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(Mar 8, 2016 5:10 PM) The man charged with murdering a 9-year-old boy in Chicago allegedly laughed and bragged about the killing while in jail, DNAinfo reports. Prosecutors say 22-year-old Dwright Boone-Doty lured fourth-grader Tyshawn Lee into an alley in November and shot him as part of an ongoing gang feud. According to the Chicago Tribune, an informant in jail while Boone-Doty was being held on an unrelated gun charge was wearing a wire while Boone-Doty discussed the shooting. Shorty couldn't take it no more, prosecutors quote Boone-Doty, allegedly describing Tyshawn during the shooting. Tyshawn was shot in the head, back, and arm; part of his thumb was also shot off. Evidence from the scene indicates Boone-Doty likely failed to kill Tyshawn with his first shot, the Chicago Sun Times reports. Prosecutors say Boone-Doty was writing a rap song about killing Tyshawn while in jail and was sorry he didn't go back to the park where he found Tyshawn to kill more kids. Authorities also claim Boone-Doty--along with two alleged accomplices--at one point planned to kidnap Tyshawn and cut off his ears and fingers. Tyshawn was a backup target after killing his grandmother didn't work out, prosecutors say. A second man has been charged in the killing; a third is still wanted. Boone-Doty was charged with Tyshawn's murder--as well as the murder of a 19-year-old woman weeks earlier--on Monday. The father of three was ordered held without bail. Police say Tyshawn's father belongs to a rival gang.
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(Nov 20, 2015 6:00 PM) An absolutely awful story out of Houston, where police say four children were left alone Monday night and their mother came home to find one of them dead. The two 3-year-old siblings of the 19-month-old little girl who died, J'Zyra Thompson, told authorities that one of them put the baby in the oven and the other one turned it on and made it hot, ABC 13 reports. J'Zyra, they said, kicked the oven door while she was trapped inside. The oldest sibling, 5, was apparently asleep at the time, Click2Houston reports. When Racqual Thompson, the children's mother, returned home from going out with her boyfriend to get takeout pizza and pick up a prescription, she attempted CPR, but it was too late. J'Zyra died of multiple burns. Police say Racqual Thompson had left the children without informing a grandmother who also lived at the apartment complex. The three surviving children are in foster care, as CPS could not find suitable relatives to care for them. Criminal charges are expected, though none have yet been filed. (In Kentucky, an arrest has been made in the killing of a girl who went missing at a football game.)
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(Apr 26, 2014 6:57 AM CDT) Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century may not be a quick read, but it's flying off the (digital) shelves. What makes a 685-page book on economic history, translated from French, Amazon's bestseller? Well, the reviews have been great; Paul Krugman calls it truly superb in the New York Review of Books. And it deals with an issue that speaks to Americans, writes Aimee Picchi at CBS News: income inequality. Piketty argues that the problem is tied to return on capital surpassing the economy's growth rate. In other words, as Jordan Weissmann writes at Slate, as economic growth slows in a country, the income generated by wealth balloons compared with income generated by work, and inequality skyrockets. Piketty, Weissmann notes, has been perhaps the most important thinker on inequality of the past decade or so. His work has been instrumental in documenting the oft-discussed wealthiest 1%. While the book has been a sales success, however, it hasn't generated many Amazon reviews, Picchi points out; that could mean the readers who are buying it aren't actually getting around to reading the giant thing. (Another weird recent bestseller: Mein Kampf.)
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(Jul 6, 2013 7:24 AM CDT) The gentle giant is going back to his family. Improved DNA testing has identified the remains of another of the firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks, reports the Staten Island Advance. Lt. Jeffrey Walz died in the north tower nearly a dozen years ago. My family always felt at some point we would get a phone call, his widow, Rani Walz, tells the New York Post. I wasn't so sure. This has reopened old wounds. Walz was 37 when he died, leaving behind Rani and their 3-year-old son, Bradley. He managed to call his wife and parents from the tower before it collapsed, says his sister. As for that gentle giant nickname: It was obviously because of his height and because he was such a good person, explains his wife. He was a saint with me. A city official says the remains of 1,637 World Trade Center victims have now been identified, leaving 1,116 unidentified. At least we can say he's not missing anymore, mom Jennie Walz tells the Journal News. (This news follows an announcement made two weeks ago that the remains of a 43-year-old 9/11 victim had been identified.)
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(Oct 31, 2020 11:30 AM CDT) Talk about good camouflage! Scientists say they have found an elusive chameleon species that was last spotted in Madagascar 100 years ago. Researchers from Madagascar and Germany said Friday that they discovered several living specimens of Voeltzkow's chameleon during an expedition to the northwest of the African island nation. In a report published in the journal Salamandra, the team led by scientists from the Bavarian Natural History Collections ZSM said genetic analysis determined that the species is closely related to Labord's chameleon. Researchers believe that both reptiles only live during the rainy season--hatching from eggs, growing rapidly, sparring with rivals, mating, and then dying during a few short months.
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(Feb 6, 2018 3:18 PM) Another crazy day on Wall Street, but this time the Dow ended in positive territory. After a day of volatile swings, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a gain of 567 points, or 2.3%, making up about half of Monday's steep loss. The Dow finished at 24,912, per the AP. How volatile were the swings? It was the first time in seven years the Dow had been down 2% at one point during the day, only to wind up 2% in the black, reports the Wall Street Journal. The S&P 500 rose 1.7% to 2,695, and the Nasdaq rose 2.1% to 7,115.
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(Nov 9, 2011 12:51 PM) Family Circle creator Bil Keane, whose single-panel cartoons have appeared in newspapers across the country for some 50 years, died yesterday. He was 89. The AP recounts a 1995 conversation with Keane, in which he attributed his comic's staying power to its simplicity and consistency. It's reassuring, I think, to the American public to see the same family --in his case, Billy, Jeffy, Dolly, PJ, and their parents (wife Thelma was the inspiration for Mommy, and her spitting image, notes the AP). The comic's other signatures include family pets Barfy and Sam (both dogs) and Kittycat, along with the ghost-like Ida Know and Not Me, who bore much of the blame for accidents around the house. But above all, it was a comic defined by its wholesomeness. We are the last frontier of good family humor, Keane said. On radio and television, magazines and the movies, you can't tell what you're going to get. When you look at the comic page, you can usually depend on something acceptable by the entire family. Said friend/Peanuts creator Charles Schultz, We share a care for the same type of humor. We're both family men with children and look with great fondness at our families.
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(Sep 9, 2016 11:47 AM CDT) Call it where the wild things aren't. The Amazon and Central Africa have lost an immense amount of wilderness over the past 20 years or so, but scientists say those regions aren't the only ones in trouble: Nearly 10% of the world's wildlands have succumbed to development and other man-made intrusions since the early 1990s, per a study published in the Current Biology journal. That total area is equal to 1.2 million square miles--what the Guardian estimates to be about the size of two Alaskas--and researchers say if there's not a quick turnaround on the conservation front, there could be zero major wild areas in less than a century. The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering, Dr. Oscar Venter of the University of Northern British Columbia says, per a press release. Wildnerness, for the purposes of this study, was defined as land that's ecologically largely intact and mostly free of human disturbance, save for indigenous communities. The Amazon claims the lion's share of these catastrophic losses over the past two decades, with about 30% of its wilderness disappeared (and rainforests still being cleared). Central Africa, meanwhile, has suffered a 14% loss. Losing these natural environments isn't just about aesthetics: The study's authors note that widespread development spells disaster for endangered species, threatens biodiversity, and contributes to climate change, as forests hold huge amounts of carbon. As ScienceAlert notes: Great job, humans. (Yosemite just scooped up lots more land.)
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(Nov 3, 2011 10:53 AM CDT) James Bond is back for a 23rd time in Skyfall, which begins filming today and will be out next year after a four-year gap in the 007 franchise. Daniel Craig will reprise his role as the super spy for the third time, going up against Javier Bardem as the villain. Skyfall's Bond girls are French actress Berenice Marlohe and British actress Naomie Harris, Reuters reports. Though some feared the new director--American Beauty's Sam Mendes--might tone down the franchise, he assured reporters at today's launch that the script includes lots of action. In Skyfall, Bond will visit London, China, Turkey, and Scotland. His loyalty to spy boss M, played again by Dame Judi Dench, will be tested. Spy headquarters MI6 will face an attack. There's lots of surprises in the fantastic script, Mendes says. The movie is out next Nov. 9 in the US; 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the film franchise. The BBC notes that only four unused titles from Ian Fleming's James Bond stories remain, including one that isn't all that exciting ( 007 in New York ).
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(Feb 14, 2016 12:05 PM) Officials say around 200 students at a Pennsylvania college have now reported symptoms of a stomach illness, but the source of the ailment remains a mystery. Ursinus College said Sunday that classes will resume on a regular schedule Monday after being canceled Thursday and Friday. Events during the weekend also were canceled. Officials said most reported that symptoms abated within 12 to 24 hours. Twenty-two students were treated at hospitals last week, but none was admitted. The school's dining hall was closed after students began complaining of vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain Tuesday night. An initial inspection found violations that included pesticides near food, dead bugs, and insufficient hand-washing, reports WPVI. A subsequent inspection found no further issues, and the dining hall was reopened. Montgomery County health investigators are trying to determine whether the ailment is foodborne or transmitted from person to person.
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(May 19, 2010 6:47 AM CDT) Disgraced Daily Beast scribe Gerald Posner claims he 'accidentally' and unwittingly plagiarized material for his online columns--but it now appears he also did it habitually and for his books. A new review of his work suggests Posner may have lifted as many as 35 passages for Why America Slept and Secrets of the Kingdom. The Miami New Times sent the passages over to a journalism expert for review. His verdict? This constitutes plagiarism by any definition. Click here for more on Posner.
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(Apr 9, 2013 6:49 PM CDT) The man who slashed at least 14 classmates at a community college in suburban Houston today has been identified by local media--including the Houston Chronicle and ABC 13--as 20-year-old Dylan Quick. Police haven't offered any clues about a motive. Quick is a student at the Cy-Fair campus of Lone Star College, and not much is known of him. A college blog post just last week, however, recounted how Quick began taking part in teen activities on campus a decade ago, reports the Chronicle. The purpose of the post was to show how the activities helped transform Quick--who was born deaf but had a cochlear implant when he was 7--from being withdrawn to socially engaged. Initially reluctant to participate, Dylan was homeschooled and very shy, said the post. A neighbor described him today as very calm, adding that he's always working with his dad outside. They're good people. A separate Chronicle story talks to a student who happened to be in the custody of campus police when Quick was brought in. He said he was trying to go on a killing spree but the (expletive) blade broke. Two students remained in critical condition as of this evening, reports AP.
