlier this summer, the AP reports. Per NH1, Nate Rancloes says he'd just returned from getting a cheeseburger and fries and was sitting on the sand when seagulls got to the burger. He says he spun around with his leg to shoo one away but struck the bird; he says it was a simple mistake and a one in a million bad luck kick. A witness backed up his story that the kick was accidental. There was no culpable mental state that occurred, New Hampshire Fish and Game Lt. Mike Eastman said. He didn't stomp on it. He hit the ... bird with his foot.

(Nov 27, 2012 1:03 AM) Tens of thousands of people alive today owe their lives to techniques pioneered by Dr. Joseph Murray, who has died at the age of 93 in the same Boston hospital where he carried out the world's first successful human organ transplant. Murray made history in 1954 when he transplanted a kidney from a healthy 23-year-old man into his ailing identical twin, the New York Times reports. Five years later, he made the first successful transplant into a nonidentical recipient, and in 1962 he carried out the first successful transplant using a kidney from a cadaver. Murray served in the Army Medical Corps in World War II, where his experiences treating badly burned soldiers led to his lifelong work in transplantation and facial reconstruction. In the early '50s, organ transplantation was considered a fringe project and he was urged to focus on something more realistic, he wrote in his 2001 autobiography Surgery of the Soul. Before the first successful transplant, we were criticized for playing God, and he only went ahead with the surgery after consulting with clergy from several denominations, he recalled. Murray, who is survived by his wife and six children, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1990.

(Nov 15, 2013 5:33 PM) A 28-year-old hacker from Chicago who worked with Anonymous got hit with the maximum 10-year sentence today for a series of high-profile cyberattacks, reports the Chicago Tribune. Jeremy Hammond's attorneys presented letters of support from more than 250 people--including Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsburg--but the judge said his long history of hacks (like this of intelligence company Stratfor and this of Arizona police officials) made him deserving of the maximum penalty sought by prosecutors. They cited chatroom logs in which Hammond said he hoped to create financial mayhem with his attacks, reports AP. But now I think my days of hacking are done, Hammond told the Guardian just before sentencing. That's a role for somebody else now. In his statement to the court, Hammond said he targeted law enforcement systems because of the racism and inequality with which the criminal law is enforced. (Read it in full here.) He got arrested after linking with a well-known hacker-turned-informant called Sabu. It is kind of funny that here they are sentencing me for hacking Stratfor, but at the same time as I was doing that an FBI informant was suggesting to me foreign targets to hit, he says in the Guardian interview. So you have to wonder how much they really care about protecting the security of websites.

(Apr 4, 2011 5:38 AM CDT) President Obama has announced his reelection bid via web video--though he doesn't say a word in it. Instead, it's a montage of supporters explaining why they'll back the president in 2012. We're not leaving it up to chance, or assuming he'll win because he's the incumbent, notes a supporter from Nevada. It's an election that we have to win. The video's title: It begins with us. Obama sent out an email to supporters saying that today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign. That means fundraising can begin, notes the Huffington Post. Obama's campaign manager will be Jim Messina, his former deputy chief of staff; the operation will be based in Chicago. Obama-Biden stickers are now for sale on BarackObama.com; the site proclaims: 2012 begins now, and this is where you say you're in, notes Politico.

(Nov 9, 2014 11:37 AM) Former President George W. Bush is giving even odds about whether another Bush will try to occupy the White House. Brother Jeb, a former Florida governor, is wrestling with the decision of running for the Republican nomination in 2016, George W. Bush says. I think it's 50-50, the former president told CBS' Face the Nation. He and I are very close. On the other hand, he's not here knocking on my door, you know, agonizing about the decision. He knows exactly, you know, the ramifications on family, for example. He's seen his dad and his brother go through the presidency. I'd give it a tossup. The former president was more conservative in his estimate than another family member. Jeb Bush's son George P. Bush said two weeks ago it was more likely than not that the former Florida governor would move forward. George W. Bush said he would be all in for his brother if he decides to run for the office and would do whatever he asks, even if it's to stay behind the scenes. As for their mother's position that enough Bushes have run for president, he said, Sometimes her prognostications haven't been very accurate. George W. Bush is promoting 41, a book about his father, former President George H.W. Bush. One of the lessons you learn from George H.W. Bush is that you can go into politics and still be a good father, George W. Bush said when asked if it's worth putting a family through a presidential campaign. I put our family through it, he responded.

(Apr 3, 2009 1:34 PM CDT) At least 13 people have been confirmed dead in the hostage standoff in Binghamton, NY, the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reports. Police removed two men in handcuffs from the downtown building, but it remains unclear whether the seige at the American Civic Center is over. Police said more than 40 hostages were in the building this morning. Earlier, police described at least one shooter, armed with a high-powered rifle, as an Asian male in his 20s. At one point, police said 15 hostages were in a closet and another 26 in a boiler room. The center helps immigrants and refugees with all manners of assimilation, and it was giving a citizenship test today.