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(Apr 22, 2013 5:34 PM CDT) Richie Havens, the folk singer who opened the 1969 Woodstock festival, died today from a sudden heart attack at home in New Jersey, Rolling Stone reports. He was 72. The Brooklyn-born musician is best known for the three-hour, partially improvised Woodstock set that brought him to prominence (and helped pad out the show until other artists arrived). He released 21 studio albums in his career. Havens also worked as an actor--appearing in the 1972 stage version of The Who's Tommy and 2007 Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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(Apr 19, 2017 6:25 PM CDT) The Simpson family first appeared on television 30 years ago today--April 19, 1987--in a short on The Tracey Ullman Show called Good Night, EW reports. Three decades later, The Simpsons is in its 28th season, has aired more than 600 episodes, and is the longest-running scripted prime-time series in TV history. Not bad for characters creator Matt Groening came up with at the last minute. According to the Guardian, Groening was supposed to pitch an animated version of his comic strip Life in Hell but didn't want to give up the rights to it. He quickly sketched out the Simpson family, naming its members after his own relatives. That led to Good Night and the first words of The Simpsons' illustrious run on television: Well, good night, son. The show would get funnier. The Simpsons appeared in 48 shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show before getting their own series in 1989. That series is currently renewed through its 30th season. A TV historian tells NPR The Simpsons broke ground when it came to what you could put on television: When The Simpsons came out, people were so worried about the crude behavior. And the Ringer ranks the show's 100 best episodes.
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(Apr 20, 2008 10:31 PM CDT) Pope Benedict XVI concluded his 6-day US visit today, boarding the papal jet at JFK aqirport to return to the Vatican. The time has come for me to bid farewell to your country, Benedict said. May God bless America. Dick Cheney attended the departure ceremony, which capped Benedict's day of visiting Ground Zero and celebrating Mass at Yankee Stadium. It has been a memorable week and Pope Benedict XVI has stepped into the history of our country in a very special way, Cheney said. Until we meet again, we ask your holiness to remember in your prayers the United States of America.
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(Feb 26, 2013 12:25 PM) Ikea's horse-meatball mess continues to grow. The retailer has now stopped offering meatballs in 24 European countries, der Spiegel reports. The company explained in a statement that, The sales stop concerns meatballs manufactured by one supplier in Sweden and applies to all European countries except for Norway, Russia, and a limited number of products in Switzerland and Poland. But is something nefarious afoot? That supplier today announced that 320 tests carried out this month haven't turned up any horse meat. We've been duped, there is a criminal act behind this, said the head of the company, reports the Local. Meanwhile, as Britain frets over horse meat, burger sales have taken a serious slide: Frozen beef burger sales dropped 43% in the country in the four weeks ending Feb. 17, Sky News reports, while sales of frozen meals sank 13%. The figures come from the first retail report following the scandal. The drop is the result of both consumers' beef avoidance and retailers' removal of products.
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(Apr 1, 2015 9:33 AM CDT) The world's oldest person, a Japanese woman, died today, a few weeks after celebrating her 117th birthday. Misao Okawa died of heart failure and stopped breathing as relatives and nursing home workers stood by her side and praised her long, healthy life, said Tomohiro Okada, an official at her Osaka nursing home. She went so peacefully, as if she had just fallen asleep, Okada says. We miss her a lot. A 116-year-old American woman, Gertrude Weaver of Arkansas, is now the world's oldest person, according to Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which keeps records of supercentenarians. She was born July 4, 1898. Okawa, born in Osaka on March 5, 1898, was recognized as the world's oldest person by Guinness World Records in 2013. She lost her appetite about 10 days ago. Until then, she had been eating well, enjoying her daily cup of coffee and her favorite dishes, including ramen. Okawa, the daughter of a kimono maker, said at her recent birthday celebration that her life seemed rather short. Asked for the secret of her longevity, she responded nonchalantly, I wonder about that, too. She married her husband, Yukio, in 1919, and they had two daughters and a son. She is survived by four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren; her husband died in 1931. Japan's oldest person is now a 115-year-old Tokyo woman. Japan has the most centenarians in the world, with more than 58,000, per its government. About 87% are women.
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(Nov 20, 2013 4:29 PM) During their third-grade play in 1938, George Raynes played Prince Charming and Carol Harris was Sleeping Beauty. He wasn't supposed to really kiss her, but I laid a big wet one on her, the now 83-year-old Raynes tells CBC of New Brunswick. No young romance bloomed at the time, but 75 years later, the Saint John residents have gotten married. Raynes is a widower who raised a family, and Harris never married. But they did stay in touch over the years, and now I can't help but think ... that my prince from Grade 3 has finally come home to stay, says Harris.
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(Oct 27, 2012 10:34 PM CDT) San Francisco moved to within one win of the championship by shutting down the Detroit Tigers once again tonight and taking a 3-0 lead in the World Series. The Giants won 2-0 for the second consecutive night, this time as the away team. Detroit just can't seem to get a clutch hit and has yet to even lead in the Series. San Francisco can clinch as early as tomorrow night. Bleacher Report has more on the game and the Series here.
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(Jan 20, 2012 12:18 PM) When Americans heard that Mitt Romney pays a 15% tax rate, most probably assumed that was less than they pay--and they're probably wrong. Romney, after all, wasn't talking about his tax bracket, but his effective tax rate, meaning what percentage of his income he actually winds up paying, USA Today points out. The average American's effective federal tax rate is just 11%, according to 2009 IRS data, and if you make less than $50,000, that falls to 5%. Yes, that's low--taxes are at a 40-year nadir, David Leonhardt of the New York Times points out. But most people think taxes are high, both because of weak wage growth and because they sense, and not incorrectly, that others are benefiting from tax breaks unavailable to them, he writes. The wealthy have seen their taxes fall the most, and they also benefit more from deductions. And then there's the fact that capital gains--which likely make up most of Romney's income--are only taxed at 15%, a part of the tax code that favors assets over wages, writes Jared Bernstein in the Christian Science Monitor. I suspect few begrudge the wealth. What I think bothers people is the tax breaks on the wealth.
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(Apr 16, 2020 8:05 AM CDT) A 99-year-old World War II veteran has raised $17 million for health workers in the UK simply by walking in his yard. Tom Moore set out to complete 100 lengths of his 82-foot garden in Bedfordshire, England, before his 100th birthday on April 30, knocking them off in groups of 10. The retired captain, who recently underwent treatment for cancer and a broken hip, initially hoped to raise $1,250, reports AFP. But donations came in so fast to the JustGiving page set up last week that it actually crashed for a time. As of this writing, a day after he completed his mission with help from a wheeled walker, Moore had raised $17 million from 690,000 people. The money will go to NHS Charities Together, which says 150 charities will benefit as a result, per the BBC. It's the National Health Service, who are doing such a magnificent job for us all, but I never even dreamt of that sort of money, Moore told Reuters as his campaign hit the $1 million mark just days ago. JustGiving said the total amount raised was its largest donation ever. We are absolutely floored by what has been achieved, Moore's daughter tells the BBC, describing her father as a beacon of hope in dark times. The veteran also received congratulations from nurses, politicians, and actors, while nearly 2,000 people signed a petition requesting that he receive knighthood. Moore, however, is content to rally the troops. For all those people finding it difficult at the moment, the sun will shine on you again, he says, per the BBC. We will get through it in the end.
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(Mar 6, 2013 4:53 PM) Arkansas is turning into ground zero in the fight over abortion. State lawmakers today easily override a veto and cleared the way for legislation that outlaws almost all abortions after 12 weeks, reports AP. When the measure goes into effect this summer, it will give Arkansas the strictest abortion law in the nation. The only exceptions are for rape, incest, and medical emergencies. Had the law been in place in 2011, it would have prevented about 20% of the state's 4,033 abortions that year, reports the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The New York Times calls it the sharpest challenge yet to Roe v. Wade, because that 1973 ruling says an abortion is legal up until the time a fetus can survive outside the womb, around 24 weeks. Arkansas lawmakers chose 12 weeks because that's about the time a heartbeat can be detected with ultrasound. The ACLU promises to sue. Gov. Mike Beebe called the bill unconstitutional and said the state will have to spend a fortune defending it in court.
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(Jun 29, 2011 8:07 AM CDT) Endangered birds, fish, frogs, butterflies, and even a species of sea lion are set to benefit from a judge's ruling that federal authorities need to do more to protect some 40 species in southern California's national forests. The judge ordered three federal agencies to take all necessary measures to devise and implement safeguards for the species, which include the California condor, the San Joaquin fox, and the Santa Ana sucker, reports the Los Angeles Times. The judge's decision follows a 2009 ruling that government plans involving four national forests in California did not do enough to protect endangered species from human activity. The lesson of this ruling is this: These federal agencies can no longer get by simply saying, 'Nothing is going to happen to these species--trust us.' the California program director for the Defenders of Wildlife said.
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(Feb 28, 2019 2:00 AM) The Democratic-controlled House on Wednesday approved a measure requiring federal background checks for all firearms sales and transfers, the first major gun control legislation considered by Congress in nearly 25 years. Democrats called the 240-190 vote a major step to end the gun lobby's grip on Washington and begin to address an epidemic of gun violence that kills thousands of Americans every year, the AP reports. The bill is the first of two the House is voting on this week as Democrats move to tighten gun laws following eight years of Republican control. The other bill would extend the review period for background checks from three to 10 days.
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(Sep 9, 2014 12:14 PM CDT) A Canadian who made off with an empty bus and smashed into another bus and a parked vehicle won't be facing any criminal charges--because nobody was injured in the joyride, and because he's just 9 years old. A witness in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, tells the Canadian Press that he saw the boy ride by on a bike before making off with the city bus, which had been left unlocked outside a garage with the engine running. I looked in my mirror and I saw a little head in the driver's seat of the bus, says the man, who chased the bus for two blocks until it got stuck on a curb, and kept the boy there until authorities arrived. Police say the boy was taken home to his family. A city transit official tells the CBC that the bus was being repaired and should never have been left unsecured. This is a case where policy and procedures were very clearly violated, he says. Buses are not to be left in that condition. The brakes were on, so it's not clear how the boy was able to drive the bus, he says. The damage to the two buses and the car is estimated at less than $10,000 Canadian, according to the official, who says the city isn't currently planning punitive action. (A 9-year-old in Florida who stole his mom's car because he wanted to skip school managed to drive around for 45 minutes without an accident.)
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(Jul 27, 2016 1:01 AM CDT) Two Good Samaritan vessels rescued 46 people Tuesday night who abandoned their sinking fishing boat in the Bering Sea off Alaska's Aleutian Islands, the Coast Guard says. There were no reports of any injuries as the crew members were transferred from life rafts to the merchant ships in fairly calm seas, Coast Guard Petty Officer Lauren Steenson says. The ships then embarked on a 13-hour voyage to Adak, Alaska, a port in the Aleutians. When the 220-foot Alaska Juris started taking on water Tuesday morning, all crew members donned survival suits and got into three rafts, the AP reports. An emergency beacon alerted the Coast Guard to the sinking ship just after 11:30am Alaska time. The Good Samaritan ships Spar Canis and the Vienna Express rushed to the scene in response to a Coast Guard emergency broadcast for help, as did two other merchant vessels. The Coast Guard also diverted the cutter Midgett and dispatched two C-130 transport planes and two helicopters from Kodiak to the site of the sinking ship, located near Kiska Island, which is about 690 miles west of Dutch Harbor, one of the nation's busiest fishing ports. One C-130 monitored the rescue situation overhead. It wasn't immediately known what caused the Alaska Juris to begin taking on water, and that will be part of the Coast Guard investigation, Steenson says.
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(Apr 8, 2008 2:51 PM CDT) Last year saw an explosion in malware threats that has Symantec considering a new approach to Internet security-- whitelisting legitimate computer code rather than blacklisting known threats. Of 1.1 million threats the company has discovered in over 25 years, it uncovered almost two-thirds of them in 2007, Computerworld reports. Symantec blames the escalation on the emergence of efficient malware-creating organizations. The company says these organizations hire programmers to create lucrative phishing schemes, developing a sophisticated industry complete with specialization and outsourcing. A group of specialized programmers can create a larger number of new threats than can a single malicious code author, bringing about economies of scale and therefore an increased return on investment, declares the Symantec report.
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(Feb 16, 2014 2:16 PM) Authorities say two skiers were killed and three others were injured in a large avalanche in Colorado. The Lake County Office of Emergency Management says seven skiers on Star Mountain near Independence Pass triggered the slide at about 5pm yesterday. Three were hospitalized with injuries that included a broken leg, a broken ankle, and a possible broken rib and collapsed lung. The Lake County Sheriff's Office says search and rescue crews found the bodies of two skiers this afternoon. The avalanche happened near Leadville, which is about 80 miles southwest of Denver. Officials are warning of deadly conditions after avalanches killed six people this week--two each in Oregon, Utah, and Colorado, CNN reports. We are seeing very dangerous avalanche conditions developing from basically the New Mexico border north to Wyoming, said the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. With the snowpack teetering on the brink of critical mass, snowslides are burying roads in 20 feet of debris and taking out old mine buildings and trees, the center said.
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(Feb 21, 2020 3:01 AM) After a couple brought a baby with the umbilical cord still attached to a Missouri hospital last week, claiming they had found the newborn on their porch, police soon uncovered the disturbing truth. At their home in suburban St. Louis, police found an 11-year-old girl who had given birth in a bathtub, USA Today reports. Three of her relatives were arrested, including the couple who brought the baby to the hospital and 17-year-old Norvin L. Lopez-Cante. Police say the teen admitted sexually assaulting his relative more than 100 times, the St. Louis-Dispatch reports. The teen has been charged with incest, statutory rape, and statutory sodomy of a child, according to court documents. Lesbia Cante and Francisco Javier Gonzalez-Lopez have been charged with child endangerment. Cante has also been charged with failing to provide medical care for the birth. According to court documents, Gonzalez-Lopez told police that he didn't know that Lopez-Cante, his son, was raping the girl, or that she was pregnant, KSDK reports. Lopez-Cante told investigators that he had been having sex with the girl around twice a week. He also claimed not to have known she was pregnant.
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(Mar 1, 2011 4:33 PM) Just how much information is out there in the Twittersphere? With 50 million tweets per day, or roughly 1 billion words, it would take a single person 10 years to read just one day's worth, figures Death and Taxes. Going nonstop for 24 hours, a person would probably get through about 13,000 tweets. Impressive, but it's nothing compared to Facebook status updates, notes the Huffington Post. Click for more on that.
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(Dec 11, 2013 10:57 AM) Last year, the Vatican bank detected six suspicious transactions; this year, that figure has soared to more than 100 amid a reform effort, an official tells the Los Angeles Times. That work, headed by Swiss financial expert Rene Bruelhart, also involves asking 1,000 account holders at the bank to leave, a Vatican insider says. Being an Italian noble or wealthy figure is no longer enough to qualify as a customer; now, only priests, religious groups, approved diplomats, and Vatican staffers may join. There is an ethical concern about tax evasion, but there is also an idea that the bank should just serve the Holy See, another Vatican figure tells the paper. Bruelhart was brought in last year as the bank, which serves 18,900 customers and has assets of $7 billion, looks to tighten regulations following several scandals in recent decades. Pope Benedict XVI created the watchdog Financial Information Authority in 2011 to watch over the process. There is a very strong commitment at the Holy See to introduce a well-functioning and sustainable system to fight financial crime, Bruelhart says.
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(Sep 15, 2013 5:57 PM CDT) Johnnie Footman has collected his last fare. Footman, the oldest cab driver in New York, died this week, age 94, reports the New York Times. He was here Monday and he died Tuesday, says an owner of the 55 Stan cab depot in Queens where Footman worked. According to the Times' obit, Footman--better known as Spider --wore a spider pendant around his neck and a hat that said Old Dude made of Achey Breaky Parts! He would warn passengers that he was a slow driver due to his age, though he had an impeccable driving record and had never had an accident while working at 55 Stan. Footman was born in Florida, but moved to New York to escape racism, says a filmmaker who recently made a documentary about 55 Stan. He got his start in the taxi business pumping gas and fixing cars at a depot in Hell's Kitchen. It's unclear exactly when Footman first got his taxi license, but the commissioner New York City's Taxi Commission says it was only a few short years after the creation of the city's modern taxi industry in 1937. He'll be missed, he says. He was one of those drivers who knew the streets, knew his cab and knew his passengers, and he balanced all three perfectly.
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(Jul 15, 2010 6:37 PM CDT) Details of a bizarre kidnapping emerge: A girl who was snatched as a baby 7 years ago in Los Angeles was raised by an Arizona couple who kept her out of school to hide her from authorities, officials said. Amber Nicklas, who turns 8 this month, was abducted in 2003 and found last night in a home in Phoenix that also served as a palm reading business. The girl appeared in good health, but investigators later discovered through interviews that she was kept out of school and could not read. Amber was 1 when she was abducted from her foster parents by three aunts, all juveniles at the time, during a visit to a children's restaurant. Two of the aunts spent time in juvenile camp for the abduction, but authorities would not release details on why they took the child or if they remain part of the investigation. It's unclear whether Amber will return to her foster parents.
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(Sep 20, 2011 8:13 AM CDT) Samsung's latest move in its epic battle with Apple: File lawsuits attempting to block the sale of the iPhone 5. A local paper cites a Samsung official who says the company will take strategic legal action against Apple as it is expected to begin selling the phone next month. We have not yet decided whether to launch the suits in South Korea or in a third country, the official reportedly said. AFP also notes it is not known whether the ban would be sought just in South Korea, where Samsung is based, or internationally as well.
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(Feb 13, 2015 4:13 PM) Need a Valentine's gift? A perfect 100-carat diamond in a classic emerald-cut is going on the auction block, where it could fetch between $19 million to $25 million. Sotheby's will offer the white diamond on April 21 in New York. It's an internally flawless D color stone, which the auctioneer said is considered perfect. Sotheby's New York jewelry department head Gary Schuler likened the stone's transparency to a pool of icy water. The stone is the only classic emerald-cut white diamond of the highest color and clarity and over 100 carats to come to auction, according to Sotheby's. The diamond was mined in southern Africa within the last 10 years and weighed over 200 carats before it was cut and polished, the auction house said. The owner wished to remain anonymous. Only five perfect diamonds over 100 carats have sold at auction in the last 25 years, with a 118-carat oval-cut stone fetching $30.6 million at Sotheby's in 2013. It set a record for a white diamond.
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(Sep 13, 2013 6:05 AM CDT) A third person has died as floods continue to ravage northern Colorado, driving some 4,000 people out of Boulder late yesterday. Rainfall in the city has obliterated a 73-year record, with 12.3 inches falling since Sept. 1--compared to 5.5 in September 1940. Floodwater is pouring from neighboring Boulder Canyon, Reuters reports. There's so much water coming out of the canyon, it has to go somewhere, and unfortunately it's coming into the city, says an official. The Denver Post shares these jarring numbers: Boulder Creek typically flows at between 100 and 300 cubic feet per second; it hit 4,500 cfs this week. Further, a rep for the US Geological Survey says there was just a 1% chance Boulder would see a storm like this in a year, meaning the storm is a proverbial 100-year flood, writes the Post. Nearby Longmont has seen 7,000 evacuated, while the National Guard brought supplies to the town of Lyons, which has been cut off from neighboring areas. Landlines and cellphones aren't working in Estes Park, where the only functioning way to communicate with the outside world is via ham radio. With rain likely to continue today, President Obama declared a state of emergency for the state last night, CNN reports.
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(Apr 26, 2019 11:41 AM CDT) On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders noted that the administration doesn't comment on hostage negotiations, a remark necessitated by reports that North Korea billed the US $2 million for Otto Warmbier's hospice care before the 21-year-old student was sent back to the US in 2017. On Friday morning, however, President Trump headed over to Twitter to address the issue himself, the Washington Post reports. No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else, Trump tweeted. Trump doubled down on this claim while speaking with reporters Friday outside the White House, saying, We did not pay money for our great Otto. I haven't paid money for any hostage. ... We don't pay money for hostages. Sources tell the Post that the bill--which some, including Warmbier's father, think sounds like a ransom--made its way to the Treasury Department and stayed unpaid at least through 2017. In his tweet, Trump also said this is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terroist hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl! Those incidents are apparently references to a $400 million cash payment sent to Iran on the same day Iran released four US prisoners in 2016--the US says the cash wasn't a ransom--and the exchange of five Taliban members for US soldier Bowe Bergdahl. In a second tweet Friday, Trump quoted a Cheif [sic] Hostage Negotiator as saying, President Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. The White House has since clarified that Trump was referring to remarks made by Robert O'Brien, special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
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(Jan 23, 2013 7:12 AM) A Thai magazine editor was today sentenced to 10 years in prison for insulting the king. If that sounds extreme, consider this: Somyot Pruksakasemsuk didn't actually write the insults, he just published them. (The author has since fled to Cambodia.) And they didn't appear in articles of fact, but in two fiction stories. Oh, and they didn't actually mention King Bhumibol Adulyadej by name, reports the New York Times. One of the pieces published in the now-defunct magazine centered around a murderous ghost that the court determined was a stand-in for Bhumibol, in a tale that conveyed connection to historical events. In an unusual move, Pruksakasemsuk, 51, attempted to argue that the nation's lese majeste law--which allows for a sentence of up to 15 years for anyone who defames the country's royalty--trampled upon his right to free expression. The court wasn't buying it, however, and ruled that the king deserves special protection. Human rights groups and the EU were quick to denounce the ruling, with the latter noting it chips away at Thailand's image as a free and democratic society.