(Apr 14, 2008 9:15 AM CDT) A copy of an FBI-classified Marilyn Monroe sex tape quietly surfaced last month and sold for $1.5 million, reports the New York Post. The 15 minutes of silent footage, which the anonymous New York buyer plans to keep private so as not to make a Paris Hilton out of her, features Monroe performing oral sex on a mystery man in the 1950s. The sale was brokered by a memorabilia agent who learned of the film's existence from an FBI source. The same source told him J. Edgar Hoover had had agents confiscate the original and try to link it to John F. Kennedy or his brother Bobby. The copy was made by the informant who tipped the FBI to the film. Partially redacted FBI documents said the informant was once offered $25,000 for the French-type film by Marilyn hubby Joe DiMaggio but refused the offer.

(Feb 1, 2010 12:06 PM) Even a cursory look at Democrats' activity on health care reform brings back clear memories of their 1994 failure to pass comprehensive legislation. For instance, write Carrie Budoff Brown and Chris Frates, the same people who spent months arguing that reform had to be jammed through quickly are now in slow-walk mode, focusing on midterm elections--just like 16 years ago. There's no such thing as 'Let's take a pause in legislating so that we can gain momentum,' cautions a veteran of 1994. It's insulting, continues the former Dem staffer, and the party is in full bluff mode. Of course, Brown and Frates write on Politico, there are paths forward on reform, and most Democrats have already voted for the bill, making them more invested in finishing the job. That's all well and good, but take the most likely route, reconciliation. Republican senators would be able to propose unlimited amendments--just like 1994, when health reform died of a thousand cuts.

(Apr 10, 2008 3:49 PM CDT) Lobbyists made a record-breaking $2.79 billion on Capitol Hill last year, beating 2006's record by $200 million. The healthcare industry led the way, spending $227 million on attempts to influence legislators, up 25% from the year previous. The insurance and real-estate sectors were right behind, Reuters reports. The biggest single spender was the Chamber of Commerce, followed by General Electric. Computer and Internet companies also made a strong showing, at $111 million. The securities industry bested its 2006 outlay by 40%, finishing at $87 million spent persuading lawmakers. Lobbying seems to be a recession-proof industry, said a representative of the watchdog group that tallied the spending. In some respects, interests seek even more from our government when the economy slows.

(May 14, 2013 3:16 AM CDT) A mass prayer was held today to honor the victims of the garment industry's worst-ever disaster after the military officially ended recovery efforts at the site of the Dhaka building collapse. After 20 days of digging, the death toll stands at 1,127, with 2,438 rescued alive and 98 still listed as missing, CNN reports. We said we wouldn't stop until there were no more victims, and we didn't, an army spokesman says. We are confident we have found them all. Factories in a Dhaka-area garment manufacturing hub were shut down yesterday after workers citing safety concerns refused to show up.

(Apr 21, 2008 10:21 AM CDT) PETA is offering a $1 million reward to the first researchers who can figure out a commercially viable artificial meat-production system, the New York Times reports. Scientists have been working on in vitro meat for years, hoping to grow edible tissue cultures that could replace slaughtered livestock. But there was a near civil war within the animal-rights group over the reward. In vitro meat wouldn't just be more humane--it would, theoretically, also be more environmentally friendly, free from disease and cheaper. But many PETA members still opposed even test-tube meat consumption. Animals are not ours to eat, said one PETA vice president. I remember saying I would be much more comfortable promoting eating roadkill.

(Sep 28, 2011 7:50 AM CDT) Between the 2000 census and the 2010 census, the number of same-sex couples increased a whopping 80%--showing, demographers say, that gay couples are increasingly willing to identify themselves. And of the US' 646,000 same-sex couples, one in five say they are married. Those 646,000 couples, who make up just 1% of all couples in the nation, include all those who identified themselves as spouses or cohabitating partners to the census. Despite more couples being open, a post-census study still found that 10% of same-sex couples did not identify themselves to the confidential census. The Washington Post notes that the number of married same-sex couples likely rose after the census, when New York legalized gay marriage. Both supporters and opponents of gay marriage were happy with the figures. One supporter cheered the fact that more same-sex couples are willing to stand up and be counted, while an opponent counters that the census shows that even in states where gay marriage is legal, most same-sex couples living together do not choose to marry.

(Sep 26, 2016 7:27 AM CDT) Two bottles of OJ that retailed for $1.69 at Dollar General will end up costing the chain more than a quarter of a million dollars. That after a diabetic former employee won a lawsuit connected to the juice. Linda Atkins was working at a Maryville, Tenn., location in the fall of 2011 when she felt a hypoglycemic attack coming on. The main cashier was on break, and so to avoid leaving the cash register unattended, and for the security of the store, Atkins grabbed a bottle of OJ from the cooler, drank it, and then paid for it once her blood sugar had stabilized. WBIR reports the same thing happened again the following January. She was fired for grazing, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued. On Sept. 16 Atkins was awarded $27,565 in back wages and $250,000 in compensatory damages, per an EEOC press release. The backstory is that Atkins asked her supervisor if she could keep her own juice at the register but was told that violated store policy--except that policy allows exceptions for people with medical needs. Atkins' firing was precipitated by a March 2012 shrinkage audit to investigate any employee thefts at the store; two employees who admitted to grazing pointed out that Atkins had done it as well. That's when Atkins was fired, though the auditors were aware of the medical angle and that she had ultimately paid for the drinks. While the jury found Atkins was wrongfully fired and that the Americans With Disabilities Act was violated, it didn't find the managers acted with malicious intent, thus there are no punitive damages, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel. (See why this man without hands sued Six Flags.)