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(Feb 26, 2020 4:58 AM) At least 20 people in New Delhi, including one police officer, have been killed in three days of clashes between Hindus and Muslims coinciding with President Trump's visit to India. Authorities say nearly 200 people have been injured and the death toll is expected to rise as hospitals continue to take in the wounded, the AP reports. In the worst intercommunal riots in the Indian capital in decades, violence erupted between Hindu mobs and Muslims protesting a new citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalization for foreign-born religious minorities of all major faiths in South Asia except Islam. Relatives of Muslim victims accused police of standing by as the Hindu mobs torched buildings and beat people.
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(Apr 6, 2017 8:09 PM CDT) American Airlines has hit a sour note with one of its regulars. Per ABC7, musician John Kaboff was in his seat on a plane, headed to Chicago for work out of DC's Reagan National Airport, when he says both the flight attendant and pilot told him he couldn't travel with his companion: a $100,000 cello, which was in a paid-for seat right next to him. The 46-year-old says staff indicated the instrument was a safety risk because it was brushing the floor and wasn't strapped in; they also whipped out a set of rules indicating bass fiddles aren't allowed on 737s (though this was a cello, not a bass fiddle, as Kaboff told them). He said he was told that if he didn't voluntarily deplane he would be removed. A video Kaboff posted on Facebook Tuesday about his plight has been viewed thousands of times. American says its policy allows instruments to fly with their owners as long as those instruments weigh less than 165 pounds and fall within certain size parameters. Kaboff says his case-enclosed cello weighs only 70 pounds and is just over 4 feet long, and that airline staff wouldn't accommodate his request for a seat belt extension when he asked for one. American told ABC7 it got Kaboff and his instrument on the next flight into Chicago and refunded the $150 he paid for the cello's seat. Before humiliating a passenger in front of 150 people ... they should know what a cello is, says Kaboff, who adds he's flown on the airline, cello by his side, dozens of times over the past three years. (Barred from a plane, this violinist had the perfect response.)
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(Oct 2, 2008 3:59 AM CDT) Mega-pockets investor Warren Buffett is sinking $3 billion into General Electric, whose share prices have slumped a third amid the financial chaos on Wall Street, Reuters reports. Buffet, 78, negotiated a 10% dividend, which could generate $300 million income a year. The move comes a week after he invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Buffet plans to reap big profits once the market recovers from what he calls an economic Pearl Harbor. What Buffett has been waiting for is finally happening: a period of sufficient market distress when he can negotiate terrific financial terms, said an analyst. He has been waiting for this for 10 years.
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(May 27, 2011 1:40 AM CDT) Yet another bloody battle in Mexico's drug war has left at least 29 bodies in fake military uniforms lying dead among more than a dozen bullet-riddled vehicles in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit. Investigators believe the highway battle between members of the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels began when gunmen ambushed a convoy of gang vehicles, AP reports. In the nearby state of Michoacan, up to 2,000 people were forced to flee their homes this week by days of fierce fighting between cartel factions, the BBC reports. Officials say the refugees have begun to return their homes after spending several nights in shelters. The conflict between rival factions of the La Familia cartel began Monday but news of the fighting was slow to leak out because local media, on the orders of drug cartels, have largely ceased to cover drug violence, the Wall Street Journal notes.
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(Jun 13, 2014 12:04 PM CDT) A woman who was raped in Columbus, Ohio, said the 911 dispatcher she called after her attack had zero sympathy after the victim got this response during her call: Ma'am, you're going to have to quit crying so I can get the information from you. The victim was staying with a friend at a sorority house near Ohio State University last Sunday when she woke up with a gun to her head around 4am; the man holding it allegedly forced her to perform sex acts on him. After the alleged assault, he left with some stolen cash and an iPhone and the victim called 911, reports ABC News. Unfortunately, she didn't have the address, and hoped the dispatcher could figure it out by locating her phone. No. We can't. That's why I need to know where you are, the dispatcher reportedly said. The victim also didn't know what door the attacker came in. The dispatcher's response? Well, they're not going to be able to find him with the information that you've given. At this point, the victim lost it, telling the dispatcher, The kind of sympathy you have is zero. Since the suspect was arrested--30-year-old Michael Callaghan has been charged with rape and burglary--the dispatcher's supervisor won't reprimand the employee, but the call will be reviewed. (Last year, a 911 operator came under fire for laughing when a caller said his girlfriend was on fire.)
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(Dec 8, 2009 5:02 AM) Illegal concentrations of arsenic, radioactive materials like uranium, or bacteria have been found in more than a fifth of American water supplies in the last five years. Regulators were notified of the violations but penalties were imposed in only 6% of cases, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data. Contaminated water supplies affected some 49 million people--in some cases for years. The problem, officials say, is that the feds have failed to make enforcing laws on drinking water safety a priority. A top EPA official goes before a Senate panel today, and the agency is expected to announce an overhaul in its policing. Insiders, however, don't expect a sea change. The same people who told us to ignore Safe Drinking Water Act violations are still running the divisions, one EPA official says. There's no accountability, and so nothing's going to change.
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(Sep 29, 2010 6:56 AM CDT) What could be the biggest IT project the world has ever seen gets under way today in a tiny hamlet in northern India. The village in Maharashtra has been chosen for the launch of India's ambitious project to collect fingerprints and iris scans from all of its 1.2 billion people--and assign them unique 12-digit ID numbers. Experts of Indian origin from around the world have been recruited to help with the massive project, the Wall Street Journal reports. Registration is voluntary for now but the government, aiming to reduce fraud, plans to tie the biometric IDs to provision of social services. The project's backers say it will improve the lot of India's poor, who often have no documents to prove who they are. Some question whether India's less-than-reliable Internet infrastructure can handle that much data, but its creators promise that privacy will be strictly protected. Once the data reach central servers, it never leaves, its like a black hole, the project's architect tells the Times of India.
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(Jul 25, 2010 3:55 PM CDT) The Rolling Stones are planning a 50th-anniversary tour that will also serve as a farewell tour, the Daily Mail reports. They want to bow out on top of their game, and not short-change their fans, a source says of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood--whose combined age will be 268 when the tour launches next year.. The tour will wrap up in 2012, 50 years and 200 million albums sold after the band was formed--and 41 years after their first farewell tour. Wondering where you've heard about the Stones recently? Jagger figures in the new tell-all biography of Angelina Jolie.
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(Dec 20, 2019 9:06 AM) Looking to permanently while away your days overlooking the Tasman Sea and sipping on vino while watching nice animals with other nice people ? Karl Reipen wants to hear from you. The Guardian reports the German multimillionaire has placed an ad seeking 10 people up to age 70 to come live in what he calls his paradise, a 550-acre, $5.6 million estate in Awakino, on New Zealand's North Island. If you are interested to live a life with a Group of Interesting people it can be a new life for you, reads the ad, which Stuff NZ reports was published twice this week in the New Zealand Herald. Reipen, who made his fortune in canned iced coffee, notes in the ad that the estate boasts a winery for social meetings and dining, and that residents can enjoy walking, fishing, shopping, kayaking, bird watching, swimming or looking at the nice animals. There are also stables and an indoor equestrian center on-site, and Reipen says, If you would like to bring your own horse it is possible. Interested parties who prefer privacy will like that the property is an hour and a half from the nearest large town or city. The current government under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put in place a ban on foreigners owning homes in New Zealand, but Reipen scooped up the property years before that mandate. He still had to get the OK from the nation's Overseas Investment Office, which signed off on his purchase after it determined he had the experience and means to build the property up and maintain it. It took me 10 years to bring it to the standard of today, he writes in the ad. The New York Post notes it's not clear how future dwellers in Reipen's self-proclaimed utopia will be selected.
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(Oct 5, 2008 7:27 PM CDT) The Chicago White Sox staved off elimination today with solid starting pitching and a fastball that left Evan Longoria looking, MLB.com reports. John Danks held the Tampa Bay Rays to 3 runs over 6 2/3 innings in the 5-3 victory. When a two-run homer by B.J. Upton got Danks pulled in the seventh, reliever Octavio Dotel squelched the Rays' rally by striking out superstar Longoria.
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(Nov 8, 2011 2:49 PM) Turn on the tube or radio tomorrow at 2pm Eastern time, and you'll be witness to the first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. It's expected to last about 30 seconds. Though the system has been used locally for concerns like weather alerts, this is the first time it will be tested at the national level, ABC News reports. Homeland Security and the FCC want to examine how the system functions and make sure it's clear to people who are hard of hearing or don't speak English fluently. Because of the system design, not all of you will see the crawl that says this is a test, says FEMA chief Craig Fugate. It will say this is an emergency alert. But we want you to understand this is a test. FEMA has more information and videos here.
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(Jun 18, 2011 10:27 AM CDT) In the aftermath of a 1972 earthquake that leveled 50,000 buildings and killed 10,000 in Nicaragua's capital city of Managua, many of the country's poor had no place to go. While 250,000 of their middle- and upper-class counterparts migrated to safer, more habitable locales, the less fortunate occupied the crumbling remains of the few standing vacated apartment buildings. Four decades later, the government has relocated those 103 families to new homes, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness in the US explains what took so long: The larger the disaster, the more necessary it is to have the government as the principal driver of recovery, especially in the developing world. Though many Nicaraguan refugees are relieved to move away from the dangers of falling apartment buildings where vigilante law prevailed, spending 40 years in one spot will bring apprehensions about change. New beginnings are hard, one refugee says. But we have a house, we have a roof, and we have water. And that's what's important.
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(Sep 17, 2015 11:48 AM CDT) Air pollution is killing 3.3 million people a year worldwide, according to a new study that includes this surprise: Farming plays a large role in smog and soot deaths in industrial nations. Scientists from Harvard and in Germany, Cyprus, and Saudi Arabia used health statistics and computer models for the study, published yesterday in the journal Nature, to calculate the most detailed estimates yet of air pollution's toll. About three quarters of the deaths are from strokes and heart attacks, says lead author Jos Lelieveld at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, with air pollution killing more people than HIV and malaria combined. The study also projects that if trends don't change, the yearly death total will double to about 6.6 million a year by 2050. With nearly 1.4 million deaths a year, China has the most air pollution fatalities, followed by India with 645,000 and Pakistan with 110,000. The US, with 54,905 deaths in 2010 from soot and smog, ranks seventh highest for air pollution deaths. What's unusual is that the study says agriculture caused 16,221 of those deaths, second only to 16,929 deaths blamed on power plants. The problem with farms: ammonia from fertilizer and animal waste that combines with sulfates from coal-fired power plants and nitrates from car exhaust to form the soot particles that are the big air pollution killers, Lelieveld says. It's not all bad news: A Carnegie Mellon engineering professor says there are ways to reduce that ammonia air pollution at relatively low costs, and Lelieveld said says if the world reduces carbon dioxide--the main gas causing global warming--soot and smog levels will be cut as well.
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(Aug 12, 2010 2:39 PM CDT) Beleaguered oil giant BP has agreed to pay a record $50.6 million fine for failing to correct safety hazards at its Texas City oil refinery after a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it is still working to collect another $30 million from BP Products North America for other penalties the company is contesting. OSHA officials have blamed the explosion on a piece of equipment that overfilled with flammable liquid hydrocarbons. Alarms and gauges that were supposed to warn of the overfill did not work properly. The size of the penalty rightly reflects BP's disregard for workplace safety and shows that we will enforce the law so workers can return home safe at the end of their day, said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. While the fines pale compared to the billions BP is committed to paying out for damages caused by the massive oil spill in the Gulf, it stands as the largest penalty issued in OSHA's history.
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(Dec 21, 2012 1:47 PM) Chuck Hagel apologized today for a 1998 incident in which he described prospective ambassador James Hormel openly and aggressively gay. Democratic activists have been railing against the incident lately, in light of Hagel's rumored candidacy for defense secretary, Politico reports. Ambassadorial posts are sensitive, Hagel said in a 1998 newspaper interview. And I think it is an inhibiting factor to be gay--openly and aggressively gay like Mr. Hormel--to do an effective job. President Obama hasn't actually nominated Hagel yet, but you wouldn't know it based on the battles raging around him--this week, Obama took what Politico describes as an extraordinary step by publicly defending Hagel against attacks related to Israel. My comments 14 years ago in 1998 were insensitive, Hagel said in today's statement. They do not reflect my views or the totality of my public record, and I apologize to Ambassador Hormel and any LGBT Americans who may question my commitment to their civil rights.
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(Apr 21, 2017 6:13 AM CDT) Though a prison official initially said Aaron Hernandez left no suicide note, three notes were in fact found in his cell at Massachusetts' Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, reports the Boston Globe. A statement from Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. confirmed the handwritten notes were found next to a Bible in the cell following his death, ruled a suicide by the state medical examiner on Thursday. But a rep for Early wouldn't say to whom they had been written. Sources tell TMZ that one was addressed to the general public. However, sources tell CBS Boston that there was a note each for Hernandez's mother, fiancee, and 4-year-old daughter, reading, I love you and please don't cry. The investigation has found Hernandez was alone in his cell when he used a bed sheet to hang himself sometime after 8pm Tuesday, the last time he was checked by guards before being found dead around 3am. A lawyer for Hernandez says the former NFLer spoke to his fiancee on the phone until 8pm. The corrections officer who found Hernandez has apparently been detached with pay after admitting to missing a 2am check, per CBS Boston. It reports cardboard had been stuffed into the door tracks of Hernandez's cell and the floor made slick with soapy water, apparently to impede corrections officers. Hernandez had also written John 3:16 on his forehead and wall of his cell. Sources say he also carved an unknown word in his arm. There were no signs of a struggle, per Early's statement.
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(Nov 21, 2013 2:47 PM) A Silicon Valley jury today added $290 million more to the damages Samsung Electronics owes Apple for copying vital iPhone and iPad features, bringing the total amount the South Korean technology titan is on the hook for to $930 million. The verdict covers 13 older Samsung devices that a previous jury found were among 26 Samsung products that infringed Apple patents. The previous jury awarded Apple $1.05 billion. But US District Judge Lucy Koh reduced the damages to $640 million after ruling that jury miscalculated the amount owed on 13 devices and ordered a new trial. Apple had asked for $380 million, arguing Samsung's copying cost it a significant amount of sales. Samsung countered that it owed only $52 million because the features at issue weren't the reasons most consumers chose to buy Samsung's devices instead of Apple's. Samsung said it would appeal both verdicts. A third trial is scheduled for March to consider Apple's claims that Samsung's newest devices such as the popular Galaxy S III on the market also copied Apple's technology.
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(Nov 3, 2020 6:49 AM) Four victims have been confirmed dead following a terror attack in Vienna in which at least one shooter fired at people enjoying a night out in the city on the eve of a national lockdown. The death toll includes two men and two women, in addition to one shooter. Fifteen others, including a police officer, were seriously injured, seven of whom suffered life-threatening injuries, per Sky News. A 20-year-old dual citizen of Austria and North Macedonia, who had a previous terrorism conviction, was shot and killed by police, according to Austrian security officials. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the man--who was carrying an assault rifle and wearing a fake suicide vest--was a radicalized Islamic State sympathizer, per CNN. Authorities used explosives to enter the man's home, where videos were seized. At least one other suspect could be at large. Shots rang out in the shopping and dining district near Vienna's main synagogue around 8pm Monday, four hours before a second coronavirus lockdown was to go into effect. They were shooting at least 100 rounds just outside our building, Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister tells Sky News, adding he saw at least one person shooting at people seated outside bars. Police, who initially described six crime scenes, are reviewing more than 20,000 submitted videos while cautioning residents to stay indoors. We will defend our freedom and democracy together and resolutely by all means, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said, per NBC News. Nehammer said the attack was a completely useless attempt to weaken our democratic society or to divide it. We do not tolerate this in any way or from anyone. (This comes days after a terror attack in France.)
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(Mar 25, 2020 11:50 AM CDT) An interesting finding out of Wuhan: A small six-day study in February of Chinese COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized and on ventilators found that their lungs benefited from them lying facedown. In a research letter published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the researchers share the details of how 12 patients with severe COVID-19 infection-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)--67% to 85% of ICU patients with the coronavirus develop ARDS, per the letter--who were on mechanical ventilation and receiving positive pressure fared. It's a very high-risk group, with the letter stating that an observational study for 52 patients with ARDS found a 61.5% mortality rate. The doctors measured how the patients' lungs responded to pressure (called lung recruitability) and found that patients who had at least one session of being positioned facedown experienced increased lung recruitability, per a press release. Those who didn't had poor lung recruitability. It is only a small number of patients, but our study shows that ... the lung improves when the patient is in the prone position, says Dr. Chun Pan. CNN flags some other data being released on COVID-19 patients: The mortality rate for men seems to be higher. Per CNN's analysis of publicly available data, for every 10 female cases in Italy there were 14 male cases, but for every 10 women who have died there, 24 men have died. It lists stats for five more countries here.
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(Sep 16, 2015 7:00 PM CDT) Officials expect General Motors will be fined hundreds of millions of dollars in a settlement over faulty ignition switches that resulted in 124 deaths and 273 injuries, NBC News reports. A settlement between GM and the Justice Department could come as early as tomorrow, though the Wall Street Journal--citing people familiar with the matter --warns any deal could still fall apart. Last year, the government accused GM of taking too long to disclose the ignition switch problem in violation of federal law, NBC reports. The government alleges GM knew about defect--which could shut off the car's engine without warning, disabling airbags and power steering and brakes--for more than a decade before finally reporting it. The Journal reports the settlement will likely come with a charge of criminal wire fraud against GM for making misleading statements and hiding information about the problem. For example, a government report found GM avoided using the word stall when discussing the issue to avoid people thinking it was a safety problem. According to sources cited by the Journal and NBC, GM will be fined somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. The amount is expected to be less than the $1.2 billion Toyota was fined in a similar case last year because GM cooperated with the government investigation, the Journal reports. According to NBC, GM has already paid out at least $1 million to each victim or victim's family.
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(Dec 8, 2018 6:00 AM) Three young women, two young men, and a mom who'd taken her daughter to a rap concert at a nightclub in Corinaldo, Italy, have died, and dozens more have been injured, after a moment of panic that led to a stampede Saturday. Police rep Col. Cristian Corrazza tells the AP the ages of the deceased teens range from 14 to 16, while the mother who died was 39; he adds that more than a dozen of those injured are said to be in serious condition. The tragedy is being partly blamed on the Lanterna Azzurra ( Blue Lantern ) club being overcrowded--Corrazza notes up to 1,000 were reported inside--and also on something akin to pepper spray that may have prompted the panic, per NDTV. The cause may have been the dispersal of a stinging substance, the young people fled and trampled over each other, the local fire department tweeted.
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(Aug 6, 2017 2:10 PM CDT) Mike Pence is at the center of a juicy DC rumor--and he's not having it. Per the AP, Pence released a statement Sunday disavowing a New York Times story that reports he's among Republicans gearing up for a shot at the White House in 2020 should Trump decide not to run for reelection. Pence's statement said the article is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family, and our entire team. It called the allegations categorically false, laughable and absurd, and described them as an attempt by the media to divide the Trump administration. The Times piece looks at members of the GOP who are possibly laying the groundwork for shadow campaigns, citing political maneuvers and fundraising by senators Cotton and Sasse as well as Ohio Gov. John Kasich. But the article considers Pence at length, calling him the pacesetter, with mentions of his fundraising committee recently racking up $1 million at a Washington fundraiser, and his robust political event schedule. It says unnamed advisers to the vice president have indicated to donors that Pence is interested in a presidential bid, but only if Trump doesn't seek another term. Kellyanne Conway doubled down on Pence's statement during media rounds, saying, It is absolutely true the vice president is getting ready for 2020--for reelection as vice president on ABC's This Week. A New York Times spokeswoman told the AP in an email statement that the paper is confident in the accuracy of our reporting and will let the story speak for itself.
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(Aug 25, 2012 2:09 PM CDT) Even $20 million can't lure Katy Perry onto American Idol. Apparently trying to upgrade its judges from musical has-beens to superstars, Idol offered her $18 million and tossed in another $2 million for a single season's work--to no avail, TMZ reports. Sources say she didn't object to the money, but has a busy schedule and doesn't like backwards career moves. Quips TMZ: Mariah must be one pissed, $18 million judge.
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(Mar 18, 2014 9:58 AM CDT) The fight against colon cancer through screening is one of the great public health success stories of the decade, says a top figure at the American Cancer Society: In people over 50, colon cancer rates have dropped by 30% over the past decade, researchers say. That's mostly thanks to screening through colonoscopies, which aim to spot polyps before they become a problem, USA Today reports. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of 50- to 64-year-olds who have received the procedure has almost tripled. Among the 65-plus set, 64% had had a colonoscopy in 2010, compared to 55% in 2000. Between 2008 and 2010, colon cancer rates fell 7.2% per year, while death rates from the disease have dropped about 3% per year over 10 years. Still, it's the third leading cause of cancer death in the US, and the ACS expects 50,310 to die from the disease this year, with 136,830 new diagnoses. The progress is driving an effort to get 80% of those over age 50 screened by 2018, NPR reports. Some 23 million people between ages 50 and 75 still haven't been screened. Money stands in the way for many: Fewer than half of those who are uninsured or lack primary care health providers have been screened, NPR notes.