(Aug 18, 2009 11:39 AM CDT) Conservative Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak died this morning at 78, after a year-long battle with brain cancer, the Sun-Times reports. Known, to his delight, as the Prince of Darkness, Novak's Inside Report column has been syndicated since 1963. He was at the center of the Valerie Plame scandal, identifying her as an operative in his column. He was someone who loved being a journalist, loved journalism and loved his country and loved his family, said Novak's wife. We at the Sun-Times will remember Bob as a generous friend and colleague, a tireless workhorse, an innovator in journalism, and an example of how to practice our profession, the paper said in an editorial.

(May 19, 2008 4:20 AM CDT) At least 12 foreigners were shot, stabbed, beaten or burned to death over the weekend in anti-immigrant protests in and around Johannesburg. Thousands of terrified immigrants, many of them Zimbabweans fleeing problems in their own country, are now seeking refuge in churches or police stations, reports the New York Times. Immigrants have become the scapegoat for problems in the nation, rocked by a 23% unemployment rate, soaring food prices and one of the highest crime levels in the world. We should be the last people to have this problem of a negative attitude toward our brothers and sisters who come from outside, said the president of the African National Congress.

(Apr 8, 2016 5:20 PM CDT) After 33 years in prison, Keith Harward was released from the Nottoway Correctional Center on Friday after the Virginia Supreme Court agreed that DNA evidence proves he's innocent of the 1982 killing of Jesse Perron and the rape of his wife in Newport News, the AP reports. Harward was a sailor on the USS Carl Vinson, which was stationed at the shipyard close to the victims' home at the time of the crime. A security guard identified Harward as the man he saw entering the shipyard wearing a bloody uniform, but the woman never identified him as her attacker. The prosecution's case relied heavily on the testimony of two experts who testified that his teeth matched bite marks on the woman's leg. No other physical evidence linked Harward to the crime. The Innocence Project got involved in Harward's case about two years ago and pushed for DNA tests, which failed to identify Harward's genetic profile in sperm left at the crime scene. The DNA matched that of one of Harward's former shipmate's who died in an Ohio prison in June 2006, where he was serving a sentence for abduction. Harward initially faced the death penalty, but a loophole in the law caused his capital murder conviction to be overturned in 1985. Harward said he's heading to his home state of North Carolina with family. He said he's looking forward to having some fried oysters as soon as he can. Beyond that, he's not so sure. He just excited to be free to do whatever he wants. Go out and hug a tree, sit in a park. Whatever I want to do. Because I can.

(Jun 2, 2008 9:11 AM CDT) Mosquito nets, at $10 a pop, are a low-cost, effective way to prevent malaria--and they've become a cause celebre for young people across the country, who've raised millions in donation drives, the New York Times reports. You can say $10 saves a life, says one young fundraiser. That makes students feel they can help a lot. And every student has $10. Bolstered by an odd assortment of groups from the Methodist and Lutheran Churches to Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation to the NBA, VH1, and even American Idol, the campaign has inspired kids as young as 7. One minister in North Carolina recalls telling a crowd of 6,000 young people, This represents your lunch today at McDonald's or your pizza tonight from Domino's. Or you could save a human life. In moments, he said, we had $16,000.

(Jul 19, 2019 8:34 AM CDT) Dale Schroeder died in 2005 with no descendants, though 33 Iowans who never knew the man now consider themselves Dale's Kids. It's a heartwarming tale that began when the unmarried Schroeder--who worked as a carpenter in Des Moines for 67 years--walked into his lawyer's office and revealed he'd saved up $3 million to send small-town Iowa kids to college. He never went to college himself, but was a blue-collar, lunch pail kind of a guy who worked really hard and was frugal, attorney Steve Nielsen tells KCCI. Indeed, Schroeder drove a rusty pickup truck and owned just two pairs of jeans--church jeans and work jeans. But he wanted to help kids that were like him that probably wouldn't have an opportunity to go to college but for his gift, Nielsen says. His fund now dry, Schroeder helped 33 Iowans get to college free of charge, per Newsweek, and all of them gathered on Saturday to celebrate the man who did so much for them. Kira Conard is one of them. The youngest of four kids in a single-parent household, she says she broke down into tears immediately when she learned she would benefit from Schroeder's gift four years ago. Now, she's graduated debt-free and hopes to start a career as a therapist, per KABC. For a man that would never meet me to give me basically a full ride to college, that's incredible. That doesn't happen, she tells KCCI with tears in her eyes. There's just one condition, Nielsen says: Pay it forward. Per KCCI, Dale's Kids did just that recently, gathering to say thanks over Schroeder's lunchbox.