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(Aug 17, 2017 12:00 PM CDT) They were healthy, with no history of cancer in the family, but within a year of each other, a father and son have died--the 76-year-old dad last year after fighting seven different cancers over 13 years. The common link: Both Raymond Alexander and his son, Robert, who died Monday at 43 of brain cancer, were 9/11 first responders, per the Washington Post. The firefighters' deaths make it the first time, post September 11, 2001, where the 9/11 attacks have claimed the lives of two generations in a single family, notes a statement from the Uniformed Firefighters Association president. Raymond, with the FDNY at the time, and Robert, an NYPD officer, both were off on 9/11, but they rushed to the scene and worked in the poisonous debris for days. Raymond's struggle with various forms of cancer began a couple of years later, and Robert was diagnosed with a brain tumor in November 2014. The UFA statement notes the nearly 150 firefighters and fire officers who've since died from 9/11-linked illnesses. Robert was an active lobbyist, even in his last days, for reupping legislation to pay for medical costs of first responders made ill from 9/11's toxins. Through their jobs of public service, then their illnesses, the Alexanders (described by loved ones as quiet, humble men of few words ) forged a deeper connection than I could understand, Robert's brother Raymond tells the Post. In 2015, Robert told the New York Daily News that, despite his illness, he never regretted heading to Ground Zero. I would do it again, he said. His fellow firefighters today recognize that dedication. New York City and the country will never forget the sacrifices that Bobby, his father, and many more of our brave firefighters have made, the UFA statement reads. (Another 9/11 victim was just ID'd this summer.)
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(Apr 9, 2020 8:12 AM CDT) Chynna Rogers, the Philadelphia rapper who had breakout hits with 2013's Selfie and 2014's Glen Coco, has died at the age of 25. Chynna was deeply loved and will be sorely missed, her family wrote in a statement, per Pitchfork. Rogers' manager tells People that she died Wednesday at her Philly home; the cause of death wasn't immediately clear. Rogers--who just released her latest four-song EP, In Case I Die First, in December--started out as a model for the Ford agency when she was just 14, after a scout spotted her at the Six Flags Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey, per Yahoo Entertainment. A year later, she found herself under the wing of ASAP Yams, the late founder of the ASAP Mob (the rap collective from which ASAP Rocky emerged), after she tweeted to him she wanted to be his intern. ASAP Yams died of a drug overdose in 2015. Despite her youth, Rogers addressed serious issues in her music, including her own struggles with an addiction to opiates and her desire to finally get sober. I felt crazy, she said in a 2017 interview with Vibe. I didn't want to be a statistic. I didn't want to go out that way and people be like 'I told you so, or glamorize ... [drugs], because I don't feel like that. In an interview the next year with Pitchfork--which noted her honesty can be as crushing as it is captivating, but more than that, it's necessary --Rogers said her music served as a form of escapism for her, as well as a way for her fans to get through tough times of their own. [It's] for angry people with too much pride to show how angry they are, she said. Rogers is survived by her father and three siblings.
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(Dec 17, 2018 3:04 PM) The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 500 points, its second straight drop of that size and its fourth big decline this month, the AP reports. Longtime market favorites like Microsoft and Amazon took heavy losses Monday. Health care companies also fell sharply. A measure of small-company stocks fell into a bear market, a decline of 20% below their recent peak. The market is now well into the red for the year and the S&P 500 index is trading at its lowest level since October 2017. The S&P 500 fell 54 points, or 2.1%, to 2,545. The Dow lost 507 points, or 2.1%, to 23,592. The Nasdaq composite lost 156 points, or 2.3%, to 6,753.
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(NoneDate) Last week, conservatives and Tea Party activists had a field day with the generic poll from Gallup showing a 10% lead over a generic Democratic candidate. This week, Republicans and Democrats are tied at 46% among registered voters. Has the tsunami fizzled out? Was last week's surge just a polling blip? No one can honestly say at this point. Whether the 2010 race has shifted more permanently to a more competitive positioning will be apparent in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, even the current tie in the generic ballot among registered voters points to a better year for Republicans than for Democrats, given the GOP's usual advantage in voter turnout in midterm elections. Read the full poll results at Gallup.
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(Aug 14, 2012 7:41 AM CDT) Crop farmers are on track to record about $18 billion in losses thanks to this year's historically nasty drought--and by one expert's estimate, the federal government is on the hook for about $10 billion of that, thanks to the heavily subsidized federal crop insurance program, the Washington Post reports. Though farmers technically buy the policies from private insurers, the federal government guarantees those insurers against losses. It also pays 60% of farmers' premiums, which this year amounted to an extra $9 billion. The program has been criticized for encouraging farmers to till risky land they otherwise wouldn't. If the government takes on much of the risk in farming, paradoxically, farmers adopt riskier production practices, says one American Enterprise Institute scholar. Environmentalists also say it leads to overfarming, and a report out yesterday noted that more than 23 million acres of grass and wetlands--an area the size of Indiana--were converted to farmland between 2008 and 2011. Yet Congress is currently poised to expand the program, as a consolation for cutting lump-sum farm subsidies, much to farmers' delight.
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(Nov 25, 2011 3:32 PM) The Black Friday craziness continues: Mashable points to a truly terrifying video of Walmart shoppers completely losing it over a display of $2 waffle makers. Mediaite, meanwhile, spotted the second video in the gallery below, in which police officers reportedly deployed pepper spray on over-enthusiastic Walmart shoppers in North Carolina. Gawker also has a good collection of insane videos, two of which are highlighted here. Click for more scenes from the day, or read about another, even more disturbing, pepper spray incident.
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(Sep 11, 2013 2:47 PM CDT) Officials at Boston's Logan Airport are apologizing for holding a fire drill, complete with smoke and flames, on the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. And yes, you're remembering correctly: The two hijacked jets that were flown into the World Trade Center towers that day had taken off from Logan. Gov. Deval Patrick, who did not know in advance about the drill, had two words for the timing, per the Globe: just dumb. The Massachusetts Port Authority, the public agency that runs the airport, has apologized and says it understands that it may have offended many of those touched by the events of Sept. 11. The runway fire drill, announced on the airport's Facebook page, drew harsh condemnation online, and it wasn't the only social media-related faux pas of the day. AT&T is getting slammed for an ill-thought-out tweet that comboed the words Never Forget with an image of a BlackBerry Z10 bearing the Tribute in Light memorial on the device's screen. ArsTechnica--which quips Never forget (to photograph those lights with your AT&T smartphone) --notes that @ATT got a sea of expletives in response. CNNMoney reports the tweet came down an hour later, and was followed by a tweet apologizing to anyone who felt our post was in poor taste. Meanwhile, the Marriott chain is taking lumps for a sign at one of its hotels: In remembrance of those we lost on 9/11 the hotel will offer complimentary coffee and mini muffins from 8:45-9:15am. Daily Intel has the resulting apology.
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(Oct 12, 2010 1:30 AM CDT) Joan Sutherland, the soprano Luciano Pavarotti once called the voice of the century, has died at her home in Switzerland at age 83. The Australian-born singer--known as La Stupenda or The Stupendous One to opera audiences--became one of the most celebrated opera singers of all time thanks to her warm, vibrant sound and ability to sing evenly over an astonishing range, the AP notes. Sutherland's voice helped revitalize the school of early 19th-century Italian opera known as bel canto. Her magnificent voice, with its enormous range and power, and the interpretations she brought not only to standard repertoire operas but also to bel canto works that had nearly been forgotten, ensure a permanent place for her in the history of our art, said Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, who first worked with Sutherland when he made his US debut in 1961.
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(Dec 6, 2016 1:33 PM) A Florida woman who became lost during a half-marathon trail run was found past nightfall after wandering around a 25,000-acre park for nearly 12 hours, per the AP. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports Melissa Kitcher was in good spirits after being found Sunday evening. She says she made a wrong turn more than 3 miles into the 13.1-mile run. Race director Thierry Rouillard says he had no idea Kitcher was still on the trail until her husband called late Sunday afternoon, hours after the Trail Hog run had finished. Sarasota County Sheriff's Office deputies began searching soon after. Kitcher says her cellphone froze before the race, but she never really worried since she knew her family would come looking for her. She plans to run the Sarasota Half Marathon in March and finish.
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(Jun 12, 2014 10:52 AM CDT) Tanishq Abraham has modest goals for a 10-year-old--he'd like to cure cancer and become president. Which probably seems realistic to the Sacramento prodigy, because Abraham just became one of the youngest children to ever graduate high school, earning him a letter of congratulations from Barack Obama. It wasn't, like, easy, but it was not that hard either, Abraham tells ABC 10. The way my brain works is that when you give me something, information about that topic comes into my mind. I don't know what it is but that's how it is for me. Abraham became the youngest-ever member of MENSA at age 4--his IQ is in the 99.9th percentile--and he began pestering his mother to let him take college paleontology classes at age 6, Yahoo Shine reports. He's been homeschooled since skipping the first grade, while simultaneously taking courses from American River College. He'll enroll there as a full-time student in September, and expects to have an associate's degree by the end of the fall semester. From there, he hopes to attend Harvard, MIT, or Cornell. Abraham's 8-year-old sister is also in MENSA, making the family almost as impressive as this one.
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(Feb 9, 2019 6:30 AM) Dozens of victims of a 2015 duck boat crash in Washington state that killed five and injured more than 60 have just been handed a hefty sum by a Seattle jury. After what Law.com calls a marathon trial that started back in October--one of the plaintiff's attorneys says it was the longest personal-injury case ever in the Evergreen State--a $123 million payout was ordered for the almost 40 victims and families. The vehicle from local tour operator Ride the Ducks of Seattle was going over the Aurora Bridge on Sept. 24, 2015, when it collided with a charter bus filled with college students. The lawsuit alleged one of the duck boat's axle's had busted, leading to the accident. The jury found Ride the Ducks of Seattle about one-third at fault for the crash, while placing two-thirds of the blame for the accident on Ride the Ducks International, which built the vehicle, per the AP and MyNorthwest.com. The plaintiffs' complaint had alleged that Ride the Ducks of Seattle had dismissed a 2013 service announcement to take care of a known axle flaw; all other Ride the Ducks operations outside of Seattle had reportedly made the fix. I hope [the award] will inspire other people to bring these lawsuits against, at least, this company that put this product on the marketplace, so all the vehicles on the roads are no longer on the roads, the plaintiffs' lead trial attorney, Karen Koehler, said, per Law.com. (The captain of a duck boat that sank in Missouri last summer, killing 17, was indicted in the fall.)
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(Jul 27, 2017 1:35 PM CDT) Melania Trump is heading out on her first solo foreign trip as first lady. She'll lead the US delegation to the Invictus Games, an international sporting events competition in which wounded service members participate, the Hill reports. Ninety US athletes are heading to Toronto for the third annual games, which start Sept. 23 and last for one week. In a statement, Trump says she is heartened by the great success of the games in the two years since Prince Harry founded them. She will meet the British royal during the event, USA Today reports.