(Jan 17, 2008 3:38 PM) VH1 programming VP Michael Hirschorn--the brains behind Flavor of Love and other hit shows that turned around the once-sleepy network--is leaving to start a new company centered on unscripted programming. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Ish Entertainment has secured a first-look deal with MTV Networks' Music Group, which encompasses Country Music Television and Logo in addition to MTV and VH1. VH1 moved programming executives Jeff Olde and Ben Zurier up the ladder, and also announced a raft of new shows today. Among the programming set for production: a reality game show to hire an assistant for rapper/impresario/juggernaut P. Diddy; Celebracadabra, a celebrity magician competition, and ego trip's Miss Rap Supreme, a search for the next great female MC.

(May 30, 2019 10:05 AM CDT) Tears flowing down her cheeks, Emma Semler turned to the family of a deceased friend and mouthed the words, I'm sorry. The mother of Jennifer Werstler--who died of a heroin overdose on the floor of a KFC bathroom on her 20th birthday in 2014--wasn't moved. You're only sorry for yourself, Margaret Werstler replied before addressing a federal courtroom in Philadelphia on Wednesday, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. Why did you ... leave my child alone ... when she needed help the most? Why didn't you help save her life? Semler, 23 or 24--who arranged for Werstler to buy heroin, provided the syringe, and used with the friend she'd met in rehab before abandoning her as she overdosed, per the Delco Times--said she would go back and change anything if she could. She was then sentenced to 21 years in prison for causing Werstler's death. While perhaps bringing closure to Werstler's family, the decision runs afoul of addiction recovery advocates, who say addicts are being unfairly punished in an effort to combat an opioid epidemic that has killed more than 3,000 in Philadelphia in three years. Users who share drugs in deadly cases have been prosecuted under a Pennsylvania law originally intended to punish drug dealers, with critics arguing users may fail to call for help as a result. Semler, who faces six years of probation following her release, was convicted under a federal statute that carries a 20-year mandatory minimum, which the judge suggested she'd earned. But her lawyer described a woman who once used 10 bags of heroin a day transforming into a sponsor for other addicts after Werstler's death. I don't know why I'm still here and not Jenny, Semler told the court. As Werstler's mom later noted, There is no winning family.

(Jun 10, 2014 2:18 PM CDT) Are you sitting down? Good. Because the House just passed a high-profile bill unanimously. The bill allows veterans to seek treatment outside the Veterans Affairs system using government funds, Politico reports. It closely resembles a bipartisan Senate deal struck between Bernie Sanders and John McCain. The final vote tally was 421-0. I cannot state it strongly enough--this is a national disgrace, said the bill's chief sponsor, Republican Jeff Miller of Florida, according to the Modesto Bee. He is chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee. We often hear that the care that veterans receive at the VA facilities is second to none, added the committee's top Democrat, Mike Michaud of Maine. But as we have recently learned, tens of thousands of veterans are not getting in.

(Nov 1, 2017 10:50 AM CDT) Anna Graham Hunter was a 17-year-old high school senior in 1985 when she got an internship as a production assistant on the set of the Death of a Salesman TV movie. In a column for the Hollywood Reporter, using her own letters from her five weeks on set as a guide, she recounts how Dustin Hoffman allegedly sexually harassed her on set. Her interactions with him started when he asked her to massage his feet one day during lunch (his daughter, who was in eighth grade at the time, was in the room) and progressed to flirtatious behavior like asking her if she had sex over the weekend, talking about breasts in front of her, teasing her about wanting to sleep with Warren Beatty, and telling her he wanted a hard-boiled egg ... and a soft-boiled clitoris for breakfast one morning. Hunter's letters say that she realized Hoffman was a lech around the time he started allegedly groping her butt; she says when he did that she hit his hand away and told him he was a dirty old man. She says another production assistant called him a pig when he said he wanted her breasts for lunch, and that the office manager said if the producer found out about it, she would have been gone in a second --causing Hunter to wonder if she'd be fired should someone find out she was rejecting Hoffman's advances. She eventually stood up to Hoffman and he apologized, even though her supervisor had told her that for the sake of the production she needed to let certain things roll over [her] head. In response to the Reporter, Hoffman said he feels terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry.

(Jul 26, 2018 6:29 AM CDT) Facebook shares plummeted 20% after market close Wednesday, and one person in particular felt it more than others. Bloomberg reports Mark Zuckerberg lost about $16.8 billion as a result of the dip, which would not only negate the nearly $14 billion he'd already gained this year--it would also knock his nest egg down to just below $70 billion, per SEC filings cited by Fortune. Should the drop hold through the close Thursday, it would lower his spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index from third place to sixth. Facebook's stock price fall--which the Financial Times, via Newsweek, says is one of the biggest after-market drops ever--came after a statement from Facebook noting average daily visitor numbers and second-quarter revenue didn't meet analyst expectations. The tech giant has been contending lately with accusations of abusing user privacy, as well as with new EU data mandates. Meanwhile, parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner slammed Zuckerberg Wednesday in an open letter in the Guardian for not kicking conspiracy groups and anti-government provocateurs off the site. And even more bad news looms on the horizon: Business Insider reports that Facebook shareholder Trillium Asset Management has worked up a game plan to have Zuckerberg ousted as chairman due to Facebook's mishandling of its various crises. In his place, Trillium wants an independent chair, though Business Insider notes that, because of Zuckerberg's voting power (he retains more than half of the total influence), the chances of Trillium's proposal becoming reality [are] extremely slim. (For more on Facebook, read about this deep dive into its wild early days.)