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(Jun 11, 2020 3:48 AM CDT) The US has passed yet another grim milestone in the pandemic. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the US hit the 2 million mark Wednesday night, with almost 113,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, tells CNN that deaths could top 200,000 by September. I think right now, most Americans are not ready to lock back down, and I completely understand that, he says. Here's the bottom line, though, which is that--I understand people are willing to live alongside this virus. It means that between 800 and 1,000 Americans are going to die every single day. The number of new coronavirus cases is falling in states that were hit hard early on, including New York, but cases are rising in 21 states, including Texas, California, and Arizona, where a steep rise in hospitalizations has alarmed authorities, the New York Times reports. The AP reports that more than 1,000 new cases are being reported in Arizona daily, including 1,500 on Wednesday. That's up from fewer than 400 a day in mid-May, when Gov. Doug Ducey ended stay-at-home orders. In the South, reports of new cases are falling in Alabama but rising in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Florida.
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(May 16, 2019 10:30 AM CDT) The battle between Tom Petty's kids and his widow rages on. Last month, competing petitions were filed by Dana York Petty and Petty's daughters, Adria Petty and Annakim Violette, all involving control of such things as Petty's estate in general and song catalog in particular. Now Variety reports the ante has been upped, with a lawsuit for at least $5 million in damages filed against York Petty, alleging that the wife of the late singer isn't allowing the Petty daughters equal participation in decisions on matters regarding Petty's estate. Tom Petty wanted his music and his legacy to be controlled equally by his daughters, Adria and Annakim, and his wife, Dana, attorney Alex Weingarten says in a statement to Billboard. Dana has refused Tom's express wishes and insisted instead upon misappropriating Tom's life's work for her own selfish interests. The suit was filed by Weingarten on behalf of Petty Unlimited, the LLC set up in Petty's will that gave one-third of his assets to each of the three women. The complaint accuses York Petty of self-dealing, theft, and gross mismanagement of company assets, alleging she set up a separate LLC. An attorney for York Petty is hitting back. This misguided and meritless lawsuit sadly demonstrates exactly why Tom Petty designated his wife to be the sole trustee with authority to manage his estate, Adam Streisand says. Dana will not allow destructive nonsense like this to distract her from protecting her husband's legacy.
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(Jun 14, 2019 11:27 AM CDT) Anyone placing bets on whether Julian Assange will be extradited to the US won't see a windfall or have to pay up until 2020. On Friday it was decided in Westminster Magistrates' Court that a full extradition hearing would take place beginning Feb. 25, 2020. The BBC reports it will likely last 5 days. The AP reports interim hearings will likely take place in July and October. Assange appeared via video link, telling magistrates 175 years of my life is effectively at stake. He described WikiLeaks as simply a publisher; Ben Brandon, the British lawyer representing the US, countered that Assange prodded Chelsea Manning to access documents illegally and cracked a Pentagon computer's password. I didn't break any password whatsoever, Assange piped up, per the Guardian. The DOJ has charged Assange under the Espionage Act; Assange's lawyer dubbed the case an outrageous and full-frontal assault on journalistic rights. As for Assange's health, which has previously been reported as poor, the AP notes the 47-year-old appeared to be tired and showed signs of a possible hand tremor.
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(Jul 23, 2012 3:35 AM CDT) While Democrats and Republicans argue about who should get tax cuts in America--those making $250,000 a year or $1 million annually--the really, really megarich are hiding some real money around the world in tax havens and sheltered offshore accounts reports the Guardian. In fact, at least $21 trillion (and up to $32 trillion) is stashed in offshore accounts around the world, according to a new report by the Tax Justice Network. And while about 10 million people have offshore assets, the top 92,000 of them--0.001% of the world's population--account for some $10 trillion of those funds. These estimates reveal a staggering failure: Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, the head of the Tax Justice Network is quoted as saying in the New York Daily News.
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(May 13, 2009 2:08 PM CDT) Anna Nicole Smith's ex and two of her doctors pleaded not guilty today to charges of illegally giving her prescription pills for years before her death, TMZ reports. Howard K. Stern and the physicians were charged with felonies as part of a 2-year investigation into the former Playmate's 2007 overdose, the Los Angeles Times reports. California's AG has called Stern Smith's principal enabler.
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(Nov 16, 2015 1:19 AM) Five Guantanamo Bay inmates who had been held without charge for almost 14 years have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates, the Defense Department announced Sunday, marking the first time that the Gulf nation has accepted Guantanamo inmates from other countries. The men, who had been designated as enemy combatants, were lower-level detainees who were captured after the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2001, the New York Times reports. Like dozens of other Gitmo inmates, the men are Yemeni nationals who were still in US custody because their homeland was considered too unstable to release them to, reports the AP. There are now 107 detainees remaining at the facility, and sources tell the Times that up to 17 more transfers of lower-level detainees are in the works. The release of detainees has accelerated over the last few months as the Obama administration looks into ways of closing the facility permanently. The administration is showing that if it wants to close Guantanamo, it can, and it can do it the right way by releasing people and stop holding them without charge, a Human Rights Watch spokeswoman tells the Washington Post. I assume the message came down pretty clearly from the president to the secretary of defense that the time is now. (The Pentagon has been eyeing a facility in Colorado as a possible future home for Guantanamo inmates.)
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(Jun 20, 2017 11:30 AM CDT) As a Georgia correctional officer lay unconscious on the ground, six inmates surrounded him. Then one reached toward the officer's belt and grabbed, not his gun, but his cellphone. As the inmate called 911, the others removed the officer's bulletproof vest so they could perform CPR. It wasn't about who is in jail and who wasn't, one of the inmates tells WXIA. It was about a man going down and we had to help him. Polk County authorities say the officer was supervising a work detail at a cemetery last Monday, in 76-degree heat with 100% humidity, when he told the inmates he wasn't feeling well and soon after collapsed. My guys were thinking the worst on their way over there, Polk County Sheriff Johnny Moats tells WSB Radio. When they got there, all the inmates were with the officer. All were accounted for. They took care of him. An inmate says the officer at first appeared as though he wasn't breathing, though he regained consciousness about a minute later, with breaths coming real heavy and real fast. The officer then received medical attention and is now doing fine, per WXIA. To thank the inmates, who really stepped up in a time of crisis, the sheriff's office provided them with a free pizza lunch. The officer's family provided dessert. (Something like this happened before.)
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(Jan 10, 2016 10:32 AM) Nona Willis Aronowitz describes herself as a subway rider who isn't much of a primper, uses the laundromat, and shops mainly at H&M and Buffalo Exchange. And yet in the last six weeks, she bought a $500 Diane von Furstenberg dress, sent out her laundry, Ubered $30-plus rides on at least five occasions, and acquired a $32 salt scrub that she hasn't really used because it stings my hangnails. That's just part of the catalog of purchases she's made after trying to spend her way through her stress and anxiety. Two days after Thanksgiving, she found herself the caretaker for her 82-year-old father, who had suffered a serious stroke; in tandem with that, her partner underwent several pre-arranged surgeries. My life became a blur of errands and chores and emotional breakdowns ; retail therapy followed. And so she found herself in that DVF store, like Vivian on Rodeo Drive, [the saleswoman] kvelling when one of her offerings achieved a particularly fetching silhouette. I bought the dress; she gave me a hug. That hug was a big part of it. As Aronowitz writes at the Billfold, I've been craving not only these luxurious items but human kindness, too. Not the pitying kindness one normally gets during a family crisis, but the bland, deferential kindness that makes me feel calmer and wealthier than I really am. ... I've been feeling isolated and overworked and failed by bigger institutions, and I can offset those feelings by paying people to be nice to me. Read her full piece to find out where she's at now, and what else she learned along the way.
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(Apr 10, 2014 3:24 PM CDT) A fourth-grader is being hailed as a hero for keeping his cool and saving his dad's life after a snowmobile accident, reports KTVU-TV. Bode Beirdneau, 9, and his father were snowmobiling in South Lake Tahoe when dad John Taylor lost control of his machine and ended up pinned beneath it with a broken leg. Bode couldn't dig him out and had no choice but to hop back on his snowmobile in the remote locale and try to find help. I freaked out because I didn't know where to go, he tells the Marin Independent Journal. But he soon calmed down, riding for about 20 minutes until he came across a tourist group whose leader radioed for help. Then the tricky part: Bode led them back to his dad without a GPS device. He showed a lot of maturity for his age, says a California Highway Patrol officer. It's the calm and composure he had during the whole thing.
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(Apr 13, 2014 2:06 PM CDT) A Pennsylvania man is kicking himself right about now. Last month, he bought 25 Quinto lottery tickets that won $50,000 each--or $1.25 million total--but never claimed them, probably because he misread the tickets, the York Daily Record reports. He was mad, said Wendy Hinton, who works at the grocery store where the tickets were bought. He was so mad he played $400 that day. The man, unnamed by the Record, lived a couple of blocks away and bought about $100 in tickets per day using the exact same numbers--either 20 or 25. The Pennsylvania Lottery had been wondering what happened to those tickets, since only about 1% go unclaimed. Oh, no, said a lottery spokeswoman when she heard. Wow. The Lottery had sent out a release saying whoever owned the tickets had until March 13 to claim the winnings. In other Pennsylvania lottery news, a man will have to face charges for allegedly stripping naked and causing a ruckus when told he was too late to buy tickets at an Allentown convenience store, the Morning Call reports. Police say he then tried to rob a store across the street and was chased out by employees, into the arms of arriving police officers.
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(Jan 3, 2014 9:07 AM) While working a solo shift on New Year's Eve, an Arizona astronomer spotted a car-sized asteroid en route to Earth. There are a few amazing things about this: 1) It's only the second time ever that an asteroid has been spotted before impact, and 2) The previous one was spotted by the same guy. Astronomer Rich Kowalski is part of the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona, a group that has found more than half the near-Earth asteroids known to mankind, the head of the lab tells the Arizona Daily Star. The asteroid, called 2014 AA, almost definitely broke apart in the atmosphere about a day later, reports New Scientist, its pieces falling harmlessly into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. Kowalski's prior spotting, the similarly-sized 2008 TC3, had a similarly harmless impact over Sudan, where pieces of it have since been found. There's a reason these rocks aren't spotted often--this one was 150,000 times less bright than the faintest star you can see with your naked eye, according to Phil Plait at Slate. But it also points to how important it is to look, lest the next rock be more threatening. It's yet another reminder that near-Earth space is a busy place, the Sky Survey's director said. (To wit, there's a small chance a big asteroid could hit in 2032.)
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(May 22, 2009 5:05 AM CDT) Florida's BankUnited went bust yesterday as the FDIC seized the critically undercapitalized bank and sold it off to a private-equity team including Blackstone, reports the Wall Street Journal. BankUnited's troubles stemmed from overeager moves in the housing market. It specialized in loans for foreigners wanting to buy Florida property. After Indymac, BankUnited is the largest bank failure since the start of the financial crisis. The already weakened FDIC reckons the bust will cost it $4.9 billion.
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(Nov 3, 2009 8:02 AM) Oh, to be a celebrity. Kiefer Sutherland recently racked up a $700 bar tab in just one morning--yes, morning. After wrapping up a recent 24 shoot, Sutherland and the crew hit a California bar, where he bought drinks for all 30 people in the establishment from 7am to 1pm. The booze-only bill came to $500, and Sutherland--who this time had a designated driver--left a $200 tip, TMZ reports.
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(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.
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(Jun 15, 2010 3:11 AM CDT) At least 29 inmates were killed yesterday as drug cartels clashed at a prison in Mexico's Sinaloa state. Three policeman guarding the prison were injured, and 20 inmates were shot to death when one gang forced its way into another cell block and opened fire on its rivals, AP reports. One wounded man died later in hospital and eight inmates were stabbed to death later in the day. The group attacked were members of the Zetas cartel, according to local media. In Michoacan state, headquarters of the La Familia cartel, ten federal police officers were killed in an ambush the same day. Police say the attackers blocked a highway with a truck and machine-gunned a police convoy when it stopped, the BBC reports. Several of the attackers were killed or wounded when police returned fire.
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(Sep 4, 2014 10:00 AM CDT) Dozens of protesters have been arrested in at least two cities so far today during nationwide protests seeking $15 an hour for fast-food workers, reports the AP. At least three people in McDonald's work clothes in New York's Times Square and about two dozen demonstrators at a Detroit Mickey D's were handcuffed and taken away because they were blocking traffic, cops say. Protesters in about 150 cities are participating in the Fight for $15 campaign, according to union organizers who planned the event. The current minimum hourly wage in Michigan is $8.15; in New York, it's $8, reports the National Conference of State Legislatures. About 100 protesters--some wearing T-shirts that simply said $15, as per Mashable--convened in the parking lot of a Detroit McDonald's, spilling out onto a nearby street, where police reportedly asked them to leave, reports the Detroit News. When they wouldn't, the cuffs came out. They were in a traffic lane ... and preventing people from getting by, one local sergeant says. There was no force used by our officers and no resistance from the protesters. Although the National Restaurant Association says unions are just trying to boost their dwindling membership, protesters say their beef is strictly with not being able to afford to live. A Detroit mom tells the News that she's asking for a living wage, not a minimum wage--I have to put gas in my car. I don't want to have to decide if I'm going to pay [the energy bill] or my rent.
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(Feb 21, 2013 3:59 PM) Drew Peterson--the swaggering former suburban Chicago police officer who gained notoriety after his much-younger fourth wife vanished in 2007--was sentenced to 38 years in prison today for murdering his third wife. The sentence came moments after Peterson shocked the courtroom as he proclaimed his innocence in the death of Kathleen Savio. I did not kill Kathleen! he shouted at the top of his lungs, emphasizing every word. Peterson seemed to look across the courtroom at Savio's family. Savio's sister Susan Doman shot back, Yes, you did. You liar! before the judge ordered sheriff's deputies to remove her from the courtroom. Illinois does not have the death penalty, and the 59-year-old Peterson had faced a maximum 60-year prison term. Jurors convicted Peterson in September in Savio's 2004 death. Peterson is also a suspect in the disappearance of Stacy Peterson--who was 23 years old when she vanished--but he hasn't been charged in her case. It was her disappearance that led authorities to take another look at Savio's death and eventually reclassify it from an accident to a homicide.
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(Nov 30, 2011 11:41 AM) A new accuser has come forward against Jerry Sandusky, claiming in a civil lawsuit that the former Penn State coach sexually abused him more than 100 times between 1992 and 1996. The alleged victim, now 29, was not included in the grand jury report accusing Sandusky of abusing eight other boys, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. According to the lawsuit, the anonymous plaintiff met Sandusky through his Second Mile charity and was abused between the ages of 10 and 14. Sandusky allegedly threatened the boy's family to keep him from telling anyone about the abuse, and also gave him gifts, travel, and privileges, the AP adds. The encounters allegedly took place at Sandusky's home as well as Penn State facilities, and on road trips with the football team, including at least one to a bowl game. His lawsuit is the first civil suit in the case against Sandusky. Next month, six accusers are expected to testify against Sandusky at an open hearing.
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(Jan 6, 2016 3:16 PM) US stocks are closing sharply lower, led by a decline in energy stocks as the price of oil plunged to its lowest level since 2008. The price of crude closed below $34 a barrel Wednesday after more signs emerged that China's huge economy was slowing down. Oil and gas stocks bore the brunt of the selling. Southwestern Energy dropped 13% and Marathon Oil sank 12%. The Dow Jones industrial average gave up 252 points, or 1.5%, to 16,906. It was down more than 300 points earlier. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 26 points, or 1.3%, to 1,990, its lowest close since early October. The Nasdaq composite fell 55 points, or 1.1%, to 4,835.
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(Dec 9, 2008 3:25 PM) Alec Greven, 9, knows more than How to Talk to Girls: He knows how to land a movie deal. Fox has purchased the rights to the fourth-grader's self-help book, which offers advice like combing your hair and acting less hyper, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Fox paid in the low-to-mid six figures for the book, which Alec originally wrote for a school book fair.
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(Nov 4, 2012 7:47 AM) NBC says its star-studded benefit concert for Hurricane Sandy victims raised a hefty $23 million for Red Cross relief efforts, in an explosion of website and phone traffic that the Red Cross says topped telethon activity from the previous five years combined. The one-hour broadcast featured New Jersey sons Jon Bon Jovi, who rocked an acoustic Livin' on a Prayer, and Bruce Springsteen, who closed out with Land of Hope and Dreams. Joining the effort were Billy Joel, Jimmy Fallon, Steven Tyler, Mary J. Blige, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny DeVito, Brian Williams, and host Matt Lauer. We are incredibly grateful and humbled by this outpouring of support for those who are suffering as a result of Superstorm Sandy, says a Red Cross official. To add your two cents to the effort, head over to: RedCross.org.
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(Aug 5, 2011 4:50 AM CDT) A prominent Maryland psychiatrist specializing in women's health shot her 13-year-old son dead before killing herself, police say. The son, Ben Barnhard, had recently completed a year at the boarding school for overweight kids featured in the Style Network show Too Fat for 15, which tracked his loss of more than 100 pounds, NBC reports. Associates describe Margaret Jensvold as a hard-working psychiatrist and loving mother who doted on her son. She put a great deal of effort into her son's educational and psychological well-being, a lawyer who represented Jensvold when she divorced Barnhard's father tells the Washington Examiner. I never had any indication that Margaret had any sort of violent tendencies or even shortness of temper.
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(Apr 24, 2012 1:06 PM CDT) The Justice Department said today it filed the first criminal charges in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, accusing a former BP engineer of destroying evidence. Kurt Mix was arrested on two counts of obstruction of justice, and is accused of deleting a string of 200 text messages with a BP supervisor in October 2010 that involved internal BP information about how efforts to cap the well were failing. Mix, 50, of Texas, will make an initial appearance in federal court in Houston this afternoon. Tomorrow, a federal judge in New Orleans is expected to consider a motion to approve a $7.8 billion civil settlement between BP and a committee of plaintiffs in a civil case.
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(Jun 7, 2019 9:27 AM CDT) The NYPD was rocked Wednesday as Deputy Chief Steven Silks was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his police vehicle, not far from the precinct station where he worked. Less than 24 hours later, officers' grief was amplified as the body of homicide detective Joseph Calabrese was found at Brooklyn's Plumb Beach, reports the New York Times. The officer, who had gone missing after leaving a hospital where his wife was undergoing a minor procedure, likewise died of a self-inflicted gunshot, per NBC New York. To the cops here today, I need you to know, help is available to you. ... You are never alone, Police Commissioner James O'Neill said at a news conference. It's unclear if the officers knew each other; CNN reports the department is the largest in the US, with some 36,000 officers and 19,000 civilian employees. Facing mandatory retirement ahead of his 63rd birthday in July, Silks was one of the most capable and most dependable cops this job has ever seen, O'Neill said. He spent 38 years with the department. Calabrese, a 58-year-old father of four, had been there for 37 years. Both now join a list of 48 NYC officers who've died by suicide over the last decade. Four of those died last year, officials said, noting more US officers have died by suicide in recent years than have been killed in the line of duty. The department held a symposium on suicide involving more than 300 officers and researchers this April. We must not pretend that these things don't happen, or that such tragic deaths are somehow a fact of life, O'Neill wrote in a note to department members, per CNN. We have to take action now. We have to discuss mental health.
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(Mar 2, 2012 4:02 PM) The long journey home ended today for two French journalists trapped for nine days in a besieged Syrian city, an experience one called a non-stop nightmare. After landing outside Paris where the French president and loved ones awaited them, one was carried from the plane on a stretcher, while the other smiled joyfully and punched his fist in the air. Edith Bouvier of the daily Le Figaro, and William Daniels, an award-winning photographer, had sneaked into Syria illegally to try to get an eyewitness view of the government crackdown. They soon found themselves trapped inside the besieged Bab Amr district of Homs. On Feb. 22, shelling killed French photographer Remi Ochlik and American reporter Marie Colvin. It also wounded Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy. Nine days later, Bouvier and Daniels arrived in France after being smuggled by rebels through tunnels and snow out of Syria and into Lebanon. President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Bouvier's courage and the almost chivalrous spirit of her partner in misfortune, William Daniels, who never abandoned Edith Bouvier even though he was unhurt and had other possibilities of getting out. Bouvier has a fractured leg.
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(Apr 4, 2017 6:50 AM CDT) A suspected chemical attack in a town in Syria's northern Idlib province killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country's six-year civil war. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the death toll at 58, saying there were 11 children among the dead, per the AP. Meanwhile, the Idlib Media Center said dozens of people had been killed. The media center published footage of medical workers appearing to intubate an unresponsive man stripped down to his underwear and hooking up a little girl foaming at the mouth to a ventilator. There was no comment from the government in Damascus or any international agency in the immediate aftermath of the attack. It was the third claim of a chemical attack in just over a week in Syria. The previous two were reported in Hama province, in an area not far from Khan Sheikhoun, the site of Tuesday's alleged attack. The Syrian American Medical Society, which supports hospitals in opposition-held territory, said it had sent a team of inspectors to Khan Sheikhoun to investigate. The Syrian activists had no information on what agent could have been used, but they say the attack was caused by an airstrike carried out either by the Syrian government or Russian warplanes. The province of Idlib, home to an estimated 900,000 displaced Syrians, is almost entirely controlled by the Syrian opposition. Rebels and opposition officials have expressed concerns that the government is planning to mount a concentrated attack on the crowded province.
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