(Feb 16, 2012 11:22 AM) It's not every day that you walk into a bank planning to cash a $100 check--and ultimately find yourself $3.3 million richer. That's what happened to Rodolfo Valladares, just not quite that smoothly. Valladares, sporting a Miami Heat hat, walked into a Florida Bank of America in July 2008 to cash said check. A teller mistakenly identified him as a robber who had been hitting area banks--in a Heat cap. She set off the silent alarm, and things went south for Valladares, who was handcuffed by police and kicked in the head, reports the Miami Herald. This mistake quickly came to light: The robber was in his 60s and 145 pounds; Valladares was 46, weighed in at more than 200, and presented the check and driver's license, not a weapon. And he wasn't wearing the exact same hat. Now, he's getting a little something for his trouble, courtesy of a Miami-Dade jury. They awarded him $3.3 million in damages, having ruled that the bank was negligent in both tripping the alarm and not canceling it when they realized Valladares was a customer, not a criminal. His lawyer says Valladares is plagued by headaches, blurred vision, and PTSD--and notes that to add insult to injury, they cashed his check after finally telling police officers it was a false alarm. (In other big-bucks news, a man bought a safe for $123 on eBay, and found major cash inside; click for that story.)

(Dec 29, 2016 11:07 AM) With the bookends of David Bowie dying and the deaths of Carrie Fisher and mom Debbie Reynolds--and Prince, George Michael, Brexit, and a contentious US election in between--Sam Sanders admits he, like many others, has taken to calling 2016 the worst. But Sanders writes for NPR that while the past 12 months may indeed deserve a spot in the midst of a white-hot dumpster fire, 2016 may not have actually been as bad as all that--and it surely can't be the worst year of all time, he notes. He runs through things that many Americans can be thankful for, including a recovering economy, our relatively safe existence, and, yes, for Trump supporters, a satisfying conclusion to Election 2016. Plus, much of the '2016 is awful' rhetoric was helped along by what Nikki Usher, a George Washington University media professor, calls ambient journalism, a nonstop engagement with online news and headlines via social media that basically, over time ... becomes an assault. Every five minutes, another sad headline, another Twitter mention or fight, another shared link on Facebook, another push notification. Another hit, Sanders writes. Combine that with this year's seemingly prevailing narrative--that of a nation, and even a world, completely and disastrously divided, perhaps beyond repair --and it's easy to see why 2016 has earned its black-sheep status on the calendar. Lots of crappy, bad things happen every year, but you aren't told over and over again that this just shows us how bad everything is, Usher notes. There's also the medium of the Internet itself, often used ironically, with hyperbole, and usually, with a wink and a nod by people who are privileged enough to have access to it, University of Southern California professor Robert Hernandez notes. Let's ... acknowledge that saying 2016 is the worst on Twitter says more about the tweeter, and the medium, than perhaps about the year itself, Sanders says. His full take here.

(Apr 23, 2016 11:49 AM CDT) An amazingly well-preserved dress discovered by divers in Dutch waters likely belonged to a noblewoman on a secret mission in 1642 to sell the crown jewels, Dutch News reports. Marine archeologists found the silk gown and other items in August 2014, but officials at the Kaap Skil Museum kept the discovery a secret until this month to protect the discovery site from scavengers, Gizmodo reports. Part of the find was a book that bore the coat of arms of King Charles I, and based on that tip, historians were able to locate a letter that describes a baggage ship lost during the 1642 crossing. The king had sent his wife on a mission to raise money for war, and the dress is believed to have belonged to a member of her royal court, specifically Jean Kerr, the countess of Roxburghe. While 17th-century paintings give historians a good idea of how nobles dressed when they wanted to look their best, evidence of their everyday lives is much rarer, notes the Smithsonian. Thanks to this discovery, historians have a better sense of how upper-class ladies dressed as they went about their days. The big find came when divers inspecting a shipwreck noticed a chest buried in the sand off the coast of Holland. Inside were the dress, other clothing, books, a metal ball that would be filled with fragrant leaves and flowers to mask body odor, and a lice comb, among other things. A history professor at Southampton University calls the find hugely, absolutely, amazing, per the Sun. (A shipwrecked vessel associated with Vasco da Gama was discovered off Oman.)

(Aug 13, 2010 9:42 AM CDT) Paris Hilton's bad hair day should cost her $35 million, according to a hair extensions company suing the heiress. Hairtech says the celebrity endorser was seen wearing another company's extensions in 2008 in breach of contract, Reuters reports. The firm says Hilton also missed a launch party for their product because she was in jail for drunk driving. Hilton's lawyer says they'll defend the case vigorously.

(Jul 16, 2015 5:55 AM CDT) A security researcher has earned the equivalent of a first-class, round-the-world trip after he submitted what he thought were a couple of lame bugs to United's new bug bounty program. In an industry first, United announced a bounty in May that rewards miles to anyone who identifies a bug on its website. There are 10 bug classes eligible: Cross-site scripting bugs, for example, are worth 50,000 miles, while authentication bypass bugs earn 250,000. While passively poking the site, Jordan Wiens, founder of a Florida security company, says he found what he thought were two remote code execution bugs, which allow a hacker to run their own potentially dangerous code on a site. I also thought they were lame and wasn't sure if they were on parts of the infrastructure that qualified, he tells Threatpost. I figured they'd award me 50,000 miles or something smaller. It turns out RCE bugs earn the highest payout: a maximum 1 million miles. After making his submission to United--his first to a bounty program, he says--Wiens got an email asking for confirmation that he was a US citizen and that his six hours of research was completed in the US. Two hours later, I got a message to check my account that I had gotten my million miles, he says. Wiens, who can't share details of the bug, says the miles are worth $25,000 and could take him on a first-class trip around the world or on 40 domestic round-trip flights in coach. His plan is to use the miles on coach trips for his family, plus one luxurious flight with his wife, he tells Fox 13. Wired reports Wiens' award is the program's first major payout. Other security researchers have since shared their awards on Twitter. One says he nabbed 500,000 miles. (Speaking of planes, a horrible and evil new seat design has been revealed.)

(Jun 28, 2008 3:35 PM CDT) Wall Street has predicted $200-per-barrel oil for months, but what if it really happens? Not only drivers would be hurt by such a spike, the Los Angeles Times reports: Inflation would skyrocket as oil-derived products turn pricey and the purchasing power of the American people would be kicked in the teeth so darned hard that they won't have the ability to buy much of anything, one energy expert predicted. Automakers and restaurants would suffer the worst. But such high prices would also reorganize American society, making proximity more valuable. Home prices would swing depending on the commute they create, and companies would likely consider de-centralizing operations. It would be the urban-planning equivalent of an earthquake, one LA councilman said.

(Mar 14, 2017 1:23 PM CDT) If you're in the area around Ocala, Fla., watch out: A pet cobra escaped from its home Monday night and a search has been launched. Per First Coast News, police and the state Fish and Wildlife Commission are urging residents to use caution until the 2-foot-long snake is found--cobras are highly venomous, and though they normally keep to themselves, they will attack if they feel threatened. Anyone who spots the missing snake is to stay away, but call the FWC's Wildlife Alert Hotline. Per Ocala.com, the snake's owner thinks one of his large lizards may have eaten the snake, but X-rays of the lizard's stomach are so far inconclusive.

(Oct 2, 2020 12:55 PM CDT) Former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, now a major fundraiser for the Trump campaign, faced allegations of sexual harassment before leaving the network in July 2018, as HuffPost reported at the time, though her lawyer said the claims were unequivocally baseless, per CNN. Now, the New Yorker is reporting that Guilfoyle--chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr.--was forced out before Fox paid upward of $4 million to her accuser, a female assistant. In a draft complaint sent to company executives in November 2018, the unidentified woman claimed she was forced to work from and sleep at Guilfoyle's New York apartment, where the host would expose her naked body, talk incessantly of her sex life, and showcase lewd photos of men with whom she'd been intimate. Guilfoyle also allegedly told her assistant to submit to a Fox employee's demands for sexual favors and asked for a massage of her bare thighs, according to people familiar with the complaint, which is subject to a nondisclosure agreement. Per the New Yorker, the assistant also claimed Guilfoyle offered up to $1 million in hush money and other favors around August 2017 if the woman agreed to lie to lawyers hired to investigate sexual misconduct at the network. Those lawyers had begun looking at claims the same assistant made against host Eric Bolling, whom the woman also served. Bolling, who's denied wrongdoing, left Fox in September 2017. Guilfoyle similarly denies any misbehavior in a statement. In my 30-year career working ... in media and in politics, I have never engaged in any workplace misconduct of any kind, she says.

(Jan 12, 2016 7:17 AM) When Alex Simpson was born, she seemed to be a typical baby in many respects--but she would cry for 20 hours a day. For two months, her parents didn't know why. Then, an answer, reports KETV in Omaha, Neb. Alex was diagnosed with a rare congenital disorder called hydranencephaly, meaning she was born missing a good chunk of her brain. Most babies with the condition die before their first birthday; the longest any known person has lived with hydranencephaly was 33 years, reports the Pediatric Brain Foundation. (A July 2014 study published in Acta Paediatrica puts the former figure at 35 years.) The foundation notes that some children display no obvious symptoms of the condition at birth, but increased irritability, increased muscle tone, and the lack of purposeful movement generally initiate suspicion of an underlying cause. Alex is now 10. She has part of her cerebellum, allowing her to maintain some awareness of her surroundings. She knows her mom and dad, her little brother, her father Shawn Simpson says. She knows when bad things are going on; she will cry or have a sad face. That experience is backed up by the Acta Paediatrica study. It observed that drastic loss of cortical tissue ... has encouraged the default assumption that these children are not conscious. To get a better window into whether that was the case, researchers surveyed 108 primary caregivers of children with hydranencephaly, asking questions like Will your child echo or imitate you? (29% said yes) and Does your child reach for objects? (26% yes). Their conclusion, in part: The indications that they are not only physiologically awake but conscious during waking makes it appropriate to apply the concept of quality of life to these children. (This baby was born without a nose.)

(Nov 7, 2016 9:12 AM) Black Friday has in recent years received a black mark as retailers took criticism for slowly pushing back the mega-shopping event until it actually started on Thanksgiving Day. Some retailers and shopping venues have given in to the backlash: Various malls (such as the Mall of America) and chain stores including RadioShack and Office Depot will be shuttered on Thanksgiving this year, per CNNMoney. But one of the largest superstores is doubling down, then adding a few hours for good measure, USA Today reports. Toys R Us will be opening its doors at 5pm on Turkey Day and keeping them open for 30 hours straight--until 11pm on Black Friday. Our customers have voted at the doors year after year, and they continue to want the option to get an early start on their holiday shopping lists, Joe Venezia, executive VP for the company's global operations, said in a statement. But not every consumer feels that way: Per a BestBlackFriday.com poll cited by USA Today, 60.2% of consumers say they'd refuse to shop on Thanksgiving. And Brian Rich, who started the Boycott Black Thursday Facebook page five years ago, tells CNN that while Walmart, Best Buy, and Target probably won't close on Thanksgiving anytime soon ... this movement is clearly having an impact. Patrons definitely still have plenty of other stores they can descend upon after emerging from their tryptophan fog, including Kohl's (a 6pm Thanksgiving Day opening), Macy's (5pm), and JCPenney (3pm), per CNBC. Check out DealNews and BestBlackFriday.com for updates on store openings on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. (24/7 Wall Street notes Toys R Us' finances are spurring it to lure customers to wander its aisles like [groggy] winners of the 1920s dance marathons. )

(Dec 24, 2020 7:00 AM) Officer Adam Coy didn't have his body camera on when he fatally shot Andre Maurice Hill on Tuesday, but he turned it on nine seconds later--and the camera's look-back technology captured the preceding 60 seconds. Police in Columbus, Ohio, released the footage on Wednesday, and it shows that Coy shot the unarmed 47-year-old less than 10 seconds after encountering him. Coy, who's been with the department for 19 years, responded to the nonemergency call around 1:30am; a neighbor said a man was repeatedly turning a car's engine on and off. NPR reports on what the footage captured: Coy and a female officer approached an open garage and directed their flashlights toward Hill, who was inside. Hill turned to face the officers; his phone was in his left hand and his right hand was in his pocket. He took four steps toward Coy, reports the Dispatch. Coy then shot him. There's no audio of the initial minute. When the audio does kick in, Coy can be heard yelling to Hill, Put your f---ing hands out to the side. Hands out to the side now. Roll to your stomach now. Mayor Andrew Ginther has expressed his outrage at the incident, and he elaborated on Wednesday. I am also very disturbed about what I don't see next in the body-worn camera footage ... none of the officers initially at the scene provide medical assistance to Mr. Hill. No compression on the wounds to stop the bleeding. No attempts at CPR. Not even a hand on the shoulder and an encouraging word that medics were en route. Per the Dispatch's timeline, Hill was shot at 1:50am, and no care is given for more than 10 minutes; Hill was pronounced dead at 2:25am. The Dispatch reports Coy has been relieved of duty pending an investigation, but that the city is beginning the termination process as requested by Ginther.

(Mar 2, 2018 12:00 PM) Tom DeLonge believes aliens are real. He also believes, among other things, that the Cold War served to cover up alien life and that the US government has an alien locked up. It sounds like the ramblings of a very high man, Kelsey McKinney writes at the Fader, in a piece exploring how the former Blink-182 guitarist and singer has somehow become one of the world's leading UFO experts. DeLonge has amassed a respectable team of experts, including scientists and former military and intelligence officials, to investigate his claims through his To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences. And just two months after the academy's launch last October, one of its employees, former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo, helped reveal what DeLonge said was true: that a decade-long Pentagon program focused on much of the same work of DeLonge's team. DeLonge's credibility also has been bolstered by emails showing he was discussing UFOs with Hillary Clinton campaign manager and former White House official John Podesta in 2015. DeLonge claims he's also chatted with Pentagon officials and other government sources, including one who told him an alien life form has been found. At the same time, the story includes a quote from a former bandmate who once said DeLonge would unquestioningly believe pretty much anything he reads, no matter how crazy. So why this mission? Elizondo suggests that it's a matter of conscience: Delonge's goal is to make sure that the public is getting the information they deserve. Click for the full piece, which includes mention of a supposed alien encounter while DeLonge was camping near Area 51.

(Sep 12, 2012 11:27 AM CDT) Who says the models at New York Fashion Week have to be young? Carmen Dell'Orefice, 81, surprised attendees this year with two runway appearances Sunday, ABC News reports. Dell'Orefice, known as the oldest working model in the world, started modeling in the 1940s and was on Vogue's cover when she was just 15. On Sunday, she first modeled a Norisol Ferrari gown, then later a Marimekko design.

(Jun 30, 2016 6:20 AM CDT) A 13-year-old Israeli girl is dead after a Palestinian man entered her home and stabbed her in her bed, police say. Hallel Ariel's mother says the girl was happy and sleeping calmly in her bedroom in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank when the man stabbed her several times in the upper body, per the BBC and Jerusalem Post. A security guard who responded to the scene was stabbed in the face and shot--accidentally by other guards, per the Times of Israel--before the attacker was killed. The guard was taken to a hospital in serious condition but has since been upgraded. Hallel was pronounced dead soon after arrival. The girl was unconscious, without a pulse, and not breathing, a medic says. The Palestinian health ministry identifies the attacker as Mohammed Tarayreh--either 17 or 19--from the adjacent village of Bani Naim. Authorities say he climbed a fence surrounding Kiryat Arba, alerting the Israel Defense Forces. Responding officers then heard screams coming from Hallel's home, which is just inside the barrier. The IDF--which released a photo of Hallel's blood-stained bedroom--are now questioning members of the attacker's family, reports Haaretz. The local government says all Arab workers have been removed from the settlement, per the Times.

(Dec 29, 2008 6:01 AM) The price of oil jumped to $40 a barrel this morning, a gain of 8% over the previous session, as violence between Israel and Hamas threatened to destabilize crude supplies from the Middle East. Oil has been rising slightly after falling by more than $100 a barrel since July. The president of OPEC said this weekend he expected the price of oil to stabilize over the next two months as output cuts take hold.

(Dec 24, 2009 3:21 PM) George Michael, whose syndicated Sports Machine show helped introduce viewers to the magic of game highlights years before ESPN made it obsolete, died today in Washington. He was 70 and suffering from leukemia. At WRC in Washington from 1980 to 2008, Michael became a legend during the heyday of the local sports anchor, but it was in national syndication that he really made his mark, the Washington Post reports. George wasn't the first to make videotape the king--Warner Wolf did it before him--but his rise at Channel 4 coincided with better technology to provide the highlights, the greatest sports boom in US history and a profitable local news operation willing to spend time and money on its sports segments, said sports-TV expert Norman Chad. Writes Post columnist Mike Wise: George was not so much in search of great athletic achievement as he was authentic human majesty.

(Nov 25, 2019 5:21 PM) A body recovered in Alabama is that of a 5-year-old Florida girl who went missing earlier this month, authorities announced Monday. An Amber Alert for Taylor Rose Williams had been canceled following confirmation of the child's death, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Chief TK Waters said at a news conference. We remain committed to working to bring justice for her, Waters said. Brianna Williams, 27, reported her daughter missing from their Jacksonville home on Nov. 6, but the mother stopped cooperating with detectives after being questioned about inconsistencies in her story, investigators said. Williams is a petty officer at Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

(Apr 15, 2015 10:03 AM CDT) Just when you thought Hillary Clinton's email brouhaha had moved on to other things, the New York Times uncovers an old letter congressional investigators sent Clinton asking about her email use. In the letter dated Dec. 13, 2012, House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa explicitly asks whether the then-secretary of state or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business and requests that the accounts be identified. He also asks about alias accounts and text messages, CNN reports. Clinton never replied and left the State Department weeks later on Feb. 1, 2013. On March 27 of that year, the department described its policies for personal email use for Issa, as he had also requested. Employees may use personal email on personal time for matters not directly related to official business, and any employee using personal email 'should make it clear that his or her personal email is not being used for official business,' the State Department's assistant secretary for legislative affairs wrote. A rep refused to answer questions yesterday about why it avoided mentioning Clinton's email use. However, a Clinton aide says her usage was widely known to the over 100 department and US government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent. Issa's initial letter was part of an investigation spawned when administration and EPA officials were found to be using private accounts for government business.

(Apr 4, 2011 8:21 AM CDT) More than 9,000 pieces of human remains from the World Trade Center attacks remain unidentified and unclaimed--but some relatives of the 9/11 victims aren't happy with their proposed final resting place, the AP reports. The plan is to house the remains seven stories underground at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, behind a wall bearing a quote from Virgil, but the families here today say no, their attorney said yesterday. They believe that the remains should be placed in a respectful and accessible location, such as something akin to the Tomb of the Unknowns above ground and separate from the museum, he continued, adding that the families do not currently plan to sue but may consider legal action in the future. At least two mothers who lost sons say the families were never consulted about the plan, but another woman who lost her husband and works as a liaison disagrees. The outreach we did on this is voluminous, she says. They wanted them placed as close to bedrock as possible. Click for more on the museum's controversy.

(Oct 15, 2017 8:25 AM CDT) It's glaringly obvious advice in 2017: If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party at the Four Seasons, don't go. But when Courtney Love spoke those words in 2005 on the red carpet of a Comedy Central roast--when asked if she had advice for young women in Hollywood--she says it got her eternally banned by talent agency CAA for speaking out against Harvey Weinstein, reports TMZ, which unearthed the video. Love, who visibly hesitates before giving her answer, clarifies to TMZ that she wasn't one of his victims.